SPidgorny

Android app for Rechnung+

2012-02-28T12:34:00.002+01:00

Good news. Now you can track your time on the Android app tipcat and export it to Rechnung+. For details see below.

For inpatient here are some links:

Once you install tipcat you may start entering times. Every recorded duration is assigned one or more tags. Tags work like categorization labels and are an equivalent to projects in Rechnung+.

Before synchronizing entered time tracking in tipcat with Rechnung+ you need to setup a relationship between tags in tipcat and projects in Rechnung+. This is easy - start editing the project and enter a corresponding tipcat tag into the "Tags" field in square brackets(!). Multiple tags are supported, please separate with comma.

Repeat for more projects/tags. Inside tipcat enter your Rechnung+ login and password. That's all. Setup is ready.

To export today's tracking data just open options menu in tipcat and export to Rechnung+. To export previous days go to history ("Logged Dates") and open a context menu on any day.

This whole thing is working (I checked), but since it's pretty new we give it a beta status. Feel free to contact if something goes wrong.

Progress bar for a lengthy PHP process

2012-02-15T11:09:00.000+01:00

If you ask an average web-developer if it's possible to make a running progress bar on the web-page while it's loading(!), most of them will say "no". This is understandable as practically all web-pages do not exhibit such progress bars and are in a sense "static" - the whole web-site is dynamically generated from a database, but each page is static except for AJAX changes due to user actions. Here I will show how a lengthy PHP process can show a running progress bar while the page is loading. Of course, it doesn't make sense for pages loading within a second or three, but those import/export/dump/analyze/recode/generate scripts which takes ages.

The most trivial approach is to echo '.'; flush(); - it will display a dot for every loop iteration. Test this:

for ($i = 0; $i < 100; $i++) {
echo '.';
flush();
usleep(1000000*0.1); // total time 10 sec.
}

The output should be an increasing amount of dots progressively appearing on the screen during 10 seconds. We need to use flush(); in order to send the PHP output buffer out to the browser. Alternatively we could set ini_set('output_buffering', 0);
There is another trick we need to use sometimes, on some servers flush(); doesn't work alone - either Apache or browsers (particularly IE) are buffering the incoming HTML data as well. So I add echo str_repeat(' ', ini_get('output_buffering')); before flush(); to make sure the buffer is completely filled and being flushed automatically.
But we can improve the aesthetics of the output using some JavaScript. Remember, in the old days we were using write('Some HTML'); to generate some dynamic HTML by JavaScript while the page is loading(!)? So JavaScript can be executed immediately and not only onDOMReady.
So we build a progress bar using a container <div> and inside <div> of a different background color which will change it's width on the commands from JavaScript while the page in loading(!). Everything is encapsulated into a single class.
Usage example:
<?php

require_once 'nadlib/class.ProgressBar.php';

echo 'Starting…<br />';

$p = new ProgressBar();
echo '<div style="width: 300px;">';
$p->render();
echo '</div>';
for ($i = 0; $i < ($size = 100); $i++) {
$p->setProgressBarProgress($i*100/$size);
usleep(1000000*0.1);
}
$p->setProgressBarProgress(100);

echo 'Done.<br />';

Download class: http://pastebin.com/KSxjC01r
I hope using this technique will make your waiting more pleasant. You can even spot potential problems if the progress bar stops for unusually long time or is going slower and slower. I once improved the performance by adding a database index after watching the progress bar behavior.
Disclaimer: this idea is inspired by TYPO3 Extension Manager.

How to change the collation for all tables in a MySQL database to UTF-8?

2012-01-25T17:14:00.000+01:00

In response to How to change the collation for all tables in a MySQL database to UTF-8? where they only changed the default collation for any column which will be created in the future, I post the script which also changes the collation of each FIELD in the database. I've used it for http://www.mantisbt.org/.

Beware (!) that if your database already contains data in the incorrect encoding this script may corrupt the data. It should be safe to use it for English though.

