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• Is it worth moving from stored procedures to linq ?

  - by Josef

  I'm looking at standardizing programming in an organisaiton. Half uses stored procedures and the other half Linq. From what i've read there is still some debate going on on this topic. My concern is that MS is trying to slip in it's own proprietry query language 'linq' to make SQL redundant. If a few years back microsoft had tried to win customers from oracle and sybase with their MSSQL database and stated that it didn't use SQL by their own proprietry query langues ie linq. I doubt many would have switched. I believe that is exactly what is happening now by introducting it into the applicaiton business layer. I have used MS for many years but there is one gripe that I have with them and that is that they change their direction a lot. By a lot I mean new releases of .net, silverlight etc are more than 30% different from previous version. So by the time you become productive a new release is on the way. As things stand now a web developer using .net would need to know either vb.net or c#, xml, xaml,javascript,html, sql and now linq. That doesn't make for good productivity in my books. My concern is that once we all start using linq MS will start changing it between releases. and it will become an ever changing landscape. I believe that 'linq to sql' has already been deprecated. At leas with SQL we are dealing with a more stable and standardized language. Are we looking at a programming revolution or a marketing campaign? As far as I know other languages like Cobol have stayed the same for years. A cobol program from 20 years ago could pick up todays code and start working on it. Could a Vb3 person work on a modern .net web app ? Would these large changes need to be made if the underlying original foundation had been sound ? I worry about following MS shaking roadmap with it's deadends and double backs. are there any architects out there who feel the same ? regards Josef

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• CodeGolf: Brothers

  - by John McClane

  Hi guys, I just finished participating in the 2009 ACM ICPC Programming Conest in the Latinamerican Finals. These questions were for Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, etc. My team and I could only finish two questions out of the eleven (not bad I think for the first try). Here's one we could finish. I'm curious to seeing any variations to the code. The question in full: ps: These questions can also be found on the official ICPC website available to everyone. In the land of ACM ruled a greeat king who became obsessed with order. The kingdom had a rectangular form, and the king divided the territory into a grid of small rectangular counties. Before dying the king distributed the counties among his sons. The king was unaware of the rivalries between his sons: The first heir hated the second but not the rest, the second hated the third but not the rest, and so on...Finally, the last heir hated the first heir, but not the other heirs. As soon as the king died, the strange rivaly among the King's sons sparked off a generalized war in the kingdom. Attacks only took place between pairs of adjacent counties (adjacent counties are those that share one vertical or horizontal border). A county X attacked an adjacent county Y whenever X hated Y. The attacked county was always conquered. All attacks where carried out simultanously and a set of simultanous attacks was called a battle. After a certain number of battles, the surviving sons made a truce and never battled again. For example if the king had three sons, named 0, 1 and 2, the figure below shows what happens in the first battle for a given initial land distribution: INPUT The input contains several test cases. The first line of a test case contains four integers, N, R, C and K. N - The number of heirs (2 <= N <= 100) R and C - The dimensions of the land. (2 <= R,C <= 100) K - Number of battles that are going to take place. (1 <= K <= 100) Heirs are identified by sequential integers starting from zero. Each of the next R lines contains C integers HeirIdentificationNumber (saying what heir owns this land) separated by single spaces. This is to layout the initial land. The last test case is a line separated by four zeroes separated by single spaces. (To exit the program so to speak) Output For each test case your program must print R lines with C integers each, separated by single spaces in the same format as the input, representing the land distribution after all battles. Sample Input: Sample Output: 3 4 4 3 2 2 2 0 0 1 2 0 2 1 0 1 1 0 2 0 2 2 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 2 2 Another example: Sample Input: Sample Output: 4 2 3 4 1 0 3 1 0 3 2 1 2 2 1 2

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• Multi-part question about multi-threading, locks and multi-core processors (multi ^ 3)

  - by MusiGenesis

  I have a program with two methods. The first method takes two arrays as parameters, and performs an operation in which values from one array are conditionally written into the other, like so: void Blend(int[] dest, int[] src, int offset) { for (int i = 0; i < src.Length; i++) { int rdr = dest[i + offset]; dest[i + offset] = src[i] > rdr? src[i] : rdr; } } The second method creates two separate sets of int arrays and iterates through them such that each array of one set is Blended with each array from the other set, like so: void CrossBlend() { int[][] set1 = new int[150][75000]; // we'll pretend this actually compiles int[][] set2 = new int[25][10000]; // we'll pretend this actually compiles for (int i1 = 0; i1 < set1.Length; i1++) { for (int i2 = 0; i2 < set2.Length; i2++) { Blend(set1[i1], set2[i2], 0); // or any offset, doesn't matter } } } First question: Since this apporoach is an obvious candidate for parallelization, is it intrinsically thread-safe? It seems like no, since I can conceive a scenario (unlikely, I think) where one thread's changes are lost because a different threads ~simultaneous operation. If no, would this: void Blend(int[] dest, int[] src, int offset) { lock (dest) { for (int i = 0; i < src.Length; i++) { int rdr = dest[i + offset]; dest[i + offset] = src[i] > rdr? src[i] : rdr; } } } be an effective fix? Second question: If so, what would be the likely performance cost of using locks like this? I assume that with something like this, if a thread attempts to lock a destination array that is currently locked by another thread, the first thread would block until the lock was released instead of continuing to process something. Also, how much time does it actually take to acquire a lock? Nanosecond scale, or worse than that? Would this be a major issue in something like this? Third question: How would I best approach this problem in a multi-threaded way that would take advantage of multi-core processors (and this is based on the potentially wrong assumption that a multi-threaded solution would not speed up this operation on a single core processor)? I'm guessing that I would want to have one thread running per core, but I don't know if that's true.

