Small Business IT

Deploying a Windows Phone 7 (WP7) app on a phone without using windows phone marketplace

2011-05-24T03:49:00.000-07:00

During the development of an application it is mostly required at a certain point to test the application in question, on the target platform. Since, this is most certainly desirable before the app is published to the marketplace, it needs to be deployed without using windows market place.

Here is how it can be done in 4 simple steps:

1. .XAP file which is produced as a result of the build and should be available in Bin/Debug or Bin/Release (we used Visual Studio 2010 to build our app) [1]

2. Install Windows Phone Developer Tools

3. Install Zune Client Software

4. Register the device using the Windows Phone Developer Registration Tool that is included in the Windows Phone Developer Tools. [2]

Conference on Corporate Innovation & Entrepreneurship 2010

2010-12-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

Dear All,

Please Join us at the CCIE ‘10 – Conference on Corporate Innovation & Entrepreneurship 2010 and Finals of BAP-2010 on 11th December 2010 at Pearl Continental Hotel, Karachi. We would also request that you forward this invitation to to your email list and post it on your blogs/websites.

Dr. Zahir Ali Syed
Co-Chair MITEFP

CCIE ‘10 – Conference on Corporate Innovation & Entrepreneurship 2010

Fostering Innovation in The Pakistan Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

December 11th, 2010 | Pearl Continental Hotel, Karachi | 09:00 am to 06:00 pm

Overview

For Pakistan to scale the ladder of development and be counted among the developed nations, it is vital that it has a thriving Entrepreneurial Eco-system. We at MIT Enterprise Forum of Pakistan (MITEFP: http://www.mitef-pakistan.org), over the past four years, have been working towards building this eco-system on a brick by brick basis. One of the activities towards this aim that we have been undertaking, for the past four years, is the Business Acceleration Plan (BAP) competition. Last year we expanded the scope of this activity by organizing a Conference on Corporate Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CCIE-2009) along with the competition. We are continuing this trend this year also and are organizing CCIE-2010 along with BAP -2010.

MITEFP is working with OPEN (Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America) and Terrabiz for conducting the History Making MITEFP-OPEN Business Acceleration Program BAP-2010 & CCIE 2010. We are being provided guidance and leadership by Mr. Ken Morse, Founding MD, MIT Entrepreneurship Center & Mr. Bill Aulet, MD, MIT Entrepreneurship Center and Mr. Imran Sayeed, Chairman OPEN Global. We are also being supported by a number of other organizations.

MITEFP-OPEN BAP now in its fourth year has become one of the best programs of its kind in the world (as declared by Mr. Ken Morse, Founding MD, MIT Entrepreneurship Center). This history making initiative has the potential of having significant impact on the economic growth of Pakistan. The participating teams have reported that they benefited tremendously from participating in BAP-2007, BAP-2008 and BAP-2009. Similarly, CCIE-2009 Conference on Corporate Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CCIE 2009) was a huge success and now we are holding the second conference CCIE-2010 along with the fourth BAP.

Topics to be discussed:

· Culture of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

· Inevitable Journey: Trend-setting Enterprises journey from mid to large size

· Entrepreneurship & Incubation Centers and Entrepreneurship Education

· Fostering Innovation in The Pakistan Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

· Passing on the Baton: How Pakistani family businesses are Increasingly relying on professional managers to scale-up and modernize their businesses

C o n f e r e n c e S p o t l I g h t

Kenneth P. Morse, Founding Managing Director, MIT Entrepreneurship Center

Dr. Ishrat Husain, Dean & Director, Institute of Business

Administration

Hussain Dawood, Chairman, Karachi Education Initiative,

Engro Corp & The Dawood Group

Prof. Dr. S. Sohail H. Naqvi, Executive Director, Higher Education Commission

Imran Sayeed, Vice President, Keane, USA

Carlos Cashman, CEO, Constellation Inc.

Other Confirmed Judges, Speakers and Panelists:

Aftab Tapal, Owner & CEO, Tapal Tea (Private) Limited

Ali Jameel, CEO, Trakker Group

Ali Jehangir Siddiqui, Managing Partner, JS Private Equity

Aziz Memon, Chairman, Kings Group

Rear Amiral (R) M. Mushtaq, Pro-Rector Innovation & Entrepreneurship, NUST

Mohammad Sajid, Partner, JS Private Equity

Monis Rahman, Chairman & CEO, Naseeb Networks

Osman Saifullah, CEO, Saif Textile

Samad Dawood, CEO, Dawood Group

Scott Briggs, COO, Constellation

Seema Aziz, CEO, CARE and Bareeze

Sohail Naqvi, Exective Director, HEC

Zafar Khan, CEO, Sofizar

Zafar Siddiqui, Director, IBA-CED

“Showcasing Research at Pakistani Universities that are ready for Commercialization”

Session Chair:

Dr. Sohail Naqvi – Executive Director, HEC

Registration Fee:
Rs. 6,000/- per participant

Discounts for 2 or more participants from

the same organization with increasing discount % as participants increase

Includes Lunch, Refreshments and Business Networking & MITEFP Certificate, signed by

Kenneth P. Morse

TO REGISTER CONTACT:

TERRABIZ

Mohammed Phaysal

E-mail: phaysal@terrabizgroup.com

register@terrabizgroup.com

Mobile: +92 300 213 38 49 & +92 345 303 7045

Fax: +92 21 3455 7264

Phones: +92 21 3455 8539 & 3455 0431

Startup Sunday @ T2F

2010-12-02T07:38:00.000-08:00

Startup Sunday @ T2F (Karachi)
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=127561320638546
If one does not use facebook, you can find the event here:
http://www.t2f.biz/category/events/

MIT Enterprise Forum, Pakistan - Business Acceleration Program 2010

2010-07-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

MIT Enterprise Forum, Pakistan - Business Acceleration Program 2010

The program is in its 4th year. The introductory sessions are already over. Nonetheless, one can still apply if one qualifies.

The success story which they often refer to is that of Sofizar (a Lahore based software company), whose revenues before the program were USD 800 K in 2007 and were USD 30 M in 2009.

Launchpad by P@SHA in Karachi on 27 June 2010

2010-06-28T01:13:00.000-07:00

I attended the launchpad event arranged by P@SHA, yesterday. PSEB and Microsoft were two of the main sponsors.

P@SHA and PSEB are displaying the sort of public private partnership that we need in many other strata of our society. It is heartening to see that events for the promotion of entrepreneurship are taking place in Pakistan. We at RIKSOF, believe that entrepreneurs are an essential asset to society, as they cause creative destruction of its status quo. Even more encouraging was the fact that most of the presentations were either from final year students or fresh out of college grads. And keeping in mind the limitations of startups, P@SHA had arranged one in Lahore on Saturday too.

Without keeping you too bogged down in the spiral of my thoughts, following is the list of presented:

1. Arzi Rehaish - In comparison to bastee.pk and other such real-estate websites, the niche here is arzi or temporary accommodation specifically for bachelors. According to the conceiver's market research there is a greater need for that in Islamabad and Pindi followed by Lahore and then Karachi.

2. H2O or HR2O, presented by Asim Naseem Siddiqui, was an idea to build an eco-system for HR Consultants. The most interesting part for one of the judges was that data from the jobs posted would be used to analyze/suggest salary ranges for that job in the industry. What I found interesting was also the fact that he wanted to build a network for HR consultants, so that referrals from former employers could be shared as well. Mr. Siddiqui himself has been a HR consultant himself for 3 years. This should help cover the trust deficit while hiring in our society.

3. Kitabain - is a sister of the successful business venture of thereadersclub , by Usman Siddiqui, who took the first prize for kitabain this year and thereadersclub in last year's launchpad.

4. Foot Mouse - presented by Muhammad Ahsan from NED University was having the mouse in your feet, so that you can have your hands free for the keyboard, should be good for disabled people and as one of the judges said, could be used to produce an exhilarating game with 2 in the feet and 2 in the hands. Interestingly this young lad had also done sort of a market research, even though this was his final year project. According to that, a Foot Mouse currently available is at the cost of 359 USD. He built one in 700 PKR. A question from the judge, how long would it take and how much would it cost/unit to manufacture 100,000 units, couldn't be answered. Shared the second prize with tagit.

May be it would be good for you to somehow get in touch with Mr. Sheryar Hydri of Trango Interactive. Last time I heard him, he seemed to be passionate about development in general, with his current focus on game development.

5. Pakpolling - by Syed Ali Naqi - presented the idea of using the already available databases of NADRA and PTA for voting either through fingerprints or SMS. As judges pointed out that this should greatly increase the voter turn-out. However, as soon as one claims that his main customer would be the government, the difficult question to answer is "How would you sell?" Another important question from the judges was how much should a voting unit based on finger-print recognition cost. A judge also asked them to refer to UNI voting system being implemented in India.

6. Rensoy - by Adnan Muzaffar - presented a search tool/assistant - As I commented yesterday, you probably haven't done much research on "semantic search engines". And I think Google's wonder wheel is already a step in that direction, with a much simpler interface than Rensoy's. I think you should restart your market survey from here:
i. Semantic Search Engines
ii. Power Search Tool

7. Reflex 360 IDRH - Internet Development and Research Center - presented by a couple of students who had graduated from NED University. The idea is to have a software development center which actually funds a research and development center. They needed a seed money of 2.5 million to raise awareness about "how important is the research/thinking culture in a society". Most of the time was spent explaining just what would be done with the money earned from the software house. What you need to explain to get money from an investor is that how do you plan to generate money from the software house.

8. GSM/GPRS based tracking tool - A software service for companies to track their assets/personnel. They are probably already collaborating with an ambulance service. The advantage that they have over uTrack and other such tracking services is of course that this tool is Telco independent.

9. SEO Analysis Tool - presented by Sadia Allauddin - An automated tool to analyze why a web page won't show up in Google's search results, built by 2 ladies as a final year project in NED University. They were already invited by one of the judges for a talk. Congratulations and Good luck, an investor's time is as important as his/her money.

10. Dhaba - A food ordering service. An already existing service was mentioned by the judges, which I cannot recall now.

11. Global Learning - presented by Subhan Gillani of Gillani Soft - The idea is to have an online learning tools/lectures resource.

12. FYDEST - Find Your Destination - An SMS based tool to find the shortest, easiest and fastest path from tagged points in a city. The most important question How do you get runtime traffic information? There are a lot of stake-holders/risk involved here

13. Shahzebsaeed.com - Selling high-quality shirts without a retail outlet. Is still a student at IBA. Setup the company with a 15,000 savings from his internship.

14. Pakipay - A mobile payment service similar to Telenor's Easy paisa but telco independent. Comment from the judges is to go back and get some feedback from a finance specialist. There is State Bank involved wherever there are financial transactions, and that is probably why Telenor's Easy paisa has Tameer Bank involved. I, personally think that you do need to get a bank involved in between.

