David Yin's Blog

How to add php script into .tpl file

2009-07-09T00:09:14Z

tpl file are smarty template files.

Sometimes I need to add php script, or php code into tpl file. That means I have to add php code into the smarty templates.

If you add php code directly, there is error code.

The right way is to add script like following way.

{php} your php code here {/php}

That's all.

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Add a new Ads unit on blog

2009-07-06T21:18:51Z

Today I added a new Google AdSense wide Skyscraper ad unit on the right side.

The purpose is to test the number of Page impressions, not for ads earning. If it is for earning, I always think less is better. And I will save the best place for the only one ads.

There are more and more bloggers have Google AdSense on their blogs. It is good for blogger and also good for audiance.

First of all, the content is king. I believe it. The good content can attrack Users attention and also Google likes it.

Then If users come to your site or blog, finish reading the main content of the page. He may do a quick look at the other interesting thing on page. At that time, content related Ads is best supplemental content for them.

Do not leave too much white space on your site. Only if you design the white space.
Try all kinds of ads in your blog. There must be one suitable for you.

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Browsers battle in 2009

2009-07-02T05:47:57Z

Now there five main browsers in the market.

Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft IE 8, Mozilla Firefox, Opera.

If we just think about Windows platform.
Firefox has best web application compatibility. For web standards, Google Chrome and Opera are better support standards. Everyone knows that Firefox has a lot of Addons. So for extensibility, Firefox wins.
There are also some very important for users.
Performance, Opera 10 and Google Chrome are loading faster than others.
Platform Support, Firefox and Opera support Windows, Mac and Linux systems.

I do have IE on my Windows. I have Opera and Firefox too.
Among these three, I use Firefox most often, because of addons I need only working on Firefox. Sometimes I use Opera. Opera Unite is very cool.

What happen in next year.

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WHMCS v4.0.2 release

2009-06-30T17:13:16Z

Today, I upgraded my WHMCS 3.8 to WHMCS 4.0.2.

Now WHMCS has more features.
Including enhanced billing system, clients manager, tickets issue, and more improvement on modules.

The upgrade is fast and easy. No hassle.

I would like to introduce Hosting plans which I managed. We provide support in Chinese. Hosting in USA.
Best deal for small sites to medium sites. Great price.

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OpenX 2.8.1 Released

2009-06-30T06:47:41Z

It is released on 2009-05-27.

There are some bug fix. I just upgraded my OpenX installation afternoon. It is very simple to upgrade from v2.8.0 to 2.8.1.

# Bug Fixes
* Zone probabilities are distributed amongst campaigns, independent of the number of banners. OX-3095
* Fixed delivery of exclusive campaigns when banners have delivery limitations. OX-5450
* Inventory lists now react to last visited parent. OX-4788
* Displaying entity IDs in the UI is now optional. OX-5341
* Fixed function declarations for various _adRenderX functions. OX-5355
* For more information, please see https://developer.openx.org/jira/browse/OX/fixforversion/10843

# OpenX Market Integration

* Market campaign management tools, which allow you to set floors for multiple campaigns at the same time.
* Ad quality tools, which allow you to review ads that have run on your sites and block advertiser campaigns.
* Ability to re-associate your OpenX.org account to OpenX Market even if you had to switch instances of your OpenX Ad Server (i.e., due to a reinstall or server change).
* For more information, please see http://www.openx.org/market.

# Major security fix. Removed vulnerability that allowed anyone to log in as an admin user. See https://developer.openx.org/jira/browse/OX-5460

I host OpenX for my internal Ads implement. Not that difficult.

Click here to download it.

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Alexa toolbar for Firefox:Sparky

2009-06-23T17:27:30Z

Alexa is a good tool to value the sites in the world.
It has toolbar for IE only before. Now Alexa has an addon for Firefox.
Alexa Sparky v1.3.1 for Firefox.

I installed it on my office desktop 5 minutes ago. When I restart the firefox, it redir me to a page with some poll. It ask me following questions.
Gender, Age, Household income, Ethnicity, Education, Children in Household or not, office or home, and post code.

It the status bar of Firefox. There are some new information of the site you are watching. The information includes, Traffic trend, Traffic rank, Reach meter.

When I read this blog's site information provided by Alexa, I think it is a very helpful tool for blogger to optimize the content. And know more about the readers of the blog.

