Programmed Under The Influence

"One guy thought he was invisible, the other thought he could fly. Both were wrong. - Steven Seagal"

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 18:01:57 -0800

“One guy thought he was invisible, the other thought he could fly. Both were wrong. - Steven Seagal”

Replacing Placeholders in PHP

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 17:51:35 -0800

Ran across a neat little function in PHP for replacing multiple placeholder instances within a string.
Here’s an example:


$string = "##title####some_text##";

Here’s the PHP:


echo strtr($string,
  array(
    '##title##' => "The Spice...",
    '##some_text##' => "Will flow!!!"
  )
);

Here’s the result:
The Spice…

Will flow!!!

Converting Non-English Characters in PHP

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:02:17 -0800

In my previous post, Removing Non-English Characters in PHP, I provided a way to remove non-english characters, but I found another neat trick to convert these characters into a close ASCII equivalent. Here’s the code:

function unaccent($string) {
    if (strpos($string = htmlentities($string, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'), '&') !== false) {
        $string = html_entity_decode(preg_replace('~&([a-z]{1,2})(?:acute|cedil|circ|grave|lig|orn|ring|slash|tilde|uml);~i', '$1', $string), ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
    }

    return $string;
}

…and here’s the source.

Removing Non-English Characters in PHP

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:32:00 -0800

Why would you want to do this, you say?

Well, I found out the other day a payment processor we use (Authorize.net) at the company I work at doesn’t allow for non-english characters and in return, throws a cryptic error.

Here’s the error:
E00003 - Invalid character in the given encoding. Line 15, position 54.

Here’s the trick:
$str = preg_replace('/[^\00-\255]+/u', '', $str);

…and here’s my sources and #2.

Creating a forum/chat room hybrid system

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:57:00 -0700

I’ve been asked a few times so far to create a chat room for one of my sites. Now even though I think this is an interesting request, I find that chat rooms have become a thing of the past, which have been taken up by the older Internet crowd and (sadly) cyber-predators (no, not like the one Schwarzenegger fought).

I did some thinking and a friend of mine helped me come up with an idea to create a forum/chat room hybrid. It would have the visual & functional qualities of a forum, but would be updated dynamically using sort of what you now find on Twitter’s real-time search results where you are notified of new posts on a timely basis. I’m not going to go into very much detail cause I had to make it work for my site specifically, but I’ll give you an idea on how it works so you can take it in any direction you want to.

What you’ll need… HTML, PHP, jQuery, and a MySQL database

First thing first, let’s see a quick look at what the HTML code will look like (again, this is really basic). *Note: we are setting a session to keep track of when the user first got to the page so we aren’t loading posts that aren’t “new”:



 

    First!
    Second post!
    Third!

Next, we need to set up a timer that will kick off the update function (which fires when the document is ready) and have it run every so often (mine fires every 20 seconds):

$(document).ready(function() {
    setTimeout('checkForNewPosts()', 20000);
}

Now let’s take a look at the function that will call a background script to check for new posts and display a button telling the user that there are new posts:

function checkForNewPosts() {
    $.post('checkForNewPosts.php',
        function(data) {
            if (data > 0) {
	        $('#new_posts_msg')
                .html('')
                .fadeIn('slow');
	    }
        });
    
    // Check again in 20 seconds
    setTimeout('checkForNewPosts()', 20000);
}

Let’s take a look at what’s happening on the “back-end” (or the checkForNewPosts.php file). Using the session we set from last time, we will select any “new” posts that weren’t loaded when the page was first loaded. The result is then sent back to the javascript function to display the “new post” notification button if any new posts have been added:

query($query);
    
    // Return to display notification
    echo $result[0]['alias']['new_post_count'];
?>

If you noticed before, the “new post” notification button had an onclick function called loadNewPosts(). This is shown below and is used to load all the new posts that were found:

function loadNewPosts() {
    $.post('loadNewPosts.php',
        function(data) {
            $('#new_posts_msg').html('').hide(); // Hide the button
            
            // Display new posts
            $('#forum_posts').find('.forum_post:last').after(data);
        });
}

Finally, the loadNewPosts.php file is responsible for retrieving all the new posts and adding them after the latest post already loaded:

query($query);
    
    $new_posts = "";
    foreach ($result as $row) {
        $new_posts .= "" .
            $row['forum_posts']['post'] .
            ";
    }
    
    // Return to display new posts on web page
    echo $new_posts;
?>

I hope that all made sense and helps you in your endeavors to make a dynamically-tubular website. For a working demo, please check out an active thread at: One Line Rhyme :: Forums

I was working on the Account Settings page for one of my...

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:27:26 -0700

imagecopyresized - grainy, but quick

imagecopyresampled - smooth, but slow

I was working on the Account Settings page for one of my personal sites today and I noticed that the resized images I was uploading for test purposes were very pixelated. Then I noticed that my image resizing class was using imagecopyresized to resize the images. I decided to do some research and found that imagecopyresized is quick and dirty, while imagecopyresampled is more CPU intensive, but keeps some of quality making the image smoother and clearer in the end. Luckily for me I don’t allow larger than 50K uploads on my site so I’m now using imagecopyresampled.