15. Telecom Clicking GE - built and presented by two ladies in their final year at NED University, is a tool to assist RF planners inside Telcos. The idea is to have information about 3D buildings etc on mapinfo. Currently, the RF planners use Google Earth to get information about construction(s) in a location and terrain info from mapinfo. Switching between tools is a hassle which they are attempting to target.

16. Help Me - presented by Farzal Dojki
A review here

17. Kidsconvent.com - A school for all ages, lectures audio/animated prepared with experts on different subjects available on DVDs and on line so that anyone can teach children with a unified syllabus. According to them they already have a contract to deploy this material in 40 model schools that CDGK is building.

18. Tagit - An SMS based tagging service, where for example lipton can be tag and people can subscribe for updates to this tag. They shared the second prize with Foot Mouse, they did have a good presentation, but I personally could not differentiate them from chopaal and pringit combined. More on that combination here: http://www.codeweek.pk/2010/02/chopaal-pringit-social-networking-tide-in-pakistan/

In the end I would like to apologize if I have misspelled anyone's names. Congratulations and Good luck to all of you in being the cause of the change you want.

Send email with attachment.

2010-05-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

If you want to send email with attachment in PHP then just copy the code from the below link, paste it to your myfile.php & upload to your server & see its magic.

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread60795.html#

Generating a MySQL database alter script using MySQLWorkbench

2010-04-15T01:24:00.001-07:00

MySQL Workbench facilitates in generating mysql database creation and alteration scripts. Though the creation is straighforward, (File > Export > Forward Engineer SQL Create Script), a correct alteration script isn't simply generated.

One more thing about creation, before I can delve into the work around required for generating alteration script using MySQL Workbench is that, when we generate the create script, the tool adds the db qualifier mydb by default. And, there is no way I could find to change that. So, I remove the qualifier manually whenever I generate the script.

Now, if we have a working database, for which a mysql creation script does not exist or even if it does, it most probably won't contain the mydb qualifier, without which the MySQL Workbench does not generate a correct alteration script. So, for the alter script generation to work correctly:

Export the existing database structure using any mysql client as a script.
In MySQL Workbench: File > Import > Reverse Engineer MySQL Create Script
File > Export > Forward Engineer MySQL Create Script, will generate the sql create script for the existing database with the mydb qualifier.
File > Export > Forward Engineer MySQL Alter Script.

Input File: is the path to the sql script for existing database, with the mydb qualifier (the one that was generated in Step 3).
Output File: is the path to the alteration file, that is to be generated.
Select Next
Select Execute
Now, one can remove the mydb qualifier from the generated file (using search/replace in one's favorite editor)

How to format usb flash drive in ubuntu.

2010-01-11T23:40:00.000-08:00

Instructions

Plug your flash drive into an empty USB port, then back up any data on the drive. Open the main menu, move your cursor over "Accessories," then click on "Terminal." At the terminal prompt type "sudo apt-get install gparted" (without quotes) then hit the "Enter" key on your keyboard.
Enter your Ubuntu administrator password when prompted, then hit the "Enter" key again. This will download and install GParted which is an open source drive partitioning program.
Go to the Ubuntu main menu after the installation is complete, move your cursor over "System," then "Administration," then click on "Partition Editor." Enter your administrator password when prompted, then click "OK."
Click on "GParted" in the toolbar then hover over "Devices" and select your USB flash drive from the list (dev/sdb1 for example). Right-click on the device in the main GParted window, then click "Unmount." It may take a few minutes for the device to be unmounted.
Right-click on the device again (after it is umnounted) then hover over "Format to." Select the desired file system type (RiserFS, linux-swap, Ext 2/3, or FAT16/32 for example), then click "Apply" in the toolbar. Depending on the size of the flash drive, it will take 3 to 4 minutes or so for GParted to complete the process.
Close GParted after the flash drive is formatted. To mount your USB flash drive, unplug it and then plug it back in. The drive is now ready to store data in the file format you selected.

How to create Paypal Buy Now Button in Paypal SandBox - Testing Environment.(Part 2)

2010-01-08T03:24:00.000-08:00

How to create Paypal Buy Now Button in Paypal SandBox - Testing Environment.

Simply follow the instructions available on the link as follow:

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-refund-back-to-your-customer-using-Paypal

2009-12-31T05:48:00.000-08:00

GeoUrdu Videos Tube - jquery videos

2009-12-31T05:35:00.000-08:00

GeoUrdu Videos Tube - jquery videos

ALERT

2009-12-19T01:58:00.000-08:00

A : Attention
L : Life
E : Emergency
R : Rush up
T : Think about it...!

Friday, 18-Dec-2009, about 9:00 am, in Rimpa Plaza, Karachi, Pakistan.....

There was load shedding our laptops bettry became low so we decide to take tea from outside. But when we came out from our office & go towards stairs some peoples were ran upstairs & said there is fire on 6th floor in a store-room exactly next over our office room. Some of our friends immediately rush up out from the plaza & the other were return to office & shift our laptops to our head office. In th mean time all channels team, police, rescue, ambulance, fire brigade reached & try to stop the fire as soon as possible. Thanks to Allah no one was injered except the 6th floor & the fire became cool after a great efforts. Then after Jumma pray we deside to go back to our home.

Conclusion:

I think that was happened only due to poor security & safty precautions which should be taken by the Plaza owner.

And also office owners must have to choose those place to setup their business where all facilities are available like transport should available for (all) employees & similarly other facilities to face such accidents like on Friday.

Opinion:

In Karachi i think the best location to setup once business is from NIPA to Hassan Square because NIPA is the center to all routs.

Excuse:
There may be some English mistakes so please forgive it.

Thanks.

Create subdomain on localhost in linux

2009-11-20T22:02:00.000-08:00

Question: Let suppose i have a web site www.webspot.com. Now I want to create a subdomain sub.domain.com, and when I enter it in my browser, I want to go to the same web site (www.webspot.com).
Answer: Simply on terminal type

sudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/your-web-site

file will open now make some little changes like this

ServerName webspot.com

DocumentRoot /var/www/your-website/public
ServerAlias sajid.webspot.com
ServerAlias naveed.webspot.com
ServerAlias nasir.webspot.com
ServerAlias ihsan.webspot.com
ServerAlias zeeshan.webspot.com

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All

ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined

then type:

gedit /etc/hosts

file will open now make some little changes like this

127.0.0.1 localhost

127.0.0.1 webspot.com
127.0.0.1 sajid.webspot.com
127.0.0.1 naveed.webspot.com
127.0.0.1 nasir.webspot.com
127.0.0.1 ihsan.webspot.com
127.0.0.1 zeeshan.webspot.com

127.0.1.1 sajid-laptop

now restart apache2 by using:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Enjoy :)

OpenID

2009-09-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

OpenID is a standard for user authentication. OpenID allow users to get access to different web services with the same digital identity. By using one OpenID we does not need to create different accounts for different web services.

An OpenID is a unique URL and authenticated by user's OpenID provider. The OpenID protocol does not work on a central authority for user's identity authentication. OpenID reduce frustration associated with maintaining multiple usernames and passwords and is the safer and easier method to joining new sites.

How to get OpenID:

You may already have an OpenID. If you are using Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc , you does not need to create a new one. OpenID authentication is provided by several large websites. Several organizations either provide or accept OpenIDs, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL, MySpace, Sears, etc.

How to login with OpenID?
1. When you visit a site that support OpenID and need authentication, you will see a form like this.
2. Enter your OpenID or your OpenID provider URL (for example yahoo.com) into the form.

3. Your browser will send you to your OpenID provider login form.

4. Login to your OpenID provider site with your username and password.

5. Tell your provider that the original web site can use your identity. You are then sent back to the original website as authenticated user.

Goal Setting

2009-08-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

Five Rules to set yourself up for Success

You think about what you want to be doing in your life? Are you clear about what your main objective at work is at moment? Do you know what you want to achieved by the end of today?

If you want to succeed, you need to set goals. Without goals you lack of focus and direction. Goal setting allows you to take control of your life direction and it also provides you a benchmark for determining whether you are actually succeeding.

To achieved your goal, however, you need to know how to set them.

Here are the Five Golden Rules of Goal Setting.

Rule 1: Set Goals that Motivates You.
Rule 2: Set SMART Goals.
Rule3 : Set Goals in Writing.
Rule4 : Make an Action Plan.
Rule5 : stick With it.

Install Mysql on UBUNTU

2009-08-17T04:17:00.000-07:00

MySQL Workbench can be easily installed on Ubuntu/Gnome. Just download the binary .deb file from the MySQL web site for workbench (currently named mysql-workbench-oss-5.1.16-1_i386.deb), save it to your home directory. Then run:

sudo apt-get install liblua5.1-0 libzip1
sudo dpkg -i mysql-workbench-oss-5.1.16-1_i386.deb (adapt the name accordingly)

Then, you have MySQL Workbench listed under "Applications > Programming".

2009-08-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

Vertical Bar Graphs with CSS and PHP

Follow this link .....

http://terrill.ca/design/vertical_bar_graphs/#example

Zend Framework on ubuntu

2009-08-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

Follow me ....

Download Zend Framework (.rar or .tar) from http://framework.zend.com/
Un-rar and copy this folder to /var/www/
Remove version number from that downloaded folder for example,Zend Framework-1.9.0 to Zend Framework.
Goto Terminal type :
gedit ~/.profile

An editor will open like below image.

Now type the path where you past Zend Framework but must follow the placement of line, see below image.

Now save and close this file.
Next in Terminal type :
gedit /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

An editor will open like below image.

Now simply type an ALIAS which you want to reference to your website on localhost, for instance for my website i write " mywebz ", but must follow the format : Alias /mywebz "/var/www/myweb/public"

For more help see below image.

Now save and close this file.
Atlast to set the above configuration you must restart the apache server.
To resatrt apache server, in Terminal type :
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

To test your configuration, in Terminal type :

echo $PATH

If you see the path like this:
/var/www/ZendFramework:/var/www/ZendFramework/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
then fine.

Now type in Terminal :
cd /var/www/web_folder
Finally type :
zf.sh

A list of Zend Framework eill appear like below image.

Congratulation ... !
You have installed Zend Framework successfully .

jQuery: Working with Checkboxes

2009-08-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

In jQuery sometime you have to work with checkboxes. Find a checkbox by its attributes, Check a checkbox is checked or not and check a checkbox. Their are some related tricks.

Find checkboxes:
$('input[type="checkbox"]') (get all checkboxes)
$('input[name="mycb"]') (get checkbox named mycb)

Get checkboxes Attributes:
$('#myCheckbox').attr('name') (return name of checkbox)
$('#myCheckbox').attr('checked') (return true or false)

Checked or Not:
$('#myCheckbox').is(':checked') (return true if checked)

Check/Uncheck a Checkbox:
$('input[name="mycb"]').attr("checked",false); (uncheck named mycb)
$('input[type="checkboxes"]').attr("checked",true); (check all)

Creating simple form in Zend Framwork

2009-07-28T23:14:00.000-07:00

Zend frame work has a component called zend_form used for creating forms.
It simplify the process of form validation, data filtering, and data storage.
To create a simple form in zend follow the steps:

1- Create a simple form class and place it in application/forms/Simple_Form.
2- Add some element in the Simple_Form class.
3- Create a controller for the Simple_Form using the following command.

