The popular opinion seems to be either health & safety, or cutting back on costs. I’d probably go with the former as some numpty parent probably tried to sue some cereal maker for trying to bring a bit of joy into a child’s life…

Anyway, I sent messages to Kellogg’s and Nestlé via their websites, and I actually got a (rubbish) response from Nestlé’s consumer relations department…

Dear James

We have taken the decision to move away from offering promotions that directly appeal to children. However, we continue to offer promotions which can be taken advantage of and enjoyed by the whole family, like our Go Free promotion.

We hope you will continue to buy Nestle cereals and take up some of our exciting offers lined up for next year.

Kind Regards

<name removed>

Consumer Relations

That’s not really an answer as such, which could be interpreted as them avoiding the topic entirely…

I have not yet had a response from Kellogg’s on the matter either…

Update 6th Oct 2009:

Kellogg’s responded! With a much more useful answer:

Dear Mr Titcumb

Thank you for your e-mail. The reason that we no longer have the inserts inside the packets  is because of a change in Government guidelines in Advertising and Marketing to children.

If you want to have a look at our current sites Headstarters, they are available at www.kelloggs.co.uk and I hope you enjoy them.

In the mean, time thanks very much for your interest.

If you have any further questions that I can help you with please let me know.

Kind Regards
<name removed>
Customer Service Representative

So basically – it is Labour’s fault.

<?php
 
class a
{
	function method($arg)
	{
		echo "method, with args: {$arg}<br />";
	}
}
 
class b extends a
{
	function method()
	{
		echo "child method, no args<br />";
	}
}
 
$a_test = new a();
$b_test = new b();
 
$a_test->method("test");
$b_test->method();
 
// Outputs:
// method, with args: test
// child method, no args

As you can see, class “b” can override “method” without using the same prototype as a::method. Bear in mind however, this is most certainly not the case with abstract methods – as they provide the prototype that child classes must adhere to, as shown here:

<?php
 
abstract class a
{
	abstract function method($arg);
}
 
class b extends a
{
	function method()
	{
		echo "child method, no args<br />";
	}
}
 
$a_test = new a();
$b_test = new b();
 
$a_test->method("test");
$b_test->method();
 
// Throws an error:
// Fatal error: Declaration of b::method() must be compatible with that of a::method() in /path/to/inherit-check.php on line 14

div.socialhomes
{
  margin-top: -5px;
  text-align: center;
}

However, inline styles (i.e. style=”…”) take precedence over all external styles. My opinion is that they shouldn’t be used because of this, and the plug-in developer should’ve used external CSS to achieve the styles. However, there is a way around it, by using the !important modifier. I’m not sure about browser compatibility, but in my instance it’s not that critical, so I’m not fussed about it… I simply changed the above class to this, and it worked!

div.socialhomes
{
  margin-top: -5px !important;
  text-align: center !important;
}

Like magic… It basically says “this style is really important, don’t over-ride it”… so there you have it!

Seeing the lifeless infant after the accident, the motionless stare, was just horrible to watch.

Warning: This video is not suitable for minors!

This video is just a dramatisation, but is a realistic representation of what could happen if you use a mobile phone whilst driving. Watch it, and maybe you’ll think twice…

The biggest gripe I have with Eclipse however, is trying to install plug-ins. I don’t think I’ve EVER installed a plug-in without having to manually mess around with dependencies and trying to manually resolve them. It’s a HUGE downfall, and makes any Eclipse IDE virtually unusable. It’s intensely annoying when I just want to get on with things, but some bloody plug-in I need (normally the CollabNet/Mylyn plugins) just won’t install without getting in a hissy fit.

Take for example this latest error:

Cannot complete the install because of a conflicting dependency.
Software being installed: Mylyn Task List (Required) 3.2.0.v20090617-0100-e3x (org.eclipse.mylyn_feature.feature.group 3.2.0.v20090617-0100-e3x)
Software currently installed: Zend Studio 7.0.0.v20090806 (com.zend.php.ide 7.0.0.v20090806)
Only one of the following can be installed at once:
Java 5 Compatibility Checker 3.2.0.v20090617-0100-e3x (org.eclipse.mylyn.compatibility 3.2.0.v20090617-0100-e3x)
Java 5 Compatibility Checker 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x (org.eclipse.mylyn.compatibility 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x)
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: Zend Studio 7.0.0.v20090806 (com.zend.php.ide 7.0.0.v20090806)
To: org.eclipse.mylyn.ide_feature.feature.group [3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x]
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: Mylyn Task-Focused Interface (Recommended) 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x (org.eclipse.mylyn.context_feature.feature.group 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x)
To: org.eclipse.mylyn_feature.feature.group [3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x]
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: Mylyn Bridge: Eclipse IDE 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x (org.eclipse.mylyn.ide_feature.feature.group 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x)
To: org.eclipse.mylyn.team_feature.feature.group [3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x]
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: Mylyn Bridge: Team Support 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x (org.eclipse.mylyn.team_feature.feature.group 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x)
To: org.eclipse.mylyn.context_feature.feature.group [3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x]
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: Mylyn Task List (Required) 3.2.0.v20090617-0100-e3x (org.eclipse.mylyn_feature.feature.group 3.2.0.v20090617-0100-e3x)
To: org.eclipse.mylyn.compatibility [3.2.0.v20090617-0100-e3x]
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: Mylyn Task List (Required) 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x (org.eclipse.mylyn_feature.feature.group 3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x)
To: org.eclipse.mylyn.compatibility [3.2.1.v20090722-0200-e3x]

From what I understand here, I can’t install Mylyn because of a 0.0.1 version difference. Because of two packages that were released within a month of each other?! That – in my opinion – is stupid. I just want to get on with things but I can’t because of this.

