Programming blog

Yahoo! India Local (beta)

2008-07-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

Yahoo India has recently launched Yahoo! India Local (beta), a new local information destination. This new launch provides a convincing user experience with appropriate local information that blows the users daily needs. This Yahoo! India Local is presently available only across Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Yahoo! India Local gives you relevant local information like Business listings, Maps, Directions, Local events, and Current movies. Users may also get listings from a wide range of categories such as restaurants, pubs, shopping malls, hospitals, schools, tailors, banks, health and fitness, and 24 hour pharmacies. This Yahoo! India Local is available at local.yahoo.in.

Users can write their own reviews, and also they leave footprints, mark businesses on the map, and add listings or events on Yahoo! India Local. Contributions shared by the community provide users with real insights into their experiences, thereby making them better informed. Local businesses across categories can now get listed for free on Yahoo! India Local. When users search for those categories, the businesses can get discovered.

Gopal Krishna, Head of Audience-Yahoo! India, said that: "Yahoo! India Local (Beta) exemplifies our strategy to be the leading starting point on the web, by providing the most relevant and compelling experience for local needs. He added that, "With this innovative product, we are trying to make the web more useful, engaging, and interesting and localized to our users".

Fixing bugs in CSS

2008-06-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

A high-quality web designer has to undergo every time he or she codes a page using CSS for design. Web Standards is the only way to go and it must be an obvious option when you take your job serious.

Confirm your markup is well structured

Make sure your markup is finely ordered, in other words make use of the suitable markup for the appropriate content. Apply headings for titles, paragraphs for blocks of text, ordered and unordered lists to sum things up in list form or for your navigation, field sets in combination with legend and label elements for forms... Finally, use tables only for what they are used for, tabular data.

Validate your markup

It's not pretty much the green check mark in the bottom right hand corner of your browser or 0 errors or warning on the W3C Validator that matters. This is only an additional check and a confirmation that your code validates. The W3C markup validator or W3C CSS validator should be your tools to make your page an error free. Tools that facilitate you to create the right coding, but consider that this is just a machine that runs a test for you. Some coding faults, for instance using the incorrect or structure-less code for certain content will not be seen as an error by this machine, so make sure this is in order. Validate the pages is an absolute necessity before you begin to fix any CSS layout problems.

Steps to clear the Dreamweaver's Start up Error

2008-06-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

Most of the Macromedia's Dreamweaver user may face the "dwscripts is not defined" in the startup. This may cause when the user may not shut it properly when he used Dreamweaver previously. To clear this error from the startup is so easy, simply follow the steps provided below.

1) First make sure you have closed your Dreamweaver application.
2) Now go to the following path in your computer respectively
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Macromedia\Dreamweaver 8\Configuration
3) In the 'Configuration' folder delete the file WinFileCache*.dat.
4) Now restart your DreamWeaver application

You may now open your Dreamweaver application without any issues.

Please note that the "Application Data" folder is hidden by default, so you have to change your Windows Explorer Folder Options setting to view all hidden folders.

About curl

2008-06-22T23:32:00.000-07:00

cURL is the name of the project. The name is a play on 'Client for URLs', originally with URL spelled in uppercase, it obvious it deals with URLs. The fact it can also be called 'see URL' also helped, it works as an abbreviation for "Client URL Request Library" or why not the recursive version: "Curl URL Request Library".

The cURL project produces two products:

libcurl

A free and easy to use the Client-side URL transfer library, supporting FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, TELNET, DICT, FILE and LDAP. Libcurl supports HTTPS certificates, HTTP POST, HTTP PUT, FTP uploading, kerberos, HTTP form based upload, proxies, cookies, user+password authentication, file transfer resume, http proxy tunneling and more!

libcurl is highly portable, it builds and works identically on numerous platforms, including DOS ,Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Darwin, AIX, HPUX, IRIX, Tru64, Linux, UnixWare, HURD, Windows, Amiga, OS/2, BeOs, Mac OS X, Ultrix, QNX, OpenVMS, RISC OS, Novell NetWare and more.

libcurl is free, thread-safe, IPv6 compatible, feature rich, well supported and fast.

curl

curl is a command line tool for getting or sending files using URL syntax.

Since curl uses libcurl, it supports a range of common Internet protocols, currently including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, LDAP, DICT, TELNET and FILE.