(your project path)#zf.sh create controller simple

It will be created in application/controllers/mycontroller.php. It will also create
a folder name 'simple' in application/view/scripts/simple/index.phtml

4- You can also create actions in the controller by using following command.

(your project path)#zf.sh create action myaction simple

After creating an action it would place a file name 'myaction.phtml' in
application/view/scripts/simple/myaction.phtml

Now place an object of your form class in this action.

public function myaction() {

$form = new Simple_Form();
$this->view->form = $form;

}

5- To see the form place the following line in the myaction.phtml file.

$echo $this->form;

Digital Clock using HTML and CSS

2009-05-29T03:57:00.000-07:00

following is the code that will display digital clock using java script and CSS class

!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

Simple Javascript Digital Clock

Dynamic PDF files using HTML and PHP

2009-05-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

FPDF: The PDF Generator

The first and the main base for this file conversion is FPDF library. FPDF is a pure PHP class to generate PDF files on the fly. Let us start the PDF generation with a simple Hello world display.

require('fpdf.php');
$pdf=new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
$pdf->Output();
?>

To generate a pdf file, first we need to include library file fpdf.php. Then we need to create an FPDF object using the default constructor FPDF(). This constructor can be passed three values namely page orientation (portrait or landscape), measure unit, and page size (A4, A5, etc.,). By default pages are in A4 portrait and the measure unit is millimeter. It could have been specified explicitly with:

$pdf=new FPDF('P','mm','A4');

It is possible to use landscape (L), other page formats (such as Letter and Legal) and measure units (pt, cm, in).

Then we have added a page to our pdf document with AddPage(). The origin is at the upper-left corner and the current position is by default placed at 1 cm from the borders; the margins can be changed with the function SetMargins().

To print a text, we need to first select a font with SetFont(). Let us select Arial bold 16:

$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);

We use Cell() function to output a text. A cell is a rectangular area, possibly framed, which contains some text. It is output at the current position. We specify its dimensions, its text (centered or aligned), if borders should be drawn, and where the current position moves after it (to the right, below or to the beginning of the next line). To add a frame, we would do this:

$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World !',1);

Finally, the document is closed and sent to the browser with Output(). We could have saved it in a file by passing the desired file name.

Recover a lost Word document

2009-05-21T00:06:00.000-07:00

Recover a lost Word document

Describes several methods to locate and to recover a lost Word document file. Provides steps for both Windows Vista and Windows XP.
follow this link.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316951

MySql Teminal Commands

2009-05-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

This is a list of handy MySQL commands that I use time and time again. At the bottom are statements, clauses, and functions you can use in MySQL. Below that are PHP and Perl API functions you can use to interface with MySQL. To use those you will need to build PHP with MySQL functionality.

Below when you see # it means from the unix shell. When you see mysql> it means from a MySQL prompt after logging into MySQL.
To login (from unix shell) use -h only if needed.

# [mysql dir]/bin/mysql -h hostname -u root -p
Create a database on the sql server.

mysql> create database [databasename];
List all databases on the sql server.

mysql> show databases;
Switch to a database.

mysql> use [db name];
To see all the tables in the db.

mysql> show tables;
To see database's field formats.

mysql> describe [table name];
To delete a db.

mysql> drop database [database name];
To delete a table.

mysql> drop table [table name];
Show all data in a table.

mysql> SELECT * FROM [table name];
Returns the columns and column information pertaining to the designated table.

mysql> show columns from [table name];
Show certain selected rows with the value "whatever".

mysql> SELECT * FROM [table name] WHERE [field name] = "whatever";
Show all records containing the name "ihsan" AND the phone number '3444444'.

mysql> SELECT * FROM [table name] WHERE name = "ihsan" AND phone_number = '3444444';
Show all records not containing the name "ihsan" AND the phone number '3444444' order by the phone_number field.

mysql> SELECT * FROM [table name] WHERE name != "ihsan" AND phone_number = '3444444' order by phone_number;
Show all records starting with the letters 'ihsan' AND the phone number '3444444'.

mysql> SELECT * FROM [table name] WHERE name like "ihsan%" AND phone_number = '3444444';
Show all records starting with the letters 'ihsan' AND the phone number '3444444' limit to records 1 through 5.

mysql> SELECT * FROM [table name] WHERE name like "ihsan%" AND phone_number = '3444444' limit 1,5;
Use a regular expression to find records. Use "REGEXP BINARY" to force case-sensitivity. This finds any record beginning with a.

mysql> SELECT * FROM [table name] WHERE rec RLIKE "^a";
Show unique records.

mysql> SELECT DISTINCT [column name] FROM [table name];
Show selected records sorted in an ascending (asc) or descending (desc).

mysql> SELECT [col1],[col2] FROM [table name] ORDER BY [col2] DESC;
Return number of rows.

mysql> SELECT COUNT(*) FROM [table name];
Sum column.

mysql> SELECT SUM(*) FROM [table name];
Join tables on common columns.

mysql> select lookup.illustrationid, lookup.personid,person.birthday from lookup left join person on lookup.personid=person.personid=statement to join birthday in person table with primary illustration id;
Creating a new user. Login as root. Switch to the MySQL db. Make the user. Update privs.

# mysql -u root -p
mysql> use mysql;
mysql> INSERT INTO user (Host,User,Password) VALUES('%','username',PASSWORD('password'));
mysql> flush privileges;
Change a users password from unix shell.

# [mysql dir]/bin/mysqladmin -u username -h hostname.blah.org -p password 'new-password'
Change a users password from MySQL prompt. Login as root. Set the password. Update privs.

# mysql -u root -p
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'user'@'hostname' = PASSWORD('passwordhere');
mysql> flush privileges;
Recover a MySQL root password. Stop the MySQL server process. Start again with no grant tables. Login to MySQL as root. Set new password. Exit MySQL and restart MySQL server.

# /etc/init.d/mysql stop
# mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
# mysql -u root
mysql> use mysql;
mysql> update user set password=PASSWORD("newrootpassword") where User='root';
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> quit
# /etc/init.d/mysql stop
# /etc/init.d/mysql start
Set a root password if there is on root password.

# mysqladmin -u root password newpassword
Update a root password.

# mysqladmin -u root -p oldpassword newpassword
Allow the user "ihsan" to connect to the server from localhost using the password "passwd". Login as root. Switch to the MySQL db. Give privs. Update privs.

# mysql -u root -p
mysql> use mysql;
mysql> grant usage on *.* to ihsan@localhost identified by 'passwd';
mysql> flush privileges;
Give user privilages for a db. Login as root. Switch to the MySQL db. Grant privs. Update privs.

# mysql -u root -p
mysql> use mysql;
mysql> INSERT INTO user (Host,Db,User,Select_priv,Insert_priv,Update_priv,Delete_priv,Create_priv,Drop_priv) VALUES ('%','databasename','username','Y','Y','Y','Y','Y','N');
mysql> flush privileges;

or

mysql> grant all privileges on databasename.* to username@localhost;
mysql> flush privileges;
To update info already in a table.

mysql> UPDATE [table name] SET Select_priv = 'Y',Insert_priv = 'Y',Update_priv = 'Y' where [field name] = 'user';
Delete a row(s) from a table.

mysql> DELETE from [table name] where [field name] = 'whatever';
Update database permissions/privilages.

mysql> flush privileges;
Delete a column.

mysql> alter table [table name] drop column [column name];
Add a new column to db.

mysql> alter table [table name] add column [new column name] varchar (20);
Change column name.

mysql> alter table [table name] change [old column name] [new column name] varchar (50);
Make a unique column so you get no dupes.

mysql> alter table [table name] add unique ([column name]);
Make a column bigger.

mysql> alter table [table name] modify [column name] VARCHAR(3);
Delete unique from table.

mysql> alter table [table name] drop index [colmn name];
Load a CSV file into a table.

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE '/tmp/filename.csv' replace INTO TABLE [table name] FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n' (field1,field2,field3);
Dump all databases for backup. Backup file is sql commands to recreate all db's.

# [mysql dir]/bin/mysqldump -u root -ppassword --opt >/tmp/alldatabases.sql
Dump one database for backup.

# [mysql dir]/bin/mysqldump -u username -ppassword --databases databasename >/tmp/databasename.sql
Dump a table from a database.

# [mysql dir]/bin/mysqldump -c -u username -ppassword databasename tablename > /tmp/databasename.tablename.sql
Restore database (or database table) from backup.

# [mysql dir]/bin/mysql -u username -ppassword databasename < /tmp/databasename.sql
Create Table Example 1.

mysql> CREATE TABLE [table name] (firstname VARCHAR(20), middleinitial VARCHAR(3), lastname VARCHAR(35),suffix VARCHAR(3),officeid VARCHAR(10),userid VARCHAR(15),username VARCHAR(8),email VARCHAR(35),phone VARCHAR(25), groups VARCHAR(15),datestamp DATE,timestamp time,pgpemail VARCHAR(255));
Create Table Example 2.

mysql> create table [table name] (personid int(50) not null auto_increment primary key,firstname varchar(35),middlename varchar(50),lastnamevarchar(50) default 'bato');

You cannot modify the Hosts file or the Lmhosts file in Windows Vista

2009-05-14T21:02:00.000-07:00

You cannot modify the Hosts file or the Lmhosts file in Windows Vista

Follow this link

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923947

Usefull Links

2009-05-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

Salam to all Muslims & hello to others.
Some times many people become worry and confuse when their Blog posting day come nearer. And the reason of their worried is " what will be the topic of my coming blog . . . . ?".
But i think blog topic is nothing a big issue & we can publish any information related to any field of life.
So today i publish some useful links which i am using & i am sure these will also helpful to you.

PHP links

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/solved17.html
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/javascript/article.php/3471121
http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/newtech2.shtml
http://www.phpro.org/tutorials/Creating-A-PHP-Application.html
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/PHP/1

Manul Books

itsstudy8.com

BreadCrumbs

http://www.roscripts.com/PHP_breadcrumbs-118.html

jQuery Link

http://tablesorter.com/docs/

PHP Plugins

http://www.blueshoes.org/en/plugins/

Image Reviewer In PHP

http://www.wellho.net/resources/ex.php4?item=h112/imap.php

Image Maping in PHP

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/image_maps/article.php/3479741

Image Galler

http://www.lateralcode.com/2009/03/create-a-simple-picture-gallery-using-php/
http://www.ricocheting.com/scripts/gallery.html

MySql Book

http://www.php.net/mysql_field_name

Pear Log

http://pear.php.net/package/Log/docs/1.11.4/Log/Log_error_log.html

PHP Classes

http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/3165.html

XML-based RSS parser in PHP

2009-05-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

MagpieRSS provides an XML-based RSS parser in PHP.

