XML Cake!

Hat tip to MoinAnjum’s  A New Morning!

Uploading files to a web server for whatever purpose can be done in several ways.

• FTP
• SSH
• Web-Based Upload

Although each method has an advantage and disadvantage in using them, for many content management systems (CMS), often these are all web-based user interfaces where when required to upload some assets such as images, software binary files for downloading, PDF files and other files, they are all done within the CMS interface that will rely on server-side scripting languages such as PHP, ASP, JSP or others to handle the file uploading. And each time a file is going to be uploaded, it will use plain HTML on the frontend for the form where each uploaded file is entered by hitting the browse button to be able to navigate your local computer and choose the files you need to upload.

With the use of Java, applets can be created where drag and drop files from the local computer folders to the web server are possible for file uploading.

All file uploading methods are not that user-friendly to the non-technical user

I personally know many people that love Multiply mainly because of their Photo Gallery. And personally, I like iFoto, Plogger and ZenPhoto way better than Multiply. My wife is one of the users that loves the Multiply photo gallery and they main reason is the convenience of running the Java powered file uploader.

They simply use a web-based interface and there is no need to press any browse button and navigate to where the files are and you have to do this 1 by 1 and they just drag the images into the webpage that is running the Java applet.

Upload using Drag and Drop JUpload Java Web Applet

Upload by dragging and dropping files into your own web server or any web hosting account using JUpload. With JUpload, you can turn a webpage into a drag and drop FTP page. This gives you the great convenience of multiple file selection for uploading as opposed to one by one uploading of files.

A colleague of mine at work, Patrick Alcisto, asked me how a getElementByClass is done in JavaScript since getElementByID exists in JavaScript but getElementbyClass does not exist. And I have been using a standard script ever since 2004 that I just always have handy in my previous work, but sometimes, looking and remembering which websites I applied it on takes some time. So just to make it easy for me find the code when I need it, might as well post it on my blog so it is easy to find. Check the sample getElementsByClass code below:

The getElementByClass example code.

/* getElementByClass
/**********************/

var allHTMLTags = new Array();

function getElementByClass(theClass) {

//Create Array of All HTML Tags
var allHTMLTags=document.getElementsByTagName(”*”);

//Loop through all tags using a for loop
for (i=0; i<allHTMLTags.length; i++) {

//Get all tags with the specified class name.
if (allHTMLTags[i].className==theClass) {

//Place any code you want to apply to all
//pages with the class specified.
//In this example is to “display:none;” them
//Making them all dissapear on the page.

allHTMLTags[i].style.display=’none’;

}
}
}

Just a brief explanation to the less knowledgeable in JavaScript how this sample code of getElementByClass works is you are simply taking note of all HTML tags present on the page. And going through a loop check each tag, placing them in an array. Then for each member of the array, check if any of them has a class name. And check if it is the class you are specifying.

Feel free to use the code above and share to the world.

Since this is a function, you just tie it up to any event like an onclick or onmouseover on within other functions. Here is an example where someone clicks on a link and will apply the JavaScript code in getElementByClass to a div.

<div class=”whatever”>…</div>

…

<a href=”…” onclick=”getElementByClass(’whatever’);”><img src=”…”></a>

Just a small note, not all browsers support all JavaScript versions. This script may not work in older browsers. Where getElementByID will not work either. Another note is if you did a copy and paste to the codes above, be sure to change the doublequotes and ( ” )  single quotes ( ‘ ) with the plain text ones so you get no errors.

View Larger Map

Here is also a map of Aparri.

View Larger Map

The two maps above can now show you major roads. Though these maps are not yet as detailed as the Google Map for the United States where it will really give you driving directions, I am still impressed with the development. I can say that this is indeed a good start and I appreciate the effort that Google is making to provide the users a more effective and efficient map. What will it be like when someday all the roads in the Philippines will be fully mapped by Google? Will it be the end of getting lost in the middle of nowhere?

In my point of view, if US government computers have really been hacked, it is not necessarily China who has done the hacking. Why is this so? It’s because when you hack into a computer, you will leave tracks and authorities can trace these tracks and will lead them to the hacker. In the US, the systems are so interconnected and if anyone does a cybercrime, the crook can be easily traced. As many of us know, all computers in the world basically use the same system, software and servers, whether Linux or Windows, Apache or IIS and all have the same security problems. Thus, it is of high probability that an unsecure server of China may have been hacked and was used to hack into the US government computers therefore hiding tracks to the real culprits. Who knows, the crooks may have actually come from England?