I sincerely hope the next version of Eclipse will sort out this stupid dependency issue, as if I was the Eclipse development team, this sort of difficulty-of-use issue would be a real show-stopper. In addition, I have no idea why Zend would base their €399 IDE which is meant to be a “professional-grade” solution to “maximise developer productivity” on such a shoddy, buggy IDE.

This kind of lazy form creation really annoys me. This company is trying to make users jump through hoops just so their form developers don’t have to bother reformatting the data into an acceptable format to them.

It is absolutely critical when developing a form that must convert well to accept pretty much anything in the form. For example if I want to write “15,000″ or even “£15,000″ in the amount box for my insurance, then let me! Don’t tell me it’s wrong, because it isn’t. The developers here have made a big mistake, and although I was just testing out their form and wasn’t going to buy a product, this sort of thing really does affect form conversion.

So here’s a big hint to form developers on business-critical forms that must convert well: don’t be lazy – let the customer enter whatever they like, and try and interpret the data the best you can. Even better – if you can’t truly determine what the user has entered, provide some feedback.

Take for example an amount field for loans, insurance and so on. Valid entries could be:

• £15000
• £15,000
• 15,000
• 15.000
• 15.000,00
• 15000.00
• 15,000.-

You might think “well my form is only for UK customers, so the European format isn’t used” – wrong. Many UK customers use the European 15.000,00 format. The problem here is trying to determine where decimal places really are.

My preferred solution is to use Javascript to convert the input into what we think the customer is trying to enter, for example converting these numbers:

• £15,000 > 15000
• 15,000.- > 15000
• 15,000.00 -> 1500000
• 15.000,00 – 1500000

The conversion here could be some Javascript that removes all non-numeric characters and replaces what is in the input box when the focus blurs away. With any luck the user will notice the change, and notice that in the last two instances, the number is 1.5 million, not the 15.000,00 they thought they’d entered. The customer will then tend to go back to the box, and simply delete the extra zeros.

Enhancements to this idea could be to highlight the box and display a subtle hint that the number the customer entered was changed, e.g. “Is this number right?”, or if the number seems too high for the expected range of the input box. Say for example, the likelihood of an insurance quote above 1,000,000 is pretty slim, why not display this “Is this number right?” message if the value is 500,000 or above.

There are many tips and tricks that you can use to make filling in your form so much easier – and I highly recommend doing them. Displaying a big red warning message at the top stating that my postcode was invalid is a huge drop-off point, and you will see users dropping off from the form at this point. You have to help the user, not make them jump through hoops. Encourage them to fill in the form, not tell them they’re doing it all wrong.

Consider making:

<input type="checkbox" name="remember_me" /> Remember my login

Into:

<input type="checkbox" name="remember_me" id="remember_me" />
<label for="remember_me">Remember my login</label>

kthxbai.

As some of you may know, back in March/April time, I started revising for my Zend PHP5 Certification, but that was pretty much put on hold when we had a baby… now I’m revising again and after having revised a couple of topics I retook the test. As you can see, I passed it “with flying colours” this time, but still have improvement to do with Streams and Design patterns…

Comparing with my last test:

• 2 categories remained the same;
  • Database access
  • Web features)
• 4 categories improved;
  • PHP 4/5 Differences (was FAIL)
  • Security (was PASS)
  • String Manipulation and Regular Expressions (was PASS)
  • Functions (was PASS)
• 2 categories declined;
  • Streams and Network Programming (was PASS)
  • Design (was EXCELLENT) [eep - not so good that!]

I think overall however, these statistics shouldn’t be examined too much – there are some questions I can guess and don’t demonstrate that I truly *know* some topics, so I’m going to cover off a few categories I don’t feel to confident on anyway – but then the practise tests are just indicators, and not meant to represent the final exam… we’ll see!

Looking at Firebug’s net monitoring, I thought “I wonder if Google will open up an API”? It would be quite cool to have an API to request search results from, and Google returns you a load of results in well under a second (Firebug reports the requests take around 300-400ms, which is nice!). At the moment I don’t think it’s a possibility – even me just playing around brought up Google’s human checker (a captcha) that is meant to stop automated search requests…

Makes ya think though, doesn’t it?

Pick your Artist: Bal Sagoth

Are you a male or female:
- Enthroned in the Temple of the Serpent Kings

Where do you live:
- Into the Silent Chambers of the Sapphirean Throne (Sagas from the Antediluvian Scrolls) / Valley Of Silent Paths

How do you feel:
- Beneath the Crimson Vaults Of Cydonia

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
- In search of the lost cities of antarctica

Your favorite form of transportation:
- Shackled To the Trilithon of Kutulu

Your best friend is:
- The Hammer Of The Emperor

Favorite time of day:
- Star-maps of the Ancient Cosmographers

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called?
- The splendour of a thousand swords gleaming beneath the blazon of the hyperborean empire (Part III)

What is life to you:
- The sixth Adulation of his Cthonic Majesty

Your fear:
- The Fallen Kingdoms of the Abyssal Plain

What is the best advice you have to give:
- Blood Slakes The Sand At The Circus Maximus

How I would like to die:
- And Atlantis Falls…

My motto:
- A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria

Anyway, this year I’m looking forward to seeing some great bands, including Carcass, Katatonia, Saxon, Apocalyptica, Blind Guardian, Enslaved, Amon Amarth, Anathema, Europe, Satyricon and Turisas. It also means I get to finally update The Metal Page!

