Welcome

zombat.net is the home of Blake Soley, web developer and PHP programmer by trade.

I can no longer accept new clients. If you are interested in LAMP development or other kinds of PHP programming however, I do have colleagues I might be able to recommend to you. You can contact me at

(If you are interested in .NET development, see womps.net.)

Blog

I co-author a blog called PHP vs. .Net, a literary battleground where I advocate the virtues of PHP in contrast with my co-author's dedication to .NET.

My latest posts

• An Exercise in Wordpress Integration, or Why Wordpress Sucks
• Facebook Notifications – "An unknown error occurred (out of memory)"
• Fixing "Error 320 (net::ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE): Unknown error" with Google Chrome
• PHP Variable Test reference
• Ten PHP Best Practices Tips that will get you a job

Stack Overflow

I am a regular on stackoverflow.com, a popular programming forum created by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood. I can frequently be found answering PHP questions there.

Recent Stack Overflow activity

• Answer by zombat for How to open the 'Projects' panel in Netbeans
• Answer by zombat for Is there a way to speed up this query with no WHERE clause?
• Answer by zombat for php extract value from string
• Answer by zombat for Query number of users that like a page in facebook?
• Answer by zombat for What does .class-name mean as a CSS selector?
• Answer by zombat for Why would this SQL error with "Invalid use of group function"?

Development

I am a software engineer at Backstage Technologies, a great company that makes fun social networking games.

Backstage's approach to social gaming has led to unique opportunties that allows the company to raise money for many different charities. It's just one of the reasons I chose to leave contracting in August of 2009 and join them full-time.

Interests

• I am an avid scuba-diver. I have a pro-level instruction rating, and sometimes even work the odd weekend as a divemaster.
• I enjoy photography, and can often be found fooling around with my Nikon D-70.
• As a beginner surfer, I enjoy faceplants and falling off my board on any decent-sized wave.