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Schedule Backup MySQL database and FTP offsite in Centos

2009-06-17T17:52:24Z

I have a VPS powered by Centos 5.2.

There are some very important forum on it. I would like to backup it every day.
Now because HyperVM/LxAdmin - Backup Home, can not backup MySQL or not easy to get it. I have to write the shell script to do the backup job.

To use the FTP I need lftp tool.

The whole picture looks like below.
1) Dump all MySQL databases and compress them, save them in /home/usera/backup/mysql/
2) FTP them to Backup server of Dreamhost at /vps-backup/mysql/
3) Remove the backup files 4 days old.

You have to use your own account name and password.
usera is my sample user name. You can also use any other FTP server to save your offsite backups.
You make a file under /home/usera/mysql.backup.sh
Put the content below in it, save and make it executive.

#!/bin/bash
### MySQL Server Login Info ###
MUSER="MySQL User name"
MPASS="MySQL Pass"
MHOST="localhost"
MYSQL="$(which mysql)"
MYSQLDUMP="$(which mysqldump)"
BAK="/home/usera/backup/mysql"
GZIP="$(which gzip)"
### FTP SERVER Login info ###
FTPU="FTP User name"
FTPP="FTP Pass"
FTPS="backup.dreamhost.com"
NOW=$(date +"%d-%m-%Y")
[ ! -d $BAK ] && mkdir -p $BAK || /bin/rm -f $BAK/*
DBS="$($MYSQL -u $MUSER -h $MHOST -p$MPASS -Bse 'show databases')"
for db in $DBS
do
 FILE=$BAK/$db.$NOW-$(date +"%T").gz
 $MYSQLDUMP -u $MUSER -h $MHOST -p$MPASS $db | $GZIP -9 > $FILE
done
lftp -u $FTPU,$FTPP -e "mkdir /vps/backup/mysql/$NOW;cd /vps/backup/mysql/$NOW; mput /home/usera/backup/mysql/*; quit" $FTPS
find /home/usera/backup/mysql -ctime +4 -exec rm {} \;

The last step is to run it with cron schedule job. I'd like to make it work at 2AM every day.

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How to upgrade phpBB 3.0.4 to phpBB3.0.5

2009-06-15T18:00:16Z

To upgrade phpBB properly without problem, I make a detailed upgrading plan. I would like to share it with you.

1. Disable forum board.
It is important to make the board clean. And keep resource usage low.

2. Backup
The most important part is backup.

2.1. Database backup
2.1.1. phpBB own tools
Admin Control Panel > Maintenance > Backup
Complete backup with gzip, including all tables, save and download.
(if your board has a lot of posts, the index table is very big. I prefer to clean the index first. Just like me, index table is about 200MB)

2.1.2. phpMyAdmin tool
Login your own phpMyAdmin web tool for MySQL database. Select your database and click Export all tables. My exported file is about 50MB.

2.2. Backup all phpBB 3.0.4 files.
SSH your host.

tar czvf forum.tar.gz ~/your.forum/

3. Download "Automatic Update Package".
For upgrade, I like this package. It can merge your previous changes or mod on you old phpBB when doing upgrading.
cd ~/source/
wget the package.
tar xjf phpBB-3.0.4_to_3.0.5.tar.bz2
cp -r ./install/ ~/your.forum/

4. Upgrade
http://your.forum/install/
start upgrade following the upgrading wizard.
After it. Rename the install folder or delete it.
Enable the board.

Done.

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What can go wrong when including another file into your php file

2009-06-15T00:23:55Z

It is very often to include another file as a part of your script.

require_once("/path"/to/file.php");

When do this kind of including, should be very careful on following parts.
1) The path to the script is wrong.

2) The path to the script is correct, but the script is in a forbidden directory.

3) The include file has a blank line or space before or after the code in the PHP script.
It is very easy to omit the space after the code.

4) The include file can be viewd by non-PHP methods.

5) You're in include overload.

6) You are using unchecked variables as include filenames.
It may make your site unsafe in some situation.

The tips of including file are learned from "Wicked Cool PHP"

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Upgrade to MovableType 4.26 successfully

2009-06-11T08:45:51Z

I have not upgrade to 4.25 when MovableType 4.25 released. Because I failed to upgrade my Unofficial MT site at that time.