<?php
require '../config_inc.php';
$db = mysql_connect($g_db_hostname, $g_db_username, $g_db_password);
if(!$db) echo "Cannot connect to the database - incorrect details";
mysql_select_db($g_database_name);
$result=mysql_query('show tables');
while ($tables = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
   foreach ($tables as $value) {
       echo '<b>'.$value.'</b><br />';
       mysql_query("ALTER TABLE $value COLLATE utf8_general_ci");
       alterTable($value);
   }
}

function alterTable($table) {
   $result=mysql_query('show columns from '.$table);
   while ($fields = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
       $fieldName = $fields['Field'];
       $fieldType = $fields['Type'];
       if (substr($fieldType, 0, 7) == 'varchar') {
           echo $table.'.'.$fieldName.'<br />';
           mysql_query("ALTER TABLE $table CHANGE $fieldName $fieldName $fieldType COLLATE utf8_general_ci");
           echo mysql_error();
           //print '<pre>'.print_r($fields, true).'</pre>';
       }
   }
}

echo "The collation of your database has been successfully changed!";

Решение судоку с помощью веб-камеры в реальном времени

2011-12-06T15:59:00.001+01:00

Очень интересная статья про комбинацию различных методов распознавания изображений (кстати, это тема и моей курсовой) для решения судоку.
http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/algorithm/126373/

Running multiple SQL commands from the dump file (UTF8 compatible) in MSAccess

2011-11-17T18:26:00.001+01:00

I had a hard time running multiple UPDATE commands on an MSAccess database. Even the latest version choke on the following error.

The next logical step for every PHP programmer is to run multiple VBA commands each running a single SQL UPDATE command. Guess what? It works, but VBA doesn't support UTF8 in the queries.

Sub import()

CurrentDb.execute "UPDATE item SET translation = 'привет', pronounce = '' WHERE id = 122"
 CurrentDb.execute "UPDATE item SET translation = 'VBA сакс', pronounce = '' WHERE id = 123"

End Sub

Attempt #3. Read SQL dump from UTF8 file and run each line as SQL command. I found the following code and it doesn't support UTF8 either.

Sub import_file()
Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Dim oFS

Set oFS = FSO.OpenTextFile("c:\users\...\desktop\Import.txt")

Do Until oFS.AtEndOfStream
sText = oFS.ReadLine
CurrentDb.execute sText
Loop
End Sub

Only on fourth attempt I have found a way to read UTF8 data from the file. Executing queries in this way actually works. Spend four hours on this research. Hope it helps.

Sub import_file_utf8()
Dim File ' As ADODB.Stream
Set File = CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
File.Open
File.Type = 2
File.Charset = "UTF-8"
File.LoadFromFile "c:\users\...\desktop\Import.txt"
Do Until File.eos
myString = File.ReadText(-2)
Debug.Print myString
CurrentDb.execute myString
Loop
File.Close
End Sub

PHP security tips

2011-10-06T19:20:00.001+02:00

When programming in PHP please pay attention to the following tips. PHP code examples below try to make it impossible to make a mistake by hiding default (non-secure) variables and securing the data on the fly. When you get used to it, you will be able to smell insecure code.

Validating input

Don’t use values from $_REQUEST ($_GET, $_POST) directly assuming they contain data of the necessary data type. Validation or casting is required. For example intval($_REQUEST['id']) will make sure you have an integer. Using a dedicated class for reading URL/Form parameters will allow you to unset($_REQUEST) completely making sure you (or any other developer) is using casting or validation. For example:

class Request {

protected $data = array();

function __construct($other = NULL) {

$this->data = $other ?: $_REQUEST;

if (!$other) unset($_REQUEST);

}

function getInt($name) {

return intval($this->data[$name]);

}

function getTrim($name) {

return trim($this->data[$name]);

}

…

}

$r = new Request();

echo $r->getInt('id'); // 15

echo $_REQUEST['id']; // NULL

Note that once you created an instance of the Request class you can't use $_REQUEST anymore, which is good. Request could be made a singleton in order to be able to access it from multiple controllers.