We pronounce curl and cURL with an initial k sound: [kurl].

Test with the following PHP code:

$url = "http://www.searchenginegenie.com";
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
$returned = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close ($ch);
echo $returned;

To keep your PC's Cool..

2008-06-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

Normally during summer our PC components run themselves much hot abnormally. These computer components were not designed in such a way to work above a certain temperature.

So for a trouble-free computing, please follow the steps provided below to make sure that your PC stays cool.

1) Computer fans are one of most important component in PC's, without them computer's processor, hard disk and other very important parts may scorch and in due course fail or may slow down your computer speed or to working intermittently.

a. So once a year or especially beginning of summer is the right time to inspect the all the PC fans(i.e. processor fans, external fans) to ensure that they are working properly or not.

b. Clean the fans regularly as all the fans collect dust and function less efficiently as a result.

2) The Term 'Overclocking' is the used to attempts to run your computer parts at higher voltages or speeds than they were designed to support. You may configure the basic input output system (BIOS) by pressing DEL or F2 buttons when your computer boots up. But make sure unless you know what you're doing and have taken steps specifically to provide extra cooling to your computer, avoid the attraction of Overclocking. If your cooling fails, your components will overheat much faster than otherwise - and may even be damaged permanently.

3) The next main thing is where you are placing your computer, when it comes to keeping your computer cool. It's better to place your computers on the floor, if possible, since its cooler down there - and move them close to an air conditioning vent, too, if one is available. Do not place them close to other heat-generating devices.

4) One of the next most important computer components is Monitor; it generates a lot of heat when turned on - even when they're not displaying an image. Get into the habit of turning off your monitor when you step away from the computer for extended periods of time.

You may also install and use few computer software programs which allow you to monitor your pc's temperature. These utilities will prompt you when your computer components gets too hot.

Mobile Web

2008-06-13T00:50:00.000-07:00

The Mobile Web refers to the access to wireless data services using a mobile device such as cell phones, PDAs, and other portable are connected to a mobile telecoms network. The service can be to the traditional WWW (World Wide Web) or to any one of more limited service platforms such as WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), i-Mode and Blackberry services.

While many think that mobile web or mobile Internet means access to the traditional Internet using a mobile phone or device. The access to the traditional Internet, but it can be to less than the Internet, as typically is with WAP services, or it can be to more than the Internet, the data services that do not even exist on the traditional Internet, such as SMS text messaging and ring tones. The mobile web is similar to, but not identical to the traditional Internet and WWW.

However, Mobile Web access today still suffers some usability problems. This is in part due to the small physical size of the screens of the mobile devices and in part due to the incompatibility of many mobile devices with not only computer operating systems, but also the format of much of the information available on the Internet.

Most Dangerous Domains to browse

2008-06-11T22:56:00.003-07:00

McAfee corporation has released the Most Dangerous Domains to surf and search on the internet. As per the new McAfee "Mapping the Mal Web Revisited" report, Hong Kong (.hk) domain was in the first place as the most dangerous place to surf on the web. The report exposed that nearly 19.2 percent of all websites ending with the domain ".hk" create a security treat to the internet users.

Jeff Green, Senior VP of Product Development & Avert Labs said, "Just like the real world, the virtual threats and risks are constantly changing. As our research shows, websites that are safe today can be dangerous tomorrow. Surfing the web-based or conventional wisdom is not enough to avoid risk online,"

China (".cn") positioned second this year over 11 percent. The most risky generic domain from 2007's report became more dangerous with 11.8 percent of all sites ending in (".info") posing a security threat and is the third most dangerous domain overall. The most popular domain, (".com"), is the ninth riskiest overall.

In the reverse Finland (".fi") replaced Ireland (".is") as the safest online target with 0.05 percent, followed by Japan (".jp"), while government websites (".gov") remained the safest generic domain.

The study compared the ratings of sites found in each of the 265 countries and generic domains and ranked them by the number of risky websites found in each domain that contained adware, spyware, viruses, spam, excessive pop-ups, browser exploits or links to other red-rated sites.

Next Generation iPhone

2008-06-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

Apple organization is going to release its next generation iPhone later this year. Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs, revealed last Monday about this low cost, faster and more powerful iPhone.

This new model fixes some of the most obvious failing of its first iPhone, which was released almost a year back. Analysts said that this clearly indicates the Apple's aim on to challenge Nokia for its domination on the international mobile phone market.