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• Unable to connect to MS Access database through JDBC on Win 7 64-bit

  - by Ninad

  Hello. I've been trying to connect to a MS Access 2007 database through JDBC. My JDK is JDK 1.6u18 64-bit and OS is Windows 7 64-bit. But problem is I am unable to create a DSN using Windows\system32\odbcad32.exe because it doesn't show ODBC drivers for MS Access at all, it's only showing drivers for MS SQL Server. When tried to click on Configure for "MS Access Database" (which is an already created DSN, I guess), it first shows error message : "The setup routines for the Microsoft Access Drivers (*.mdb, *.accdb) ODBC Driver could not be found. Please reinstall the driver." And then another message : "Errors found! The specified DSN contains an architecture mismatch between the Driver and Application." I cannot reinstall the MDAC as it doesn't work with Windows 7 (which comes with its own WDAC). The odbcad32.exe in Windows\SysWOW64 does let me create a DSN for MS Access, it shows the drivers installed properly. However, when tried to connect to that DSN through a Java program, I get the following exception : java.sql.SQLException: [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] The specified DSN contains an architecture mismatch between the Driver and Application at sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbc.createSQLException(Unknown Source) at sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbc.standardError(Unknown Source) at sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbc.SQLDriverConnect(Unknown Source) at sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcConnection.initialize(Unknown Source) at sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver.connect(Unknown Source) at java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(Unknown Source) at java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(Unknown Source) at AccessTest.main(AccessTest.java:19) What might be the problem and what do I have to do to get it working? My OS as well as JDK are 64-bit. Can't I connect to a Access 2007 database, which I presume is 32-bit? Any help would be highly appreciated. Also, in case one thinks this's not a right place for this question, I apologize in advance. Then please guide me to appropriate forum. Another option would be to find a third-party JDBC driver for MS Access. But I do need to know what's wrong with my configuration. :-/ PS : I know there're many better databases available out there, but for few unfortunate reasons, I have to use MS Access only and have to get it working.

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• AVAudioPlayer crash after playing from an AVAudioRecord

  - by munchine

  I've got a button the user tap to start recording and tap again to stop. When it stop I want the recorded voice 'echo' back so the user can hear what was recorded. This works fine the first time. If I hit the button for the third time, it starts a new recording and when I hit stop it crashes with EXC_BAD_ACCESS. - (IBAction) readToMeTapped { if(recording) { recording = NO; [readToMeButton setTitle:@"Stop Recording" forState: UIControlStateNormal ]; NSMutableDictionary *recordSetting = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys: [NSNumber numberWithFloat: 44100.0], AVSampleRateKey, [NSNumber numberWithInt: kAudioFormatAppleLossless], AVFormatIDKey, [NSNumber numberWithInt: 1], AVNumberOfChannelsKey, [NSNumber numberWithInt: AVAudioQualityMax], AVEncoderAudioQualityKey, nil]; // Create a new dated file NSDate *now = [NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow:0]; NSString *caldate = [now description]; recordedTmpFile = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/%@.caf", DOCUMENTS_FOLDER, caldate] retain]]; error = nil; recorder = [[ AVAudioRecorder alloc] initWithURL:recordedTmpFile settings:recordSetting error:&error]; if(!recorder){ NSLog(@"recorder: %@ %d %@", [error domain], [error code], [[error userInfo] description]); UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle: @"Warning" message: [error localizedDescription] delegate: nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil]; [alert show]; [alert release]; return; } NSLog(@"Using File called: %@",recordedTmpFile); //Setup the recorder to use this file and record to it. [recorder setDelegate:self]; [recorder prepareToRecord]; [recorder recordForDuration:(NSTimeInterval) 5]; //recording for a limited time } else { // it crashes the second time it gets here! recording = YES; NSLog(@"Recording YES Using File called: %@",recordedTmpFile); [readToMeButton setTitle:@"Start Recording" forState:UIControlStateNormal ]; [recorder stop]; //Stop the recorder. //playback recording AVAudioPlayer * newPlayer = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:recordedTmpFile error:&error]; [recordedTmpFile release]; self.aPlayer = newPlayer; [newPlayer release]; [aPlayer setDelegate:self]; [aPlayer prepareToPlay]; [aPlayer play]; } } - (void)audioRecorderDidFinishRecording:(AVAudioRecorder *)sender successfully:(BOOL)flag { NSLog (@"audioRecorderDidFinishRecording:successfully:"); [recorder release]; recorder = nil; } Checking the debugger, it flags the error here @synthesize aPlayer, recorder; This is the part I don't understand. I thought it may have something to do with releasing memory but I've been careful. Have I missed something?

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• SimpleXML not pulling correct link

  - by kylex

  My code does not pull the proper link for the item. Instead it's getting the previous item's link. Any suggestions? Thanks! <?php // Load the XML data from the specified file name. // The second argument (NULL) allows us to specify additional libxml parameters, // we don't need this so we'll leave it as NULL. The third argument however is // important as it informs simplexml to handle the first parameter as a file name // rather than a XML formatted string. $pFile = new SimpleXMLElement("http://example.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss", null, true); // Now that we've loaded our XML file we can begin to parse it. // We know that a channel element should be available within the, // document so we begin by looping through each channel foreach ($pFile->channel as $pChild) { // Now we want to loop through the items inside this channel { foreach ($pFile->channel->item as $pItem) { // If this item has child nodes as it should, // loop through them and print out the data foreach ($pItem->children() as $pChild) { // We can check the name of this node using the getName() method. // We can then use this information, to, for example, embolden // the title or format a link switch ($pChild->getName()) { case 'pubDate': $date = date('l, F d, Y', strtotime($pChild)); echo "<p class=\"blog_time\">$date</p>"; break; case 'link': $link = $pChild; break; case 'title': echo "<p class=\"blog_title\"><a href=\"$link\">$pChild</a></p>"; break; case 'description': // echo substr(strip_tags($pChild), 0 , 270) . "..."; break; case 'author': echo ""; break; case 'category': echo ""; break; case 'guid': echo ""; break; default: // echo strip_tags($pChild) . "<br />\n"; break; } } } } } ?>

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• Really "wow" them in the interview

