Option 1

Create a subdomain on Bluehost’s CPanel, and point the document root to /public_html/. Then create a new site on WordPress with the same subdomain name as the one you create on the CPanel. Simple!

Option 2

Create a wildcard subdomain (*) on Bluehost’s CPanel, and point the document root to /public_html/. Some people reported that this indeed worked! By creating this wildcard domain, you are allowed to use any domain names you like (visitors can still type in any random subdomains and they will still end up in your main site! Awesome, huh?). But one thing to be aware of is that, you need to set up redirects through ModRewrite or scripting if you don’t want some subdomains to link to your WordPress files.

I personally prefer the first option (and I have tested this, and it works!), since I only use this website for myself and I don’t add new sites on WordPress very often. Well, it’s up to you

Changing Config Files

One thing you can do is to change the wp-config.php file by adding or replacing these codes:

define('DB_CHARSET','');
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

It worked for me only once. When the next time I did an upgrade and the problem occurred again, it didn’t work anymore. So I tried the next fix.

Executing SQL codes

This fix is for advance users only who are quite familiar with the SQL codes. Please backup your database first before proceeding! Once you’ve done that, execute these SQL codes:

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE (post_content, '–', '---')
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE (post_content, '’', ''')
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE (post_content, '“', '"')
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE (post_content, '”', '"')

What these codes do is to replace the strange characters in your post content into the ones that are readable by WordPress. The codes use wp_posts table, so make sure you change these table names if you use different table names for your WordPress blog.

Hope it works!

Auto-Increment in MySQL

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CREATE TABLE Students (
id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY ,
fullname VARCHAR(80) NOT NULL
);

As you can see from the above code, the auto-increment feature is very simple when it’s applied in MySQL. You only need to add auto_increment as shown in line 2. By default, the auto_increment value starts at 1. If you want the auto_increment to start with value other than 1, you have to set that value using ALTER TABLE:

ALTER TABLE Students AUTO_INCREMENT=2000

Auto-Increment in MS SQL Server

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CREATE TABLE Students (
id INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY ,
fullname VARCHAR(80) NOT NULL
);

Similar to MySQL, MS SQL Server uses a simple syntax to perform auto-increment feature; i.e. using identity keyword. By default, the starting value for identity is 1. If you want the id column to start at value 2000 and increment by 10, then you need to change the IDENTITY property to IDENTITY(2000,10). Simple, eh?

Auto-Increment in Oracle

In Oracle, the auto-increment feature can be quite tricky, as it requires us to write more lines of code using PL/SQL. Take a look at this:

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CREATE TABLE Students
(
  id INT,
  fullname VARCHAR2(80) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
);
 
CREATE SEQUENCE seq_students
START WITH 1
INCREMENT BY 1
nomaxvalue;
 
CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER trig_students
BEFORE INSERT ON Students
FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
  SELECT seq_students.NEXTVAL INTO :NEW.id FROM dual;
END;
/

To perform the auto-increment feature, Oracle uses both sequence to generate the numbers and trigger to add the incremented number to the destination column. Line 14 to 17 shows how trigger trig_students adds the next available number (that is given by seq_students) into the column id in table Students, before the insertion of a new record on Students table occurs.

If you want the id column to start at value 2000 and increment by 10, you need to change the sequence seq_students to:

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CREATE SEQUENCE seq_students
START WITH 2000
INCREMENT BY 10
nomaxvalue;

You can also set a maximum value for that particular column by changing the nomaxvalue property to maxvalue 5000, for example.

Check if the table exists in a database:

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IF EXISTS
(
  SELECT * FROM dbo.sysobjects
  WHERE id = object_id(N'[dbo].[enterTableNameHere]')
         AND OBJECTPROPERTY(id, N'IsUserTable') = 1
)
 
DROP TABLE [dbo].[enterTableNameHere]
 
GO

Check if the view exists in a database:

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IF EXISTS
(
  SELECT *
  FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS
  WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'enterViewNameHere'
)
 
DROP VIEW [dbo].[enterViewNameHere]
 
GO

Check if the stored procedure exists in a database:

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IF EXISTS
(
  SELECT * FROM dbo.sysobjects
  WHERE id = object_id(N'[dbo].[enterStoredProcedureNameHere]')
         AND OBJECTPROPERTY(id, N'IsProcedure') = 1
)
 
DROP PROCEDURE [dbo].[enterStoredProcedureNameHere]
 
GO

Check if the user-defined function exists in a database:

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IF EXISTS
(
	SELECT	*
	FROM	INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES
	WHERE		ROUTINE_NAME 	= 'enterFunctionNameHere'
		AND	ROUTINE_SCHEMA	= 'dbo'
		AND	ROUTINE_TYPE	= 'FUNCTION'
)
 
DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[enterFunctionNameHere]
 
GO

Graphics & Stock Photos

• Famfamfam.com – The most famous icons on the web!
• stock.xchng – my favourite stock pictures!!
• Getty Images – royalty-free
• StockVault
• Bullet Madness – a great collection of bullets!
• Free Stock Photos – the list of stock photo websites
• Steal These Buttons
• Microformats Icons – created by Wolfgang Bartelme. Both photoshop and illustrator files are included, so you can modify the icons to the ones you like!