Escape output

In order to prevent XSS you need to use htmlspecialchars() on every dynamic value which may come from the database, user input or web-service. Similarly to the example above it is recommended to close the possibility of using the values without escaping. For example the following View class (from MVC) doesn't allow accessing query results directly:

class View {

protected $file;

protected $caller;

function __construct($file, $controller) {

$this->file = $file;

$this->caller = $controller;

}

function render() {

$file = 'template/'.$this->file;

ob_start();

require($file);

$content = ob_get_clean();

return $content;

}

function __call($func, array $args) {

$method = array($this->caller, $func);

return call_user_func_array($method, $args);

}

function __get($var) {

return htmlspecialchars($this->caller->$var);

}

$c = new Controller();

$c->dataXSS = '';

echo new View('output.phtml', $c);

// ---- output.phtml

Test View Controller

Must be escaped: dataXSS ?>

Note that in the template we can access data from the controller directly like this: dataXSS ?>, but this data will be processed with htmlspecialchars() invisibly for you.

Friend Share idea for Android

2011-09-23T11:10:00.002+02:00

An Android (and other platforms including PC) app to share MP3 and other files QUICKLY among friends and people around them. The main aspect is that sharing happens without connection to the Internet – device to device.

Upon downloading user has to specify his nickname so that he can be identified among other friends in the vicinity. An application will start searching for the same app running on other devices around you. WiFi works in a radius about 100 meters so your friends have to be close to be able to connect. Shown devices will be shown in the list sorted by the signal strength which roughly corresponds to the distance to them in the real life.

Selecting a person allows to see files which they have shared (and maybe a currently playing MP3 file). Files can be downloaded by clicking on the download icon on the right (see the Android call-log app).

Two shared folders for friends, for non-friends.

Make friends function which asks to gently hit both phones (with gyro sensors) to confirm friending.

Update: I have found out with amazement that such software already exists: http://bu.mp/. Are they reading my mind or the idea is just so obvious simple?

Route Frankfurt -> Le Grau du Roi

2011-08-10T14:14:00.000+02:00

Strangely the route Frankfurt -> Le Grau du Roi (1000 km) toll costs less than the route Le Grau du Roi -> Nice (300 km).

Frankfurt -> LGDR: 31.40 EUR
LGDR -> Nice and back: 44.30 EUR
LGDR -> Frankfurt: 37.10 EUR

Just FYI.

NL visit 2011

2011-07-20T12:57:00.000+02:00

In relation to the previous post, some things we have seen and some things we missed.
Seen:

Not seen:

General impressions: architects are stoned and it's good this way.

Take List

2011-07-14T13:38:00.002+02:00

Паспорта
Подтверждение из отеля
Самоучитель голландского
МП3 курс голландского
Плавки
Лопату большую
Пасочки
Плавательные игрушки
Воздушные змеи
Книгу про песочные замки
Памперсы
Ноутбук с кучей фильмиков
Включить ГПС при выезде
Икспериа Арк
Заехать к доктору
Полотенца,
Одежды на 2 дня
Теплую куртку
Палатку пляжную
Простилку
Очки
Доску для серфинга
Кредитку
Стульчик
Зарядку для мобилки
Хорошее настроение
Шорты
Фотык (без фоток) и зарядку
Крем от солнца (дождя?)
Тапки
Надувную подушку
Зубную щетку, пасту
Бритву и лезвия
Резиновые сапоги
Резиновый комбинезон
Фен
Карты бумажные (sic!)
...

We're going to NL for a three day trip. Some links to some interesting places.