  - by Juliet

  Let me put it to you this way: I'm a top-notch programmer, but a notoriously bad interviewee. I've flunked 3 interviews consecutively because I get so nervous that my voice tightens at least 2 octaves higher and I start visibly shaking -- mind you, I can handle whatever technical questions the interviewer throws at me in that state, but I think it looks bad to come off as a quivering, squeaky-voiced young woman during a job interview. I've just got the personality type of a shy computer programmer. No matter how technical I am, I'm going to get passed up in favor of a smooth talker. I have another interview coming up shortly, and I want to really impress the company. Here are my trouble spots: What can I do to be less nervous during my interview? I always get really excited when I hear I have a face-to-face interview, but get more and more anxious as D-Day the interview approaches. My employers wants me to explain what I used to do at my prior employment. I'm a very chatty person and tend to talk/squeak for 10 minutes at a time. How long or short should I time my answers? On that note, when I'm explaining what I did at prior jobs, what exactly is my interviewer looking for? At some point, my interviewer will ask "do you have any questions for me while you're here?" I should, but what kinds of questions should I ask to show that I'm interested in being employed? My interviewer always asks why I'm looking for a new job. The real reason is that my present salary is $27K/yr [Edit to add: and I've yet to get a raise since I started], and I want to make more money -- otherwise the work environment is fine. How do I sugarcoat "I want to make more money" into something that sounds nicer? I have only one prior programmer job, and I've worked there for 18 months, but I have the skill of someone with 4 to 6 years of experience. What can I say to compete against applicants with more work experience? I took a low-paying $27K/yr programming job just to get my foot in IT, and I've been trying to leverage that job as a stepping stone to better opportunities. I get interviews because I consistently out-score senior-level developers in aptitude tests, and my desired salary range is right in the ballpark of what most companies want to offer. Unfortunately, while I've been a programming as a hobby for 10 years and I'm geared to graduate with my BA in Comp Sci in May '09, employers see me as a junior-level programmer with no degree. I want to prove them wrong and get a job that matches my skill level. I'd appreciate any advice anyone has to offer, especially if they can help me get a better job in the process.

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• Offline backup synchronization

  - by Pavan Kumar

  There is a Central Server running Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005 and there are 7 client machines situated in various places and has XP Pro & SQL Server 2005 installed in all of them. They are not interconnected so they are physically seperate. One person goes to each of these centers maybe twice a month and takes the backup (Full database consisting of mdf and ldf files) with a pen drive and brings it to the Central server which contains the central database holding same schema as all the other client databases. I need to synchronize each backup database (belonging to different centers) one by one to update the existing data or inserting new data in the central database . The solution i got was Replication. The pendrive is brought to central server consisting of 7 instances of the databases and then the databases is attached to the central server one by one to the same SQL Server where the central database exists. Then my idea was to replicate the backup database one by one i.e using single subscription (Central Database) and multiple publication ( i.e 7 instances of databases in my case) toplogy by performing replication locally (i.e in the same machine). So i tried to develop a UI in C# .Net to programatically run the Transactional Replication with push subscription using RMO Programming (which is incomplete as of now because there is no point in developing when you already know it is not the solution). Transactional Replication can either be set to initialize with a snapshot or without a snapshot. If i go for the first option i.e with a snapshot , the data whatever is present in Central Database is overwritten by the new data . So the data present initially in the central database is lost. If i try to initialize without snapshot , no data (the data already has the updated and new data) will be sent from the backup database to server. The replication will work in a scenario where any incremental changes is done only after you set the replication . So the initial data whatever was present in the backup database when setting up the replication will not be replicated when running the snapshot agent for the first time to synchronize. Only changes in the backup database thereafter will be reflected to the central database .(Remember I am not going to insert new data or make any changes to the backup database after i attach it to the Central Server. ) So this solution is not feasible. I want a solution for synchronizing from one client database to central database present in the same machine using C#.NET. If you can provide me small example maybe with two databases(with same schema) DB1(Client) to DB2(Server) consisting of one or two tables it will be very helpful. The synchronization is not bidirectional.I want to only update existing data or insert new data from DB1 to DB2 (DB2 may contain some data initially). Thanks and Regards Pavan

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• How to represent different entities that have identical behavior?

  - by Dominik

  I have several different entities in my domain model (animal species, let's say), which have a few properties each. The entities are readonly (they do not change state during the application lifetime) and they have identical behavior (the differ only by the values of properties). How to implement such entities in code? Unsuccessful attempts: Enums I tried an enum like this: enum Animals { Frog, Duck, Otter, Fish } And other pieces of code would switch on the enum. However, this leads to ugly switching code, scattering the logic around and problems with comboboxes. There's no pretty way to list all possible Animals. Serialization works great though. Subclasses I also thought about where each animal type is a subclass of a common base abstract class. The implementation of Swim() is the same for all Animals, though, so it makes little sense and serializability is a big issue now. Since we represent an animal type (species, if you will), there should be one instance of the subclass per application, which is hard and weird to maintain when we use serialization. public abstract class AnimalBase { string Name { get; set; } // user-readable double Weight { get; set; } Habitat Habitat { get; set; } public void Swim(); { /* swim implementation; the same for all animals but depends uses the value of Weight */ } } public class Otter: AnimalBase{ public Otter() { Name = "Otter"; Weight = 10; Habitat = "North America"; } } // ... and so on Just plain awful. Static fields This blog post gave me and idea for a solution where each option is a statically defined field inside the type, like this: public class Animal { public static readonly Animal Otter = new Animal { Name="Otter", Weight = 10, Habitat = "North America"} // the rest of the animals... public string Name { get; set; } // user-readable public double Weight { get; set; } public Habitat Habitat { get; set; } public void Swim(); } That would be great: you can use it like enums (AnimalType = Animal.Otter), you can easily add a static list of all defined animals, you have a sensible place where to implement Swim(). Immutability can be achieved by making property setters protected. There is a major problem, though: it breaks serializability. A serialized Animal would have to save all its properties and upon deserialization it would create a new instance of Animal, which is something I'd like to avoid. Is there an easy way to make the third attempt work? Any more suggestions for implementing such a model?

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• "ResolveAssemblyReference" task fails and System.BadImageFormatException, but assembly isn't used an