This process does involve a bit of fiddling and knowledge of how things work, and the instructions on the app’s page are pretty straightforward anyway.

Tethering has been made really easy by using an app called Azilink. All it is is an OpenVPN server on your phone, which allows your laptop to connect to it via a USB cable.

Here’s the steps – pretty much the same as on the instruction page linked above – but specifically for Ubuntu:

• Install OpenVPN (don’t bother with Network Manager): sudo apt-get install openvpn
• Enable USB debugging on your phone. From the home screen, this is under Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging.
• Download the Android 1.5 SDK: http://developer.android.com/sdk/download.html?v=android-sdk-linux_x86-1.5_r3.zip
• Extract to /opt/android-sdk-linux_x86-1.5_r3
• Add the /opt/android-sdk-linux_x86-1.5_r3/tools directory to your path (e.g. in .bashrc add PATH=/opt/android-sdk-linux_x86-1.5_r3/tools:”${PATH}”
• Log out and back in again for the .bashrc to update
• You should be able to run adb now – type “adb”, hit RETURN and it should say it’s starting a daemon.
• Create and open /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules in your favourite editor
• Add the line: SUBSYSTEM==”usb”, SYSFS{idVendor}==”0bb4″, MODE=”0666″
• Set the permissions of the file: sudo chmod a+rx /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
• Connect your HTC Magic via USB cable to your laptop (hint: “tail -f /var/log/messages &” gives you information when your phone is connected)
• Check adb recognises your device: “adb devices” you should see a device listed
• Download: http://lfx.org/azilink/azilink.apk
• Install the app to your phone by doing “adb install azilink.apk”
• You should see the Azilink app in your apps list (its a little moth icon).
• On your laptop, type “adb forward tcp:41927 tcp:41927″
• On your phone, run the Azilink app, and check the “Service active” checkbox. Status will change to “waiting for connection”
• Download: http://azilink.googlecode.com/files/azilink.ovpn
• On your laptop, run “sudo openvpn azilink.ovpn”
• In a few moments on your phone, Azilink should report the status is now “Connected to host”.
• In a new terminal (don’t close the openvpn program, you’ll lose your connection!) edit /etc/resolv.conf and add “nameserver 192.168.56.1″

With any luck you should now have internet. Next time you want to connect, I think you’ll have to do something like (and I’ve not checked this yet!):

• On phone, check USB debugging is enabled (if you disabled it)
• Connect HTC Magic to laptop with USB cable
• On laptop terminal, type: “adb forward tcp:41927 tcp:41927″
• On phone, check the “Service active” box (if you disabled it — recommended as it will probably drain your battery!)
• On laptop run “sudo openvpn azilink.ovpn”
• Add “nameserver 192.168.56.1″ into your /etc/resolv.conf (assuming Network Manager over-writes your resolv.conf)

I did this on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) and this worked for me. Hopefully this should work pretty straightforward without problems.

Essentially what this app does is run a VPN server on your phone. ADB (Android Debugging Bridge) is a development tool that allows forwarding of TCP traffic from your laptop to the phone (and vica-versa) – working in a similar way to an SSH tunnel, but this is all unencrypted. Then all you have to do is open an unecrypted VPN connection to the forwarded port (i.e. 127.0.0.1:41927), and route the traffic through that. The nameserver isn’t auto set of course so that has to be done manually.

I have no idea why tethering is so difficult on the HTC Magic – it should be made much easier, especially as it’s such an open phone. However, thanks to it’s open-ness, apps like Azilink exist and make tethering possible!

Handy tip: You can download this article and keep it on your PC which may help if you’re trying to set this up and you dont have an alternative internet connection. Don’t forget to download all the files mentioned above as well! Right click this link and Save As….

Open your CSV in Excel, and add two new columns “vlookup” and “is_processed”. The formula to apply should be something like:

=VLOOKUP(C2,'already processed'!A:A,1,TRUE)

C2 is the ID you want to check if is in the list of already processed IDs (the “needle”). If you want the matching to be non-strict and have the lookup table sorted in whatever order (probably not), set the last parameter to TRUE. Normally you want FALSE to check anywhere, and make sure you sort the lookup table in ascending order.

Add a new sheet, and call it “already processed”, and add your list of IDs in the first column. This is your “haystack”.

If you return to your original sheet, you’ll see the “vlookup” column has either IDs (if the ID is found in your list) or #N/A if the value is not found. To make this neat, add this formula to your is_processed column:

=IF(ISNA(F2),"no","yes")

Where F2 is the vlookup column. Then for the IDs (”needles”) that are found in the search list (”haystack”) the value of is_processed will be “yes”, and all that aren’t found it’ll be “no”. You can then filter on this or whatever you like!

apt-get install ubuntuone-client ubuntuone-client-tools

to get it to work. Still, after that, it ran pretty smoothly and I’ve just synced up my first few files. As of yet I don’t really have a use for this sort of thing, but I expect backups of certain things would be useful. The free tier is a 2GB plan, or there’s a paid 10GB plan. Personally I’d prefer more storage if I were to use it but the 10GB is USD $10 so the amount of storage I’d need would I guess cost around $50 a month going on $1/GB.

Still, it’s a cool little feature and a welcome addition to my laptop, although as of yet I have no-one to share files with… I’ll figure out how to invite people if someone requests

If something annoys you about the programming language itself, you can just go ahead and change it. The upside to that is that you get the features you think are missing in PHP. The downside is that your code can potentially become incompatible with everyone else, and your code becomes quite unportable.

