Mar 5 2010

ASP.Net 301 Redirect


<script runat="server">
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com");
}
</script>


Jan 20 2010

mysql command doesn’t work in OS X snow leopard

So you install mySql on your mac, and it’s working great, but then you go into terminal to run a mysqldump or something, and it doesn’t work!

you get a message something like:

-bash: mysqldump: command not found

so how do you fix this? well, copy and paste the following into your terminal window and press enter:

echo export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.profile

source ~/.profile

whoa, whoa, you say. what is this doing? It makes it so that when you type any command into the terminal, it does a check of these folders before giving you the “command not found” error.

If you want to undo it, you can always edit your .profile, or just delete it.


Jan 12 2010

WordPress on Snow Leopard: Unable to Connect to Database

If an “unable to connect to database” comes up while installing WordPress on a Snow Leopard machine, try adding :3306 to the end of the DB_HOST in wp-config.php

Assuming everything else works, this should solve your problem!


Jan 11 2010

Run JavaScript function every n seconds


//tell javascript to run a function in 1 second
setTimeout ("myFunction()", 1000 );

function myFunction(){
//do stuff

//once the function is finished, queue this function up to run again in 1 second
setTimeout ( "myFunction()", 1000 );
}


Sep 12 2009

Get latitude and longitude of an address using google maps

Google doesn’t make it easy to show you the latitude and longitude of an address you search in google maps, but there’s an easy way to get the info.

  1. go to google maps, type the address, and click search
  2. once you’ve found it, go to your address bar and clear what’s in it
  3. paste: javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().getCenter())); into the address bar
  4. use the coordinates for whatever you wish!

Aug 13 2009

VirtualHostX and mod_rewrite

To enable mod_rewrite manually, see: OS X server tips but if you are using VirtualHostX it changes your default config file. Add the following code to the Directives box:


Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All AuthConfig
Order deny,allow
Deny from all

if you’re using the new version of VirtualHostX, make sure that you select Directory from the dropdown, then use:


Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All AuthConfig


Jul 8 2009

Embedding Web Fonts: A cautionary tale

So for work, the designer says “Hey, can we use this font in the webpage” and like an idiot, I say “sure, why not?”. Well, FF and Safari don’t support .otf files (for whatever reason) So I download FontForge, open it in X11 (on my mac) and convert it to .ttf, which works great.

Then I messed around in IE, trying to make it work, even downloading this tool:

Microsoft WEFT

Worst thing EVER. Don’t do this. Don’t get this. Don’t even look at this. You will feel violated if you use it.

So…how to embed an OTF font in a website (make sure you have a license to do so kids):

  1. Convert OTF file to .ttf (use fontForge)
  2. Embed with @font-face
  3. When adding the font to a style, in IE you CAN NOT call it by the name you gave it with the @font-face declaration. You have to call it by it’s name. So if the font’s name is myfontLTSTDBOLDITALICROMAN you have to do: body{ font-family: myfontLTSTDBOLDITALICROMAN; } Sucky? Very. Works? yes.

Have a nice day


Jun 10 2009

WordPress plugin DB access framework

While designing a recent WordPress plug-in for TruthMedia that was designed to follow MVC, I had an awful lot of database work to do, and it needed to all be properly secured, which was a lot of work, and while making a rather large change to the way the database worked, I realized that writing all the db code by hand was crazy inefficient.

So I wrote a class that you can extend with any model class of your own, and it will automatically have create, read, update, and delete functionality with no more work required. It also uses all of the WordPress security features to properly escape everything and prevent injection. Although, if you can crack it I’d love to hear from you!

Click here to download!

This is how it works:

  1. Create a new class (ex. person)
  2. Give that class instance variables (ID, FirstName, LastName, Address, PhoneNumber, PostalCode, HairColour…)
  3. Make sure that you add accessor methods (getters and setters) for the ID (although it’s good practice to have them for all instance variables). Depending on your project, it may be a good idea to run stripslashes() on your string get functions so that they don’t show up with escaping. You may want to run WordPress’ attribute_escape() on setters, however, again, depending on your set up this may be unnecessary.
  4. Write your SQL code to create a table named (wordPress prefix)(plugin prefix)person (ex. wp_wec_person)
  5. Make sure you call your primary Key personID **This is very important, without this, the system breaks down**
  6. If you wish to store variables in this class, you can modify them to be private, and they won’t be written to the database

In your class, extend the class name, so for example:

class person extends wec_db {

var $ID;

var $FirstName;

function __construct($id = null, $autoload = true){

//If we are given an ID
if(!empty($eventID)){

$this->setID($eventID);


if
($autoPopulate){

$this->read();

}

}

}

//getters and setters, and any other methods for this object

}

Setup Note: to keep your plugin from stepping on the toes of others, make sure you change the prefix at the top of the class. Also, changing the name of the class to (plugin prefix)db (example:wec_db) will make sure that it doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s if they’re using this class!

Usage:

Create / Add

$person = new person();

$person->setFirstName(‘Joe’);

$person->setLastName(‘Blow’);

$person->add();

Read

$person = new person($personID);

Update

$person = new person($personID);

–or–

$person = new person($personID, false);

$person->setFirstName(‘Jane’);

$person->update();

Delete

$person = new person($personID, false);

$person->delete();

Post any questions in the comments! I’d love to hear from you!


May 6 2009

Cause a field to be auto-focused when the page is done loading

So, wouldn’t it be user friendly, if when you went to a form page in a document, if the cursor was automagically positioned at the first field in the form?

Why, yes it would. Try:


Event.observe(window, 'load', function(){
     try {
          $('eventName').focus();
     } 

     catch (e) {}
});

after your </form> tag. This requires the prototype javascript library


Apr 24 2009

Javascript example to do an auto-generated slug on a WordPress Plugin


<!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>Untitled Document</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
function duplicateField(field1, field2){
var theLength = document.getElementById(field1).value.length - 1;
var theString = document.getElementById(field1).value;
for(var i=0; i < theString.length-1; i++){
if(theString.charAt(i) == " "){
theString = setCharAt(theString, i, "_");
}
}
document.getElementById(field2).style.color = "#c9c9c9";
document.getElementById(field2).value = theString;
}
function setCharAt(str,index,chr) {
if(index > str.length-1) return str;
return str.substr(0,index) + chr + str.substr(index+1);
}
function changeColorBack(fieldName){
document.getElementById(fieldName).style.color = "#000000";
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<p>
<input id="field1" onkeyup="duplicateField('field1', 'field2');" type="text" />
</p>
<p><br />
<input id="field2" type="text" onfocus="changeColorBack('field2');" /><br />
</p>
<p>
<span id="span1"></span>
<input id="submitButton" type="submit" value="Submit" />
</p>
</body>
</html>