Khaled Alam's blog
PHP internals and RFCs, AI and LLM tools, and the things I build. 33 posts.
- Projects
Mini Command: A Free Online RTS Game in Your Browser (and How I Built It)
Mini Command is a free 1v1 real-time strategy game in your browser: how to play, winning strategies, and how it runs on Cloudflare for $0.
- PHP
RFC Merged into PHP Core: Object Property Writes on Constants (PHP 8.6)
My PHP RFC passed 17-2-6 and merged into php-src: in PHP 8.6 you can write to a property of an object held in a constant. What changed, and why.
- PHP
Contributing to PHP Core: Fixing a NAN Reflection Bug
Contributing to PHP core is more approachable than you think — here is how I fixed a Reflection NAN warning and merged the PR into PHP 8.5.
- Projects
Avatoon: 3D Talking Avatar with Lip-Sync in React
Avatoon is a free React component for a 3D talking avatar with real-time lip-sync on web and React Native. Learn what it is and how it works.
- AI
Semantic Search from Scratch: Build Search That Understands Meaning
Learn semantic search from scratch in Python — embeddings, cosine similarity, a working example, and how to scale it with a vector database.
- PHP
PR #20902 Merged into PHP Core: ReflectionConstant::inNamespace()
My PR #20902 added ReflectionConstant::inNamespace() to PHP core, aligning the Reflection API so constants match classes and functions.
- Projects
Packing List Generator (Travel / Work / Gym)
A packing list generator app with ready templates for travel, work, and gym. Build checklists, tick items off as you pack, and work fully offline.
- AI
From Prompt Engineers to “Brain Data Trainers”: The Rise of EEG/fMRI Slaves
From prompt engineers to brain data trainers: why EEG and fMRI recordings are becoming the next frontier of AI training data, and what it costs.
- Projects
Beware of Fake Coding Interviews: How Crypto Wallet Scammers Target Developers
Fake coding interviews are targeting developers with crypto wallet tasks. Here are the red flags I saw twice and how to protect your wallet.
- Projects
Devbox: Reproducible Development Environments Made Simple
Devbox uses Nix hashing to give your team reproducible development environments from one devbox.json file, with no global installs and no drift.
- PHP
The Hidden Clock: When Code Leaks Secrets
A timing attack on your Forgot Password flow can reveal which emails exist. See how response delays leak data and how to reply in constant time.
- How-to
تأخير TLS: الميلي ثانية اللي بتبطّأ موقعك من غير ما تحس
تأخير TLS ممكن يزود وقت كل اتصال جديد 350-500 ميلي ثانية. اعرف يعني إيه مصافحة TLS وإزاي تقللها وتسرّع موقعك من غير ما تغير الكود.
- PHP
[PHP-DEV] [RFC Idea] Proposal: Loop Unrolling in Userland via #[Unroll(N)] Attribute
PHP loop unrolling from userland: an early RFC idea for an #[Unroll(N)] attribute that lets the compiler expand hot loops at compile time.
- PHP
How I Built and Published SoftCropper – A Python Tool to Automate Image Prep for CanvasMagnet
SoftCropper is a Python tool to resize and blur images for print. It squares photos and adds soft blurred borders with OpenCV. Open source CLI.
- PHP
How I Added Token & LLM Cost Estimation to the Indexing Pipeline of Microsoft GraphRAG
LLM token cost estimation for GraphRAG: how I added a feature to preview token usage and projected OpenAI costs before indexing large datasets.
- Projects
How I’m Shaping the Future of Makyee Through Collaboration and User Engagement
User-driven product design in practice: how I let Makyee users vote between two designs and turned their feedback into the feature we shipped.
- PHP
How to Hire Developers: Lessons from My Journey in Dubai
How to hire developers: what I learned from Amazon's process, running technical assignments, and interviewing engineers as a manager in Dubai.
- Projects
Makyee’s First Contest: Building Community and Achieving Success
The first Makyee community contest, plus new WhatsApp and Telegram channels, grew engagement and brought the platform closer to its audience.
- Projects
توثيق رحلتي مع ماكي: دروس تعليمية باللغة العربية لتحقيق التميز في العقارات (Makyee)
سلسلة دروس ماكي التعليمية باللغة العربية تشرح مزايا المنصة واستراتيجيات المحترفين في السوق العقاري الأساسي والثانوي خطوة بخطوة.
- PHP
Behind Makyee: My Journey as CTO in Revolutionizing Real Estate Technology
My journey as a real estate technology CTO at Makyee: leading the tech team and building a broker-free property platform for Dubai's market.
- AI
Transform Your Photos with ArtifyMaster’s Swap Face Feature
How ArtifyMaster's AI face swap feature works, what makes its results stand out, and how to use it for social, marketing, and creative projects.
- AI
ArtifyMaster vs. ChatGPT: Why My AI Tool Outshines the Competition
ArtifyMaster vs ChatGPT: a real comparison on removing backgrounds and watermarks, and why a purpose-built AI image editor wins on these tasks.
- How-to
I Designed A Tiny Hardware Microcontroller Automation Project That Saved Me +60 Hours / Per Week
A tiny hardware microcontroller automation project, with my algorithm flashed onto its memory, saved me over 60 hours per week. Here is the story.
- PHP
CloudyInputs | SaaS for Auto words and sentences prediction using AI and Drafting users' inputs
CloudyInputs adds AI form autocomplete and sentence prediction to web forms, saves user input instantly, and gives you a dashboard of insights.
- How-to
whereisdep a C++ CLI application to search package.json dependencies in given directories
whereisdep is a C++ CLI tool that finds unused package.json dependencies across directories, so you can trim bundle size and speed up loading.
- How-to
When SSR Meets Vercel Limits: Solving 15s Timeout on Serverless APIs
Fix Vercel serverless function timeout and 504 errors by setting maxDuration in vercel.json. Pro allows up to 300 seconds, Hobby only 10.
- hardware
Released My First Hardware Product | IR LED Sensor
I built a low-budget IR LED sensor that detects infrared from any remote control at over 5 meters. Here is how the 3x3cm circuit works.
- How-to
Get Live Real-time Price Of Gold in Grams In Google Sheets For Free
Get the live gold price in Google Sheets for free with a short Apps Script function. Fetch real-time gram rates and refresh the cell automatically.
- How-to
Bug in iPhone “General" settings page title
An iPhone General settings bug shows the wrong page title and a dead Select button after navigating back from Review My Videos. Steps to reproduce.
- Software
LinkNexa - Paste your frequent forms inputs with only 1-click
LinkNexa is a Chrome extension that saves your frequent form inputs in folders and pastes them into any field with one click. Save time on forms.
- How-to
Random Quotes Mobile Application
A simple random quotes app for Android. Pick how many daily quotes to fetch and let positive, inspirational quotes guide your day. Free on Google Play.
- PHP
PHP Closure Recursive Functions - Variable Scope
A PHP closure recursive function fails unless you bind the variable by reference. Here is the error, why it happens, and the one-character fix.
- How-to
How to Solve Service not available because of maintenance activities, please try again after some time.
Fix 'Service not available because of maintenance activities' when running npx eas submit -p ios and Apple Developer Portal authentication failed.