  - by bdwakefield

  I am getting an error about the assembly "C:\Ora10g\bin\Zip.exe". The trouble is this solution does NOT use anything in Oracle at all. I could not find a single reference to 10g anywhere in the project. I inherited this from another person who left our group. He never had this issue. Another member of my team said he got this before but reinstalling the client portion of 10g fixed it. No such luck there. I even tried using WinGrep to search the entire solution folder for "Ora10g" but it wasn't there. Any ideas? I can't build this solution until I can figure out how to get rid of this false reference to Oracle. VS 2005 solution. Contains a couple WinForm apps, a couple class libraries, and a web service. The error occurs in the main class library project. Here is the error message: Error 1 The "ResolveAssemblyReference" task failed unexpectedly. System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly 'C:\Ora10g\bin\Zip.exe' or one of its dependencies. The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest. File name: 'C:\Ora10g\bin\Zip.exe' at System.Reflection.AssemblyName.nGetFileInformation(String s) at System.Reflection.AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(String assemblyFile) at Microsoft.Build.Shared.AssemblyNameExtension.GetAssemblyNameEx(String path) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.SystemState.GetAssemblyName(String path) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Resolver.FileMatchesAssemblyName(AssemblyNameExtension assemblyName, Boolean isPrimaryProjectReference, Boolean wantSpecificVersion, Boolean allowMismatchBetweenFusionNameAndFileName, String pathToCandidateAssembly, ResolutionSearchLocation searchLocation) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Resolver.ResolveAsFile(String fullPath, AssemblyNameExtension assemblyName, Boolean isPrimaryProjectReference, Boolean wantSpecificVersion, Boolean allowMismatchBetweenFusionNameAndFileName, ArrayList assembliesConsideredAndRejected) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Resolver.ResolveFromDirectory(AssemblyNameExtension assemblyName, Boolean isPrimaryProjectReference, Boolean wantSpecificVersion, String[] executableExtensions, String directory, ArrayList assembliesConsideredAndRejected) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.AssemblyFoldersResolver.Resolve(AssemblyNameExtension assemblyName, String rawFileNameCandidate, Boolean isPrimaryProjectReference, Boolean wantSpecificVersion, String[] executableExtensions, String hintPath, String assemblyFolderKey, ArrayList assembliesConsideredAndRejected, String& foundPath, Boolean& userRequestedSpecificFile) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.AssemblyResolution.ResolveReference(IEnumerable`1 jaggedResolvers, AssemblyNameExtension assemblyName, String rawFileNameCandidate, Boolean isPrimaryProjectReference, Boolean wantSpecificVersion, String[] executableExtensions, String hintPath, String assemblyFolderKey, ArrayList assembliesConsideredAndRejected, String& resolvedSearchPath, Boolean& userRequestedSpecificFile) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ReferenceTable.ResolveReference(AssemblyNameExtension assemblyName, String rawFileNameCandidate, Reference reference) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ReferenceTable.ResolveAssemblyFilenames() at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ReferenceTable.ComputeClosure() at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ReferenceTable.ComputeClosure(DependentAssembly[] remappedAssembliesValue, ITaskItem[] referenceAssemblyFiles, ITaskItem[] referenceAssemblyNames, ArrayList exceptions) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ResolveAssemblyReference.Execute(FileExists fileExists, DirectoryExists directoryExists, GetDirectories getDirectories, GetAssemblyName getAssemblyName, GetAssemblyMetadata getAssemblyMetadata, GetRegistrySubKeyNames getRegistrySubKeyNames, GetRegistrySubKeyDefaultValue getRegistrySubKeyDefaultValue, GetLastWriteTime getLastWriteTime) at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ResolveAssemblyReference.Execute() at Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine.TaskEngine.ExecuteTask(ExecutionMode howToExecuteTask, Hashtable projectItemsAvailableToTask, BuildPropertyGroup projectPropertiesAvailableToTask, Boolean& taskClassWasFound) WRN: Assembly binding logging is turned OFF. To enable assembly bind failure logging, set the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog] (DWORD) to 1. Note: There is some performance penalty associated with assembly bind failure logging. To turn this feature off, remove the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog].

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• JavaScript: Doing some stuff right before the user exits the page

  - by Mike

  I have seen some questions here regarding what I want to achieve and have based what I have so far on those answer. But there is a slight misbehavior that is still irritating me. What I have is sort of a recovery feature. Whenever you are typing text, the client sends a sync request to the server every 45 seconds. It does 2 things. First, it extends the lease the client has on the record (only one person may edit at one time) for another 60 seconds. Second, it sends the text typed so far to the server in case the server crashes, internet connection fails, etc. In that case, the next time the user enters our application, the user is notified that something has gone wrong and that some text was recovered. Think of Microsoft or OpenOffice recovery whenever they crash! Of course, if the user leaves the page willingly, the user does not need to be notified and as a result, the recovery is deleted. I do that final request via a beforeunload event. Everything went fine until I was asked to make a final adjustment... The same behavior you have here at stack overflow when you exit the editor... a confirm dialogue. This works so far, BUT, the confirm dialogue is shown twice. Here is the code. The event if (local.sync.autosave_textelement) { window.onbeforeunload = exitConfirm; } The function function exitConfirm() { var local = Core; if (confirm('blub?')) { local.sync.autosave_destroy = true; sync(false); return true; } else { return false; } }; Some problem irrelevant clarifications: Core is a global Object that contains a lot of variables that are used everywhere. sync makes an ajax request. The values are based on the values that the Core.sync object contains. The parameter determines if the call should be async (default) or sync.

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• NoSQL DB for .Net document-based database (ECM)

  - by Dane

  I'm halfway through coding a basic multi-tenant SaaS ECM solution. Each client has it's own instance of the database / datastore, but the .Net app is single instance. The documents are pretty much read only (i.e. an image archive of tiffs or PDFs) I've used MSSQL so far, but then started thinking this might be viable in a NoSQL DB (e.g. MongoDB, CouchDB). The basic premise is that it stores documents, each with their own particular indexes. Each tenant can have multiple document types. e.g. One tenant might have an invoice type, which has Customer ID, Invoice Number and Invoice Date. Another tenant might have an application form, which has Member Number, Application Number, Member Name, and Application Date. So far I've used the old method which Sharepoint (used?) to use, and created a document table which has int_field_1, int_field_2, date_field_1, date_field_2, etc. Then, I've got a "mapping" table which stores the customer specific index name, and the database field that will map to. I've avoided the key-value pair model in the DB due to volume of documents. This way, we can support multiple document types in the one table, and get reasonably high performance out of it, and allow for custom document type searches (i.e. user selects a document type, then they're presented with a list of search fields). However, a NoSQL DB might make this a lot simpler, as I don't need to worry about denormalizing the document. However, I've just got concerns about the rest of the data around a document. We store an "action history" against the document. This tracks views, whether someone emails the document from within the system, and other "future" functionality (e.g. faxing). We have control over the document load process, so we can manipulate the data however it needs to be to get it in the document store (e.g. assign unique IDs). Users will not be adding in their own documents, so we shouldn't need to worry about ACID compliance, as the documents are relatively static. So, my questions I guess : Is a NoSQL DB a good fit Is MongoDB the best for Asp.Net (I saw Raven and Velocity, but they're still kinda beta) Can I store a key for each document, and then store the action history in a MSSQL DB with this key? I don't need to do joins, it would be if a person clicks "View History" against a document. How would performance compare between the two (NoSQL DB vs denormalized "document" table) Volumes would be up to 200,000 new documents per month for a single tenant. My current scaling plan with the SQL DB involves moving the SQL DB into a cluster when certain thresholds are reached, and then reviewing partitioning and indexing structures.