But I did a wonderful upgrade from MT 4.25 to 4.26. And this blog is based on MovableType 4.24 before upgrade. Now the upgrade it so smoothly. I have the screen shot of upgrade.

It took a long time to upgrade databases.

Let's see what changes of database.

* Upgrading database from version 4.0068.
* Upgrading table for as_ua_cache records...
* Upgrading table for ActionStreams::Event::Meta records...
* Upgrading table for profileevent records...
* Upgrading table for TrackBack records...
* Upgrading table for TrackBacks records...
* Upgrading table for IP Ban records...
* Upgrading table for Object Score records...
* Upgrading table for Comment records...
* Upgrading table for Entry records...
* Upgrading table for Asset Placement records...
* Upgrading table for Field records...
* Upgrading table for Comment records...
* Database has been upgraded to version 4.0070.
* Plugin 'Professional Pack' upgraded successfully to version 1.3 (schema version 1.4).
* Plugin 'Community Pack' upgraded successfully to version 1.63 (schema version 1.62).
* Plugin 'Action Streams' installed successfully.
* Plugin 'Motion' installed successfully.

OK. finally, I have the updated MovableType installation.

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MovableType 4.26 released

2009-06-11T06:32:49Z

Wow, I saw MovableType 4.26 is released today too.

WordPress has a new upgrade from 2.7.1 to 2.8. MovableType upgrade from 4.25 to 4.26.

For MT, it is an optional release for performance improvement.

* Release Type: Performance Release. This update fixes bugs and improves existing features. No new features are included. * Mandatory? No. This is an optional upgrade recommended for Movable Type Enterprise users. * Performance Implications: Better search performance for large datasets and improved reliability and performance around TheSchwartz. * Plugins Affected: None. Current plugins should continue to work as expected. * Templates Affected: None. * System Requirements: This release has no new or additional system requirements. * Licensing considerations: None. Movable Type 4.26 is a free update for users of any version of MT 4.x. * Upgrade Fatigue: No further mandatory updates are planned for 2009. Optional releases may become available.

Download it here.

It takes time to test MovableType 4.26 and upgrade this blog to it.

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WordPress 2.8 released

2009-06-11T04:23:15Z

It is so happy to know that WordPress 2.8 released tonight.

The most important change is to make WordPress faster. I like it.
Find more information about the release here..

You can download it here for free.

I will find time to upgrade my installation of WordPress.

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It is phpBB 3.0.5, not phpBB 3.1.5

2009-06-11T04:20:23Z

I have a typo when I posted about phpBB 3 new release.

It is 3.0.5, not 3.1.5.

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Enable Memcache on phpBB 3

2009-06-10T06:02:56Z

First of all, I need Memcache to be installed in the server.

I don't want say too much about installation of Memcache. The topic is MAKE MEMCACHE WORK ON PHPBB3.

First get acm_memcache.php from code center of phpbb.

Put this file under /root/includes/acm/
There is acm_file.php already.

Then modify config.php
Replace $acm_type = 'file'
by
$acm_type = 'memcache'

That's all.

Of course, if you do not use the default memcache installation, you need to config acm_memcache.php to let it know your IP and port.

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phpBB 3.0.5 released

2009-06-09T08:44:16Z

phpBB released its new version. 3.0.5.
This release fixes numerous bugs since the 3.0.4 release, corrects style issues, fixing one very minor security bug as well as increasing performance and scalability again. They also added a few new minor features.

New features and important changes are:
* Added and refined CAPTCHA options to better protect against new version of CAPTCHA crackers.
* Added an option to the registration screen to allow users to refresh the displayed CAPTCHA.
* Performance improvements for native fulltext search.
* Added a new search option. The admin can define the maximum number of words allowed to search for. This option gives control about the maximum search load.
* Search indexing should no longer stall for some installations.
* Conflicting files are able to be downloaded now within the automatic updater for manual inspection.
* The database updater now checks for an incompatible database schema in case the database version got updated. The admin will be notified about possible solutions and repair scripts.
* We now set the connection encoding for MySQL versions 4.1.0 to 4.1.2. This may fix some conversion issues with special characters.
* Language pack authors now see errors/notices within their language pack if they enabled DEBUG_EXTRA.
* Flash files now display again after update to flash player 10.

I have an forum powered by phpBB 3. I will test the upgrade this weekend.

Download phpBB 3.0.5 here.