2011-07-13T02:12:00.002+02:00

Travel Map: Frankfurt to Den Haag

Hotel

Castles:
Fort Rhijnauwen
Kasteel de Haar
Naarden!
Muiderslot
Amerongen
Slot Loevestein
Kasteel Duivenvoorde

Route thru the sea
Мельницы

Classics:
Scheveningen
Madurodam
Keukenhof

Достопримечательности Голландии
Достопримечательности Голландии. Музеи Голландии

Моя предыдущая работа
Край света

PHP: Transparent Self-Caching of Objects

2011-07-06T14:51:00.000+02:00

When programming PHP I work with objects. Some objects exist only once in memory. Either just because they are instantiated once or by using a Singleton design pattern. Other objects are multiple. In PHP, it being a stateless language, these objects need to be created with every page load. Having too many objects loading every time will slow down your web-site. What comes as a natural solution is caching.
Caching is often thought as an outside operation in regards to the objects. Thus it looks scary, you have to change the way you instantiate objects in your code (in many different places) so that it uses caching. Here I will present a way to implement an internal caching - objects will cache themselves almost seamlessly.
Look at the code below:

class SlowObject {
protected $id;
static public $instances = array(); // public for debugging

function __construct($id) {
$this->id = $id;
sleep(1); // slow instantiation
}

static function getInstance($id) {
if (!($inst = &self::$instances[$id])) {
$inst = new self($id);
}
return $inst;
}

}

// testing
$a = SlowObject::getInstance(1);
$b = SlowObject::getInstance(2);
$c = SlowObject::getInstance(1);

echo 'Created '.sizeof(SlowObject::$instances).' objects in '.(microtime(true)-$_SERVER['REQUEST_TIME']).' sec.
';

This is some kind of extension to the Singleton pattern. Instead of really single instance we make a single instance for each supplied ID. Output:

Created 2 objects in 2.5048339366913 sec.

Note that it had created two unique objects (not three) and it took roughly two seconds (not three). This alone gives performance improvements just because we're not creating objects with the same ID twice - only once for each ID.
Now we will extend this approach to cache all the objects of the same type to the disk (you can extend it to use memcache or APC to be even more effective, but disk is enough for demonstration purposes).

class SlowObject {
protected $id;
static public $instances = array(); // public for debugging

function __construct($id) {
$this->id = $id;
sleep(1); // slow instantiation
}

static function getInstance($id) {
$filename = '../cache/'.__CLASS__.'.'.$id.'.cache';
$cached = @unserialize(file_get_contents($filename));
if (!is_object($cached)) {
$cached = self::getInstanceRaw($id);
file_put_contents($filename, serialize($cached));
}
return $cached;
}

static function getInstanceRaw($id) {
if (!($inst = &self::$instances[$id])) {
$inst = new self($id);
}
return $inst;
}

}

// testing
$a = SlowObject::getInstance(1);
$b = SlowObject::getInstance(2);
$c = SlowObject::getInstance(1);

echo 'Created '.sizeof(SlowObject::$instances).' objects in '.(microtime(true)-$_SERVER['REQUEST_TIME']).' sec.
';

The first time you run this it outputs:

Created 2 objects in 2.9201810359955 sec.

Two seconds something is roughly the same time as before, but created object are now serialized into files. Next time you run this:

Created 0 objects in 0.27261805534363 sec.

Notice the difference? Run it multiple times in a row, it's very fast every time. And you didn't need to change your calling code much, just maybe from $a = new SlowObject($id); to $a = SlowObject::getInstance($id);. The in-memory and on-disk caching were attached internally to the object.
Now you should make sure that as soon as your data change (in DB for example) you stop using the cached object and create a new one with updated data (saving it again to the cache). It's as simple as deleting the cache file upon updating. Just check that you don't manipulate DB directly without calling update function on the objects somewhere else in your project.

function update(array $update) {
@unlink('../cache/'.__CLASS__.'.'.$this->id.'.cache');
parent::update($update);
}
You may put this functionality into some base class and extend it every time you want your object nicely cache-able.

If you find this interesting, let me know and I show you the class which deals with saving objects to the files automatically (using __destruct function) and how did I solve a few gotchas.