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• Is Zend Framework a total waste of my time?

  - by Citizen

  Ok, I'm about 50% done with the "30 minute" quickstart guide from Zend. I must be missing something, because this seems like a total waste of time. The point of this quickguide is to create a guestbook, something I could do in 5 minutes with regular naked non-framework php. Here's my path to zend framework: c:/program files/wamp/www/_zend/ Here's my path to my quickstart project: c:/program files/wamp/www/_zend/bin/quickstart/ I have a number of questions at this point: http://framework.zend.com/docs/quickstart/create-a-model-and-database-table 1: I'm running the command line to run my database loading script. I get an error stating the it can't find the Zend/AutoLoader.php becuase my path to the zend library is wrong. I followed all of the steps. I defined the path to my zend library in the main config file, but for some reason, its defined again in my db loader. In all of these scripts that they have me load, it points the relative path to the zend library as being /../library Problem is, there's nothing in that folder. To get to my actual zend folder, you'd need to be (relatively) /../../../../library Which brings me to my 2nd question: 2: Where the #$#$ is the main Zend files supposed to be? The install directions were basically "put it wherever you want", when the real answer (after a bunch of errors and wasted time was) was "put it somewhere so that its really easy to type the full path a thousand times in command line" and "it also better be in a runnable place on your webserver since its going to create your quickstart application in a subdirectory within zend". Which brings us to the third question 3: Am I supposed to have this libary in both the parent core Zend (wamp/_zend/library) AND my application (quickstart/library)? 4: If that is the case, it seems like a ton of wasted files to be uploading. I'd like to use Zend to create products that my customers will download. 5 megs of overhead seems like a bit much. Zend claims you can use these library components separately, but it looks to me like I'm going to have to upload them every time. Which leads to the next question: 5: It appears that perhaps Zend is more for a single application that is not supposed to be distributed. Is this not the case? 6: According to their default file structure everything but my /public folder would be above public_html on my server if I wanted this to rest on my TLD. I would need to rename every reference of /public/ to /public_html/, or am I missing something else?

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• Problem connecting to postgres with Kohana 3 database module on OS X Snow Leopard

  - by Bart Gottschalk

  Environment: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard PHP 5.3 Kohana 3.0.4 When I try to configure and use a connection to a postgresql database on localhost I get the following error: ErrorException [ Warning ]: mysql_connect(): [2002] No such file or directory (trying to connect via unix:///var/mysql/mysql.sock) Here is the configuration of the database in /modules/database/config/database.php (note the third instance named 'pgsqltest') return array ( 'default' => array ( 'type' => 'mysql', 'connection' => array( /** * The following options are available for MySQL: * * string hostname * string username * string password * boolean persistent * string database * * Ports and sockets may be appended to the hostname. */ 'hostname' => 'localhost', 'username' => FALSE, 'password' => FALSE, 'persistent' => FALSE, 'database' => 'kohana', ), 'table_prefix' => '', 'charset' => 'utf8', 'caching' => FALSE, 'profiling' => TRUE, ), 'alternate' => array( 'type' => 'pdo', 'connection' => array( /** * The following options are available for PDO: * * string dsn * string username * string password * boolean persistent * string identifier */ 'dsn' => 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=kohana', 'username' => 'root', 'password' => 'r00tdb', 'persistent' => FALSE, ), 'table_prefix' => '', 'charset' => 'utf8', 'caching' => FALSE, 'profiling' => TRUE, ), 'pgsqltest' => array( 'type' => 'pdo', 'connection' => array( /** * The following options are available for PDO: * * string dsn * string username * string password * boolean persistent * string identifier */ 'dsn' => 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=pgsqltest', 'username' => 'postgres', 'password' => 'dev1234', 'persistent' => FALSE, ), 'table_prefix' => '', 'charset' => 'utf8', 'caching' => FALSE, 'profiling' => TRUE, ), ); And here is the code to create the database instance, create a query and execute the query: $pgsqltest_db = Database::instance('pgsqltest'); $query = DB::query(Database::SELECT, 'SELECT * FROM test')->execute(); I'm continuing to research a solution for this error but thought I'd ask to see if someone else has already found a solution. Any ideas are welcome. One other note is that I know my build of PHP can access this postgresql db since I'm able to manage the db using phpPgAdmin. But I have yet to determine what phpPgAdmin is doing differently to connect to the db than what Kohana 3 is attempting. Bart

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• properly setting email subject line delivered from email form

  - by DC1

  I have a email form for my website but here is the issue: when i receive an email, the subject line in my inbox shows whatever the user inputted as subject in the form. id like to override that so that whenever an email comes in. the subject in the email header is always "an inquiry from your website". In the message body, sure i don't mind their specific subject they entered but when I receive an email, id like consistency in my inbox. this is the current code: <?php session_start(); if(isset($_POST['Submit'])) { if( $_SESSION['chapcha_code'] == $_POST['chapcha_code'] && !empty($_SESSION['chapcha_code'] ) ) { $youremail = 'xxxxxxxxx'; $fromsubject = 'An inquiry from your website'; $title = $_POST['title']; $fname = $_POST['fname']; $lname = $_POST['lname']; $mail = $_POST['mail']; $address = $_POST['address']; $city = $_POST['city']; $zip = $_POST['zip']; $country = $_POST['country']; $phone = $_POST['phone']; $subject = $_POST['subject']; $message = $_POST['message']; $headers = "From: $nome <$mail>\r\n"; $to = $youremail; $mailsubject = 'Message received from'.$fromsubject.' Contact Page'; $body = $fromsubject.' The person that contacted you is '.$fname.' '.$lname.' Address: '.$address.' '.$city.', '.$zip.', '.$country.' Phone Number: '.$phone.' E-mail: '.$mail.' Subject: '.$subject.' Message: '.$message.' |---------END MESSAGE----------|'; echo "Thank you for inquiring. We will contact you shortly.<br/>You may return to our <a href='/index.html'>Home Page</a>"; mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers); unset($_SESSION['chapcha_code']); } else { echo 'Sorry, you have provided an invalid security code'; } } else { echo "You must write a message. </br> Please visit our <a href='/contact.html'>Contact Page</a> and try again."; } ?>

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• Google Checkout. Show shipping rates before logging in possible?

