Programming blog

Smarty for Programmers

2008-05-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

The advantage for programmers is that they write the code in a PHP file without having to combine the instructions with HTML. Also, if the designer changes the layout of a page the programmer doesn't have to change the code to suit the new layout since the functionalities won't change. You perform your work in your files, assign to the templates all the values needed to print on the site and go out for a beer.

The PHP file you need to include the Smarty class require 'Smarty.class.php'. After that you instantiate the smarty with $smarty = new Smarty.

To assign a variable to the template you need to $smarty->assign('UserName', 'Jeff Adams'). After everything is finished you call the method and to display the template $smarty->display('index.tpl').

A sample code like this (index.php) :

<php 
require 'Smarty.class.php';

$smarty = new Smarty;
$smarty->assign('Username', 'Jeff Adams');
$smarty->display('index.tpl');
?>

The template (index.tpl) like this:

<html>
<body>
Welcome {$Username}
body>
html>

Also create an array in PHP an pass it to the template:

$tmplate = array ( 'UID'=> '10', &'Name' => 'Jeff Adams', 'Address'=>'Home address');
$smarty->assign('info', $tmplate);

Building Web Services with JAX-WS

2008-05-02T22:53:00.000-07:00

JAX-WS referred for Java API for XML Web Services. JAX-WS is a technology for build web services and clients that communicate using XML. Using JAX-WS developers can make message-oriented as well as RPC-oriented web services.

In JAX-WS, a web service process invocation is representing by an XML-based protocol such as SOAP. The SOAP specification defines the structure, encoding rules, and conventions for representing web service invocations and responses. These calls and responses are transmitting over the HTTP as SOAP messages.

JAX-WS API hides the complexity of forming SOAP messages from the application developer. On the server side, the developers specify the web service operation by an interface written in the Java programming language. The developer codes one or more classes to implement this web service operation. A client forms a proxy and then simply invokes methods on the proxy. With JAX-WS, the developer does not produce or parse SOAP messages. JAX-WS converts the API calls and responses to and from SOAP messages.

JAX-WS make clients and web services have more advantage because Java is platform independent language. JAX-WS is not restrictive one (i.e.,) a JAX-WS client can access the web service that is running on any platform. JAX-WS gives more flexibility because it uses W3C technologies like HTTP, SOAP, and the WSDL.

Ajax

2008-05-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

The term AJAX referred as "Asynchronous JavaScript And XML," but is now used much more generally to cover all methods of communicating with a server using JavaScript.

Using the Ajax techniques we can submit server requests and get the information from the server to the user without the necessity of waiting for a page load. The page update without refresh was done by Javascript, PHP and XML's XMLHTTPRequest object.

Ajax is actually a grouping of several technologies working together to offer this capability. This could include the techniques bellow,

Ajax offer standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS.
Client, server interaction made using DOM( Document Object Model) and provide dynamic display.
Data interchange and manipulation was performed by XML and XSLT.
Asynchronous data recovery using XMLHttpRequest.
And make JavaScript binding with everything together.

Cron Jobs

2008-04-30T00:04:00.000-07:00

Cron is a unix, solaris service that allows tasks to be automatically run at regular intervals by the cron. These tasks are often called as cron jobs in unix and solaris. cron is motivated by a crontab. Crontab is a file which contains the schedule of cron entries to be run and at particular time period.

Early versions of cron, Version 7 Unix and 32V, made their services only to the super-user of the operating system (root). With the release of Unix System V and the multi-user cron, these services were extensive to all account-holding users of the system.

Two different modes you can use the cron job:

Standard – This mode provides range of pre-set options we can choose and set the cron job for our need.
Advanced (Unix Style) – It provides the regular cron options ie, Unix style cron options to set the cron job.

To add or change a cron job:

On the home page click on the Cron jobs button.
If you desire to use the Standard mode, click on the Standard button.

Enter the e-mail address to send the results of the cron job.

In run field enter the command the you want to run in the Command.

Choose the one option from each of the available lists.

Then click on the Save Crontab button now your cron job has now been added or updated.

If you desire to use the Advanced mode, click on the Advanced button.

First enter the times for the cron job in the Minute, Hour, Day, Month, or Weekday fields.

Then provide the cron job script in the Command field.
Then click on the Commit Changes button now your cron job has been added or updated.

Miscellaneous software

2008-04-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

Phplive:

Phplive is a powerful chat application that allows you to have real-time communication with the customers and visitors from your site. PHPlive is developed using PHP/MySQL and this highly customizable application provides many rich set of features.

