Geek is a lifestyle

Making mail() function of PHP work under windows os

Aman — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:24:52 +0000

mail() is a useful function in PHP for sending mails, but many developers face problems in making mail() work properly on Windows.

In the section [mail function] in the php.ini file, you’ll find three settings:
SMTP, sendmail_from, and sendmail_path.

If your server runs on a Windows machine, you’ll have to set the SMTP option to point to your SMTP server for sending mail using PHP.

So, we must understand that PHP must have the address of some SMTP server where it would deliver the mail to be sent and that is all PHP can actually do.

So, we need to set SMTP to the SMTP server and the sendmail_from option to the required email address.
Now if we want to use localhost as the SMTP server, we must have some SMTP server running on our system, simple isn’t it? So we can download and install hMailServer from www.hmailserver.com/ for serving our purpose.

After installing the mail server make sure that you switch off SMTP authentication for connections coming from localhost / 127.0.0.1 in hMailServer for your mail() function to work.

And this is how [mail function] part of your php.ini should look:

[mail function]
; Setup for Windows systems
SMTP = localhost
sendmail_from = me@mydomain.tld

Height Adjustment of Multicoulmn Page Layout

Aman — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:26:03 +0000

There are times when we need to make a multi-column layout for our webpage with different background colors. One way is to set the float property of style attribute accordingly:

…someText

…otherText

but this results in something like below :

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nunc suscipit, ligula et cursus dignissim, mi tellus suscipit felis, quis fringilla lorem nisl non orci. Integer euismod nisl at velit ultricies rhoncus volutpat arcu mollis. Ut pharetra facilisis lacinia. Phasellus justo massa, bibendum ac gravida non, tempor vel felis. Etiam ac libero ut orci lacinia volutpat. Quisque quis nunc vel orci auctor fringilla. Aenean aliquam orci non mi accumsan ultricies. Cras vestibulum venenatis purus sed pretium. Nam erat sapien, pharetra ac rutrum mollis, cursus quis dui. Sed est turpis, rhoncus at auctor vitae, fermentum nec erat. Suspendisse potenti.

Aenean diam arcu, sodales a dapibus sed, tristique non nulla. Etiam quis felis eu purus malesuada elementum. Integer ac metus justo. Morbi iaculis erat id nisl ultrices iaculis. Aenean leo risus, congue eget tincidunt eget, tincidunt vel leo. Pellentesque malesuada lacus fermentum est euismod a cursus sem scelerisque. Nunc sodales luctus accumsan. Sed iaculis egestas vestibulum. Pellentesque vehicula purus ac nunc ullamcorper id cursus neque posuere. Maecenas tincidunt, libero eu tincidunt eleifend, turpis tellus auctor dolor, nec feugiat elit diam sed purus. Proin augue nunc, pretium sit amet sodales faucibus, feugiat et ligula. Aliquam ut ipsum arcu, in lacinia neque. Aliquam id enim vitae nisi viverra pharetra tempus viverra nisl. Integer sit amet egestas sem. Curabitur tempus, ante quis bibendum pretium, enim neque placerat justo, ac posuere nisi odio non mi. Donec fringilla massa in turpis commodo a fringilla erat ornare. Phasellus aliquet tellus vitae risus viverra convallis. Nam convallis sagittis nibh.

In publishing and graphic design, lorem ipsum is the name given to commonly used placeholder text (filler text) to demonstrate the graphic elements of a document or visual presentation, such as font, typography, and layout. The lorem ipsum text, which is typically a nonsensical list of semi-Latin words, is a hacked version of a Latin text by Cicero, with words/letters omitted and others inserted, but not proper Latin.
As nonsense (not actual Latin), the text is not italicized. The text often begins as, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit”. Substituting this dummy text for meaningful content should not be confused with “greeking”.
Even though using “lorem ipsum” often arouses curiosity because of its resemblance to classical Latin, it is not intended to have meaning. Where text is visible in a document, people tend to focus on the textual content rather than upon overall presentation, so publishers use lorem ipsum when displaying a typeface or design elements and page layout in order to direct the focus to the publication style and not the meaning of the text.

Now as we can see that the heights of the columns are unequal and therefore the page looks dirty. What we can do is:

1. Put the whole thing in a div, and set overflow:hidden
2. Set margin-bottom: -3500px; padding-bottom: 3500px; i.e. to an extent which cannot be the difference in height of the column.

…someText

…otherText

Output:

gnUnify 2009 – Ajax with PHP

Aman — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:06:47 +0000

I gave a talk on ajax at gnunify’09. This is the slide I used to give the talk.

View more presentations from jainaman.

gnUnify – 2009 on 13th & 14th Feb at SICSR

Aman — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:00:28 +0000

Create database backup & email using php

Aman — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:40:33 +0000

It is generally difficult to backup our database regularly and store them. With more and more storage space being provided by our email providers, we can write a script that can be called when required and it will automatically create database backup and mail it to the specified email.

