Dashboard function gives us a small problem to overcome. We want to be able to call this function from other functions in the class, as we have in the index function.

Usually parse functions convert the data from one type into another type. Example: string to number, number to string.

We should add in a debug function for ease of use. When  the  debug  function  is called , we want  to  echo  out  the  URL  of  the  last  API  call , and  the  HTTP  Status  Code.

A CodeIgniter hooks feature provides a means to tap into and modify the inner workings of the Codeigniter framework without hacking the core files. The hooks features can be globally enabled/disabled by—
                                $config [‘enable hooks’] =TRUE;

The thumbnail function will simply resize the original image to smaller so that the browsers are capable to load it fast as an icon.
$this->image_lib->resize();