Phplive provides many features some of them are:

Real-time chat with users and provides support for them.
Also provides multiple chat requests simultaneously.
Allowed to creating different departments.
Provides support for tracking and collecting information to the visitors.
You also can save the chat transcription report.
It allowed to you rating the customer service.
It enables you to gives your own chat logos.
It also provides multiple language support for users.

dotProject:

dotProject is one of the Project Management application. This Open Source application supported free of charge by web developers from all over the world. dotProject is an free software written in PHP anyone can download and use it. By using its simple user interface any user can easy to work with DotProject.

Some of the dotProject features are:

dotProject gives User Management support.
Provides ticketing support system via email.
It provides client management support.
Provides task listing features and file archives.
It gives contact list and calendar for users.
dotProject also provides discussion forum for users.

Content Management Systems:

2008-04-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

Mambo:

One of the trendy today to design the Content Management Systems (CMS) are Mambo. It is the open source software on the web for creating and managing websites through a simple web interface. Mambo includes many advanced features such as page caching to improve performance on busy sites, higher templating techniques, and a strong API. It also provides lots of tasks such as web indexing for static pages.

Mambo can provides RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, forums, polls, calendars, website searching, language internationalization, and other potential.

Mambo is released under the conditions of the GNU General Public License (GPL)Version 2. It was written with the PHP programming language and use the MySQL database.

The minimum requirements for Mambo should have Apache or Windows IIS
, MySQL and PHP.

Joomla:

Joomla CMS is the Open Source applications for creating websites. It is free to apply and has a great society support.

Some benefits of the Joomla:

Multiuser and Multilevel background: various users can interact and add to the development of the Joomla-based site. Users can be assign to diverse groups with diverse privileges.
WYSIWYG editor - the perceptive What You See Is What You Get editor allows for effortless editing of the content online.
Additional components / modules - the Joomla system can be simply improved with extra functionalities from integrate a forum to installing an E-commerce resolution.
Templates - there are many free Joomla templates on the net to design Joomla CMS.

WordPress:

If you plan to begin your own blog website, the best option for a blog application would be WordPress. The Wordpress Open Source tool provides rich set of blog skins.

WordPress has instinctive management, which anyone can hold. In WordPress you will be capable to make a post and publish it on the web easily. With WordPress you can easily modify the look of your website for there are lots of free WordPress themes on hand on the Net.

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publish platform with a heart on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and invaluable at the same time. More simply, WordPress is what you use when you desire to work with your blogging software, not struggle it.

Forum software : phpBB

2008-04-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

phpBB is the Internet forum package written in the PHP programming language. "phpBB" is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board and it is free software. This free and very powerful piece of software is easy to install and manage and allows flexibility in terms of design and organization.

phpBB™ released its third major version. Version 3.0 incorporate a professional-quality modular design, high security, multiple-language interface, support for a multitude of database servers and complete layout customizations, all with a low implementation overhead.

phpBB3 provide administrators with more control over every part of the forum software, such as how it is display to management of user and group permissions. As a result, this improved functionality makes the administrative interface much more difficult, and new users have established it more intimidating than phpBB2.

phpBB3 require PHP 4.3.3 or later and is fully compatible with PHP 5.

phpBB3's some major features include:

Modular design for Admin Control Panel, Moderator Control Panel, and User Control Panel.
Support for numerous database management systems, including MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Firebird, OpenLink Virtuoso, and other ODBC-accessible DBMS.
It Support for unrestricted levels of subforums.
Ability to make custom-defined BBCode.
Capability to make custom profile fields.
It also provides permissions arrangement.

Webservices :XML, SOAP & WSDL

2008-04-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

XML :
XML Web services are the basic building blocks among the distributed computing on the Internet. Open standards and the focus on communication and collaboration among people and applications have shape the location where XML Web services are becoming the platform for application integration.
Some of the key aspects why XML was mostly used for their Web Service:

XML Web Services interpretation useful functionality to Web users through a standard Web protocol in most cases SOAP was used.
XML Web services offer a way to explain their interfaces in enough detail to allow a user to build a client application to talk to them.
XML Web services are registered so all the potential users can find them easily.

SOAP:

Today SOAP is essential for application development to allow Internet communication between programs. SOAP provides a way to converse among the applications running on different operating systems, with different technologies and programming languages.

A SOAP message is ordinary XML documents contain the following elements:

Envelope element that identify the XML document as a SOAP message.
Header element that contain header information.
Body element that contain call and response information.
Fault element that provide information about errors that occurred while processing the message.

WSDL:

WSDL stands for Web Services Description Language it is an XML-based language that describes Web services and how to access them.

WSDL express four critical pieces of data:

Interface information describing all publicly accessible functions.
Data type information for every message requests and message responses.
Binding information about the transport protocol to be use.
Address information for locating the specific service.