Nonetheless, Ilia Alshanetsky (author of php|architect’s Guide to PHP Security) has posted on his blog a patch of PHP 5.3 that provides proper, traditional, type hinting, currently unsupported for scalar types.

As he explains, type hinting is a controversial topic; what with the fluidity of PHP and it’s loosely-typed nature. However I think type hinting, especially strict type hinting would be more advantageous than disadvantageous. He explains how his patch adds a certain amount of flexibilty for numbers within strings (using the “numeric” pseudo-type) allowing a string to be passed off as a number (perfectly legal in PHP… e.g. “1″ + “1″ = 2), or alternatively using the stricter “int” type to specify a number and must be of integer type i.e. “1″ is not valid, but 1 is.

Unfortunately I don’t like delving into compiling stuff, so I’ll just have to hope it gets included in the main trunk of PHP… until then I can pretend I have type hinting, perhaps by adding comments such as this messy mess… *ahem*:

function foo(/* int */ $bar)

$value = $a_value ? $a_value : $b_value;

We can now simply do:

$value = $a_value ?: $b_value;

It goes without saying that one should still not nest ternary operators as they become messy and extremely difficult to understand, even with good commenting. Consider an if/elseif/else or switch instead.

There are a few other things in PHP 5.3.0 that I’m looking forward to as well, one of which is the bundling of ext/phar which is really rather cool.

There are other dubious things, which are covered (and argued) in great detail elsewhere such as the goto operator and the introduction of namespaces…

Why should I not be allowed to send a parcel, just because I use Linux? There is no reason for it – especially as they support Mozilla Firefox! There is no difference between Windows Firefox and Linux Firefox, and no reason to stop me using Linux to send a parcel. Thankfully plug-ins like the User Agent Switcher exist, to circumvent such inept and naive programming.

Update: User Agent Switcher didn’t work. I used Firebug to enable the submit button though, which let me through happily…

If you have a nice logo to display, and you don’t want to display a big bulky <h1> tag on your page, there’s a really easy way of doing that:

<div class="site-title">
<h1>Your Site Name</h1>
</div>

This markup is great for search engines. Search engines will see the <h1> tag and notice that “Your Site Name” is the page’s main title. Little things like this help search engines determine what your site actually contains, as opposed to the hugely ineffective method of repeating a load of words several thousand times in tiny text…

The way to make that neat semantic code look nice and pretty is with CSS, in order to hide that “Your Site Name” text but display your nice company logo instead…

div.site-title
{
background-image: url('/images/your-company-logo.png');
}
div.site-title h1
{
display: none;
}

As you can probably tell, what this CSS does is ask the browser to display your company’s logo as the background image to this div, and hide the <h1> text.

There’s another issue though – how do we make that lovely logo clickable to go to the home page? That’s easy too, and semantically.

<div class="site-title">
<h1>Your Site Name</h1>
<a href="/home/page/url"><span>Click here to go to the home page</span></a>
</div>

We modify the CSS as well to hide the text itself (in the <span>) but make the anchor (the <a>) tag into a block, which turns it into a link that covers the entire logo.

div.site-title
{
background-image: url('/images/your-company-logo.png');
}
div.site-title h1
{
display: none;
}
div.site-title a
{
display: block;
width: 300px;
height: 60px;
}
div.site-title a span
{
display: none;
}

We’ve used a similar trick here to hide the text that should only appear when CSS is turned off. As mentioned, we explicitly set the dimensions of the anchor tag to fill the dimensions of the logo image.

That’s all there is to it, and search engines will love that as opposed to just using something like this for your logo:

<a href="/home/page/path"><img src="/images/company-logo.png" title="Company logo" /></a>

The search engine or text-based user looking at your site will be able to see clearly what the page title is, and it will load really quickly as unless you’re applying the CSS styles, there will be no images to load, which makes it an all-round winner really!

I’m not saying this is the best way of doing it, but I’ve found it to be quite clever and I use it. If someone’s got some better ideas out there, why not add a comment with your idea

I’m no expert by any means, but it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

Whats more, if Microsoft really love the Bing name, will they start replacing all the Windows Live products after replacing Live Search? Will we start using Bing Messenger, Bing Hotmail and so on? Will they do a last minute re-brand of Windows 7 to be Windows Bing? That would be quite funny…

First create the logon key. SSH to the server you wish to set up the connection to using your normal username and password.

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
cd ~/.ssh
chmod 600 authorized_keys
ssh-keygen -t dsa
cat id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Then download the id_dsa file to your laptop, using SFTP or similar, move it to something like ~/.ssh/keys/myserver.key and chmod 600 myserver.key. On your laptop, edit ~/.ssh/config and add something like this:

Host myserver
    HostName 1.2.3.4
    User u12345678
    IdentityFile /home/user/.ssh/keys/myserver.key

That should be all there is to it!

I think this table (source) pretty much explains itself…

Basically to get the iPhone 3G S 16GB for free, you must be tied into a £73.41 a month contract for 18 months. Pay-as-you-go prices for the iPhones 3G S 16GB and 32GB are £440.40 and £538.30 respectively, which is just disgusting.