Link:
http://magpierss.sourceforge.net/

Download:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=55691

How to Use:
- Download magpierss-version.tar.gz file
- Extract downloaded file.
- include magpierss-version/rss_fetch.inc file in your php file.

require('rss_fetch.inc');
$rss = fetch_rss($url);

- ready to parse RSS

A Simple Example:

require_once 'rss_fetch.inc';

$url = 'http://www.example.com/rss/today.xml';
$rss = fetch_rss($url);

echo "Site: ", $rss->channel['title'];

foreach ($rss->items as $item ) {
$title = $item[title];
$url = $item[link];
echo $title . "," . $url ;
}

Problems In Smarty Template

2009-04-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

some times i found a problem in smarty template that whenever i do some changes in my template coding and refresh html page the changes do not applied.i was wondering what is the problem in it.after having so much research i found that smarty creates obj templates every time you do some changes in template.
then i delete all obj templates and then refresh the page.the changes are now applied in the page

Preg_Match PHP Function

2009-04-24T02:53:00.000-07:00

The Preg_Match PHP function is used to search a string, and return a 1 or 0. If the search was successful a 1 will be returned, and if it was not found a 0 will be returned. Although other variables can be added, it is most simply phrased as: preg_match(search_pattern, your_string).

There are two scripts which validates the format of a url text string and domain. It might be used to check the url submitted from a form. The format of the url is expected to be of the form: domain-name.co.uk for example.

First script validates a url. This make use of regular expression pattern matching.



//url validation

$url = 'teSTgjhgj.co.uk';

if (preg_match ("/^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9\-]+[a-z0-9](\.[a-z]{2,4})+$/i", $url)) {

    print "$url url OK.";

} else {

    print "$url url not valid!";

}

?>

Second script validates a domain.



//domain validation

$domain = 'teSTgjhgj';

if (preg_match ("/^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9\-]+[a-z0-9]$/i", $domain)) {

    print "$domain Domain OK.";

} else {

    print "$domain Domain not valid!";

}

?>

Digital Clock in PHP

2009-04-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

This is a PHP script for displaying the current time in a digital clock on your web page. It uses individual digit images for the clock, and does not require any special library.

You can download the zip format of code file from
http://www.hotscripts.com/listing/digital-clock-6741/

Change Mysql root password

2009-04-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

Step # 1 : Stop mysql service

# /etc/init.d/mysql stop
Output:

Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.

Step # 2: Start to MySQL server w/o password:

# mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
Output:

[1] 5988
Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql
mysqld_safe[6025]: started

Step # 3: Connect to mysql server using mysql client:

# mysql -u root
Output:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 1 to server version: 4.1.15-Debian_1-log

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql>

Step # 4: Setup new MySQL root user password

mysql> use mysql; mysql> update user set password=PASSWORD("NEW-ROOT-PASSWORD") where User='root'; mysql> flush privileges; mysql> quit

Step # 5: Stop MySQL Server:

# /etc/init.d/mysql stop
Output:

Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld
STOPPING server from pid file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
mysqld_safe[6186]: ended

[1]+  Done                    mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables

Step # 6: Start MySQL server and test it

# /etc/init.d/mysql start # mysql -u root -p

Installing Skype on Ubunto

2009-04-20T20:40:00.000-07:00

If you’re interested in running Skype on Ubuntu then follow these steps.

From the Ubuntu System menu select:
Administration –> Synaptic Package Manager

Inside Synaptic Package Manager select the Tools –> Repositories menu option. Make sure all the checkboxes are checked. Then close the Synaptic Package Manager.

Next you need to add the Medibuntu repository. Full details about this repository, including installation instructions, can be found on the Medibuntu home page.

To install Medibuntu you need to run a Terminal window session. From the Ubuntu Applications –> Accessories menu select Terminal

Assuming you’re running Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn you need to enter the following into a command window. If you’re using an earlier version of Ubuntu then refer to the Medibuntu home page for installation instructions.

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/feisty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update

sudo aptitude install skype

That’s it!

Skype should now be available from the Applications –> Internet menu.

HTML DOM Parsing

2009-04-11T02:51:00.000-07:00

If you want to extract data from a webpage and not getting the exact data using different patterns and "PHP String Positions" techniques, then here is the suggestion for you.

This is Simple HTML DOM Parser written in PHP5+ by a Developer on Sourceforge.net

Developer Profile:
http://sourceforge.net/users/me578022/

Download Link:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/simplehtmldom/

Documentions:
http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/

How to Use:

First of all download the simple_html_dom.php File from download link.

// Include the downloded file in your own php file.
include('../simple_html_dom.php');

// Create a DOM First:
$html = file_get_html('http://www.google.com/'); // Create DOM from URL or file
$html = str_get_html($str, $lowercase=true); // Create DOM from String of HTML Script

// find all links
foreach($html->find('a') as $element)
echo $element->href;

// find all images
foreach($html->find('img') as $element)
echo $element->src;

// find all images with full tag
foreach($html->find('img') as $element)
echo $element->outertext;

// find all div tags with id=gbar
foreach($html->find('div#gbar') as $element)
echo $element->innertext;

// find all span tags with class=gb1
foreach($html->find('span.gb1') as $element)
echo $element->outertext;

// find all td tags with attribite align=center
foreach($html->find('td[align=center]') as $element)
echo $element->innertext;

// extract text from table
echo $html->find('td[align="center"]', 1)->plaintext;

// extract text from HTML
echo $html->plaintext;

Read documents for more example.

Installation Problem in UBUNTU

2009-04-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

After installing Ubuntu, i was installing system application
jre-1_6_0_02-linux-i586-rpm.bin. Every thing was going right
suddenly a message of service agreement appeared and the
installation was stopped. I closed the terminal and tried to reinstall
the application. Then i received the message,

"E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run
'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem."

I couldn't install anything through my terminal or my synaptic manager.
Then i found the solution of this problem.

Solution:

On terminal, execute the following commands:

sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo dpkg --update -a

Accedently Replace / Remove Directory From SVN

2009-04-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

Problem

I have replace a directory from 'trunk' at revision 977 & now i want to rollback to revision 974 .....!

Solution
Simply follow these steps mentioned below:
1- $ svn merge -r 977:974 https://som_one.com/repos/home/trunk
2- $ svn commit -m "Recover Lost Directory"
3- $ svn update

SOAP

2009-04-07T21:56:00.001-07:00

Introduction:

SOAP is an XML-based messaging protocol. It defines a set of rules for structuring messages that can be used for simple one-way messaging but is particularly useful for performing RPC-style (Remote Procedure Call) request-response dialogues. It is not tied to any particular transport protocol though HTTP is popular. Nor is it tied to any particular operating system or programming language so theoretically the clients and servers in these dialogues can be running on any platform and written in any language as long as they can formulate and understand SOAP messages. As such it is an important building block for developing distributed applications that exploit functionality published as services over an intranet or the internet.

Server Side:

As is the case with any client-server paradigm, in the world of web services there are web service providers and web service consumers. Server-Side SOAP is a tutorial which deals with how to build and provide web services using Apache SOAP. We will cover the details of the technology for consuming web services when we work through SOAP on the Client-Side.

Client Side:

Client-Side SOAP is a multi-part tutorial with the aim of introducing you to some of the technologies available for writing clients that consume web services using SOAP.

For detail information:
Follow the link http://www.soapuser.com/index.html

Document Comparisons

2009-04-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

Compare Files with 'Diff Doc'

(The Comprehensive Document Comparison Tool)
Some times more than one person( lets, you & your partner ) are working on the same file that may on ( MS Word/Excel/PowerPoint, PDF, RTF, Text, HTML, XML, Wordperfect ), and suppose you need to check the modifications that have been made by your partner then either you'll request him to inform you about those changes made by him or review the whole file to justify the changes, but it may takes more time & may be you could not correctly justify .

I was also passed through that experience & i faced much problems, so i thought that their must be utility tools to solve such problems & at last i found an excellent utility tool " Diff Doc ", but its a trial version. Following are its features i have test it is really a nice one ....

Diff Doc Features

Compare documents of MS Word (DOC, DOCX etc), Excel, PDF, Rich Text (RTF), Text, HTML, XML, PowerPoint, or Wordperfect and retain formatting

Choose any portion of any document (file) and compare it against any portion of the same or different document (file).

Word to word or letter to letter comparisons. See to the letter what changed in a sentence.

Compare files of any type against any file type (i.e. An MS Word compared against a. Wordperfect document)

Integrated into the Windows Explorer Shell (Windows Explorer, Desktop, Find in Files, etc.) for quick comparisons

Navigate easily through the file differences with the Next (F7), Previous (Shift+F7) etc. navigation buttons. Or use the drop down list box to jump to a specific difference

Paragraph differences are highly detailed

Compares text from any application by cutting and pasting into 'Diff Doc'.

Both 'Side By Side' and the red-lined 'All In One' difference views are supported

Save any of the views as DOC, Text, RTF or HTML format

Text and Comma Delimited reports also available

Compare folders first, then quickly see what files are different and compare with a mouse click

Compatible with WORLDOX, and any other document management software that supports 3rd party file comparison applications through the command line. Click here for details

Run it from the Command Line or build your own solutions by using the ActiveX COM interface (available upon request)

Download Link for Diff Doc
http://www.softinterface.com/DL/DL_UserData_Proc.ASP

Pagination in PHP

2009-03-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

Pagination in PHP

Step One

Connect to MySQL database.

For those who are new to PHP & MySQL and do not know how to establish connection with MySQL, may use the following config.php.file code.

//Host name

$host='localhost';

//User name

$user='root';

//Password

$pass='';

//Database name

$db='mydb';

//Establishing database connection

mysql_connect($host,$user,$pass);

//Select database

mysql_select_db($db) or die ("Database Connection Failed") ;

Step Two

Set Variables:
Set table name you want to use (Table must contain an auto increment field named “Id”).
Set the column name you want to show.
Set number of rows per page (default is 5 rows/page).

After configure variables as defined above, simply run the script and enjoy {:-Þ

//Include config file

includes('config.php');

//Table name

$myTable='Mytable';

//Column Name

$columnName='Columnname';

//How many rows to show per pg

$rowsperpg=5;

//by default we show first pg

$pgnum=1;

//if $_GET['page'] defined, use it as first page number

if(isset($_GET['page']))

{

$pgnum=$_GET['page'];

}

//counting the offset

$offset=($pgnum-1)*$rowsperpg;

$test="SELECT * FROM '".$myTable."' LIMIT $offset,$rowsperpg";

$run=mysql_query($test) or die('selection fail');

//print

$count=mysql_num_rows($run);

if($count > 0)

{

while($res=mysql_fetch_assoc($run))

{

echo '

Event: '.$res[$columnName].'

echo '
';

}

//how many rows we have in db

$query="SELECT COUNT(Id) as numrows FROM '".$myTable."' ";

$res=mysql_query($query) or die('Error Query failed');

$row=mysql_fetch_assoc($res);

$numrows=$row['numrows'];

//how many pg we have when using paging?

