KevBurnsJr

I have another 22″ Acer and an HDMI slot for it,
but I’m all out of desk space.

The answer is yes and no.

This Google R&D guy gives a good rundown.
http://codinginparadise.org/weblog/2005/08/ajax-tutorial-tale-of-two-iframes-or.html

Long story short… The first IFrame src url will not be included in the browser history for static IFrames. However, all subsequent page urls within the IFrame will.

Unless… You do something tricky like insert the IFrame using JS or manipulate the src attribute in which case the behavior differs by browser and version.

I’ve been using this as my source of device names for several years.
http://www.playdota.com/items

I have or used to have:

• 
  TRAVS – An Asus Eee 1002HA netbook named after Boots of Travel
• 
  MJOLLNIR – A new Core i7 desktop named after Thor’s hammer, Mjollnir
• 
  DEFIANCE – A used 1U dual 3.06Ghz HP Proliant DL360 G3 webserver with 2Gb RAM running Centos 5.5 in a rack at HE in Fremont named after Hood of Defiance
• 
  MANTLE – A new Ubuntu VMWare guest instance running on Mjollnir with shared folders named after Mantle of Intelligence
• 
  IRONWOOD – A deceased Ubuntu VirtualBox VM instance named after Ironwood Branch
• 
  SANGE – A deceased desktop named after Sange (Sange and Yasha)
• 
  YASHA – A deceased desktop named after Yasha (Sange and Yasha)
• 
  RADIANCE – A previous company-owned laptop named after Radiance

… ugly AND STUPID (unless you use git).

I used to use varchar(15).

But a little poking around yielded a better solution.

Turns out there’s a standard set of MySQL functions for translating an IP address to and from an integer.

ALTER TABLE `sessions` ADD `client_ip` INT NOT NULL AFTER `created_at`;
 
mysql> SELECT INET_ATON('192.168.10.50') AS ipn;
+------------+
| ipn        |
+------------+
| 3232238130 |
+------------+
 
mysql> SELECT INET_NTOA(3232238130) AS ipa;
+--------------+
| ipa          |
+--------------+
| 192.168.10.50 |
+--------------+

Here’s the algo in case you’re curious:

(192 * 2^24) + (168 * 2^16) + (10 * 2^8) + 50 = 3232238130

The human eye is trained to follow edges. In the case of a list such as this, the eye’s natural inclination is to move from top to bottom along the column of icons, not left to right across jagged gaps between columns. Splitting the first 4 in the sort across 4 columns is highly illegible.

Shame on you, Microsoft. You should know better.

If your code needs explaining, you’re doing it wrong. Rewrite it.

/* Bad */
 
$tuucount=0; // total unique users
$tlcount=0;  // total lead count 
$tlrcount=0; // total lead rev
$tarcount = 0; // total aftermarket revenue
$trcount=0; // total toal

/* Better */
 
$total_unique_users = 0;
$total_lead_count = 0; 
$total_lead_revenue = 0; 
$total_aftermarket_revenue = 0;
$total = 0;

I should have done this ages ago. 1-click blast is awesome.

cd c:\web\site\dev
call git push dev master
call git push stage master
call git push appsrv01 master
call git push appsrv02 master
call git push tasksrv01 master
pause

Adheres to the US North American Numbering Plan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan

validate_phone("16505217791x1234") == "(650)521-7791 x1234";
validate_phone("16505217791x")     == "(650)521-7791";
validate_phone("6505217791")       == "(650)521-7791";
validate_phone("1234567890")       == false;
validate_phone("12345678901")      == "(234)567-8901";

PHP

function validate_phone($num) {
    $num = preg_replace("/[^x0-9]/",'',$num);
    $num = preg_replace("/^1/",'',$num);
    $regx = "/^([2-9][0-8][0-9])([2-9][0-9]{2})([0-9]{4})x?([0-9]{1,})?$/";
    $match = preg_match($regx, $num, $m);
    if($match) {
        return "(".$m[1].")".$m[2]."-".$m[3].($m[4]?" x".$m[4]:"");
    }
    return false;
}

Javascript

function validate_phone(num) {
    num = num.replace(/[^x0-9]/g,'')
    num = num.replace(/^1/,'');
    var regx = /^([2-9][0-8][0-9])([2-9][0-9]{2})([0-9]{4})x?([0-9]{1,})?$/;
    var m = num.match(regx);
    if(m) {
        return "("+m[1]+")"+m[2]+"-"+m[3]+(m[4]!=undefined?' x'+m[4]:'');
    }
    return false;
}

Anyone who does any sort of design for a living has honed an awareness of the way their attention moves across a medium. The behavior depicted in this commercial is absolutely nonsensical to anyone who does interface design.

People don’t navigate an interface by staring at the tabs and clicking blindly around the screen.

Two monks on a pilgrimage are walking along a road and they come across a 17 year old girl with a long kimono trying to cross a very muddy road but she’s not daring to step into the mud so the first monk picks her up and carries her across the road and puts her down on the other side of the road and the monks walk on in noble silence.