I would also like to voice out my opinion regarding this issue. Lately, I’ve noticed that China has been the center of controversy for various issues like Mattel products from China recalled, some food containing formalin, Hong Kong residents being hesitant to buy poultry from China and recently, this alleged hacking activity. For me, the “Sleeping Giant” is slowly becoming a powerful and influential country that could rock the whole world with its tremendous power. Do you think that these events are some of the means of stopping China in becoming a superpower? Are Chinese people really hacking into US government computers? Or are there just lame people (not necessarily Chinese or from China) who want to destroy China’s credibility?

Now check this enhanced checkbox using CSS and Javascript. It looks better.

Impressed? But how was this possible?

I stumbled upon this page on the Internet showing how you can change the boring checkbox into an exciting one. What’s great about this is that you no longer have to change your existing code. By embedding this code, you can easily customize the look of the checkboxes any way you want.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”checkbox.js”></script>

Don’t you think that this is simply amazing? You can’t do this with plain HTML but with the use of a simple code, you can now make your checkboxes look better and exciting.

This custom checkbox is one of the examples of the importance of CSS. Most modern websites now use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), either full CSS or partial. Before CSS even existed, when we do major design updates we either change all the pages, taking so much time. But with CSS, work has become easier and faster.

Doing hard reboot on the server may help and also depends if your data center offers some reboot facility for you. but doing this all the time may not be the best way to fix the problem if the only problem is CPanel and the Web Host Manager are not working and only show a blank page and the rest of the server still works perfectly. It’s probably best to simply restart CPanel only.

We assume you are a dedicated server owner or co-located server owner running a server with CPanel, so again, we assume you have shell access. So login to your server by SSH, and I do assume you have an SSH software of course. If not and you are using a Windows machine, Putty works fine. Login as root to your server and simply run this:

/etc/init.d/cpanel restart

And it will restart all your CPanel related services and simply wait until it’s done.

One way to save space on your web hosting account and have a large email box is simply using Gmail’s service but still use your personalize domain name email account.

Things are getting bigger now a days, hard disk, memory and processor speeds keep on increasing due to the demands of softwares with increasing required specifications. Data files are increasing in size as well and sharing data online via IM or email requires larger email boxes and higher bandwidth speeds.

And as domain name prices drop, where you can get a domain for less than $10/year, and get some cheap web hosting, you can have your own personalized email address having your own domain name like whatever@yourname.com. But in every hosting account with some email service, you pay for space and bandwidth. The larger it is, the larger you need to pay on a regular basis.

Now this is assuming you have your own domain name and hosting service but wants to save on web hosting space by moving your email to Gmail.

How to receive emails

Most web hosting companies will really offer email forwarding, most of the time for free, sometimes with a limited number or sometimes unlimited. And instead of using an email POP3 account on the server, you can simply not create one or delete it if you have one already to save on space and just make an email forwarder going to your free Gmail email address. So receiving emails is simply done by checking your emails on Gmail. So for example, if the email is whatever@yourname.com, simple set this to forward to your Gmail email account. Obviously you need to own your own domain name already and should probably have a hosting account as well for your website. If you do not have this but plan on having your own personalized domain name email, you can buy domains for less than $10 bucks a year, just add a little bit more for hosting, and get the ideal plan for your hosting needs. Each hosting provider has a different procedure in doing email forwarding in their control panel. If you have any trouble doing this, it is best to contact your web/email hosting provider.

How to send emails

Since you are now using Gmail, you do not want people to see your Gmail address and want to show them your personalized email address like whatever@yourname.com. You can simply change the settings in Gmail do this:

1. Login to your Gmail account and click on Settings.
   
2. Click on Accounts.
   
3. Click on Add another email address to add your own domain name email in Gmail.
   
4. A popup window will appear. If none appears, your browser might be blocking it and be sure to allow popups from gmail.com. In this popup window, simply enter your name and your own domain name email and go to the Next Step.
   
5. You will be asked to verify your email. Simply click on the Send Verification button.
   
   Since in the earlier step, we have already said that your personalized domain name email should already be forwarding to your email account, then all you have to do next is simply check your Gmail and click on the verification link and you are done.
6. When sending a new email, just Compose a new email in Gmail and you will be given options in the From field as a dropdown menu.

That’s it. So now you get to save on email space, using the big 2GB+ and growing email box of Gmail. You get to use many of the other great features of Gmail, you can check it anywhere you have Internet access. Their spam filter is one of the best. They have good segregation and grouping of emails based on subject and fast searching of emails. And you get to use your own domain name on it, branded in whatever way you wish.