$maxpg=ceil($numrows/$rowsperpg);

// print the link

$self=$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];

$nav='';

for($page=1;$page<=$maxpg;$page++)

{

if($page==$pgnum)

{

$nav.="$page";

}

else

{

$nav.="$self?page=$page\">$page";

}

if($pgnum>1)

{

$page=$pgnum-1;

$prev="$self?page=$page\">[Prev]";

$first="$self?page=1\">[First Page]";

}

else

{

$prev=' ';

$first=' ';

}

if($pgnum<$maxpg)

{

$page=$pgnum+1;

$next="$self?page=$page\">[Next]";

$last="$self?page=$maxpg\">[Last Page]";

}

else

{

$next=' ';

$last=' ';

}

echo '

'.$first.' '.$prev.' '.'page'. $pgnum.' '.' of'.' '.$maxpg.' '.$next.' '.$last.'

}

if($count <= 0)

{

<p><h5>No Record Availableh5>p>

div>

}

Google Docs Security Problem Solved

2009-03-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

I am a fan of Google Docs(beta). When I was trying to find out templates on Google Docs, I felt that I got the private spreadsheet of someone. I searched for this issue on the internet but did not find a satisfied answer. Yesterday, I found the following link. Google had admitted this security problem but I think the problem has been solved.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/160927/google_docs_glitch_exposes_private_files.html

on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_docs#Data_safety_and_privacy

Search Your Network Game Using PHP

2009-03-20T04:18:00.000-07:00

Search games on your network, simply using PHP. This script uses a cool module of PEAR, Net_GameServerQuery- a common API to query Half Life server. PEAR () is a framework and distribution system for reusable PHP components. You need to install PEAR module Net_GameServerQuery on your PHP installation.
First change configuration to match your game server. Set IP address ( $ip ) and game type ( $protocol ) variables.

Note: Click on image for clear view.

JAVA connection with MySQL using JDBC in Eclipse

2009-03-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

We will discuss JAVA-MySQL connection using JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)

JDBC:

JDBC is a standard API that allows JAVA programs to access databases. The JDBC API is a collection of interfaces and classes written in the JAVA Programming Language. We can write applications that connect to databases, send SQL queries, and get the results using these standard interfaces and classes.

A JDBC driver implements these interfaces and classes for a particular Database Management System. A Java Code loads the specified driver for a particular DBMS before it establish a connection with a database.

Download JDBC Driver:

First of all you have to download JDBC driver (usually named mysql-connector-java-version).
For Example: http://ftp.fju.edu.tw/Database/MySQL/Downloads/Connector-J/

Extract downloaded zip file and copy extracted folder to your plugins folder in Eclipse Directory.
For Example: C:\Eclipse\plugins\mysql-connector-java-version

Import JDBC Driver in Eclipse.

1. Right Click on your Project in Eclipse -> Select Properties.
2. Select Java Build Path->selcect Libraries tab->press Add External JARs button.
3. Select mysql-connector-java-version-bin file from downloaded mysql-connector-java-version folder.

Done. Now you are ready to establish JAVA-MySQL connection.

JAVA Code Example:

For Example we have a database named “riksof” with a table employees(id,name,email,designation) where “id” is primary key and auto_increment.

/*Define a connection url*/
String host = "localhost";
String db = "riksof";
String tb = "employees";
String db_user = "dbuser";
String db_pw = "dbpassword";

String db_url = "jdbc:mysql://"+host+":3306/"+db+"?user="+db_user+"&password="+db_pw;

Connection conn = null;
Statement stmt = null;
String query = "";
ResultSet result = null;
PreparedStatement ps = null;

/* Load driver and Establish a connection */
try{
conn = DriverManager.getConnection (db_url , db_user , db_pw);
stmt = conn.createStatement();
}catch(Exception connectionExp){
System.out.println("SQL Connection not Established: " + connectionExp.getMessage());
}

try{
Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver").newInstance();
}catch(Exception driverExp){
System.out.println("Driver not Found : " + driverExp.getMessage());
}

/* Now Display all records */
query = "SELECT * FROM " + tb;
try{
result = stmt.executeQuery(query);

while(result.next()){
System.out.println(result.getString("id"));
System.out.println(result.getString("name"));
System.out.println(result.getString("email"));
System.out.println(result.getString("designation"));
System.out.println("-------------------------------");
}
}
catch(Exception sqlExp){
System.out.println("SQL Exception: " + sqlExp);
}

/*Insert a single record*/
query = "INSERT INTO employees(name,email,designation) VALUES('Name','Email','Designation')";

try{
conn.createStatement().executeUpdate(query);
System.out.println("Record Stored.");
}
catch (SQLException insertExp) {
System.out.println("SQLException Caught: " + insertExp.getMessage());
}

Google Special Syntaxes

2009-03-19T07:41:00.000-07:00

In the era when people go online before the morning tea, Google search engine is an essential part in our everyday life.
Being a full-text search engine Google indexed entire website instead of title, links and description. Google search engine support Boolean operators, basic AND, OR, and quoted strings, as well as it offers special syntax for quick and precise query. Here are some of the common syntax which are very useful for professional peoples;

intitle:
intitle: search is restricted to page titles
intitle:"pakistan"
allintitle:"kashmir dispute" pakistan

inurl:
inurl: search is restricted to URLs.
inurl:view.shtml
allinurl:search help

intext:
intext: searches only body text
intext:"riksof.com"

inanchor:
inanchor: searches for text in a page's link anchors.
inanchor:"university"

site:
site: search by either a web site or a top-level domain.
site:gov
site:pk
site:edu.pk

link:
link: gives a list of pages linking to the particular URL.
link:www.riksof.com

cache:
cache: find copy from Goolge indexed cache even it is no longer available at its original location.
cache:www.amazon.com

daterange:
daterange: limits your search to a particular date or range of dates that a page was
indexed.
Note that daterange: works with Julian, not Gregorian dates (the
calendar we use every day).
"Osama Bin Laden" daterange:2452389-2452389
Aerospace daterange:2452389-2452389

filetype:
filetype: searches the suffixes or file extensions.
java filetype:pdf
"marketing" filetype:ppt

related:
related: finds pages that are related to the specified page.
related:www.ebay.com
related:www.cricinfo.com

info:
info: provides a page of links to more information about a specified URL.
info:www.wikipedia.com

phonebook: //not very useful for Pakistan
phonebook: phone number looks up.
phonebook: Karachi

There are still more syntax for easy, precise and rapid search and Google is adding more day by day.

PHP Image Gallery & Truncate a string in Smarty

2009-03-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

PHP Image Gallery

Description:

This is an image gallery script that allows you to simply upload new full sized images in FTP and the script will automatically create the thumbnails for those images and add those images to a paged thumbnail gallery suitable for browsing.

Instructions:
First of you have to set the variables in the code below.

Scroll down to about line 30 and look for $config['size']. Set this to the maximum width or height you want your image thumbnail to be.
On the next line in the $config['imagequality'] set this to the JPEG quality you would like your thumbnails to be. I recommend you keep it set to 70.
$config['rows'] and $config['cols'] are the number of rows and number of columns of thumbnail images you want shown on each page.
$config['maxShow'] is the number of page numbers to show at one time. for instance if you have 100 pages of images, you can set this to only show the page numbers of the 10 pages close to where you currently are.
$config['thumbs'] is the relative path to where you want the thumbnail images to be stored. Include the trailing slash.

File Permissions:

You'll need to change the permission on the directory you set $config['thumbs'] to. CHMOD it to 775 or 777 so PHP and GD2 can automatically write and create your thumbnails in that directory.

Changing the Look:

The entire gallery table is controlled by the CSS settings you'll find toward the bottom of the gallery.php file. I tried to comment each specific part of the CSS and what it controls so you can easily change the look of the gallery without actually having to actually edit any of the PHP.

Here is the Code:

You can download the gallery.php file from the following link.

http://www.ricocheting.com/scripts/gallery.html

Truncate a string in Smarty

Suppose you have a sentense in smarty that contains more characters and the rows of the table where you wants to show it will become wrap which sounds very bad. So you can use smarty variable modifier called 'truncate'.

How to use Truncate:

It has following syntaxes,
truncate:how_many_characters_to_show:what_characters_appear_at_end
truncate:int:int
lets,

$yourString = "Hello World";

{$yourString|truncate}//output// Hello World
{$articleTitle|truncate:3}//output// Hel...
{$articleTitle|truncate:3:""}//output// Hel
{$articleTitle|truncate:3:"---"}//output// Hel---

You can also find more detail from
http://www.smarty.net/manual/en/language.modifier.truncate.php
Special Thanks:
Ihsanuilah Khan

Pentaho

2009-03-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

Pentaho BI project is an open source project. It is used for many purpose.

Reporting
Analysis
Dashboard
Data Mining
Work flow

Pentaho BI have two versions, one is community and other is enterprises edition.we will use in our recent project of COI(HCCS) for data reporting.Basically it consist of a server BI and client side design studio.It uses tomcat as web server.If some one to use it first start the BI server with sh command from terminal and tomcat also from sh command.It also have a plugin structure.Design studio can also be installed in eclipse as plugin.

Pentaho website
Pentaho on SourceForge
Pentaho on Freshmeat
Map of Headquarters
Information on how to use and configure Pentaho BI can be found at the following Pentaho Tutorial
Information translated into spanish on how to install Pentaho BI Suite Community Edition can be found at the following tutorial

LDAP integration to change password

2009-03-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Once you have installed and configured LDAP on your Linux server you will probably need to change user’s passwords in future. For this you can allow user to login and change their password from shell.
User management from shell is not a sufficient way, you might be interested to find a way to change password without allowing user to log into server. And in case if you has particular login registration framework, then you would like to integrate LDAP with it.
I choose PHP to perform the task.
First thing, allow user to change password in slapd.conf file;

access to attr=userPassword
by self write
by anonymous auth
by * none

The next step is ldap bind with user credentials for authentication;

if(isset($username) and isset($newpassword) and isset($oldpassword)) {
$ldapconn = ldap_connect("hostname", 389);
$ldapbind=@ldap_bind($ldapconn,"uid=".$username.",dc=example,dc=com",$oldpassword);
if($ldapbind){

//If user gives correct username and password, then;

if( ldap_mod_replace ($ldapconn, "uid=".$username.",dc=host,dc=com",
array('userpassword' => "{MD5}".base64_encode(pack("H*",md5($newpassword)) ){
print "Password changed successfully ";
}else{
print "Failed to change password";
}
}

Secure our Joomla webs from Hackers

2009-03-12T01:13:00.000-07:00

As we know that 'Joomla' is really amazing open source product for web development but as far as security is concern like others we may not rely on 'Joomla'.