  - by Roeland

  I am trying to integrate google checkout with my current site. I am calculating the shipping on my end, before passing it to google checkout. The problem is, when a person click the "google checkout" button, it takes them to google checkout but it does not show the shipping. It actually states it will be calculated on next step. In the next step it actually shows a drop down with the ONE option for shipping that I passed, which is a flat rate.. The problem is, to get to the next step you have to enter a credit card. Also, my shop has the shipping shown in the cart, so it would seem confusing to go to checkout and have a price without shipping. Here is the test code I am using right now to see if I can get it to show shipping before logging in (sample it here: http://sensenich.bythepixel.com/test.html) <!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"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> <title>Site Title</title> </head> <body> <form method="POST" action="https://sandbox.google.com/checkout/api/checkout/v2/checkoutForm/Merchant/468503062558352" accept-charset="utf-8"> <input type="hidden" name="item_name_1" value="Peanut Butter"/> <input type="hidden" name="item_description_1" value="Chunky peanut butter."/> <input type="hidden" name="item_quantity_1" value="1"/> <input type="hidden" name="item_price_1" value="3.99"/> <input type="hidden" name="item_currency_1" value="USD"/> <input type="hidden" name="checkout-flow-support.merchant-checkout-flow-support.shipping-methods.flat-rate-shipping-1.name" value="UPS Next Day Air"/> <input type="hidden" name="checkout-flow-support.merchant-checkout-flow-support.shipping-methods.flat-rate-shipping-1.price" value="20.00"/> <input type="hidden" name="checkout-flow-support.merchant-checkout-flow-support.shipping-methods.flat-rate-shipping-1.price.currency" value="USD"/> <input type="hidden" name="_charset_" /> <!-- Button code --> <input type="image" name="Google Checkout" alt="Fast checkout through Google" src="http://sandbox.google.com/checkout/buttons/checkout.gif?merchant_id=468503062558352&w=180&h=46&style=white&variant=text&loc=en_US" height="46" width="180" /> </form> </body> </html>

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• Ultimate Get/Post with Android Thread for Dummies

  - by Jayomat

  Hi, I'm writing an app to check for the bus timetable's. Therefor I need to post some data to a html page, submit it, and parse the resulting page with htmlparser. Though it may be asked a lot, can some one help me identify if 1) this page does support post/get (I think it does) 2) which fields I need to use? 3) How to make the actual request? this is my code so far: String url = "http://busspur02.aseag.de/bs.exe?Cmd=RV&Karten=true&DatumT=30&DatumM=4&DatumJ=2010&ZeitH=&ZeitM=&Suchen=%28S%29uchen&GT0=&HT0=&GT1=&HT1="; String charset = "CP1252"; System.out.println("startFrom: "+start_from); System.out.println("goTo: "+destination); //String tag.v List<NameValuePair> params = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>(); params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("HTO", start_from)); params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("HT1", destination)); params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("GTO", "Aachen")); params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("GT1", "Aachen")); params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("DatumT", day)); params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("DatumM", month)); params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("DatumJ", year)); params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("ZeitH", hour)); params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("ZeitM", min)); UrlEncodedFormEntity query = new UrlEncodedFormEntity(params, charset); HttpPost post = new HttpPost(url); post.setEntity(query); InputStream response = new DefaultHttpClient().execute(post).getEntity().getContent(); // Now do your thing with the facebook response. String source = readText(response,"CP1252"); Log.d(TAG_AVV,response.toString()); System.out.println("STREAM "+source); One person also gave me a hint to use firebug to read what's going on at the page, but I don't really understand what to look for, or more precisely, how to use the provided information. I also find it confusing, for example, that when I enter the data by hand, the url says, for example, "....HTO=Kaiserplatz&...", but in Firebug, the same Kaiserplatz is connected to a different field, in this case: \<\td class="Start3" Kaiserplatz <\/td (I inserted \ to make it visible) The last line in my code prints the html page, but without having send a request.. it's printed as if there was no input at all... My app is almost done, I hope someone can help me out to finish it! thanks in advance

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• HTML/CSS set div to height of sibling

  - by Paul

  I have 2 div's contained in a third. One of the contained div's is floated left, the other floated right. I would like the 2 sibling div's to always be at the same height, but am having a problem with this. So far I am only viewing the page in Firefox, and figured I'd worry about any cross-browser issues after I get it working in at least one browser. Here is the markup: <div id="main-container" class="border clearfix"> <div id="left-div" class="border"> ... </div> <div id="right-div" class="border"> ... </div> </div> Here is the CSS: #main-container { position: relative; min-height: 500px; } #left-div { position: relative; float: left; width: 700px; min-height: inherit; } #right-div { position: relative; float: right; width: 248px; min-height: inherit; height: inherit; } .clearfix:after { content: " "; display: block; height: 0; clear: both; visibility: hidden; } .clearfix { display: inline-block; _height: 1%; clear: both; } .clearfix { display: block; clear: both; } .border { border: solid 1px #000; } If the content in the #left-div is longer than 500px, the #right-div does not expand to match. In an example I tried, Firefox said the computed style height of the #main-container was 804px, the computed style height of the #left-div was 800px, and the computed style height of the #right-div was 586.2px, as it had expanded to fit it's own content. I understand I might be going about this the wrong way, and if this is a duplicate questions then I apologize, but I wasn't quite sure what to search under.

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• Defining where on the page the flowdocument I am printing will 'start' and 'end'