Most importantly the iPhone2.0 as Jobs called it, runs on 3G mobile networks rather than the slower Edge networks, and will sell for $199 for an 8GB device and $299 for a 16GB model. The original 8GB device sold for $599 when it went on sale last year.

Added to these new mobile features, it has GPS location tracking and is slightly thinner, has a full plastic back, solid metal buttons, 3.5-inch (9-centimetre) display, improved battery life, camera, a flush headphone jack and improved audio. The new model will go on sale on July 11.

2008-06-09T23:33:00.001-07:00

ASP.NET is a web application framework developed by Microsoft, that programmers can use to build dynamic web sites, web applications and web services. First released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to ASP technology. ASP.NET is built on the Common Language Runtime, allow the programmers to write ASP.NET code using any supported .NET language.

Pages

ASP.NET pages, called as "web forms", are the main structure block for application development. Web forms are enclosed in files with an ASPX extension, these files contain static HTML or XHTML markup, as well as markup defining server-side Web Controls and User Controls where the programmers place all the required static and dynamic content for the web page. Dynamic code which runs on the server can be located in a page within a block which is similar to other web progress technologies such as PHP, JSP, and ASP.

Code-behind model

It is suggested by Microsoft for dealing with dynamic program code to use the code-behind model, which seats this code in a separate file or in a specially designated script tag. Code-behind files typically have names MyPage.aspx.cs or MyPage.aspx.vb based on the ASPX file name. When using this style of programming, the developer write code to reply to different events, like the page being loaded, or a control being clicked.

ASP.NET's code-behind model marks a departure from Classic ASP in that it encourage the programmers to build application with separation of presentation and content. In theory, this would allow a web designer, to focus on the design markup with less possible for disturbing the programming code that drives it.

Much awaited Puma laptops chip is going to release

2008-06-05T06:10:00.000-07:00

Advanced Micro Devices is rolling out a much-awaited line-up of chips namely Puma for laptops.

Move comes after AMD posted its sixth consecutive quarterly loss in April amid missteps and market-share losses to Intel - its main competitor. The company sources said the launch of the processors and related parts is its largest-ever launch for notebook personal computers.

AMD counts more than 100 different notebook PCs designed to use versions of the Puma platform. "This is double the design wins over any previous mobile launches", said Leslie Sobon, Director of product marketing at AMD.

PC makers using Puma chips include Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens Computers BV and Hewlett-Packard, she said. Prices for the mobile PCs will be mid-range for laptops, from about $700 up to $2,000. Most will be available in time for the back-to-school shopping season, and some will be available this week.

Growth in desktop PCs has been slowing for years, and the mobile segment is the fast growing area in the PC industry. Market research firm IDC predicts that consumers will buy more mobile PCs than desktop PCs by the end of this year.

Adobe launches new version of Acrobat with Flash

2008-06-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

Acrobat allows users to package documents so they can be read across different hardware and OS.

Acrobat 9 comes with Adobe's video-enabling software Flash. Users can include Flash-based videos when they create and share documents with the PDF (portable document format).

With a professional version of Acrobat 9, in that user could package a PowerPoint presentation not just with images, but also with an audio of the presenter's voice.

Adobe also launched Acrobat.com, which will host Web-based software services to supports to creation and sharing the document.

The San Jose-based software maker hasn't launched a new version of the Acrobat since November 2006, almost a year after it purchased Macromedia Inc., the creator of Flash software. Users have expected to see Flash integrated into Acrobat since that purchase, Lynch said.

Windows 7

2008-06-03T03:11:00.000-07:00

No more mouse and keyboard to interact with the computers as Microsoft is going to release their next generation of Windows operating system. In this newer version you can control your computers using the touch screen technology as like Apple's iphone.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation gave a quick look about a the new features during the All Things D technology conference on the last Tuesday night. Gates said, "The way you interact with the system will change dramatically, today almost all the interaction is keyboard-mouse. Over years to come, the role of speech, vision, ink - all of those things - will be huge."

This new operating system is expected to hit the stores by the end of 2009 or early 2010. Microsoft expects that this new Windows version will get a healthier reception than Windows Vista.