Parsing RSS feeds using SimpleXML

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:58:08 -0700

I’m was working with Last.fm’s API service to post user’s recent tracks on one of my sites. I wanted a lighter solution to using their REST Request method so I opted to use their RSS feeds instead. In the past I used either Magpie or SimplePie to parse the RSS for easy access, but I didn’t want the overhead of both these services so I did some research and found something of use courtesy of Stuart Herbert’s article, “Using SimpleXML To Parse RSS Feeds.”

I’ll give a brief tutorial on how I used Stuart’s tutorial to display my 10 most recent tracks from Last.fm:


// Get the RSS URL and plug in your ~username~
$lastfm_feed = "http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/~username~/recenttracks.rss";

// Turn the feed into a string and load it using PHP's simpleXML function
$raw_feed = file_get_contents($lastfm_feed);
$xml = simplexml_load_string($raw_feed);

// Next throw the results into a foreach loop to display the results
// I'll just display all the values you can print out
foreach ($xml->channel->item as $item) {
    echo $item->title; // Track title
    echo $item->link; // Link back to the track on Last.fm
    echo $item->pubDate; // Date the track was played
    echo $item->guid; // Unique identifier
    echo $item->description; // Links back to the artist's page
}

Pollacio.us is here!!

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:26:00 -0700

My newest edition has arrived….

Pollacio.us is a website with a simple concept. You create a survey, invite your friends to vote, and watch as the results come in. Democracy at it’s best, yea yea!!

Have you ever had to make plans with a group of friends and never know what to do? Pollacio.us has the tools to help you and your friends decide on what to do as a group.

The site has a comfortable feel (logo courtesy of sxtxixtxcxh), it’s easy to use (I hope), and most importantly is free to join! So please register and start creating surveys :D

Converting ZIP to State Abbr. (using PHP)

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:48:22 -0700

Converting ZIP to State Abbr. (using PHP):

Cool “little” script for converting a 5 digit ZIP code to a 2 letter state abbreviation.

Dawn of the Surprise Squirrel!! (Photo from the movie: Dawn of...

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:14:00 -0700

Dawn of the Surprise Squirrel!!

(Photo from the movie: Dawn of the Dead - 2004)

Bike Crash (Surprise) Squirrel!! (Original image from:...

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:20:00 -0700

Bike Crash (Surprise) Squirrel!!

(Original image from: http://www.rofl.name/)

Nuclear (Surprise) Squirrel!! (Original image from:...

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:10:00 -0700

Nuclear (Surprise) Squirrel!!

(Original image from: http://science.howstuffworks.com/)

Surprise Squirrel!! (at least that’s what I call...

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:09:00 -0700

Surprise Squirrel!! (at least that’s what I call him)

(Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6018173/Squirrel-is-surprise-star-of-holiday-photo.html)

5 flavors of voting. Choose which one best suits your survey.

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:02:54 -0700

Simple - choose one

Ranked - order options from good to bad

Range - score each option from 0 to 5

Approval - choose all options you like

Weighted - divvy up 5 pts to all options

5 flavors of voting. Choose which one best suits your survey.

Run out of options? No problem, click ‘Another...

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:45:00 -0700

Run out of options? No problem, click ‘Another Option?’

This jQuery plugin lets you easily create new fields with the click of a button (granted you are okay with using

s.) It’s easy to integrate and fairly customizable.

Appendo courtesy of Deep Liquid

Finishing up the survey voting and results pages. Basically this...

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:31:00 -0700

Finishing up the survey voting and results pages.

Basically this is what the site will be about. Surveying decisions that you and your friends have to make on a daily basis. What movie should we go to? Where should we eat? What types of food should we bring to a get-together?

Commenting… you’re doing it right :D These are two...

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:58:00 -0700

Commenting… you’re doing it right :D

These are two examples of my new commenting system:

What!? No Way! (in alpha)
Pollacio.us (coming shortly)

Posting checkbox values with PHP and jQuery

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:09:00 -0700

For some time I had trouble figuring out how to post checkbox results using jQuery’s $.post function after submitting a form. I searched many different sites finding pieces of the a solution that would fit my needs.
Anyway here’s what I got:

1) Let’s create a simple form.

2) Create the javascript to handle the form submission.

    function processForm() {
        var options = $('#my_form :input.option');
        var option_array = new Array();
        
        $.each(options, function(index, element) {
            if ($(element).is(':checked')) {
                option_array.push($(element).val());
            }
    
        // Post options to action file
        $.post('/your/path/to/action/file.php', {'options[]': option_array});
        
        return false;
    }

3) Handle the form submission using PHP.

jQuery API

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:29:00 -0700

jQuery API:

…never code without it.
Courtesy of Remy Sharp

New site on the horizon...

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:52:00 -0700

I am almost proud to present my latest site.
I am very close to wrapping it up, but I think it will be another week of perfecting it and making sure all the screws are tightened.