Smarty in PHP

2008-04-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

Smarty is a template engine in PHP mostly used by all the web developers. It provides a manageable way to separate application logic and content from its presentation. This is mostly used if the application programmer and the template designer are different persons.

The design goal of Smarty was the separation of business logic and presentation logic.

Smarty has the unique feature of template compiling i.e., (Smarty reads the template files and creates PHP scripts from them). All the template can take full advantage of PHP compiler and cache solutions such as eAccelerator, ionCube etc,

Some of the Smarty's features:

Not have template parsing overhead, only compiles one time.
It is smart about recompiling only the template files that have altered.
You can easily create your own functions and variable modifiers, so the template language is very extensible.
The {if}..{elseif}..{else}..{/if} constructs are passed to the PHP parser, so the {if...} expression syntax can be as easy or as complex an estimation as you like.
It is potential to embed PHP code in our template files.
It support built-in cache.
It provides custom cache handling functions.

How do I send and receive files once connected in MS-DOS FTP?

2008-04-20T22:20:00.000-07:00

To get files from the server and put those files in your directory on the system you were currently working, type:

get fileyouwanttoget.htm

Where fileyouwanttoget.htm is the name of the file you desire to get from the computer connected to.

To send a file from your computer to the computer you are connected to (providing you have appropriate privileges and the file be present in the current working directory), type:

send fileyouwanttoput.htm

Where fileyouwanttoput.htm is the name of the file that exists in the current directory; if you cannot recall the name of the file, use the ! command to temporally get back to a MS-DOS prompt; once you have located the file name, type exit to get back to the location you left in FTP.

Who is a good Programmer?

2008-04-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

One who follow the below mentioned points will become a good programmer.

Save your code regularly! You don't know when the power goes out. Imagine if you working for a long time (say 3 hours) without saving the code, you will lose several hours worth of code.
Write down appropriate comments near the coding wherever needed. Comments are very important and useful. If another person happens to go through your code, it will be very easy for him to understand if you provide comments. It will be very helpful for you too, if you visit that code 1 or 2 years later.
Your code should be clean and simple. Separate your code into chunks, and use line breaks where you can.
Test your code frequently. When you have completed a simple part of code, test it and then proceed to the next part. Don't wait until you have written five hundred lines of code before testing? If any error occurs, you have to look through all those lines to trace out the error.
Back up your code. Because your system may crash or affected by virus or the file may get corrupted. So take a backup every night after a day of coding and always be in the safer side.

What is XAMPP?

2008-04-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

XAMPP is a open, cross-platform web server, contains primarily the Apache HTTP Server, MySQL database, and interpreters for scripts written in the PHP and Perl programming languages.

XAMPP's name is a short form for:

* X (denotes any operating system)

* Apache

* MySQL

* PHP

* Perl

Legitimately, XAMPP's designers only proposed it to make use of this as a development tool for allowing website designers and programmers to check their jobs on their own computers with no access to the Internet. To create this as simple as possible, many essential safety features are disabled by default. In practice, XAMPP is occasionally used to serve web pages on the World Wide Web. A unique tool is provided with password to protect the most important parts of the package. XAMPP also provides support for creating and manipulating databases in MySQL and SQLite among others.

client-side vs server-side

2008-04-16T03:26:00.000-07:00

client-side interaction

We will get an immediate response to our interaction (once the program code has been downloaded)
As no information is transferred from the browser, this service is more safe and sound .
Dependent on the user who is using a particular browser and/or plug-in on their computer
This will have an effect on the processing speed of the user's computer

server-side interaction

Since the program and the related resources are not downloaded to the browser, complex processes are frequently more efficient.
there are security fear while sending sensitive information
does not rely on the user having specific browser or plug-in
affected by the processing speed of the host server

How the user connects to the internet affects both forms of interaction. For client-side scripting, the connection type affects the time it takes program code to be downloaded. For server-side processing, it affects the time taken for information to be sent to the server and the response downloaded.

Microsoft begin advanced robotics platform

2008-04-11T01:34:00.000-07:00

Microsoft released the initial extensively available sample version of its Robotics Developer Studio 2008 this week. The preview software is offered now as a free download from Microsoft's robotics website

Microsoft Robotics Studio 2006 was downloaded over 200,000, according to the software company. Additionally, more than 50 third-party companies connected to build a joint venture with Microsoft in its robotics division.

The new application sports several enhancements, including the ability for users to record simulation tests for later playback and review. There is also a new floorplan editor and a handful of other tools which is not in the 2006 version. In addition to that Microsoft said there is enhanced functionality with LINQ support.