Photoshop Goodies

• Adobe Exchange – from brushes, filters, actions to custom shapes… you can find all of them here!
• Design Fruit: Photoshop Brushes
• Obsidian Dawn: Photoshop Brushes
• Miss M – handmade photoshop brushes by Miss M
• DeviantArt: Photoshop Brushes – browse the most popular brushes @ DeviantArt. A great collection!
• PS Brushes
• DeviantArt: Photoshop Actions

Patterns

• Squidfingers: Patterns
• Citrus Moon Patterns
• Kaliber10000 Patterns

Inspiration

• Design Shack – it has one of the best inspirational web design collections.
• CSS beauty
• Flickr: Web Design Inspiration – a photoset created by Patrick Haney.
• CSS Remix
• CSS Mania
• Inspire Yourself: 50 Remarkable Favicons
• 50 Beautiful CSS Based Web Designs in 2006

Brought to you by Flash Earth. This is a very cool site that uses 8 different sources to view the satellite and aerial imagery of the earth!

C++ has useful ifstream and fstream classes that provide a stream interface to read and write data from/to files. The difference between both classes is, ifstream can only be used for reading, while fstream can be used for both reading and writing. Since we’re only going to read the files, we better use ifstream class.

Before we start, make sure you have the test.txt (you can copy mine, if you want). Now, let’s get into the codes (the fun part!):

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string inputFile = "test.txt";
ifstream fileIn;
fileIn.open(inputFile.c_str());
if (fileIn.fail())
{
	cerr << "Cannot open file" << endl;
}

Nothing fancy and tricky about the above codes. But notice that, in line 3, I use inputFile.c_str() instead of inputFile to open the file. If you see the C++ Reference, the function open takes the argument const char * for the filename. Since string is an object, we have to convert it to char * which interprets each characters in an array of size N and is used in C language. The function c_str() takes care of the conversion. The code fileIn.fail() checks if failure has occured, i.e. whether the file exists or not. If it fails, return an error.

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vector inputs;
double temp;
double adds = 0;
while (!fileIn.eof())
{
	fileIn >> temp;
	if (fileIn.fail())
		break;
	inputs.push_back(temp);
	adds = adds + temp;
}
fileIn.close();
 
cout << "total: " << adds << endl;
cout << "results:" << endl;
 
for (int i = 0; i < (int)inputs.size(); i++)
	cout << inputs[i] << endl;

The vector inputs record all the doubles from the specified files. Why do I use vector? Vector makes our life much easier. Unlike the arrays, we don’t have to worry about how big the size will be and don’t have to bother about resizing it if the size is too small. We just have to declare the vector and use push_back() function to insert the inputs.

In line 6, the stream fileIn extracts the data and stores it in temp which has the parameter type of double. The stream will handle the conversion itself. If the current data in fileIn is not double, it will break out of the loop; as illustrated in code line 7 – 8. The while loop between line 4 and 11 will continue to do its job until the the file points to the eof or end of file. The codes between line 14 and 18 do the usual stuff, i.e. displaying the results to stdout.

You can download the complete .cpp file here (right click & save-as).

I have a Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 installed on my laptop. And it told me to debug the Firefox’s unhandled exception! Is this part of Firefox’s weakness?

A weakness has been discovered in Firefox, which can be exploited by malicious people to disclose system information.

The weakness is caused due to file path information being included in certain exceptions being thrown by the browser. This can e.g. be exploited to disclose the full installation path by calling the “window.sidebar.addSearchEngine()” JavaScript function with invalid parameters.

This may reportedly also be exploited to disclose the full path to the user’s profile via errors thrown in installed extensions.

The weakness has been confirmed in version 1.5.0.3. Other versions may also be affected. Secunia.com

My lecturer always told me that EXCEPTIONS MUST BE HANDLED APPROPRIATELY. Did Firefox’s people miss something? FYI, I’m running Firefox 1.5.0.7.

UPDATE: This exception STILL exists in the most recent Firefox 2.0!!! I discovered it today!

Why is it partly solved? Well, it is not the best typography solution. It has limitations and restrictions. Users who have neither Javascript nor Flash plugins installed or enabeled on their PC could still see the texts, but without the sIFR-based styling. It will unfortunately be displayed using the CSS-based styling. Even Mike Davidson admits that:

While sIFR is a liberating solution, it clearly falls into the category of “things which shouldn’t have to be done”.