Augmented Reality for Car Drivers

2011-07-06T13:45:00.001+02:00

Like I have envisioned in one of the previous posts, there is already AR for car drivers. It's not a full windshield projection monitor, it's just an Android app, but hey, it's just the beginning.
iOnRoad

How did ancient languages get complicated in the first place

2011-06-27T13:51:00.002+02:00

I've heard from my German teacher that Latin and other languages of that time were more "complicated". One can argue that linguists don't operate with such categories as "simple" and "complicated" but you know what I mean. If not - read this post Why is the grammar of old languages so complicated?
Linguists rather speak in terms of "inflectional morphology", "morphological variation", "variation in phonemes"... They even counted these and other language features in each of the languages (2,236 to be precise and 504 in another study) and found out that the older the language - the more "complicated" it is: Babelicious! Bigger languages are also simpler ones and Where on Earth did language begin? And the most complicated language in terms of phonemes variation is !Xu - a language spoken in southern Africa which has 141 phonemes opposed to 44 in English. That correlates with the idea that Homo Sapiens evolved from Africa and confirms what my German teacher said. But
How did ancient languages get complicated in the first place?

Linguists suggest three theories:
1. Children learn languages easier if the language is more complicated (has more redundant "features"). Ridiculous!
2. Complex languages are more precise in expressing the small peculiarities. This is generally true, but doesn't answer the question at all.
3. Smaller language groups (total speakers of !Xu is ~45,000) teach their children their language more carefully. Could be, but doesn't answer the question at all.
Having no better explanation I tend to refer to the works of Zecharia Sitchin and Nicolai Levashov which insist that human languages, culture and human themselves are seeded on Earth by the aliens. As astounding and naive as it may seem this theory does answer how did ancient languages get complicated in the first place.
Please comment.

ALL of the 2010 Toyota Prius How-To Youtube Videos

2011-06-17T12:25:00.003+02:00

http://www.eurocarblog.com/post/1820/new-toyota-prius-videos
+

Head-Up Display: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyyHp3GI3X8 (very cool)

Lane Assist Feature: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB5nuy-1Eiw&feature=related (cool)

Interior Lights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2WYraQolYc&feature=relmfu (not so cool)

Windshield Wipers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF4_3RWUGTE&feature=relmfu (not so cool)

Air Conditioning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfoCzm91ZZs&feature=relmfu

Instrument Panel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMNM1aUutqk&feature=relmfu

Backup Camera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYvo9TiTJKs&feature=related (cool)

Aux Audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pamOakRpDw&feature=relmfu (just for completeness)

Headlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hmH3zw9_SQ&feature=related

Fuel Filler Door: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTzpC7u-yss&feature=related (just for completeness)

Mirrors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd_4Tk2GGX4&feature=related

Rear Cargo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSVjr_OAdgM&feature=relmfu

Safety: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SFUV6hZVJA&feature=related

Exterior: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zo1JZKsuyw&feature=relmfu

Cruise Control: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfzH6IJ_rBU&feature=relmfu

Overview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyW8G-729fE&feature=related

Performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIbWDnvzT14&feature=relmfu

Tire Pressure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4MUqE8Xe2U

Steering Wheel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPgtMtdWku4&feature=related

Maintenance Myths: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtR2zH5-7d0&feature=related

No comment

2011-06-17T12:23:00.001+02:00

Transpose 2D array in PHP

2011-06-17T12:20:00.000+02:00

Transposing means swapping columns and rows so that columns become rows and vice versa. When searching for a nice function which I could copy/paste to my code I have found the following comment to the array_map() function (http://de2.php.net/manual/en/function.array-map.php#86743):