Some days ago a website of someone was hacked that was built using 'Joomla' but thanks to allmighty Allah that issue have resolved. This is one case that I know but may be many organization have faced or facing such type of problems. So I thought to search about this problem and finally I found some blueprints from www.joomlasecurity.info/ this web is also by 'Joomla' for their clients who use 'Joomla'. Although in this site they define each and every issue that concerns with security of 'Joomla' and other webs but the key points are mentioned as below.

I hope it will be helpful for developers specially who are using 'Joomla' for developing their webs.

Use the latest version of Joomla.
Use only secure third party plugins and also keep them updated.
Use secure username and password for administrators.
Use an SEF (Search Engine Friendly) component that makes your Joomla more secure.
Use a secure web host / secure server configuration.
Don’t tell everyone about your configuration.
Write-protect your Joomla configuration file (make unwriteable).
Delete Joomla templates that you do not use.

Joomla Template

2009-03-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

Joomla look and feel can be changed due to its framework. Joomla template can be changed from administrator side.I want to explain basic requirements to design a joomla template.
• templateDetails.xml
This file define information about template.D should be in uppercase(This is standard file format).An XML format metadata(data about data) file that tells Joomla! what other files are needed when loading a web page that uses this template. It also tells the author, copyright and what files make up the template (including any images used). The last use of this file is for installing a template when using the admin backend.

Automatic login script

2009-03-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

This script is to automated our log-in to some site.
You must have cURL installed to use this script.
When I started to code this script , at that time I was having some difficulties to code and finally I got the success to programmed auto log-in script. From internet I have research allot to create such a script , but there is no correct solution available for this script on internet . This script is really help you to logging in to different site automatically when you run it .

// INIT CURL
$ch = curl_init();

// SET URL FOR THE POST FORM LOGIN
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.external-site.com/Members/Login.php');

//Reference URL that where you going to login
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, "RefUrl");

// ENABLE HTTP POST
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);

// SET POST PARAMETERS : FORM VALUES FOR EACH FIELD
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, 'fieldname1=fieldvalue1&fieldname2=fieldvalue2,...');

//Cookie file
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, 'cookie.txt');

// IMITATE CLASSIC BROWSER'S BEHAVIOUR : HANDLE COOKIES
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, 'cookie.txt');

//set session cookie
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, 'cookie.txt');

//Usage of CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION is important when sites use URL redirectors for //file downloads
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);

// Setting CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER variable to 1 will force cURL
// not to print out the results of its query.
//Instead, it will return the results as a string return value
// from curl_exec() instead of the usual true/false.
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

// EXECUTE 1st REQUEST (FORM LOGIN)
$result = curl_exec($ch);

// CLOSE CURL
curl_close ($ch);

Ldap authentication with Openbravo

2009-03-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

The following instructions allow use of an Ldap server to authenticate users to OpenBravo ERP. I first unsuccessfully attempted to use a custom authentication manager to implement LDAP support. If you have been able to do it, I would be very keen to know how it was done.

Copy this file to /AppsOpenbravo/src/com/riksof/authentication/LdapLoginHandler.java
Please modify objectDN string to correspond to your setup.
Login to postgres with the database user created at installation time: psql - U tad -d openbravo
Insert the following entry:
insert into ad_model_object(ad_model_object_id, ad_client_id, ad_org_id, isactive, action, classname, isdefault, created, createdby, updated, updatedby) values (1006100001, 0, 0, 'Y', 'X','com.riksof.authentication.LdapLoginHandler', 'Y', current_timestamp, 100, current_timestamp, 100);
Also update entry to use our login class:
update ad_model_object_mapping set ad_model_object_id=1006100001 where mappingname='/secureApp/LoginHandler.html';
Compile and deploy OpenBravo to use Ldap.

Browser Operating System

2008-12-12T20:00:00.000-08:00

Good OS has introduced a new operating system called "Cloud" which boots into a browser with Google, Yahoo and Live. Cloud integrates a Browser with a compressed Linux OS kernel for immediate access to Internet.

related links:

http://www.glidedig ital.com/
http://www.oos.cc/login.html

Browser replaces OS

Good OS Announces 'Cloud'- A Browser Operating System

Important Links

2008-11-20T01:09:00.000-08:00

When using internet I have discover some links which changes my knowledge and way of thinking. Please surf it carefully.

This site have wonderful knowledge about web development, designing, programming, database and many more.

http://www.tutoriliazed.com

This site basic knowledge about web, a complete web directory for introduction with many technology.

http://www.w3schools.com

Drupal

2008-11-06T23:32:00.000-08:00

Drupal

is a free and open source modular framework and content management system (CMS) written in the programming language PHP. Like many modern CMSs, Drupal allows the system administrator to create and organize content, customize the presentation, automate administrative tasks, and manage site visitors and contributors.

Drupal is sometimes described as a "Content Management Framework" as its capabilities extend from content management to enabling a wide range of services and transactions. Although Drupal does offer a sophisticated programming interface, basic web site installation and administration can be accomplished with no programming.

Drupal core

The official release of Drupal, known as "Drupal core", contains basic features common to most CMSs. These include the ability to register and maintain individual user accounts, administration menus, RSS-feeds, customizable layout, flexible account privileges, logging, a blogging system, an Internet forum, and options to create a classic "brochureware" Web site or an interactive community Web site.

Core modules

Drupal core also includes "core modules" which can be enabled by the administrator to extend the stock functionality of the core Web site. The core Drupal distribution provides a number of features, including: Access statistics and loggingAdvanced search functionsCaching and feature throttling for improved performance under loadComments, forums, and pollsDescriptive URLs (for example, "www.example.com/products" rather than "www.example.com/?q=node/432")Multi-level menu systemMulti-user content creation and editingOpenID supportRSS Feed and Feed AggregatorSecurity/new release update notificationUser profilesVarious access control restrictions (user roles, IP addresses, email)Workflow tools (Triggers and Actions)

Core themes

The color editor being used to adjust the "Garland" core theme Drupal core includes several "core themes", which customize the aesthetic look-and-feel of the site. These themes can be chosen by the administrator via a special menu. The Color Module, introduced in Drupal core 5.0, allows administrators to change the color scheme of certain themes via a Web-browser interface. This feature was added to allow a higher level of customization for the average non-coder.

iPhone SDK : Images in TableView using Objective-C

2008-11-04T08:00:00.001-08:00

This simple code will display an image on the left side of cell using Objective-C.

First create a string that contains source information of image file like “Image Name” and “Image Type”. Then create an Image using this String. Then upload the image to the cell.

NSString *imageSource = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"icon" ofType:@"jpg"];
UIImage *image = [UIImage imageWithContentsOfFile: imageSource];
cell.image = image;

Note : The icon.jpg should be in your “Resources” folder.

Python

2008-04-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

Python is object-oriented programming language. It can be compared to Perl, TCL, Scheme or Java. Python has very clear and simple syntax. It has classes, exceptions, modules, and dynamic data types.

Python can run on many platforms like Windows, Linux, MAC, Amiga and others. The Python is is freely usable but its implementation is copyrighted.

Comparison with other Popular Languages:

Java:
Python programs are generally run slower than Java programs but Python programs are typically 3-5 times shorter than equivalent Java programs. The reason of this difference is Python's data types and its dynamic typing.

For example, a Python programmer does not declare the types of arguments or variables. Python's run time must work harder than Java's run time. For example, when evaluating the expression x+y, it must first inspect 'a' and 'b' to find out their type.

JavaScript:
Python supports a programming style that uses simple functions and variables without using class definitions like JavaScript. But the main difference is that Python support Object Oriented programming style.

Perl:
Python and Perl have similar background and similar in many features. The difference is that Perl supports common application-oriented tasks(built-in regular expressions, file scanning and report generating features) on the other hand Python supports common programming methodologies(data structure design and object-oriented programming)

C++:
The main difference is typing style. A Python program is typically 5 to 10 times shorter than equivalent Java program.

Tcl:
Tcl works as a stand-alone programming language like Python. However, Tcl, which traditionally stores all data as strings, is weak on data structures, and executes typical code much slower than Python.

TRAC: Web-Based Project Management System

2008-04-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Trac is a web based project managment and issues/bugs tracking System. Trac is written in the Python programming language. This Open Source Software is developed by Edgewall Software. Trac is available under the modified BSD License. If this does not fullfill your requirements, you could make changes, write plugins according to your needs. It can be used as a web interface to a version control system, like Subversion.

Some Features of Trac:

Trac Wiki: Trac has a built-in wiki, used for text and documentation throughout the project. It allows users to editing text easier and allows people to contribute text content for a project.

Trac Ticket System: Tickets are used to assign project tasks to developers. Tickets deals with bug reports, features requests, and support issues.

Trac Reports: It provides reporting facility for current status of tickets of the project.

Trac Timeline: It allows to view the project progress in a single report. It provides all the events in order, description of each event, and who is working on these events.

Trac Repository Browser: Trac Repository is Version Control System. Using this we can browse Directories and files stored in the repository of the configured version control system.

Trac Roadmap: It allows to view ticket system in a way that can help to manage the project in a better way in the future.

Email Notification of Ticket Changes: Trac provides supports for notification about ticket through emails. This facility keep developers up-to-date on tickets.

2008-04-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Smarty Templates Engine

2008-04-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

It was common practice to mix the PHP Script and HTML tags while coding in PHP. This resulted in a complex code which was difficult to understand and inconvenient to update. This problem was solved by Smarty which makes PHP scripts independent of layout.
Smarty is templates engine for PHP. It provides a way to separate programming logic from contents and presentation. It enables templates designers and programmers to work independently. Smarty templates can contain logic which is only for presentation purpose. Its unique feature is template compiling; it reads templates files and create PHP scripts from them. Once they are created, then they executed from there. This is what makes Smarty efficient.

Features:

· Fast and efficient.
· No templates parsing overhead (Compile once).
· The if/else constructs are passed to PHP parser.
· Nesting of sections like if/else.
· Built-in caching support.
· Arbitrary template sources.
· Custom cache handling functions.
· Plug-in architecture.

Joomla

2008-04-03T03:26:00.000-07:00

Joomla is Content Management System to develop websites and on line Web Applications. Joomla become most popular platform to develop websites. It makes simple to create add-ons and extensions. It makes adding or editing content, updating graphics and multimedia, and managing complex data.

Joomla has the following features:

- Edit the content of web pages with a word processor-style interface.

- Add new pages to your site using a click-and-add interface.

- Add images/media through web-uploads.

- Control site elements.

It also support specific functionality, for example, end user registration, advertising banners, a contacts directory and interactive polls.