4 or 5 hours pass and they are nearing their destination and the second monk turns to the first and says “you know you shouldn’t have done that because us monks are not supposed even to touch women so you shouldn’t have picked up that girl. You’re not supposed to do that.” In response the first monk says “Oh, are you still carrying that girl? I put her down hours ago.”

The second monk was still carrying the girl, the event, in his head, and for 4 hours he was walking with this burden. This shows the human mind’s reluctance to let go of the past. It’s like carrying a useless weight around with you, and some people carry it all their lives, and they even derive some identity from that.

Release your identity and become one with the true formless nature of your self.

</wisdom>

Happy 2010-04-20

Fire an HTTP request at a URL and move on without waiting for a response.

function http_async($method, $host, $url, $data) {
    $query = http_build_query($data);
    $request = "$method $url HTTP/1.1\r\n"
        ."HOST: $host\r\n"
        ."Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded"."\r\n"
        ."Content-Length: ".strlen($query)."\r\n"
        ."Connection: Close\r\n\r\n"
        .$query;
    $fp = fsockopen($host, 80, $errno, $errstr, 5);
    fwrite($fp, $request);
    fclose($fp);
}

And don’t forget to ignore_user_abort(true); on the target url.

I use functions like this a lot during development. I tuck them into a prepend file so they’re only available on my local machine. My first was shout()

function shout() {
    echo "<pre>";
    foreach(func_get_args() as $var) {
        print_r($var);
    }
    echo "<\/pre>";   # (sic)
    die();
}

Great for looking at data.

But I very often found myself wanting to see the API for an object without having to look it up. So I wrote meth()

function meth($obj, $method_name = null) {
    $ref = new ReflectionClass($obj);
    echo "<pre>";
    foreach ($ref->getMethods() as $method) {
        if(!$method_name || $method_name == $method->name) {
            echo $method;
        }
    }
    echo "<\/pre>";   # (sic)
    die();
}
 
meth($this->Session, 'read');
 
# /**
#  * Used to read a session values for a key or return values for all keys.
#  *
#  * In your controller: $this->Session->read('Controller.sessKey');
#  * Calling the method without a param will return all session vars
#  *
#  * @param string $name the name of the session key you want to read
#  * @return mixed value from the session vars
#  * @access public
#  */
# Method [  public method read ] {
#   @@ C:\web\kbya\dev\src\cake\libs\controller\components\session.php 150 - 156
# 
#   - Parameters [1] {
#     Parameter #0 [  $name = NULL ]
#   }
# }

Pretty handy so far.

Oh ya, and here’s the VHost line

php_value auto_prepend_file "/home/kev/web/prepend.php"

I noticed some erratic behavior with CakePHP sessions and finally tracked down the error. I have FireBug installed with an extension called FirePHP. When FireBug is enabled, I noticed that my User-Agent tends to vary.

Sometimes my browser’s user agent reads :

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.8) Gecko/20100202 Firefox/3.5.8 FirePHP/0.4

Sometimes it reads :

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.8) Gecko/20100202 Firefox/3.5.8

Whenever the User-Agent changes, CakePHP resets the session. This means that I can’t view 3-4 pages on the site before being logged out.

This is the firebug extension that caused the problem.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6149

Here’s a link to an error report on FirePHP’s forums
http://n2.nabble.com/FirePHP-and-CakePHP-Session-Reset-tp4671294ef842658.html

This is a great add-on called HTTPFox I used to track down this error.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6647

The newer memcached PHP extension was created recently by some guys at Digg.
It has some new features and performance enhancements.

Here’s a comparison
http://code.google.com/p/memcached/wiki/PHPClientComparison

But, the interface is not identical.

We’re going with memcache over memcached for it’s guaranteed backward compatibility.
The newer memcached has some additional features that I’m not really interested in.

If I had to worry about supporting over 10,000 daily uniques, it might be a different story.

If you’re thinking of buying a Wildcard SSL Certificate from Network Solutions, beware it will not be valid for the base domain.

Your $400 SSL Certificate will cover

https://www.example.com
https://abc.example.com
https://whatever.example.com

But it will not cover

https://example.com

If you want SSL on example.com, you will have to buy ANOTHER SSL Certificate ($150).
I couldn’t find this fact mentioned anywhere on the Network Solutions website.
I had to call their 800 number to get an answer.

Note that some registrars do cover the base domain with their Wildcard SSL Certificates (like GoDaddy).

Not all SSL Certificates are created equal.

In real life, I’m not a fan of arguments.
But sometimes in code, arguments can be a good thing.

function addFailure($id) {
	$query = "insert into billing_history (id, auth_success) values($id, 0)";
	mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
}
function addSuccess($id) {
	$query = "insert into billing_history (id, auth_success) values($id, 1)";
	mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
}

Sometimes 1 function with 2 arguments is better than 2 functions with 1 argument.

function billing_history_create($id, $success) {
	$query = "insert into billing_history (id, auth_success) values($id, $success)";
	mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
}