To transpose rectangular two-dimension array, use the following code:
array_unshift($array, null);$array = call_user_func_array("array_map", $array);
If you need to rotate rectangular two-dimension array on 90 degree, add the following line before or after (depending on the rotation direction you need) the code above:$array = array_reverse($array);
Here is example:
$a = array(
array( array(1, 2, 3),
array( array(4, 5, 6));array_unshift($a, null);$a = call_user_func_array("array_map", $a);print_r($a);?>
Output:
Array( [0] => Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => 4 )

[1] => Array ( [0] => 2 [1] => 5 )
[2] => Array ( [0] => 3 [1] => 6 )
)

These two lines has puzzled me for some time. I don't like being puzzled for long, so, after unpuzzling, it appears rather simple. The magic trick is in multiple arguments to the array_map() function. Minimal example:

$a = array_map(NULL, array(1, 'a'), array(2, 'b'));

makes:

array(
array(1, 2),
array('a', 'b')
);

This way each element of the first parameter array (1, 'a') gets combined with each element of the second parameter.

The NULL callback function is a short-cut of:

function ($a, $b) {
return array($a, $b);
}

Anyway, I find this little hack fascinating.

Someone knows how to fill-in waiting time at the Frankfurt airport ;-)

2011-06-02T02:17:00.000+02:00

I’m looking for someone...

2011-06-01T00:27:00.002+02:00

Buzzwords:

Android app
Location aware
Social communication
Online, Web 2.0

Preamble

Imagine you’re on the business trip (or vacation) in some other city (like Berlin). You’ve done your business (or sightseeing) and have some time until you go to bed. You might feel very lonely in a large (or small) town. There might be people all around you, locals, foreigners and even from the your country (or even city). Imagine an app which would allow you to get connected to some other lonely people out there (some maybe just around the corner).
So if such an application would exist, you would put your mobile device on the key-chain and let it hang on your breast (or belly) showing (or blinking) a message saying:

Note the text in square brackets: it’s the selectable intention for a meeting. This is required in order to filter out contacts from people with dirty intentions.
You would walk around and occasionally somebody would read that directly from your hanging mobile device and start talking to you in real life (dream on!).
In practice, you would have to switch to a map mode where you will see placemarks indicating peoples’ location which have this app working with a call-out with their selected intention for a meeting. It may look like this:

Isn’t that awesome?
You could start moving in the direction of the person that interests you and look for someone with a cell phone hanging saying “I’m lonely too”.
A chat can be initiated in order to clear the incentives prior to meeting in reality to save some time running to different people just to find out they have found a boyfriend/girl already.
Some bullet points:

Privacy is an issue. Allow controlling visibility of the photo and other personal details (origin country, languages spoken, real name, twitter/facebook accounts). Private information can be exchanged during the chat (automatically, not by manual copy/paste/send, of course).
Allow disappearing from peers map if absolutely not interested in contacting somebody (strange looks, disliked nationality, etc.)
Gender is a must (male, female, male gay, female gay (lesbian)). This probably should not be hide-able as some people just plainly don’t want to meet gays.
Website with minimal features should be available for laptop users. Modern notebooks are location aware.
A server (web-server) needs to hold the active users coordinates and distribute it to people nearby. A single request saying:
GET /api/location?user=tapsy&lat=45.1234&long=8.1234
should set the user as actively searching now (not offline), set users’ coordinates (change as the person is walking) and get the list of nearby users as a response.
A selection of ‘nearby’ parameter (range in meters) should allow people with cars to scan wider range than people on the wheelchairs.
Adding people to favorites (use Latitude?).
The main difference to Latitude is that you’re sharing your location with people you DON’T know and only those which are nearby.
Setting a ‘nearby’ property to 40000km (or what’s the Earth’s radius) would allow to spy on all users of the app in real-time and should not be possible.
Allow entering custom incentive text, but insist on selecting from a set of 20-40 predefined ones in order to avoid hard to understand and misunderstood incentives.
The difference to other dating sites is the location awareness and search based on location in order to find peers in matter of minutes and not weeks.
Seems like a hot idea, tell me if you like it and would be using it yourself or why not. Vote at: http://goo.gl/mod/aeG

Eco Driving Analytics

2011-04-11T12:32:00.000+02:00

Eco Driving Analytics

Isn’t that a cool car? I wish it would be possible to export the data on a USB stick and review / analyze on my own PC. That would be analytics nirvana. :-D

Prius driving on it's own

2011-04-01T10:20:00.001+02:00

As Google is involved - it must be getting somewhere.