You can read other limitations here.

How does it work?

As I mentioned before, sIFR relies on both JavaScript and Flash. If the browser has the JavaScript enabled, JavaScript detects if Flash 6 or greater is installed. If both of them are enabled, all the texts that use sIFR are hidden and replaced by the Flash movies referring to those texts.

How can I use it?

First of all, download the latest sIFR package here and unzip the file.

If you have a Macromedia Flash program:
1. Open sifr.fla
2. Using a Selection Tool (type “v”), double-click the stage (the white working-space)
3. Select the text “Do not remove this text”
4. You should now see the Properties Window. If it’s not visible, click Window > Properties or CTRL+F3
5. From the Properties Window, select the font you want to be displayed.
6. Click File > Export > Export Movie
7. Let’s call the file “font.swf” then click OK
8. Click OK once more

If you don’t have a Macromedia Flash program:
Don’t worry!! You can download the fonts from FontSmack.com. Make sure you download .swf file, which is either “Basic Character Set” or “Full Latin Character Set”. Rename it to “font.swf”.

Let’s now create a separate folder, name it with whatever thing you like. Copy these files (which can be found in the sIFR package that you just downloaded) over to a folder you just created:

• sifr.js
• sifr-addons.js
• sIFR-screen.css
• sIFR-print.css
• font.swf

Create a new html document in the same folder, and copy these codes:

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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
<head><title>sIFR</title>
	<style type="text/css">
	<!-- h1{
	font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;
	font-weight: bold;
	letter-spacing: -.05em;
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
	line-height: 1em;
	} -->
	</style>
 
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="sIFR-screen.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="sIFR-print.css" type="text/css" media="print" />
 
	<script src="sifr.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
	<script src="sifr-addons.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
 
</head>
 
<body>
 
	<h1>The Gothic Times</h1>
	<p>Use sIFR? (Requires refresh) <a href="javascript:sIFR.preferenceManager.disable()">no</a> | <a href="javascript:sIFR.preferenceManager.enable()">yes</a> | <a href="javascript:sIFR.preferenceManager.storage.reset()">forget</a></p>
 
	<script type="text/javascript">
	//<![CDATA[
	/* Replacement calls. Please see documentation for more information. */
 
	if(typeof sIFR == "function"){
 
	// This is the preferred "named argument" syntax
		sIFR.replaceElement(named({sSelector:"h1", sFlashSrc:"font.swf", sColor:"#000000", sLinkColor:"#000000", sBgColor:"#FFFFFF", sHoverColor:"#CCCCCC"}));
 
	};
 
	//]]>
	</script>
 
</body>
</html>

The CSS h1 style between line number 6 and 15 is the style you need if the user doesn’t have JavaScript or Flash enabled (and if the user has disabled the use of sIFR).

The JavaScript codes between line number 30 and 42 are essential for styling the sIFR. The codes include the CSS selector, the .swf file name, color of the font, background color, and hover color. For more information about this, please refer to the documentation.

Next, open a file called sIFR-screen.css and add these codes at the end of file:

.sIFR-hasFlash h1 {
	font-size: 55px;
	letter-spacing: 5px;
	line-height: 20px;
	visibility: hidden;
}

This CSS stuff is used to configure the size of the text. You can remove those properties EXCEPT visibility: hidden. Remember, different fonts have different sizes, so you have to play around with those 3 CSS properties (font-size, letter-spacing, line-height) by increasing or decreasing the values.

Open up the html file you just created, and you can see the result right away! It’s not that hard, right?? So, you can style your website with sIFR now!!

Tips: use sIFR as minimum as possible, i.e. use it only for titles and some texts that you want to emphasise (like short quotes). DON’T use it for long texts coz it will slow down the loading time of your page.

Happy sIFR-ing!!

NOTE: If you’re using WordPress, you can try on a sIFR plugin. I’ve never tried this before, so I don’t know how it really works.

One may wonder, why geek??? According to Wikipedia, geek may not always be the same as nerd. These are the definition of geek mentioned by Wikipedia:

One who is primarily motivated by passion.
A person who is interested in technology, especially computing and new media.
A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance.
A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream.

This blog was built as a result of my endless passion for IT. I want to share my knowledge that I learnt both at Uni and work to other people. I admit that I’m not an expert on this field, but I’d like to do this as part of my contribution to the subject I truly enjoy. Honestly, I’m still not sure where I’m going to head this blog to. I’ll perhaps write everything related to IT that pops out of my mind for the time being. I’m a newbie on this, so please be patient . Hope you like my new IT blog!