  - by Sagi1981

  Dear community. I am almost done with implementing a printing functionality, but I am having trouble getting the last hurdle done with. My problem is, that I am printing some reports, consisting of a header (with information about the person the report is about), a footer (with a page number) and the content in the middle, which is a FlowDocument. Since the flowdocuments can be fairly long, It is very possible that they will span multiple pages. My approach is to make a custom FlowDocumentPaginator which derives from DocumentPaginator. In there i define my header and my footer. However, when I print my page, the flowdocument and my header and footer are on top of eachother. So my question is plain and simple - how do I define from where and to where the flowdocument part on the pages will be placed? here is the code from my custommade Paginator: public class HeaderedFlowDocumentPaginator : DocumentPaginator { private DocumentPaginator flowDocumentpaginator; public HeaderedFlowDocumentPaginator(FlowDocument document) { flowDocumentpaginator = ((IDocumentPaginatorSource) document).DocumentPaginator; } public override bool IsPageCountValid { get { return flowDocumentpaginator.IsPageCountValid; } } public override int PageCount { get { return flowDocumentpaginator.PageCount; } } public override Size PageSize { get { return flowDocumentpaginator.PageSize; } set { flowDocumentpaginator.PageSize = value; } } public override IDocumentPaginatorSource Source { get { return flowDocumentpaginator.Source; } } public override DocumentPage GetPage(int pageNumber) { DocumentPage page = flowDocumentpaginator.GetPage(pageNumber); ContainerVisual newVisual = new ContainerVisual(); newVisual.Children.Add(page.Visual); DrawingVisual header = new DrawingVisual(); using (DrawingContext dc = header.RenderOpen()) { //Header data } newVisual.Children.Add(header); DrawingVisual footer = new DrawingVisual(); using (DrawingContext dc = footer.RenderOpen()) { Typeface typeface = new Typeface("Trebuchet MS"); FormattedText text = new FormattedText("Page " + (pageNumber + 1).ToString(), CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, FlowDirection.LeftToRight, typeface, 14, Brushes.Black); dc.DrawText(text, new Point(page.Size.Width - 100, page.Size.Height-30)); } newVisual.Children.Add(footer); DocumentPage newPage = new DocumentPage(newVisual); return newPage; } } And here is the printdialogue call: private void btnPrint_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { try { PrintDialog printDialog = new PrintDialog(); if (printDialog.ShowDialog() == true) { FlowDocument fd = new FlowDocument(); MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(ASCIIEncoding.Default.GetBytes(<My string of text - RTF formatted>)); TextRange tr = new TextRange(fd.ContentStart, fd.ContentEnd); tr.Load(stream, DataFormats.Rtf); stream.Close(); fd.ColumnWidth = printDialog.PrintableAreaWidth; HeaderedFlowDocumentPaginator paginator = new HeaderedFlowDocumentPaginator(fd); printDialog.PrintDocument(paginator, "myReport"); } } catch (Exception ex) { //Handle } }

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• How to run an application as root without asking for an admin password?

  - by kvaruni

  I am writing a program in Objective-C (XCode 3.2, on Snow Leopard) that is capable of either selectively blocking certain sites for a duration or only allow certain sites (and thus block all others) for a duration. The reasoning behind this program is rather simple. I tend to get distracted when I have full internet access, but I do need internet access during my working hours to get to a number of work-related websites. Clearly, this is not a permanent block, but only helps me to focus whenever I find myself wandering a bit too much. At the moment, I am using a Unix script that is called via AppleScript to obtain Administrator permissions. It then activates a number of ipfw rules and clears those after a specific duration to restore full internet access. Simple and effective, but since I am running as a standard user, it gets cumbersome to enter my administrator password each and every time I want to go "offline". Furthermore, this is a great opportunity to learn to work with XCode and Objective-C. At the moment, everything works as expected, minus the actual blocking. I can add a number of sites in a list, specify whether or not I want to block or allow these websites and I can "start" the blocking by specifying a time until which I want to stay "offline". However, I find it hard to obtain clear information on how I can run a privileged Unix command from Objective-C. Ideally, I would like to be able to store information with respect to the Administrator account into the Keychain to use these later on, so that I can simply move into "offline" mode with the convenience of clicking a button. Even more ideally, there might be some class in Objective-C with which I can block access to some/all websites for this particular user without needing to rely on privileged Unix commands. A third possibility is in starting this program with root permissions and the reducing the permissions until I need them, but since this is a GUI application that is nested in the menu bar of OS X, the results are rather awkward and getting it to run each and every time with root permission is no easy task. Anyone who can offer me some pointers or advice? Please, no security-warnings, I am fully aware that what I want to do is a potential security threat.

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• Upload large files via a webpage

  - by Hultner

  What way is the best way to let users upload large files from there webbrowser to a server. I'm talking 200MB+ possible up to a few gigatyes. I have been thinking of a few possible solutions to the problem (not tried them yet) and this is basically the things I came up with. Server download speed will not be a problem but the users connection possibly could. Having some sort of applet on the client side written in Java or Flash which sends the file in parts (is this possible with an applet) to a php/other script on the server and a checksum+ some other info about the file. On the server scripts all the parts and the info file is saved in a temporary directory wich has a unique name based on the checksum of the file and the ip of the user. When the last chunk is sent the applet sends a signal to the server saying it's finished and the server put the file together in the right location. If a chunk doesn't match the checksum for that part the server will send a response to the applet telling it to reupload that chunk. I don't know how important the checksum checking is since it's all tcpackages, someone with more insigth migth be able to answer on that. This is probably the worst way, changing the settings on your server to allow huge fileuploads via an inputfiel. Do it like a normal transfer. User an uploadmanager which does pretty much the same thing as applet i mentioned above. Pros of the first is probably that it would most likely be rather secure, you could show progress as well and possibly resume an upload if ip hasn't changed and do a threaded upload of the chunks. Cons of the first is that the user will need flash/java for it to work. Pros of the 2nd is that it will pretty much work for everyone but cons are big, first there's no way resuming an intruppted download and if something is wrong the whole file would have to be reuploaded is a few of cons. For the third one the pros is pretty muc the same as for the first but the cons is that the user would have to download an application to their computer and run and the application will have to be have to be compatible with their computer and OS. Another way may be a combination of two. Lets say an applet for bigger or more files and a simple input which is rather restricted to maybe max 10-20MB for smaller files and comability. There are probably other much smarter ways to tackle this and that's why I'm asking for advice here on SO.

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• Experienced developer trying to get outsourcing contract with current client.