21 more days before the GlobalWarming Awareness2007 contest ends. This is actually not really about global warming , nevertheless it is helping promote it’s awareness. GlobalWarming Awareness2007 are the targeted keywords of the SEO contest by the SEO World Championship, by GetUpdated Internet Marketing, formerly EastPoint Media AB. With all the SEO contest going on, this contest was a bit popular as it had a budget to advertise well on online media and PPC ads and has caught the attention of many SEO professionals world wide mainly because of the prizes they will give away and their promotional PPC campaign ads were appearing in almost every major SEO blog and forum.

In the SEO World Championship, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize will win a Citroen C2 car, a Caribbean Cruise and a Sony Plasma TV respectively.

The contest ends on May 1, 2007 at 6:00pm Eastern Standard Time. Current rankings are posted on: http://www.seoworldchampionship.com/leaderboard/

Good luck to all the competitors.

I have just upgraded my PHP4.4.1 to PHP5.2.0 on a cPanel server using the WHM Apache Update. So far I have encountered the following problems:

AddType .html extensions for PHP - error 500.

Problem: This does not work anymore if you have this line in your .htaccess file.

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .php4 .php3 .phtml .html .htm

Solution: This will work. I looked at the httpd.conf file and checked how it was written in there.

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php .php4 .php3 .phtml .html .htm
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php4
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php3
AddType application/x-httpd-php .phtml
AddType application/x-httpd-php .html
AddType application/x-httpd-php .htm

OK, The document has moved here.

Problem: I have PHP 301 Redirect pages, in fact I use it on this blog too. And instead of the page just directing. It shows an intermediate page that says:

OK
The document has moved here.

A message like this will really appear if there is some code before the PHP redirection code. And I had none since it was the first thing in my Wordpress template, all the way on top.

Solution: In PHP5, it seems even having the header location code all the way on top, but is called by an include() or require() function, it will display the error message. So in my case where it was in a Wordpress template, I took the code out and placed it on top of the main Wordpress file. Disadvantage of this is, I will need to reinsert the code when a Wordpress update comes out.

allow_url_include is disabled by default

If you have been using include() functions with actual absolute URLs with get include errors. And I have no plans on enabling it. They were disabled by default for security purposes. If you are having this problem with your scripts, instead of using:

include("http://www.domain.com/path/file.php");

Use this instead on a cPanel server:

include("/home/account_username/public_html/path/file.php");

ZenPhoto does not seem to work

Problem: getGalleryIndexURL(); function is not working. We are not sure why and there seems like no one has been writing about it yet in the ZenPhoto forums.

Solution: This function should output the URL of the photo gallery index. In templates it is usually used in album.php and image.php files for the breadcrumb navigation. Probably not the best solution but since it only occurs twice in our template, we just hard coded the link to the gallery index.

ForceType problems and other problems with Dew-Code phpLinks

Problem: A hosting client of mine using Dew-code phpLinks had problems of the script not working. And I have found not only 1 problem but several.

Problem with ForceType. The .htaccess file had this line:

ForceType application/x-httpd-php

Solution: Add SetHandler

SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
ForceType application/x-httpd-php

$_SERVER[PATH_INFO] not supported by default

Here is what the PHP Manual has to say:

cgi.fix_pathinfo: Provides real PATH_INFO/PATH_TRANSLATED support for CGI. PHP’s previous behaviour was to set PATH_TRANSLATED to SCRIPT_FILENAME, and to not grok what PATH_INFO is. For more information on PATH_INFO, see the cgi specs. Setting this to 1 will cause PHP CGI to fix it’s paths to conform to the spec. A setting of zero causes PHP to behave as before. Default is zero. You should fix your scripts to use SCRIPT_FILENAME rather than PATH_TRANSLATED.

Solution: I became a fan of the PATH_INFO sometime early 2005 and has been using it for some time. But since PHP recommends not to use it anymore, instead of globally enabling it, I am going to modify all scripts to be more compliant to the new way of doing things. But then again, I barely have the time to rewrite everything. And I will just come up with a patch to the problem. thus I am going to use:

$_SERVER[PATH_INFO] =
substr($_SERVER[REQUEST_URI], strlen($_SERVER[PHP_SELF]));

Ok now back to discovering more problems, so far, I still have the ZenPhoto problem.

UPDATE: Because of all these problems, I did a roll back to PHP4.4 and ran PHP5.2 on FastCGI and had Ruby on Rails enabled too. Thanks to Mike on his PHP4/PHP5/RoR setup.