The robotics industry is one of Microsoft's more recent targets, but it has promptly turn out to be a key player.

"We launched Microsoft Robotics Studio in 2006 in response to the robotics community's request for a mature platform and toolset that would provide for stability and portability, allowing more people to participate and contribute," said Microsoft Robotics Group general manager Tandy Trower in a statement.

At today's Robobusiness conference in Pennsylvania, Microsoft also declares the robotics competition Robochamps, which will use Robotics Developer Studio 2008. The contest will open up on April 21.

Latest Windows operating system code-named Windows 7, to be released soon

2008-04-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Bill Gates the co-founder of Microsoft said that he is expecting the newest Windows operating system, code-named Windows 7, to be released in the next year. He has been planning to issue more regular updates of the operating system software that powers the greater part of the world's PCs. However he comments that a successor to Vista might be released more willingly than expected.

Microsoft has said it expects to release a latest version of Windows around three years later than the introduction of Vista in January 2007. A Microsoft employee said Gates's comments are in the development cycles that frequently release a test version of the software prior to its official introduction.

"That'll be sometime in the next year or so that we'll have a new version," Gates said in reply to a query from the addressees.

Gates put down his day-to-day functions at Microsoft and contribute himself to the benevolent hard work of the Gates Foundation in June, said the company aimed, through its $6bn (£3bn) annual research and development budget, to acquire the products operating on its software to "the next level".

He also said that new versions of Windows would facilitate, revolutionize mobile phones and run the desk of the future, which would have a touch surface display permitting the users to call up items with their hands.

Microsoft giving out some software secrets

2008-04-08T21:56:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is in progress to contribute more secrets of their products and technologies with software developers.

The Redmond software giant (NASDAQ: MSFT) say publicly that they plan to share more of its technical papers with IT developers as part of a "major alterations" in how the company shares information on the month of February.

On Tuesday, the company said that they had posted beginning edition of technical documentation for protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Developers do not require paying a fee or taking a license to make use of the information.

Tom Robertson, general manager of interoperability and standards at Microsoft said that "We suppose that providing open, regular right to utilize these protocols will promote and set free the vision of all developers to work on real-world interoperability solutions,"

Fixing Error in live-chat

2008-04-01T02:51:00.001-07:00

We are now trying to keep our site live, monitoring the online traffic 24X7 and supporting users who have any queries. Suddenly our live chat was down since this morning.
The error that kept coming up was "[SELECT username FROM livehelp_users WHERE sessionid='4d821a82f66f87decb92b77394b20ed6'] ( 1016 : Can't open file: 'livehelp_users.MYI'. (errno: 145) )"
Then when I search in google for a solution I found this help in the http://webmaster-forums.code-head.com/showthread.php?t=29
It said that the problem could be one of the following reasons:
1 - Server crash; 2 - Hardware failure; 3 - A MySQL write process was interrupted;
and our livechat_users table got corrupted.

In our case I am sure it should be a MySQL write process being interrupted. Hence to fix the table I have used the query that was given in the forum,

Initally without reading the complete forum, I used PHPMyAdmin, a little hurry. Then I got read the complete forum and have a written a simple code
-> Created a connection to our database
-> used the two lines that was suggested in the forum.
And now the query is running. Our bad luck, suddenly our internet is prettly slow. We are just waiting for this script to get over so that we can start supporting you guys with full swing.
:) CIAO

Lotus Notes Mobile Application

2008-03-31T02:31:00.000-07:00

My first and the most interesting project of all time, that I have ever worked on in my career is an SMS application using Lotus Notes.

The fun is not making the SMS application, but developing it in Lotus notes was really fun as we met a lot of challenges. It is now a product in UK, Switz as our clients are from there. Especially when we had to support multiple languages and error/debug log features.

Name a feature and we used it in this application. Registry Keys, Environment Variables, C++ API, SMS Rules, SMS Reminders. To top up the challenges I was a beginner.

We supported in 3 Lotus notes versions across 5 diffent operating systems. Hmmm, now I know from where I get my coding skills.
:) tara

odbc connectivity

2008-03-28T01:15:00.000-07:00

Sub ConnectionExample1()
Dim cnn As ADODB.Connection
Set cnn = New ADODB.Connection
' Open a Connection using an ODBC DSN named "Pubs".
cnn.Open "Pubs", "MyUserName", "MyPassword"
' Find out if the attempt to connect worked.
If cnn.State = adStateOpen Then
MsgBox "Welcome to Pubs!"
Else
MsgBox "Sorry. No Pubs today."
End If
' Close the connection.
cnn.Close
End Sub