The HTC Magic (released back in May) already has most of the features the new iPhone is now touting – so why bother spending all the money when you could get just as good a smartphone, but for much less. I’m on a £35 a month 18 month contract, and my phone was free. The only feature the HTC Magic doesn’t currently have is internet tethering, but I’ve only had a use for that once in my life… so… I’m not really that bothered. And from what I’ve led to believe the HTC Magic hardware does support it, but it requires a little hacking to get working. And despite what you might read in the press, it’s actually a bloody good smartphone, and I got along with it much better than the iPod Touch I tried. Admittedly I’ve only played with an iPhone for about 10/15 minutes, but I found it pretty janky, just like the iPod Touch I tried.

And if you don’t like the virtual keyboard on the HTC Magic, word on the street is that there will be a new Android-based phone released in the summer that returns the physical qwerty… along with a whole host of other Android-based phones from various manufacturers.

Today is a good day for Android, and a bad day for your pocket if you’re an iPhone fan…

However I came across a couple of “issues” or teething problems rather, that thankfully with a short Google (sorry Bing…), I managed to find solutions for…

Delaying the Code Completion Pop-up

Here at Netbasic towers, we have very big projects. The main project I work with has nearly 5,000 files, most of which are classes, and our custom framework has around 500 files, again mostly consisting of classes. Can you tell we love OOP PHP? Anyhow, this makes Netbeans run a little slow when loading the code completion pop-up. In Eclipse PDT, there is the option to delay the appearance of the code completion so it only appears if you’re stuck. In Netbeans I could not find such an option, and my only option appeared to be turn of auto appearing the pop-up, thus forcing me to Ctrl+Space every time I wanted code completion. This is a little niggle, but there is a solution for it:

As a workaround in the file:
%USERPROFILE%/.netbeans/6.5/config/Editors/text/x-java/Preferences/org-netbeans-modules-editor-settings-CustomPreferences.xml

The value completion-auto-popup-delay can be set manually.

Source: http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=124540

Tabs versus Spaces for Indentation

We use tabs at Netbasic, and using tabs is my preference over using 4 or another number of spaces. Despite how simple the interface is for Netbeans, it’s a little confusing. The reason is because it’s actually aimed towards Java developers. Read this and comprehend it, and it might just help you figure out how to use tabs instead of spaces…

Four spaces should be used as the unit of indentation. The exact construction of the indentation (spaces vs. tabs) is unspecified. Tabs must be set exactly every 8 spaces (not 4).

Source: http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/html/CodeConventions.doc3.html#262

Basically what you have to do is set the “Exand Tabs to Spaces” off, and set the “Tab Size” to 4.

Credit goes to Al’s Blog for that one. And the issue for it: http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=52053

With these couple of things out the way (which were show-stoppers for us using Netbeans at Netbasic), I can continue using Netbeans for now and hopefully recommend that we switch from Eclipse PDT!

Last weekend we spent outdoors with her at a couple of picnics (one of which was my nephew Finley’s birthday!) which was really nice and so she got to see some friends and family. We’re keeping in touch with my parents in France via webcam which is great, and she gave them a smile the other morning which was really nice to see. If you’ve been following my tweets, you’ll know that she’s already smiling and laughing. At the moment most laughs turn into hiccups, but there is the odd time (normally when I’m at work, damnit!) that she does a proper laugh. I managed to catch her doing it this morning which was so awesome to see.

It’s a busy and hectic life at the moment, and I rarely get a chance to do anything for myself, but she is totally worth it.

Create a new project of the type you want to convert your existing project to. In my case, I just created a new PHP Project. Alternatively, you can use an existing PHP Project (or project of the type you want to convert to) if you have one. Open the .project file of this, and copy the <natures> and <buildSpec> XML sections. Open the .project file of the project you wish to convert. Remove the old <natures> and <buildSpec> sections and replace with the copied section. If you have other <natures>, for example PDE etc., then you’ll have to merge them by hand. Mine now looks a little like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<projectDescription>
	<name>someprojectname</name>
	<comment></comment>
	<projects>
		<project>otherproject</project>
	</projects>
	<buildSpec>
		<buildCommand>
			<name>org.eclipse.wst.validation.validationbuilder</name>
			<arguments>
			</arguments>
		</buildCommand>
		<buildCommand>
			<name>org.eclipse.dltk.core.scriptbuilder</name>
			<arguments>
			</arguments>
		</buildCommand>
		<buildCommand>
			<name>org.eclipse.php.core.PhpIncrementalProjectBuilder</name>
			<arguments>
			</arguments>
		</buildCommand>
		<buildCommand>
			<name>org.eclipse.php.core.ValidationManagerWrapper</name>
			<arguments>
			</arguments>
		</buildCommand>
	</buildSpec>
	<natures>
		<nature>org.eclipse.php.core.PHPNature</nature>
	</natures>
</projectDescription>

It’s as simple as that! Close the project and re-open it and you’ll have all the magical features of PDT (or whichever project type you wanted…)

Again, we start with installing the LAMP stack if you haven’t done so already:

sudo tasksel install lamp-server

So now you’ve got your LAMP stack up and running, lets download the latest SVN tag of Zend Framework. At the time of writing, the latest stable is 1.8.1, which I’ll use here. If you want to check for the latest version, visit http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/standard/tags/ in your browser, and the last folder is the one you want. If you want stable full releases, ignore the RC/PR versions. So, once you’ve determined the version you want, we’ll check out the release:

cd /opt
sudo mkdir ZendFramework
sudo svn co http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/standard/tags/release-1.8.1/