Joomla stores all the content and information related to your site in a database named MySQL. It uses PHP as a programming language.

Google Maps API Basics

2008-04-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Introduction

Google Maps API (Application Programming Interface) lets you embed Google maps in web pages. It uses Java Script for scripting. In order to use the Maps API you need a API key that can be obtained by signing up with Google for Maps API. After obtaining the API key you can develop map applications.

Loading the Google Maps API

Google Maps API is loaded with the help of Java Script code in script tag. Basically you make the src attribute of script tag to point to

http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&key=abcdefg

This URL points to the location of the JavaScript file that includes all of the symbols and definitions you need for using the Google Maps API. Your page must contain a script tag pointing to this URL, using the key you received when you signed up for the API. In this example the key is shown as "abcdefg."

Localization of Google Maps API

Maps API also introduces the concept of Mapplets (a combination of maps and gadgets). Mapplets allow you to embed external applications into Google Maps. It also includes support for localization. It uses English by default but one can change hl attribute in script tag of Java Script to change this default behavior to support the language of your choice.

For example, to display a Maps API application in German, add &hl=de to the tag as shown below:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&key=abcdefg&hl=de"

Eclipse: Powerful Open Source IDE

2008-03-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

Eclipse is an open source software project dedicated to providing a strong, full featured, and industry level platform for developing and supporting highly integrated software engineering tools. Excluding small Eclipse Runtime Kernel, all other components are “plug-in”, integrated through pre defined extension points. Eclipse platform defines set of frameworks and common services that collectively makes an integration-ware. Almost 1565 Eclipse plug-ins are available which can easily download and installed.

Fundamentally, Eclipse is a framework for plug-ins. Besides its runtime kernel, the platform consists of the workbench, workspace, help, and team components. Other tools plug into this basic framework to create a usable application. Plug-ins add functionality through predefined extension points that the Eclipse platform offers. Plug-ins can also define new extension points for others to extend. This plug-in architecture provides a flexible, open, scalable, tool-integration solution. With the open Eclipse platform, you can customize a component or extend it to suit the needs of your development environment.

The Graphical Modeling Framework, a representative integration project built on Eclipse, consists of a plug-in set that bridges between the Graphical Editing Framework and the Eclipse Modeling Framework platforms. GMF extends and integrates GEF and EMF seamlessly so that application developers can fully utilize GEF’s visual-representation capability and EMF’s data-representation capability to build graphical modeling editors. The GMF plug-ins for diagram editing provide a set of services that you can use to extend graphical editors. GMF also leverages other Eclipse plug-ins, such as EMF Technology-Transaction, Validation, and Object Constraint Language, to enable model-level validation.

Eclipse is a cost-effective, productive development environment to support life-cycle software development through effective tool integration. The flexible plug-in architecture and resource management let organizations customize and extend Eclipse to meet their engineering processes, tool integration, and project management needs.

Useful References
For basic concepts about the Eclipse plug-in architecture, extensions, and examples, see the Eclipse Foundation site (www.eclipse.org), especially www. eclipse.org/articles/Article-Plug-inarchitecture/plugin_architecture.html. Good overviews of existing plug-ins, especially plug-ins in their early development stages, are available at http://eclipse-plugins.info/eclipse/index.jsp and http://www.eclipseplugincentral.com/.

Eclipse-related publications are available at www.eclipse.org/resources/index.php.

For detailed information about how to set up Tomcat and JBoss in Eclipse for J2EE development, see www.purposesolutions.com/Resources/EclipseJ2EE.html. The Eclipse Project Resource Center offers many tutorials, articles, magazines, plug-ins, cheat sheets, conference lists, and the latest books at www.deitel.com/Eclipse.

SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit)

2008-03-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

The Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) is a graphical widget toolkit for use with the Java platform. It was originally developed by IBM and is now maintained by the Eclipse Foundation in tandem with the Eclipse IDE. It is an alternative to the AWT and Swing Java GUI toolkits provided by Sun Microsystems as part of the Java Platform, Standard Edition.

SWT is a graphics library and a widget toolkit integrated with the native window system especially with Windows but Linux and Solaris are supported as well. SWT is an OS-independent API. SWT can be seen as a thin wrapper over the native code GUI of the host operating system.

SWT is written in Java. The design strategy of SWT was focused on building a simple, essential library that would produce GUI applications closely coupled to the native environment.

SWT has been designed to be as inexpensive as possible. This means that it is native-oriented. Anyway, it differs from AWT in a number of details. SWT provides different Java implementations for each platform, and each of these implementations calls natively (through the Java Native Interface, JNI) the underlying native implementation. The old AWT is different in that all platform-dependent details are hidden in C (native) code and the Java implementation is the same for all the platforms.

Resources:

An important difference from normal Java programming is the way OS-dependent objects are managed in SWT. Swing emulates a large part of such objects (such as widgets, for instance) in Java, leaving the disposal job to the JRE garbage collector. This saves a lot of complexity for the programmer but this lack of control can lead to some unexpected issues, especially with cross-platform development.

SWT designers chose a different approach, obliging the developer to explicitly dispose of OS-dependent objects in the application code. SWT has been designed with efficiency in mind, so handling explicitly OS resources becomes an occasion to promote efficient programming and not just a necessity. Resource disposal is needed to free the OS resources used by the SWT application. Such OS resources need to be explicitly de-allocated by invoking the dispose method.

In practice, disposing of objects is a delicate business and it can lead to unpredictable results whenever another object tries to access an already disposed item.

The Basic Structure of an SWT Program

As already said, an SWT program relies upon the native platform resources (wrapped by the Display class, as we will see later on) both in terms of allocated resources (such as colors, images, and so on) and as regards the event mechanism. As regards event handling, in SWT there is only one thread that is allowed to handle native user interface events.

We now see the basic structure of an SWT program.

There are two basic classes used in any SWT application, the Display and Shell classes. Instances of the Display class are responsible for managing the connections between SWT and the underlying operating system, enforcing the SWT models (for colors or images, for example). The Shell class instead represents windows managed by the platform-dependent desktop manager.

Typically, an SWT program will first create a local resources manager (an instance of the Display class) and attach all the needed widgets to one or more Shell objects.

A snippet of code showing the use of the Display and Shell classes.

00:     Display display = new Display();
01:     Shell shell = new Shell(display);
02:     //GUI code here
03:     shell.open();
04:     while (!shell.isDisposed()) {
05:       if (!display.readAndDispatch())
06:         display.sleep();
07:     }
08:     display.dispose();
09:   }
10: }

Basic Controls

Some of the basic components are the following:

Button. This component is the well-known button component used in toolbars, forms, and so forth.
ComboBox. This widget is the well-known combo box component.
Label. This component represents a (non-selectable) object that displays a string or an image.
List. This widget represents a basic list component.
ProgressBar. It shows a progress indicator.
Sash. It is the Swing equivalent of a JSplitPane. It is a widget that can be dragged to resize two areas in a GUI.
Scale. This component implements an editable GUI item representing a range of continuous numeric values.
Slider. This component represents an editable object that stands for a range of discrete, numeric values.
Table. This component represents a basic table.
Text. This component represents a basic text area.
Tree. This component represents a basic tree widget.
StyledText. This component represents a text area with styled fonts and other advanced attributes.

Fedora VS Ubuntu

2008-03-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

Fedora and Ubuntu, both are popular among people who like Linux Environment. The question arises in one’s mind is, what’s the difference between two?
In many ways Fedora and Ubuntu family are similar, both tend to focus on Gnome and give you a great deal of bleeding edge software. Ubuntu was found by Mark Shuttleworth and sponsored by Canonical Ltd. It is currently one of the most popular GNU/Linux flavors. Fedora is a general purpose system; it does not concentrate on one specific market. It is suitable both for home users, programmers and the corporate server. In each case it requires some customization however, Fedora Core stability is comparable to similar distros like Ubuntu or openSUSE. There are many efforts to make the software testing within Fedora Core even better by implementing an automated test system. Ubuntu is based on Debian, which is one of the most stable and mature distributions available. Still, Ubuntu comes with fresh software and instabilities may occur. Kubuntu on the other hand is considered a bit worse in terms of stability since recent versions of KDE usually break more often that fresh GNOME.
Ubuntu's stated purpose is to replace Windows but their first bug is that Windows is more popular. As such, they strive to make it as user-friendly as possible, and you will often, but not always, find that things work with less effort on Ubuntu. Ubuntu and the rest of its family use a live installation disk which more attractive for new users. Fedora, regardless of the latest official line, is more or less a testing ground for RedHat, they often put in new things, and might not test them as thoroughly as they would be tested.
Ubuntu uses sudo for everything, they discourage even giving root a password. Fedora makes sudo a bit more difficult to use for the non-root user since even with sudo. Ubuntu uses the apt system for package management; you will find it faster than yum. To the end user, in many ways, it's simply a matter of getting used to the syntax of one or the other.
As someone who prefers BSD and the far more minimalist ArchLinux, both distros strike as having too much installed as default as well as too much reliance on GUI tools, but this is just my taste. Might be one reason that many professionals use Fedora, because it's what they use at work, so using it at home makes you more comfortable with it, and better able to act reflexively if there are problems.
For a beginner, it would be more appropriate to recommend Ubuntu. Not because Fedora is bad, but Ubuntu is aimed more at the beginner. That’s the reason the Fedora forums seem more mature, many Fedora people are people who've been using Linux for years and started with RedHat.

Android (Mobile Phones Platform)

2008-03-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Android is a software development platform for mobile phones based on the Linux operating system. It is developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance.

Android is a software "stack" for mobile phones that's based on open-source software. Android is called a "stack" because its software extends from the lowest levels controlling the phone's hardware to the highest levels of user interaction. At the bottom is a stripped-down version of the Linux kernel. On top of the kernel is the open-source WebKit Web browser and several other open-source programs.

We can't run Android on a phone that we might have today. Instead, manufacturers like HTC, LG, Samsung, and Motorola (all OHA members) will need to adapt it to future handsets. If the consortium has its way, these phones will be available in stores in the second half of 2008. You'll also be able to buy an Android-based phone over the Internet and drop in a chip from the cell phone that's in your pocket today, assuming you have a cell phone from T-Mobile, AT&T, or another provider that uses the GSM transmission standard.

On 12 November 2007 the OHA released a preview of the Android software development kit which includes development and debugging tools, a set of libraries, a device emulator, documentation, sample projects and tutorials. Developers are required to download the Android SDK to an x86-based computer running Windows XP or Vista, Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later, or Linux.

Java Development Kit, Apache Ant, and Python 2.2 or later are also required. Eclipse 3.2 or later is the only officially supported IDE through Android Development Tools Plugin but the programmer is free to use command line tools to create, build and debug Android applications.