The following zip contains two files:
1. ajDbBackup.class
2. backup.php

ajDbBackup.class file contains the ajDbBackup class which can be used to backup the database. An example of usage is given in file backup.php .
To email backup create a php file in the same directory where ajDbBackup.class is kept with the following data:
include ‘./ajDbBackup.class’;
$backup = new ajDbBackup;
$backup->emailTo = “email@domain.tld”;
$backup->emailFrom = “emailTwo@domain.tld”;
$backup->host = “mysqlHost”;
$backup->user = “mysqlUser”;
$backup->password = “mysqlUserPassword”;
$backup->dbName = “mysqlDbNameToBeBacked”;
$backup->ajMail();
?>

Give execution and read/write permissions to the files. Just call the file you have created through any web browser.

Skipping pass phrase requirement while restarting a server

Aman — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:08:32 +0000

There are a lot of times we need to write automated script which can start/restart a server when ever required. Or generally if we are restarting the server quite a lot of time (maybe for testing purpose), we are prompted to enter pass phrase if we have installed libapache-mod-ssl and have configured with any one of the domains on the server.

So, sometimes we feel the need of skipping the pass phrase prompt. Here is what we need to do:
1. Remove the encryption from the RSA private key (we will also preserve the original file):
$ cp server.key serverOld.key
$ openssl rsa -in serverOld.key -out server.key
2. We should make sure that server.key is only readable by root by:
$ chmod 400 server.key

After this we won’t be prompted for pass phrase every time we restart the server.

Using BSNL EVDO modem on Ubuntu 8.10

Aman — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:45:59 +0000

We will use wvdial for using EVDO. Wvdial dialer is PPP dialer, which dials a modem and starts PPP to connect to the Internet.

Steps to connect are:
1. As root, in terminal, type :
# wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf
2. Now edit /etc/wvdial.conf, type:
# vim /etc/wvdial.conf
2. Now enter your username, password, & phone no as:
Phone = #777
Username = cdma
Password = cdma
3.Check your wvdial.conf file for these two entries:
Stupid Mode = 1
Auto DNS = 1
If they are not there, add them.
4. Save the file wvdial.conf and exit the text editor.
5. Now type sudo wvdial in the terminal and the EVDO should start working

FOR REFERENCE:
My /etc/wvdial.conf contains:

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB1
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Stupid Mode = 1
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Phone = #777
New PPPD = yes
ISDN = 0
Username = cdma
Password = cdma
Baud = 9600

Announcing PHPCamp.net

Aman — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:53:54 +0000

It is my pleasure to let you know that most awaited PHPCamp.net is now launched.

I am happy to give you an early invite to join PHPCamp.net- a site dedicated to our PHP community.

It’s just not yet another website for campers but much more to it.

In words of Denham Grey:
“Knowledge is embodied in people gathered in communities and networks. The road to knowledge is via people, conversations, connections and relationships. Knowledge surfaces through dialog, all knowledge is socially mediated and access to knowledge is by connecting to people that know or know who to contact.”

The aim of PHPCamp.net is to bring together all the PHP developers and share knowledge with each other by posting articles, comments, news, events, happenings and much more. It is easy to use, has a friendly UI and above all provides a platform where all campers could build contacts with each other.
This stands our one more contribution to the PHP community.

Just click on http://phpcamp.net/ and start reading the latest articles contributed by the campers.

I look forward to see you soon on PHPCamp.net

Mr. L K Advani blogging

Aman — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:16:02 +0000

Yeah! you read it correct!
After seeing the effect of web media in election, now Indian politicians are also following the same path. It’s good to know that! I don’t have much idea about other politician’s blogging. But here is a link to Mr. L K Advani’s blog. Please do add a comment here if you find the link to blog of other political people so that I can add ‘em here.

So, now directly post a comment on his blog and ask him a question!

IdeaCamp Pune 2

Aman — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 04:49:27 +0000

What is IdeaCamp ?

IdeaCamp, is a self-organized gathering to share ideas and see them shape by applying divergent thinking. The objective of the camp is to get people from different roles like designers, entrepreneurs, financers, creative minds, technology evangelists, product managers and marketers together to bandy ideas from everyone’s viewpoint. Ideally by end of the gathering we should have ‘proof of potential’ for our ideas.

When & Where?

January 17, 2009
SICSR
Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research,
7th Floor, Atur Centre, Gokhale Cross Road,
Model Colony, Pune – 411016.
Check for directions: http://www.sadakmap.com/p/SICSR/map/

Who all are attending?

As the description of IdeaCamp says people from different roles like designers, entrepreneurs, financers, creative minds, technology evangelists, product managers are a part of it. And not just from Pune, people form different places get together here at IdeaCamp.

Did u find Lunch removed from the provided list and wondering what to do?

Here is a list of nearby places where you can rush:

1. College Canteen
2. ELTIS Canteen (It’s again a symbi canteen, in the next building. It’s better than SICSR canteen.)
3. Just want to have bada pao, or bread pattis ? You can go to Siddhivinayak (a tapri near om super market)
4. Ah! are you a pure veggi ? no problem! Go to Akshay pure veg restaurant . You can even have good juices and shakes here. (It’s near Pyramid Mall)
5. Other places nearby are: Subham, Dragons (for chinese food), Shai(again near Pyramid Mall).

I guess that’s enough. I’m not here to advertise about the restaurants! huhhh!

What’s Next?
1. You can visit the IdeaCamp website and register yourself there.
2. You can follow the IdeaCamp twitter to have the latest informations.
3. You can continue reading my blog .