It is likely you’ll need to use sudo for these commands as /opt is owned by root by default. You’ll see a big long list of files being checked out, and once that’s done you’ll have a new folder appropriately named “release-1.8.1″. Create a soft link called “current” to the release folder so you can change the default included Zend Framework version without restarting Apache in the future:

sudo ln -s release-1.8.1 current

You can stop there if you like, and manually add the include path into your PHP scripts using set_include_path. However, if you would like the current Zend Framework included automatically, then continue by opening /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini in your favourite editor. Add the path to your include_path list. For example, if your current include_path is (and this is the default):

include_path = ".:/usr/share/php5:/usr/share/pear"

Then change it to:

include_path = ".:/usr/share/php5:/usr/share/pear:/opt/ZendFramework/current/library"

All you need to do now is restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

In the future, if you wish to change to a new default Zend Framework version (for example 1.8.2), then just check out the SVN directory and change the soft link. You won’t even have to restart Apache, and the changes will take effect immediately! For example:

sudo svn co http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/standard/tags/release-1.8.2/
sudo rm current
sudo ln -s release-1.8.2 current

Now to initialise a new Zend Framework project using Zend_Tool, we need to set up paths and so on for your command line. If you haven’t already, you need to install the CLI (Command Line Interface) for PHP:

sudo apt-get install php5-cli

Once that’s installed, we need to add the Zend Framework’s bin directory to the path. First lets add the framework path to the CLI’s php.ini. Do the same php.ini modification as above but in /etc/php5/cli/php.ini.

Edit your ~/.bashrc or /etc/profile (or wherever you’d like to add the path) and add this line:

PATH=/opt/ZendFramework/current/bin:"${PATH}"

To check this is all working properly, you can:

zf.sh show version

If you see the above output, then Zend Framework is successfully setup. For more information about Zend_Tool and how to set up a new Zend Framework 1.8.x project, read the documentation.

You can keep up to date with the latest Zend software, then just subscribe to their RSS feed!

My problem is that I want pretty URLs for my app, such as http://blah.com/home/folder/5/item/27. The URL structure of Zend Framework means that the URL has to look like this: http://blah.com/home/index/folder/5/item/27. There’s probably a way around that (my original idea was to use http://blah.com/home/?folder=5&item=27 but that’s just ugly), but I’ll settle for using the pointless verb “go” as the action name, resulting in http://blah.com/home/go/folder/5/item/27. But I also want that goAction to be called when I just go to http://blah.com/home/. I had a quick look at the ZF documentation, but I couldn’t see much about setting a default action in a controller, so here’s my solution:

class HomeController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
	public function indexAction()
	{
		// ... action code here ...
	}
 
	public function goAction()
	{
		$this->_forward('index');
	}
}

As I said, there’s probably an easier way around this, but this works for me, so ner!

Update: As always, there is an easier way of doing this and I was reading the wrong part of the documentation. As Patrick says in his comment:

Hello, there is a way to specify default module, controller and action for each active route in the Zend_Controller_Router used by Zend_Controller_Front.

http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.controller.router.html#zend.controller.router.routes.standard.variable-defaults

just pass an array

If you’re seeing something like this in your Apache error.log:

No module named trac.web.modpython_frontend

Then what has probably happened is Python was upgraded to a more recent version. I install Trac in python 2.4, therefore the Trac egg was in the /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages directory. After the upgrade to python 2.6, the location would’ve changed. Thankfully, a very quick and simple solution fixed it for me:

sudo easy_install Trac

It worked like a charm for me, but if you have to install manually then I expect you’ll have to follow the TracInstall instructions over again…

Basically, you talk like an HTTP server (not specifically Apache, but “Apache” was similar to “A pirate”…). If you need help, here are some responses you can give people to confuse them.

Other ideas could be borne from this, such as Talk Like an MTA Day, or Talk Like SSH Day. I expect the later would have to be encrypted though…

Just imagine the conversation anyway:

You: Hi James, how are you?

Me: 200 OK

You: What?

Me: 304 Not Modified

You: I don’t understand…

Me: 304 Not Modified

You: You’re such an idiot…

Me: 400 Bad Request

Current Release (1.5.1):

Eclipse 3.2: http://downloads.open.collab.net/eclipse/update-site/e3.2

Current Release (1.8.1):

Eclipse 3.3: http://downloads.open.collab.net/eclipse/update-site/e3.3
Eclipse 3.4: http://downloads.open.collab.net/eclipse/update-site/e3.4

Development Builds:

Eclipse 3.2: http://downloads.open.collab.net/eclipse/dev-builds/e3.2
Eclipse 3.3: http://downloads.open.collab.net/eclipse/dev-builds/e3.3
Eclipse 3.4: http://downloads.open.collab.net/eclipse/dev-builds/e3.4

These are sourced from: http://desktop-eclipse.open.collab.net/servlets/ProjectProcess?pageID=3794

The big problem here is that Eclipse is just too new for Ubuntu – even Jaunty. An apt-get install subversion on Jaunty Jackalope will install subversion 1.5.4, which just doesn’t work, and thats where the big problem lies. CollabNet for Eclipse categorically requires Subversion 1.6. Unfortunately the only solution I’ve come up with is to compile subversion and it’s javahl bindings yourself. I’ll try and remember all the steps I took to make it work.

First, download the latest subversion and subversion-deps tgz from http://subversion.tigris.org/. At time of writing they are here and here. Extract them both:

$ tar zxvf subversion-1.6.1.tar.gz
$ tar zxvf subversion-deps-1.6.1.tar.gz
$ cd subversion-1.6.1

You’ll need to install a couple of extra packages (this assumes you’re using Sun’s JRE), and assuming you already had subversion and libsvn-javahl already installed, uninstall a couple:

$ sudo apt-get install libssl-dev sun-java6-jdk g++
$ sudo apt-get remove subversion libsvn-javahl

Configure, make and install subversion. You can check it’s the right version too:

$ ./configure --disable-nls --enable-javahl --with-jdk=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.13
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ svn --version

Once that’s done, you’ll want to compile the javahl binding. Once installed, check it’s installed correctly too. It’s fairly likely the .so file will be in /usr/local/lib.