  - by Mike

  I work for a major bank as a contract software developer. I've been there a few months, and without exception this place has the worst software practices I've ever seen. The software my team makes has no formal testing, terrible code (not reusable, hard to read, etc), minimal documentation, no defined development process and an absolutely sickening amount of waste due to bureaucratic overhead. Part of my contract is to maintain a group of thousands of very poorly written batch jobs. When one of the jobs fails (read: crashes), it's a developers job to look at the source, figure out what's wrong, fix it, and check it in. There is no quality assurance process or auditing of the results whatsoever. Once the developer says "it works" a manager signs off and it goes into production. What's disturbing is that these jobs essentially grab market data and put it into a third-party risk management system, which provides the bank with critical intelligence. I've discovered the disturbing truth that this has been happening since the 90s and nobody really has evidence the system is getting the correct data! Without going into details, an issue arose on Friday that was so horrible I actually stormed out of the place. I was ready to quit, but I decided to just get out to calm my nerves and possibly go back Monday. I've been reflecting today on how to handle this. I have realized that, in probably less than 6 months, I could (with 2 other developers) remake a large component of this system. The new system would provide them with, as primary benefits, a maintainable codebase less prone to error and a solid QA framework. To do it properly I would have to be outside the bank, the internal bureaucracy is just too much. And moreover, I think a bank is fundamentally not a place that can make good software. This is my plan. Write a report explaining in depth all the problems with their current system Explain why their software practices fail and generate a tremendous amount of error and waste. Use this as the basis for claiming the project must be developed externally. Write a high level development plan, including what resources I will require Hand 1,2,3 to my manager, hopefully he passes it up the chain. Worst case he fires me, but this isn't so bad. Convinced Executive decides to award my company a contract for the new system I have 8 years experience as a software contractor and have delivered my share of successful software products, but all working in-house for small/medium sized companies. When I read this over, I think I have a dynamite plan. But since this is the first time doing something this bold so I have my doubts. My question is, is this a good idea? If you think not, please spare no detail.

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• What is a good dumbed-down, safe template system for PHP?

  - by Wilhelm

  (Summary: My users need to be able to edit the structure of their dynamically generated web pages without being able to do any damage.) Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. I am currently working on a service where customers from a specific demographic can create a specific type of web site and fill it with their own content. The system is written in PHP. Many of the users of this system wish to edit how their particular web site looks, or, more commonly, have a designer do it for them. Editing the CSS is fine and dandy, but sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes they want to shuffle the entire page structure around by editing the raw HTML of the dynamically created web pages. The templating system used by WordPress is, as far as I can see, perfect for my use. Except for one thing which is critically important. In addition to being able to edit how comments are displayed or where the menu goes, someone editing a template can have that template execute arbitrary PHP code. As the same codebase runs all these different sites, with all content in the same databse, allowing my users to run arbitrary code is clearly out of the question. So what I need, is a dumbed-down, idiot-proof templating system where my users can edit most of the page structure on their own, pulling in the dynamic sections wherever, without being able to even echo 1+1;. Observe the following psuedocode: <!DOCTYPE html> <title><!-- $title --></title> <!-- header() --> <!-- menu() --> <div>Some random custom crap added by the user.</div> <!-- page_content() --> That's the degree of power I'd like to grant my users. They don't need to do their own loops or calculations or anything. Just include my variables and functions and leave the rest to me. I'm sure I'm not the only person on the planet that needs something like this. Do you know of any ready-made templating systems I could use? Thanks in advance for your reply.

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• Alternatives to requiring users to register for an account?

  - by jamieb

  I'm working on a side project to build a new web app idea of mine. For the sake of discussion, let's say this app displays a random photograph of a famous work of art. On a scale of 1 to 5, users are asked to rate how well they like each piece of art, and then are shown the next photo. Eventually, the app is able to get an sense of the person's style and is able to recommend artwork that he/she may find pleasing. The whole concept is similar to Netflix. I understand how to do all the preference matching logic (although not as sophisticated as Netflix). But I'd like to find a way to do this without requiring that users create an account first. This is a novelty website that a typical user might use only a handful of times. Requiring registration is overkill and will likely drastically reduce it's utility. I'd like to allow people to begin rating artwork within five seconds of their initial pageview, yet maintain the integrity of the voting (since recommendations are predicated on how other people have rated the various pieces of artwork). Can it be done? Some ideas: OpenID. The perfect solution except for the fact that it's not wildly used and my target audience isn't the most technically adept demographic. Text message. User inputs phone number and is texted a four digit code to key into the web app. Quick, easy, and great way to limit abuse. However, privacy concerns abound... people are probably even less likely to give me their phone number than their email address. Facebook login. I personally don't have a Facebook account due to privacy concerns. And I'd really hate to support such a proprietary platform. Hash code/Bookmark. Vistor's initial pageview generates a 5 or 6 digit alphanumeric code that is embedded in each subsequent URL. They can bookmark any page to save their state. Good: Very simple system that doesn't require any user action. Bad: Very easy to stuff the ballot box, might be difficult to account for users sharing the link containing their ID code via email or social networking sites.

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• mysql index optimization for a table with multiple indexes that index some of the same columns

  - by Sean

  I have a table that stores some basic data about visitor sessions on third party web sites. This is its structure: id, site_id, unixtime, unixtime_last, ip_address, uid There are four indexes: id, site_id/unixtime, site_id/ip_address, and site_id/uid There are many different types of ways that we query this table, and all of them are specific to the site_id. The index with unixtime is used to display the list of visitors for a given date or time range. The other two are used to find all visits from an IP address or a "uid" (a unique cookie value created for each visitor), as well as determining if this is a new visitor or a returning visitor. Obviously storing site_id inside 3 indexes is inefficient for both write speed and storage, but I see no way around it, since I need to be able to quickly query this data for a given specific site_id. Any ideas on making this more efficient? I don't really understand B-trees besides some very basic stuff, but it's more efficient to have the left-most column of an index be the one with the least variance - correct? Because I considered having the site_id being the second column of the index for both ip_address and uid but I think that would make the index less efficient since the IP and UID are going to vary more than the site ID will, because we only have about 8000 unique sites per database server, but millions of unique visitors across all ~8000 sites on a daily basis. I've also considered removing site_id from the IP and UID indexes completely, since the chances of the same visitor going to multiple sites that share the same database server are quite small, but in cases where this does happen, I fear it could be quite slow to determine if this is a new visitor to this site_id or not. The query would be something like: select id from sessions where uid = 'value' and site_id = 123 limit 1 ... so if this visitor had visited this site before, it would only need to find one row with this site_id before it stopped. This wouldn't be super fast necessarily, but acceptably fast. But say we have a site that gets 500,000 visitors a day, and a particular visitor loves this site and goes there 10 times a day. Now they happen to hit another site on the same database server for the first time. The above query could take quite a long time to search through all of the potentially thousands of rows for this UID, scattered all over the disk, since it wouldn't be finding one for this site ID. Any insight on making this as efficient as possible would be appreciated :) Update - this is a MyISAM table with MySQL 5.0. My concerns are both with performance as well as storage space. This table is both read and write heavy. If I had to choose between performance and storage, my biggest concern is performance - but both are important. We use memcached heavily in all areas of our service, but that's not an excuse to not care about the database design. I want the database to be as efficient as possible.

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