Mysql_connect Vs Mysql_pconnect

2008-06-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

There are two different connections available, if you are connecting to a MySQL database in your PHP application, mysql_connect - which set up a new connection "each time" and mysql_pconnect which uses persistent connections.

Mysql_connect opens a new connection each time a PHP page is called, and closes the connection down again at the end of the request. It is perfect for pages that do not have a heavy usage.

Mysql_pconnect will also open a new connection when a PHP page is called, but it will NOT close the connection at the end of the request - instead, it will put aside it in a connection pool so that a succeeding request can persist to use the same connection. It's intended for pages that have a heavy usage - where the resources burn up by opening and closing connections every time might reduce performance.

But mysql_pconnect need some tuning of the servers and you may require limiting the numbers of connections / children and configuring timeouts and how to deal with idle children.

By using this you have some drawbacks as follows.
It does NOT give you sessions.
It does NOT give you a per-site-visitor login.
It does NOT give you any added functionality.

Google's New Favicon

2008-05-30T22:32:00.000-07:00

Google has changed a new favicon, you may noticed it in the address bar, in your browser's tabs or in the bookmarks list or also in the feed readers.

Google's upper-case "G" favicon in blue, green and red borders respectively, is a 16X16 pixels images which was hosted at google.com/favicon.ico, it was just replaced with a lower-case purple "g" with in a rounder corner rectangle. However, this new favicon is not less joyful and cheering, but it makes a lot of sense. The small "g" represents the symbol of infinity and Google is a website for the huge amount of information which are organized and indexed properly.

Mozilla Beta Release

2008-05-29T03:51:00.000-07:00

Finally Mozilla organization has released Firefox 3.0 RC1, which brings the open source Firefox browser with some improved features. You may install it with your existing Firefox installation, Firefox 3.0 RC1 beta will lugs your existing bookmarks into the newer version.

The main feature of this release it just shatter the page render much faster using the Gecko 1.9 renderer, which improves the feel tremendously. Added to that the infamous memory leaks seems to be patched, meaning that the browser ruins lightweight and functional.

Redirecting PHP pages

2008-05-28T00:57:00.000-07:00

Redirecting a visitor or the browser is necessary in different situations. If a page is temporarily down at that time we can use HTTP 302 redirect. Same way the permanent redirection is HTTP 301 redirection. Each the 3xx are different types of redirection and out of them 301 and 302 are common. The HTTP 301 permanent redirection is accepted by search engines also.

We will be use the Location Header function to redirect a page. This script works when we have not send to any php or html command to out put any thing in the browser. Trouble is to be taken not to send any other to the browser after the header redirection using location command. Here is the code.

header ("Location: http://www.websitename.com");

/* Redirect browser to websitename.com web site */
exit; // Closes further script execution .

You can see this code above will redirect the page to a new URL.

What is HTTP and HTTPS?

2008-05-27T03:32:00.000-07:00

HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transport Protocol, which is mostly used for transferring information back and forth between web servers and clients. HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transport Protocol Secure. It transfers the data between web servers and clients in a more secure Way.

If you visit a website or webpage, and take a look at the address in the web browser, it will probably start with the following: http://. This means that the website is communicating to your browser using an 'unsecure' language. In other words, it is possible for an unknown person to "eavesdrop" on your computer's conversation with the website. If you fill out a form on the website, someone might see the information you send to that site.

But if the web address commence with https://, which basically means your computer is conversing to the website in a secure code that no one can eavesdrop on.

This is why you never enter your credit card number in a http website!

If a website whenever requests you to enter your credit card details, you should involuntarily look to observe if the web address begins with https://. If it doesn't, there's no way you're going to enter sensitive information like a credit card number!

When to hire, and What Size Firm

2008-05-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

when a merchant employs an SEO firm, it is more important as which firm they hire. The right moment to outsource SEO help is right before a major site redesign. If a merchant does not appoint an SEO firm until after re-launch, "You were building your troubles in,".

If you do the site rebuild with the help of a SEO firm, you can stay away from pitfalls like unnecessary use of Flash, HTML frames, or graphics that works in opposition to search visibility. SEO concerns be supposed to be a central driver to a rebuild, not an after-the-fact add-on.

When you rent an SEO specialist, your own site's size is a key determinant of which company to hire. "There is no 'one-size-fits-all' SEO vendor,". A small SEO shop having three to four-people would be swamped by a massive corporate account, and a best-of-breed 100-person SEO/paid search consultancy would be far too costly for a 'mom and pop' site.

