Orangevolt

Zend Framework Development : howto provide a subdomain per eclipse project dynamically

2011-11-15T14:23:00.007+01:00

1. Install dnsmasq

sudo aptitude install dnsmasq

2. Configure dnsmasq to map any subdomain request to your local machine to 127.0.0.1

Add the following to the top of /etc/dnsmasq.conf :

address=/localmachine/127.0.0.1
listen-address=127.0.0.1

3. Restart dnsmasq

sudo /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart

3. Add dnsmasq to your dns server list

Add the following to the top of /etc/resolv.conf :

nameserver 127.0.0.1 # dnsmasq

4. Enable Apache module vhost_alias

(You may probably need to install it first ...)

sudo a2enmod vhost_alias

5. Add VirtualHost entry for dynamic subdomains to httpd.conf

Open /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and add the following to the top of the file :

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@localhost
ServerName  lgersman
ServerAlias *.lgersman

UseCanonicalName Off
VirtualDocumentRoot /home/lgersman/public_html/eclipse-workspace/%1/public

DocumentRoot /home/lgersman/public_html/eclipse-workspace/
<Directory /home/lgersman/public_html/eclipse-workspace/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

(Remember to modify the local filesystem paths to match yours :-)

6. Restart Apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Thats all - your done !

Suppose you hav a project called "foo" with a subdirectory "public" and a index.php file in it ...

Enter "http://foo.mymachine" in the browser - and you see the output of index.php !!

Ubuntu user :

In file /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf uncomment line

# prepend domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1;

and change 127.0.0.1 to your preferred name server list.

Otherwise Ubuntu Network manager will overwrite /etc/resolv.conf at every boot !

Being creative : Snowboard lamp - 2nd take

2011-05-02T07:34:00.005+02:00

What you need :

a snowboard (even a broken one is fine !)
at least 3m led stripe (wathc eBay - its cheap !) including a power transformer
soldering iron and a bit experience with it :-)
2 hours time
a fabric of your choice

Thats what you get :

From Being creative : Snowboard lamp - 2nd take

See all photos

yesterday in the supermarket : linux helps washing your clothes !!!!

2011-04-09T10:31:00.003+02:00

It's unbelievable what options Linux provides ...

It can not only drive your computer - it is also able to wash your clothes !!!!!

The picture is no fake - it's just taken in a german supermarket.

javascript performance

2011-02-10T08:56:00.001+01:00

Take a look at http://jsperf.com and browse their tests.

Very helpful if you are not sure which method to use to get the fastest results.

Its tool time again : 2nd snowboard lamp in progress

2011-02-09T08:41:00.005+01:00

I always like to reuse *Things* : Yesterday i've got a used snowboard which get's transformed into a lamp.

I actually have a snowboard lamp done ... but why not doing it again ? :-) The cool thing is that every lamp is unique because snowboards have fancy unique patterns and colors.

See yourself !

Grooveshark

2011-02-02T15:23:00.002+01:00

While Grooveshark is interesting because of it's provided content, it's even more interesting for web developers because of it's user interface :

How is this eye catching interface done ?

Read the answer here.

Being creative - shirts

2011-01-25T06:29:00.003+01:00

Being creative

2010-12-22T07:56:00.003+01:00

A few pictures of being creative in the sparetime.

25 Best SSH Commands / Tricks

2010-11-24T06:52:00.000+01:00

25 Best SSH Commands / Tricks

Cuba Libre glass made out of ORIGINAL Havana Club Bottles

2010-11-14T10:58:00.006+01:00

Some months ago i friend of me told me about his vacation in Cuba.

An interesting part was that local bars serve Cube Libre in handmade glasses. These glasses were made out of Havana Club bottles.

What a nice idea !!!

I just noticed a youtube video how they made it :

As a fan of Cuba Libre (and the Havana Club brand :-) I wanted to get such a glass ! But nobody sold such glasses in germany.

So we looked around to find way to get them - and finally find someone. If you want to have such a glass you can buy them over at eBay : Cuba Libre glasses made from Havana Club bottles - for just 7.99 € - that's (kinda) cheap for handmade glasses made in Germany !

Isn't that cool !!?

Web based PHP debugger.

2010-09-29T11:51:00.004+02:00

I wish I had a web based PHP debugger directly running in the browser.

From a technical point of view it's easy to implement :

Use Javascript / Websockets in the browser to communicate with the server side
Managing the XDebug cookie for starting the debugger connection
build a generic Websockets / Socket proxy in what ever language your prefer to bridge the messages between XDebug and the browser debugger interface

The PHP script to debug would be started within an hosted iframe. That's all.

The biggest benefits of such a browser based debugger interface :

* ad hoc debugging possible

* more or less no XDebug configuration if Websockets / Socket proxy runs on same machine as the PHP interpreter (see XDebug remote_connect_back option)

* no client software installations needed to debug PHP

Much easier to implement would be a FirePHP extension implementing the XDebug communication directly based on regular TCP sockets. Although this solution would only help when using Firefox ...

Hope some one grabs this idea and implements it.