Android has the following Features:

Handset layouts : The platform is adaptable to both larger, VGA, 2D graphics library, 3D graphics library based on OpenGL ES 1.0 specifications, traditional smartphone layouts.
: Storage : SQLite for structured data storage; Connectivity : Android supports a wide variety of connectivity technologies including GSM, Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and Wi-Fi.; Messaging : Both SMS and MMS are available.; Web browser : The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source WebKit application framework.
: Java virtual machine : Software written in Java can be compiled into Dalvik bytecodes and executed in the Dalvik virtual machine, which is a specialized VM implementation designed for mobile device use, although not technically a standard Java Virtual Machine.
: Media support : Android will support advanced audio/video/still media formats such as MPEG-4, H.264, MP3, and AAC, AMR, JPEG, PNG, GIF.
: Additional hardware support : Android is fully capable of utilizing video/still cameras, touchscreens, GPS, compasses, accelerometers, and accelerated 3D graphics.
: Development environment : Includes a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, a plugin for the Eclipse IDE.

We are back!

2008-03-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

I am blogging again after a while. It has been a very busy few months as we have been building our Engineering team.

This blog should be more active now as I have also recruited members of my team to start contributing here.

From next week, I will resume my review of open source technologies. I wanted to take this post to introduce our new contributors: Naveed, Umair, Usman and Waqas. You can view their profiles on the right.

I would also like to let you know about the two other blogs that people from TMM are contributing to: Small Business Marketing, Sea Frieghts

2008-03-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

OpenWrt for Wireless Access Points

Introduction

OpenWrt as the name suggests is open source i.e. the source code is available for free, it has no subscription fee and there are no commercial versions with extra features. It is a GPL (GNU General Public License) Linux distribution for wireless routers. OpenWrt is designed to be customizable and modular so that new features can be added as modules in the forms of packages. Instead of trying to cram every possible feature into one firmware, OpenWrt provides only a minimal firmware with support for add-on packages. For users this means the ability to custom tune features, removing unwanted packages to make room for other packages and for developers this means being able to focus on packages without having to test and release an entire firmware. OpenWrt primarily uses a command-line interface, but also features an optional web-based GUI interface. Technical support is provided through the forums and IRC channel.

Variants

There are two versions of OpenWrt

whiterussian
kamikaze

whiterussian is the older, more properly documented and the more stable of the two but its development ha stopped since February 2007. Whereas kamikaze is the newer version with a different design that supports a wide range of devices. Currently it supports devices from more than 75 manufacturers that include MikroTik's RouterBoards, LinkSys, D-Link, 3COM, Asus, Dell, Microsoft, Motorola, Netgear, Philips, Siemens, Toshiba and the list goes on. It has a new kernel and is stable but work is in progress.

Features

The biggest change is probably the addition of webif, the Web-based Admin Console that lets you install and remove packages with a click or two. There are more applications available for OpenWrt almost every day. in addition to webif, OpenWrt has a fully writable JFFS2 file system, which allows for package management via the ipkg package system. This makes OpenWrt very versatile and adaptable to any particular situation. You can add new packages. Supports all networking and security stuff like VPN, firewall, DHCP, VLANs, WPA encryption, iptables etc.

Conclusion

With OpenWrt, friendly and helpful volunteers have created a powerful and fun Linux system that replaces the default Linksys firmware. You can use OpenWrt to implement everything from programmable VLANs to intrusion detection on a compact, fan-less box. With OpenWrt, you will be amazed at what free software is up to these days.

OpenOffice for the home office

2007-08-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

I will start my series of reviews of Open Source software by looking at OpenOffice. The name suggests it all: OpenOffice is the open source competition to expensive but powerful Microsoft Office. It is freely down loadable and is distributed under the LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License).

The biggest hurdle to switching from Microsoft Office to another software is that the majority, if not all, customers and partners of any business will continue to use Microsoft technologies. Any alternative, must therefore, be compatible enough with Microsoft so that exchange of documents is not hindered in anyways. OpenOffice fares fairly well in this regard and supports all popular Microsoft document formats.

Components

OpenOffice comes with the following components:

Writer: word processor and desktop publisher.
Impress: multimedia presentations
Math: mathematical equations editor that can be inserted in to other OpenOffice components.
Draw: create graphics and diagrams.
Calc: spreadsheet program
Base: simple database program

Installation

In the simplest form, installation requires downloading the installer and executing it. If support for OpenOffice Base is required, Java will need to be installed. The OpenOffice installer provides an option for Java installation.

OpenOffice has its own OpenDocument format for saving documents. At the same time it supports the Microsoft document format. As part of the installation, we usually configure OpenOffice to save in the Microsoft document formats.

This is done by starting an OpenOffice component like Writer or Calc. From the menu, choosing Tools | Options. Expanding the Load/Save tab on the left, then selecting the General sub option. Text document, Spreadsheet and Presentation can be changes to always save in the Microsoft 97/2000/XP format.

OpenOffice Writer

The interface for Writer has a familiar look, and any one comfortable with Microsoft Word should be able to easily catch on to it.

I have been able to open all Microsoft Word documents that I came across, although at times the layout on OpenOffice Writer would be slightly different to that on Word. After editing the document and saving back as a Word document, a warning is displayed that some formatting may be lost if not saved in the OpenDocument format. I have not seen any loss of formatting though.

One of the features that I find very useful in OpenOffice is the ability to directly save in to a PDF format. This is a good way to deliver documents that will not be edited by the receiver. It is also a good way to ensure that formatting remains consistent wherever the document is viewed or printed.

OpenOffice Calc

Provides a very similar interface to Microsoft Excel, making it very easy to learn and start using immediately. Has equally good support for creating graphs and complex calculations. I have not come across a Microsoft Excel worksheet that breaks in Calc, however, there are bound to be some functions which will mismatch from Excel to Calc. The majority of the users, who use just the basic functions should not see this.

The worksheets can also be converted to PDF format.

OpenOffice Impress

Slightly different interface to Microsoft Power Point but intuitive enough to quickly come up to speed. Can open Power Point documents but the layout can become distorted. Likewise, presentations created in Impress may become distorted in Power Point. Therefore, if the presentation is to be delivered, it is best to use the same software that was used to create it.

Presentations can also be exported to PDF, which can be useful for archiving purposes.

How Free Software can help your home office

2007-08-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

With the use of technology, your home office can work like a Fortune 500 corporation. Here I just list a few things that I found were very useful for our customers (who are typically home office / small businesses like yourself):

Web Portal
Opportunities are endless. Some of these although obvious, still a lot of the small business do not really make good use of.

Create a corporate image. The good news is that home office and small businesses can also have good online images like the big guns in the industry.
Market products and services.
Sell products / services and receive payments online, 24 hours a day every day.
Provide valuable information and news about the company, industry etc. Easily update this information through the use of Content Management Systems (CMS).
Provide 24 hour customer support, including instant automated queries on order status.

Customer Relationshisp Management (CRM)

Maintain customer information.
Create marketing plans along with their budgets.
Create campaigns targetted to different categories of customers.
Manage leads, quotation, pre-sales, sales and post sales.
Customized offerings to customers based on their profile and history

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Production / Services management depending on whether you are a products or a services company or both.
Project management including scheduling, budgeting related expenses etc.
Financial management including chart of accounts, accounts, taxes, general accounting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, bank statements, balance sheets, fixed assets etc.

Online Collaboration Tools

Online calendars to publish events, seminars and schedule appointments with customers, partners, suppliers etc.
Wiki as a way to share marketing plans, research, meeting minutes or any other document that may need to be shared or worked in collaboration with customer and partners.

Free Software to the rescue
Free Software's open architecture allows anyone to freely modify it to their specific needs. This vastly improves the ability for small organizations with limited resources to implement solutions customized to their business. The cost will vary according to the requirements of the organization. From a one time consulting fee for installation and customization to a monthly fee for continous development. For instance, for only $1500 a month TMM Software Systems develops, maintains, upgrades and hosts the software and web applications needed to run your business.

In the next few posts, I will review in greater details the actual software and the magic it can do for your business.

I have already seen small business, with very little investment, develop very successful job boards, real estate portals etc.

Small Business IT

Deploying a Windows Phone 7 (WP7) app on a phone without using windows phone marketplace

Conference on Corporate Innovation & Entrepreneurship 2010

Startup Sunday @ T2F

MIT Enterprise Forum, Pakistan - Business Acceleration Program 2010

Launchpad by P@SHA in Karachi on 27 June 2010

Send email with attachment.

Generating a MySQL database alter script using MySQLWorkbench

How to format usb flash drive in ubuntu.

How to create Paypal Buy Now Button in Paypal SandBox - Testing Environment.(Part 2)

GeoUrdu Videos Tube - jquery videos

ALERT

Create subdomain on localhost in linux

OpenID

Goal Setting

Install Mysql on UBUNTU

Zend Framework on ubuntu

jQuery: Working with Checkboxes

Creating simple form in Zend Framwork

Digital Clock using HTML and CSS

Dynamic PDF files using HTML and PHP

Recover a lost Word document

Recover a lost Word document

MySql Teminal Commands

You cannot modify the Hosts file or the Lmhosts file in Windows Vista

You cannot modify the Hosts file or the Lmhosts file in Windows Vista

Usefull Links

XML-based RSS parser in PHP

Problems In Smarty Template

Preg_Match PHP Function

Digital Clock in PHP

Change Mysql root password

Step # 1 : Stop mysql service

Step # 2: Start to MySQL server w/o password:

Step # 3: Connect to mysql server using mysql client:

Step # 4: Setup new MySQL root user password

Step # 5: Stop MySQL Server:

Step # 6: Start MySQL server and test it

Installing Skype on Ubunto

HTML DOM Parsing

Installation Problem in UBUNTU

Accedently Replace / Remove Directory From SVN

SOAP

Document Comparisons

Pagination in PHP

Google Docs Security Problem Solved

Search Your Network Game Using PHP

JAVA connection with MySQL using JDBC in Eclipse

Google Special Syntaxes

PHP Image Gallery & Truncate a string in Smarty

File Permissions:

Changing the Look:

The entire gallery table is controlled by the CSS settings you'll find toward the bottom of the gallery.php file. I tried to comment each specific part of the CSS and what it controls so you can easily change the look of the gallery without actually having to actually edit any of the PHP.

Here is the Code:

You can download the gallery.php file from the following link.

http://www.ricocheting.com/scripts/gallery.html

Truncate a string in Smarty

Pentaho

LDAP integration to change password

Secure our Joomla webs from Hackers

Joomla Template

Automatic login script

Ldap authentication with Openbravo

Browser Operating System

Important Links

Drupal

iPhone SDK : Images in TableView using Objective-C

Python

TRAC: Web-Based Project Management System

Smarty Templates Engine

Joomla

Google Maps API Basics

Introduction

Loading the Google Maps API

Localization of Google Maps API

Eclipse: Powerful Open Source IDE

SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit)

Resources:

The Basic Structure of an SWT Program

Basic Controls