However, both of these SEO companies might do high-quality work at a reasonable price for the part of business they are set up to handle.The difficulty is that "a lot of SEO firms sell what they are having, not what is good for you”. In other words, it's up to the merchant to make a decision if an SEO company is the right size and has the right approach, the firms themselves will always say take the job, apart from this problem, as long as a merchant can compensate their fees.

To be clear in your mind, a good SEO expert will be able to locate or build up terms the business owner won't think of, but "the more you can be implicated with your own keyword research, the better."

GoLive is no more be alive

2008-05-22T06:57:00.000-07:00

Adobe Software has dropped their developing WYSIWYG web authoring tool GoLive. As they mainly develop this tool to compete with Macromedia Dreamweaver. However, with the Adobe's recent purchase of Macromedia and also the actuality that Dreamweaver is more suitable to develop web pages with most of the advance technologies, the Adobe's project GoLive has been call off.

Joomla!

2008-05-21T00:26:00.000-07:00

Joomla! is an Content Management System (CMS), that will help you build websites and many other powerful online applications. Joomla! is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.

Joomla! is use to all over the world to power everything from simple, personal home pages to complex corporate web applications. Here are just a number of the ways people use the Joomla! Software:

Corporate websites or portals
Online commerce
Small business websites
Non-profit and organizational websites
Government applications
Corporate intranets and extranets
Personal or family homepages
Community-based portals
Magazines and newspapers
The possibilities are unlimited…

Joomla! can be used to easily manage every aspect of the website, from adding content and images to updating the product catalog or taking online reservations.

Pay for Programmers and reviewers in the video game industry

2008-05-19T02:56:00.000-07:00

A survey has been conducted by Game Developer magazine about the pay structure in the field of video game for programmers and the reviewers. The survey result concludes that programmers were making large amount money. According to the sixth annual survey taken by Game Developer magazine, programmers were earning the largest part money with a regular income of more than $80,000 per year for a second year in a row.

Producers were bagged the Second position , who earned an average of $77,000 and Game designers came in after that with an average salary of better than $61,500 although those with three or less years of experience came in much lower at a salary of less than $45,000. Artists came in next with an average salary of about $43,000.

Quality assurance or game testers be paid an average of just under $38,000 per year but again with only three or fewer years of experience, that salary drops to only just over $26,000 per year. Certainly game reviewers are still paid the least and most would not even reveal what little they earn.

The results are in and programmers are still the highest paid in the video game industry and reviewers still are paid the least

How to use cookies in PHP

2008-05-17T00:27:00.000-07:00

Cookies in PHP is done by using the statement setcookie() , this statement is available from the time when version 3 of PHP.

int setcookie (string Name [, string Value [, int Expire [, string Path [, string Domain [, int Secure]]]]]);

setcookie() defines a cookie that is sent the information from the header. Cookies are sent before any html tag; therefore, we call one of these statements before any tag <html> or <head>. This is a restriction of cookies, not for PHP.

All messages, except the name are optional.

Name . Name of the cookie. If we create a cookie only with its name, the cookie name is existing in the Client under said name will be deleted. We can also replace to any argument with an empty string("").

Value . Value to be stored by the cookie in the Client.

Expire . The argument expire is an integer argument that indicates the time of the cookie will be deleted in the time format returned by the UNIX statements time() and mktime(). Time() + N seconds of duration is commonly used to specify the duration of the cookie.

Path . Subdirectory where the cookie has a value.

Domain . Domain where the cookie has a value. If we establish www.yourdomain.com as domain, the cookie is not set for domain.com. Meanwhile, if we establish yourdomain.com as domain, the cookie is set as for yourdomain.com as for www. yourdomain.com.

Secure . The secure indicates that the cookie will only be set by a secure HTTPS connection.

Example

setcookie("Ron", "Victor", time()+3600,"/","yahoo.com");

In this example, we set a user name cookie that has the value Victor , lasts 1 hour (3600 seconds) valid for the whole domain yahoo.com

Smarty for Programmers

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

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

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

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

A sample code like this (index.php) :

<php 
require 'Smarty.class.php';

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

The template (index.tpl) like this:

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

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

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

Building Web Services with JAX-WS

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

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

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

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

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

Ajax

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

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

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

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

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