Happy coding !!

Zend Framework : reset view helpers

2010-08-20T11:43:00.003+02:00

Most Zend view helpers like

headScript
headStyle
inlineScript

collect informations which are outputted when the layout gets executed.

Because there all rely on the same base class you can reset the previously collected information

by calling exchangeArray() on the helper instance :

$this->view->headContent()->exchangeArray( array())

By providing an empty array you can force resetting the current collected information.

That helps a lot !!

Fixing obscure session error with PHP5 on Debian/Ubuntu

2010-08-20T07:48:00.000+02:00

With Debian’s or Ubuntu’s php5 package, you might receive this error when you call session_start():

ps_files_cleanup_dir: opendir(/var/lib/php5) failed: Permission denied (13)

Frustratingly, if you do receive this error, you’ll only get it once every hundred page loads on average. Which points to the cause of the problem: automatic session garbage collection.

In Debian and Ubuntu, /var/lib/php5, where the session data is stored, has permissions of drwx-wx-wt and should only be cleaned by a cron script. So, the package maintainers disable automatic session garbage collection.

But, other php5 packages (like php5-cli) don’t have garbage collection disabled.

If you’re seeing this error, it’s most likely you’ve just mixed up your php.ini files (or copy pasted one from somewhere). To fix things, find where your php.ini file is (phpinfo() is handy).

This is usually /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini. Then edit it, and change session.gc_probability from whatever it is (most likely 1) to 0. Save, and restart Apache.

Do LESS with Less.js

2010-06-21T10:23:00.001+02:00

Ajaxian : Do LESS with Less.js

How to get the class filename of a php object

2010-06-11T09:38:00.003+02:00

Nothing simpler than that :


$reflection = new ReflectionClass( get_class( $this));
$classFile = $reflection->getFileName();

bash tip : create a directory in every directory containing a special file

2010-06-09T18:11:00.002+02:00

As the title says the following snippet creates a directory '.metadata' in every directory containing a file named 'current' :

find -name current | xargs -i dirname {} | xargs -i mkdir {}/.metadata

Have fun !

jQuery 1.3.2 - 1.4.2 upgrade pitfalls

2010-06-03T09:38:00.004+02:00

If you port a project using jQuery 1.3.2 to the new jQuery 1.4.2 release you may spend some investigation to the following issues :

append stops adding arguments to the hosted element if you a undefined argument in the argument list. Using jQuery 1.3.2. undefined arguments where silently ignored.
check out http://jquery14.com/day-01/jquery-14 for more incompatibilites

The widget framework of jQuery UI was also heavily changed.

jQuery UI 1.8 now does all events lowercase. So if you named events with capital letters - change it to lowercase leters
see jQuery UI 1.8 Upgrade_Guide for a complete migration example

set $this in PHP programmatically

2010-05-19T09:05:00.003+02:00

Nothing easier than that:


 // trick to assign the variable '$this'
extract(array('this' => 'foobar!'));

var_export( $this);

Programmatic hot deploy with Jetty

2010-04-29T12:29:00.000+02:00

http://www.bonitasoft.org/blog/tutorial/programmatic-hot-deploy-with-jetty/

2 tools improving javascript development

2010-02-16T10:12:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I found 2 javascript development tools improving my daily work :

jQuerify is a Firebug extension for jQuery development. At CM4ALL we use the $(elm).data( key [, value]?) function of jQuery for storing data associated with the DOM element. But unfortunately its not visible within Firebug. jQuerify enables the Firebug DOM tree to show the associated data elements. Thats a great help !!! Further features of jQuerify are :
- jQuery expressions are intelligently presented in Firebug Console and DOM inspector
- attached jQuery datas are first class citizens
- elements in jQuery collections are highlighted on hover
- jQuerify enables you to inject jQuery into any web page

Screenshot :

The second tool is Selenium Source RC - an graphical open source cross-browser testing tool. It enables you to graphically compose user interaction with your webpage and lets you store/save/execute it. Its the perfect companion the JSUnit / FireUnit. Read more here : http://java.dzone.com/news/selenium-rc-gets-sauced

I hope you enjoy these tips !!

Preparation of browser based Graph Editing Tool

2010-01-28T09:27:00.003+01:00

The title says it all - that's the next sparetime eater i am planning to do.

i'done graph editing tools several time in the past :

using Java/Swing (thank's to Gaudenz Alders's fabulous JGraph library)
using .NET with a self developed graph library

And it seems to me that todays browser are able to do that without any plugins/Flash/etc. The question is - what's the right browser technology ?

The Canvas seems the best option for most browsers ... except Internet Explorer. This night I recognized that there is RaphaelJS - a lean and mean cross browser js library. RaphaelJS seems to do the job :

Raphaël uses the SVG W3C Recommendation and VML as a base for creating graphics. This means every graphical object you create is also a DOM object, so you can attach JavaScript event handlers or modify them later. Raphaël’s goal is to provide an adapter that will make drawing vector art compatible cross-browser and easy.

Raphaël currently supports Firefox 3.0+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+.