$ make javahl
$ sudo make install-javahl
$ sudo updatedb
$ locate libsvnjavahl-1.so
$ sudo ldconfig

Open your eclipse.ini, and after the -vmargs line, add:

-Djava.library.path=/usr/local/lib

replacing the path with the path where the libsvnjavahl-1.so with your correct path.

Now fire up Eclipse, go to Window > Preferences > Team > SVN. The SVN Interface should now say JavaHL (JNI) 1.6.1 and a revision, depending on the particular version of SVN you installed.

I think that’s all the steps I took, so I apologise if I missed something out – if I remember something I’ll add it in!

Update: Compiling javahl requires g++, so I added that into the apt-get install line.

Update 2: Missed out ldconfig after libraries creation.

Update 3: If you still have issues getting it to work, I recommend looking at http://subclipse.tigris.org/wiki/JavaHL, reading it carefully, especially the Troubleshooting on Linux section. The javahltests.jar JUnit tests that are provided on the page may be very handy when debugging problems!

Unfortunately due to a large amount of blood loss (from Hannah, not the baby!), Hannah and Freyja have been kept in overnight, which means I am home alone tonight with my thoughts and experiences on this truly lifechanging thing.

I will certainly never forget the first time I saw Freyja’s hair appearing, or when the head was born, or the cutting of the umbilical cord. I’m not exactly squeemish so I got stuck right in with everything I could, but of course mainly supporting Hannah the best I could.

I also would like to send a rather large hat tip to our absolutely fantastic midwife, and the rest of the staff in the labour suite. She did an astounding job at calming Hannah, keeping myself and Hannah up to date with the happenings, and surprisingly – for an NHS hospital – attentiveness was excellent, and for most of the time we felt like we had her [the midwife] to ourselves! Unfortunately we didn’t get the planned water birth at Blakes in Gosport, but all that matters is that both Hannah and our gorgeous daughter are OK, and for that I am truly thankful.

Well, I have sheets to change so I must get on – I am so tired and can hardly function, and I have to be up early tomorrow to visit Hannah at the hospital. So, until next time…

CIFS VFS: server not responding
CIFS VFS: no response for cmd 50 mid 0

This started happening when I added a CIFS mount to our NAS box at home in /etc/fstab. Basically what is happening is that the wireless network interfaces (set up by NetworkManager in Gnome) are being shut down prior to the CIFS mount being unmounted, which causes a timeout trying to unmount… because there’s no network connection.

Turns out this is a very well-known issue, but won’t be fixed for Jaunty Jackalope (the next Ubuntu version). Read more here.

There are some proposed workarounds, some of which aren’t suitable in all cases (hence why the Ubuntu team haven’t got a fix for it yet):

1. Do not use system-wide CIFS mounts but use Gnome VFS pseudomounts like typing smb://foo/bar in nautilus
2. Define your network in /etc/network/interfaces rather than in NetworkManager
3. Hacking the shutdown sequence to make it unmount network filesystems earlier (for example moving S31umountnfs.sh to S14umountnfs.sh in /etc/rc[06].d) : will fix it if you aren’t executing anything on those network filesystems

Method 2 and 3 require a little technical knowledge, and method 1 (pseudomounts) aren’t really suitable as they’re not permanent. Another solution not listed here is to add a kill script to the shutdown sequence that runs pretty much immediately to unmount the directory you want unmounted. Again though, that requires a little Linux knowledge.

So for those of you who aren’t Linux savvy, unfortunately there isn’t a simple solution out there yet. I haven’t got around to fixing it on my own laptop yet, but when I do, I’ll probably post a quick tutorial!

Anyway, David Cooper posted a quick howto on adding CSS to a Zend Framework page, which works and is all well and good, but there was a problem. The code that Zend Framework spits out was not XHTML valid. As I said, I might’ve missed something out, and this might be a really convoluted way of doing things, but give me a break, I’m just learning it!

Firstly, in your controller’s action (e.g. IndexController::indexAction), add a list of CSS files:

$css_files = array('index.css','test.css');
$this->getFrontController()->setParam('css',$css_files);

Modify the list of CSS files to suit your needs. Note that the $css_files must be an array, otherwise the helper class will ignore it. Now add a new PHP file in application/views/helpers called ‘CssInclude.php’, and put this in it:

<?php
 
class Zend_View_Helper_CssInclude
{
	function cssInclude()
	{
		$output = '';
		$fc = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
		$baseUrl = $fc->getBaseUrl();
		$css_files = $fc->getParam('css');
 
		if(is_array($css_files))
		{
			foreach($css_files as $css_file)
			{
				$output .= '	<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="';
				$output .= $baseUrl . '/css/' . $css_file . "\" />\n";
			}
		}
		return $output;
	}
}

This is a helper class that takes the parameter you set in the controller, and simply churns out an XHTML valid <link> tag. There’s just one more step, add this in your layout or view:

<?php echo $this->cssInclude(); ?>

And voila! If there’s a better way of doing this, then I’d like to know!

For the new Zend Framework 1.8.x series, please refer to this article. This is still here for historical purposes.

