Idea for an android application

Recently i had this brilliant thought, here it goes. We normally receive so many calls from unknown numbers, it could be great if we know where this call is actually from. I am wondering this can be easily done in a mobile OS like Android. Here is how i think this can be achieved.

1. Create a DB of name-value pairs for all the operators in India (Some guy here has already done it).
2. When a call is received intercept it and look up the first four digits. If a match is made then display the Provider name and State.
3. Optionally, Map of India with a dot for location :)

So if somebody does it before me then its good, otherwise i think i will take it up later when i get some free time.

Authenticating users Against Active Directory with PHP

If you need to authenticate users against an Active Directory server in php you need to do this:


$ldap_server = "ldap://in.xxxxxxx.com" ;//your Domain Name
$ldap_user = "xyz@in.xxxxxxx.com";//AD username
$ldap_pass = "***********" ;//Domain password

$ad = ldap_connect($ldap_server) ;
ldap_set_option($ad, LDAP_OPT_PROTOCOL_VERSION, 3) ;
$bound = @ldap_bind($ad, $ldap_user, $ldap_pass);

var_dump($bound);
?>

creating png images from latex

Recently at work i had to generate images from latex equations. I used Miktex latex suite to generate the images. Here is the template i used for generating the images.

== Preamble ==
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\newenvironment{custommargins}[2]%
{\addtolength{\leftskip}{#1}\addtolength{\rightskip}{#2}}{\par}
\pagestyle{empty}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{mathptmx} % rm & math
\usepackage[scaled=1.0]{helvet} % ss
\usepackage[papersize={5.75in},top=1pt,bottom=1pt,left=5pt,right=1pt]{geometry}
\begin{document}
\begin{custommargins}{-2cm}{-2cm}
\begin{flushleft}

== Your equation latex snippet ==

== Postable ==

\end{flushleft}
\end{custommargins}
\newpage
\end{document}

Steps to create image
1) Create a tex file using the above template
2) Create a DVI file using - $LATEX_PATH --quiet --interaction=nonstopmode $temp_tex_file_name
3) you may need to run it twice for formulas to render properly
4) Create png image using - $DVIPS_PATH -q $tmp_filename.dvi -o $tmp_filename.png


You are done!!

Dont forget to write to me if you find it useful.

Make your HTML go on a diet!

In one of my previous posts i showed a technique wherein you could reduce the size of your css and javascript files. You run them through a minify engine which strips down all the spaces and comments and possibly zip it as well while serving.

While it is all fine and dandy for a while but after a while you start to think even after the minify-ing process my html page size is still upwards of 300-400K! Then i think you need to do soul searching like i did. Why do we need all those javascript and CSS for anyway? cant we write css which is only 30-40 lines and still keeps my site functional and javascript which "really" helps the vistior.

Post your comments and suggestions :)

Textpattern and the art of CMS design

Phew a new post after such a long time. It has been a long time i have blogged. So here it goes. This post is about TextPattern. A PHP MySQL based CMS.

I was searching for a simple, elegant and unobtrusive CMS for my personal site. I dutifully headed to opensourcecms.com for seeing the latest and greatest PHP powered CMSes but sadly none of them fitted the bill for me. I was amazed by the bloat and stupidity of those CMSes.

Thats when i remembered about textpattern. I had known it existed for quite a while but never had the time to take it for a ride. Now that i have done it i am quite happy with it and it seems natural to me. I have added one WYSIWYG plugin and an admin theme. Now i am good to go. More to come later.

Spaces in file path in DOS

At last i am able to make it work. Thanks to this blog post i am able to get some headway in the problem i was facing. Basically i was running a php script as a batch script and i was not able to make some commands work because they contained space(s) in the path. There is a switch to DIR command in DOS "/X" which tells you the short name for any directory or file name.

So instead of "C:\program files\foo\bar.exe" you can use "C:\PROGRA~1\foo\bar.exe". May be it is helpful to someone.

I want "no training wheels" attached PHP 6

Yeah you read that right. With some time before PHP6 comes into the fore, i want PHP6 to be a real path breaker. That means effectively no backward compatibility. PHP5 was slow in adoption just because of this reason. People knew that their applications would work on PHP5, that is why they were in no real hurry to adopt it.

I want the core developers team of PHP to really do some nice things with PHP. For noobies PHP5 should be kept. But with PHP 6 i want them to break new grounds. Like APC (Alternative PHP Cache) should be part of the standard install. I want them to incorporate consistent naming schema for at least in-built functions. That means str_replace => natsort?? kind of naming schema should be made consistent.

I want PHP6 to be more serious about security. It should have features which would make incidence of user oversight things of past. I want the in-built functions in PHP6 to raise exceptions. I want PHP6 to have variable types. I mean i declare a variable to be of type INT and i want PHP6 to raise an error if it is used in string context.

With these changes i can see PHP6 gaining the respectability it deserves. It can move to the area called enterprise platform.

Jquery('MyLife').turnAround();

This would summarize my development endeavors in JavaScript Land. I have lately come to love Jquery. So much so anything i do with JavaScript i do it with Jquery. I have also started using the latest Jquery UI. The tabs in JUI is truly amazing and easy to setup. Check out this collection of most popular Jquery plugins.

I am hoping one day we would see one widget system similar to ExtJS but using Jquery. Anyways if you are interested in Jquery, visit the site.

CSS framework + layout

You have heard about development frameworks in php,python etc. Now take a look at a css framework. YAML is the new kid on the block. It comes with its own slick layout designer so that you can create your own custom layout in a jiffy.

What i like about this css framework is that it gives you a clean slate to work with. You dont have to worry about the layout not behaving in IE etc. Kudos to its developers for creating such a nice css framework.

My own google gadget

Just a basic Finance gadget. Check it out now!!