I’ve been borrowing Jocelyn’s dad’s mitre saw almost since I started this project, but I’ve used it so much that I decided it was time to buy my own. After looking at several, I settled on a Craftsman 10″ sliding compound mitre saw. There were three of these that almost looked identical, but differed in price by about $130. The people at Sears could not tell me the difference, other than one, which was ~$250 CDN, has arms that extend out from the base, so that’s what I ended up buying. So far, I’ve been quite happy with it and would recommend it without hesitation. The laser is pretty accurate, and the positive miter stops make doing the different angles for trim very easy.

Update: Part 2 – Finishing baseboard.

Something many frameworks miss: the documentation is amazing. There is a great tutorial video on their website, and after watching it, many people say they’re hooked. The user guide is even better: well laid out, and it even has a slick interface and look that makes it pleasurful to use. What’s missing is pure API documentation, but there is a reference (that I now have printed and posted just above my desk) and most of the calls are outlined in the manual.

Unlike many other frameworks, it doesn’t impose any strict methods of doing anything. You have a controller that is a class with a bunch of functions. There are ‘helpers’, ‘libraries’, ‘plugins’, that all have a common way of loading ( $this->load->library(‘session’); for example). These can be core libraries, or application-specific (installed in the application/ folder). The directory layout is very intuitive, and it can all go underneath an HTTP root folder (not requiring certain files inside/outside of a web-accessable folder — double plus for people using shared hosting with open_basedir restrictions).

I started experimenting with it for the second version of web interface I’m writing, and I actually decided to port another application I had 75% done to it. It’s still in-progress as I write some user authentication routines, and I decided to write a “SuperModel” class (yeah, kind of dumb name) that builds forms and validates them – because I hate manually building forms.

If you’re a PHP developer, I highly recommend checking this framework out. It’s only been around publically for a couple months and has been aparently downloaded over 5000 times, and has a growing and active community in the forums.

However, they did work quite well in the rain, at least as well as a brand new set of normal wipers. I drove on the highway in the rain with them, and they kept up well enough.
The real test came when it finally snowed (yikes, am I somehow happy it snowed?) yesterday. A nice wet packy snow. I brushed the majority of the snow off as usual, didn’t touch the wipers at all, and got in and turned them on. The windshield was perfectly cleaned. No streaks, and no hinges to clean ice out of. I was decently impressed. (Decently enough to blog about it anyways, if that says anything.)

I’d recommend these to anyone, espessially people who have to endure snow and freezing rain on a regular basis. They’re not a whole lot more expensive than regular wipers, but much less frustrating. I’ll do an update in a couple months about how well they fare with age, but thus far I’m happy. Thanks mysterious Canadian Tire guy.