This is a pretty simple howto, but here it is anyway!

I assume already that you’ve got a LAMP stack working, and if you don’t, it’s easy as pie to install one in Ubuntu:

sudo tasksel install lamp-server

So now you’ve got your LAMP stack up and running, lets download the latest SVN tag of Zend Framework. At the time of writing, the latest stable is 1.7.8, which I’ll use here. If you want to check for the latest version, visit http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/standard/tags/ in your browser, and the last folder is the one you want. If you want stable full releases, ignore the RC/PR versions. So, once you’ve determined the version you want, we’ll check out the release:

cd /usr/share/php5
sudo mkdir ZendFramework
sudo svn co http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/standard/tags/release-1.7.8/

It is likely you’ll need to use sudo for these commands as /usr/share/php5 is owned by root by default. You’ll see a big long list of files being checked out, and once that’s done you’ll have a new folder appropriately named “release-1.7.8″. Create a soft link called “current” to the release folder so you can change the default included Zend Framework version without restarting Apache in the future:

sudo ln -s release-1.7.8 current

You can stop there if you like, and manually add the include path into your PHP scripts using set_include_path. However, if you would like the current Zend Framework included automatically, then continue by opening /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini in your favourite editor. Add the path to your include_path list. For example, if your current include_path is (and this is the default):

include_path = ".:/usr/share/php5:/usr/share/pear"

Then change it to:

include_path = ".:/usr/share/php5:/usr/share/pear:/usr/share/php5/ZendFramework/current/library"

All you need to do now is restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

In the future, if you wish to change to a new default Zend Framework version (for example 1.8.0), then just check out the SVN directory and change the soft link. You won’t even have to restart Apache, and the changes will take effect immediately! For example:

sudo svn co http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/standard/tags/release-1.8.0/
sudo rm current
sudo ln -s release-1.8.0 current

If you want to keep up to date with the latest Zend software, then just subscribe to their RSS feed!

Can I just say how outstanding I think this game is? I was glued to my 360 for the entire weekend playing it as for once I decided to nothing at all. The graphics are perfect, the storyline is awesome, and the sheer amount of detail is unimaginable!

Like other Bethesda games, it’s hugely overwhelming the amount of stuff one can do, and I highly recommend the strategy guide, especially for setting up your character at the moment. It tells you things you wouldn’t think of, like the fact Lockpick is probably the most important skill in the entire game if you want any decent rewards (much to my annoyance, I didn’t read this prior to creating my character). The quest guides are pretty much walkthroughs, so if you prefer to play, just use the strategy guide as reference, although there are some good hints and tips (such as there’s only one way to get Three Dog’s cache).

Anyway, back to the game instead of the strategy guide… As I mentioned earlier, the storyline for this is just awesome, but I think the reason for that is because the story is so flexible and you can make it as dynamic as you want. For most of the part (excluding quests like Tranquillity Lane etc.) you’re given the freedom to do what you want, when you want. For a casual gamer such as myself, that is an enormous tick in the “pro’s” column.

The thing I love the most about this game is how engaged you can or can’t get. It’s good to play for 15 minutes; you can mess around blowing stuff up and hiring prostitutes, or you can play it for hours and get really involved, and often very sidetracked from what you were doing originally. Add to this the most important value in video games (that I haven’t seen pulled off effectively since the days of Elite and Monkey Island): awesome logic and literal puzzles. From the downright obvious (Prime’s Puzzle for example) to hacking those terminals if you don’t have the password, which require a little thought.

Fallout 3 really has done it for me, and I’m loving it. Not since the days of my Amiga 500 have I felt this engaged in a video game. Yeah, you can have COD4 and all your shooty crap where the objective is clear (point gun and shoot) and the storyline is weak at best, and by no means can you not just point and shoot in Fallout 3… but this game gives you the tools to go so much further than that and really get into it.

Hell I’m not even a big fan of futuristic sci-fi, I prefer a good fantasy theme any day, but this post-nuclear 50’s theme demonstrating total armageddon upon Washington D.C. and surrounding area is just irresistible to even the casual RPG fan when presented to you in such eye-candy graphics. As you might realise by now, I really love this game, and if you’re a fan of RPGs I highly recommend you pick yourself up a copy of this if you haven’t already – and even if you’re not a fan, play it round a mates and you might just like it and get yourself one.

And honest ‘guv, I’m not sponsored by Bethesda!

I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same.

Here is mine, and although I didn’t have to think very hard about who to post about, I still admire her more than anyone in the world.

Hannah is 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant today, and she’s still working hard at Netbasic. She’s not exactly a pro programmer, but she’s learning so quickly. From knowing nothing at all about HTML or CSS or Photoshop, she’s come forwards in leaps and bounds with the help of everyone here. It’s certainly not easy for her, she gets aches and pains all day, Braxton Hicks contractions, extremely painful kicks, and all sorts. She’s under the weather, tired and very drained, yet somehow she is carrying on, she’s still working hard and creating pages that are helping keep the company going!

I suppose this is just my way of saying how proud I am of her, and how awesome she is.

Disclaimer: Read the linked page and you’ll see it’s actually a completely different story. It could’ve been any console controller there… except for Wii’s, because clearly you won’t die fat using one of them…

I actually agree with the ASA in this instance, I think the advert is suitably fitting. It doesn’t mean you’ll die playing computer games, it’s more of a generalisation that sitting on your bum all day watching TV and generally not being active could lead to obesity or health problems.

The message I get from that advert is that my 15/20 minute walks are good, and if anything I should be getting more active!