RaphaelJS bridges the missing Canvas Element of Internet Explorer by translating rendering commands to Internet Explorer's proprietary VML Element. Thats a nice solution. And last but not least, its supports mouse interaction !

Here are some links I found useful as a starting point of deeper investigation :

RaphaelJS - the library itself
an introductional tutorial to RaphaelJS
RaphaelJS at http://stackoverflow.com
a Graph Layout example and it's graph layout source code (both not really dependend but a good starting point to port such functionality to RaphaelJS)
a huge bunch of RaphaelJS examples
g.raphaeljs - a RaphaelJS based charting library

Cheers ,

Lars

Solved : Using Apache mod_userdir and mod_rewrite with Zend Framework

2009-12-23T18:40:00.004+01:00

It took me some time so it makes sense to communicate that to you guys :

I do PHP development (using ZEND Framework) at my Ubuntu system at home. Some months ago I realized that it's the most comfortable solution to just use mod_userdir to target Apache to my PHP projects located at my personal public_html folder.

It's quite common to use .htaccess to configure your ZEND PHP project url rewriting.

Now the bad thing : mod_userdir and mod_rewrite doesnt work hand in hand ...

Whenever you call a controller different than IndexController the redirect will fail. The reason is that mod_rewrite normalizes ~username to /home/username - which indeed is regularly not found by Apache.

Here is the solution : Just add

RewriteBase /~userdir/path/

to your .htaccess file and replace the path after RewriteBase with the relative (mod_user_dir conforming) path - and everything works like expected.

Cheers,

Lars

configure apache user dir

2009-12-08T23:29:00.001+01:00

as easy as shopping online : http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Apache

as a bonus - don't forget to enable mod_rewrite via sudo a2enmod rewrite ...

Zend Framework : SSO/Authenticate and retrieve user data from MS Exchange

2009-11-13T16:33:00.004+01:00

If your company manages Email with MS Exchange and you want to provide Single Sign On for the x-th intranet application then the solution is near by :

Use MS Exchange to authenticate users and retrieve their primary personal data like Email and so on via MS Exchange LDAP Interface.

Sounds easy ... but might by a horror trip depending on how MS Exchange is configured ...

Anyway, my experience was a sucess story taking about one hour of investigation as price.

Thanks to the beautiful Zend Framework, authenticating via MS Exchange was a piece of cake.

How it get's done :

Create an configuration file exposing all of the MS Exchange servers you want to use :


[production]

; Typical options for Active Directory
ldap.server2.host = exchangeserver.company.domain
ldap.server2.accountDomainName = company.domain
ldap.server2.accountDomainNameShort = domain
ldap.server2.accountCanonicalForm = 3
ldap.server2.baseDn = "DC=company,DC=domain"

and replace exchangeserver, company and domain with your company's MS Exchange server. Attention : configuration might be different if MS Exchange was configured different.

Insert the following code snippet within your Zend Framework based Web application:


$auth = Zend_Auth::getInstance();

// load configuration
$config = new Zend_Config_Ini('ldap.ini', 'production');

$options = $config->ldap->toArray();

$adapter = new Zend_Auth_Adapter_Ldap( $options, 'yourname', 'yourpassword');

// authenticate
$result = $auth->authenticate($adapter);

print_r( $result->getMessages());

echo 'authentication is ' . ($result->isValid() ? 'valid' : 'invalid') . "\n";

if( $result->isValid()) {
echo 'identity=' . $result->getIdentity() . "\n";
$options = array(
    'host'     => 'exchangeserver.company.domain',
 'accountDomainName' => 'company.domain',
 'accountDomainNameShort' => 'domain',
 'accountCanonicalForm' => 3,
 'baseDn' => 'DC=company,DC=domain'
);
$ldap=new Zend_Ldap( $options);
$dn = $ldap->bind( $result->getIdentity(), 'yourpassword');
$dn = $ldap->getCanonicalAccountName( $result->getIdentity(), Zend_Ldap::ACCTNAME_FORM_DN);
//print_r( $dn);

$dn = $ldap->getEntry( $dn);
//print_r( $dn);

$arr = array( 'email'=>$dn['mail'][0], 'name'=>$dn['givenname'][0], 'familyname'=>$dn['sn'][0]);
print_r( $arr);
}

Replace exchangeserver, company and domain with your company's MS Exchange server.

As you see in the code, as a bonus you'll get also the email, full name and many many more details (look inside the $dn variable !) out off the LDAP data queried from MS Exchange.

You're done !

Internet Explorer DOM hell : the true hasAttribute test

2009-11-02T11:23:00.005+01:00

IE makes's me crazy again !

IE returns wrong value types (for javascript handlers like 'onclick' a Function object instead of the the handler string ...) or it's internal default value (<input type="submit"> returns 'Submit' for its value attribute ...) for some reason.

So the only reliable way to request if a HTML attribute was really defined is to test its availability via regular expression against IE's outerHTML property.

Example : To test if the size attribute of an INPUT element was really defined you can do

var attrExists = /size( *)=/.test( input.outerHTML);

Ugly, but the truth.