Почему богатые не делятся деньгами с бедными

2011-03-10T12:13:00.000+01:00

Есть много степеней богатства, почти столько-же сколько и людей на свете. Для практичности выделяют более обобщенные уровни. Иногда 3:

нижший
средний и
высший класс.

Иногда 100 уровней и меряют их в процентах (3% богатых эксплуатируют 97% более бедных).

В данном ~~материале~~, ~~произведении~~, ~~обзоре~~, посте мы будем рассматривать двух конкретных представителей бедных и богатых относительно друг друга, а не в абсолютных величинах. Эта пара может представлять рабочего и директора завода, а может и бомжа в Лондоне получающего десятки фунтов в день и типичного представителя Никарагуа который работает за 1 доллар в день.

Вряд-ли бомжи, как представители низшего уровня богатства, считают себя материально богатыми (про духовное богатство тут речь не идет). Им должно казаться, что почти все другие люди богаче их и могли бы и поделится парой долларов.

Человек имеющий кров на головой, но еле сводящий концы с концами будет же считать, что у него нет свободных средств для подаяния. Если пойти и дальше по социальной лестнице вверх мы дойдем до директора завода, который не считает умесным поделится прибылью с нижестоящими, т.к. ему самому не хватает (на что не хватает не так важно, психологически он не чувствует что обладает "лишними" деньгами).

Таким образом мы начинаем понимать, зачем ТНК пытаются заработать еще больше и не делятся деньгами даже с Никарагуанцами - им самим мало.

Бедные же, в основном, не понимают как такое колличество денег может быть мало. Отсюда непонимание, зависть и революции, хотя есть примеры компаний которые все доходы раздают сотрудникам.

Все, я выговорился.

What is the best?

2011-03-04T19:13:00.001+01:00

When you search for something in the area you are not familiar with, often you want to find the best of all options. You can find many results (with Google for example), but you still feel unsure which of the found things is the best (most used, de facto standard, most prominent, has most features, etc.). Maybe you find an answer here, where people like you ask questions and share their knowledge and experiences. If not, ask yourself and benefit from the combined "crowd knowledge".

What is the best... is a Web 2.0 website, where people can ask all kinds of questions beginning with "What is the best ...". While asking, people can propose some options and vote for them. Other people can propose other options and/or vote. The best answer (based on votes) will appear on top.

Interested? The site is not ready yet, it's still under construction. What I'm looking for is your help in organizing information on the site in such a way that it's convenient to use. Maybe you have suggestions or critique? What do you feel about the concept in general?

Some things I have in mind:

Integrate Facebook login
Integrate Add-this button
Allow subscribing to receive mail with new replies.

What is the best... Facebook page (development news)

Rechnung+

2011-03-04T18:32:00.002+01:00

Rechnung+ is a web-tool for keeping track of the time spent on some work and making bills for it.

It is completely free for freelancers.

It allows you to enter the time (as interval or duration) which you have spent on any work. You can categorize the work into projects. You can relate your work to a ticket - effectively grouping several work inside one project.

It allows you to make invoices for any subset of the work entered in the system. The calculation of the bills total time and money (taking care of VAT) will be done automatically. The invoices can be printed or saved into PDFs.

A powerful statistical report generator will help you to analyze the work you did by time or money, grouping work by day, week, month or year, comparing selected projects to each other. For every report you generate graphical chart will be generated automatically - visualizing the information and making it easier to perceive.

Rechnung+

3D graphics animations in Excel

2011-02-23T16:36:00.000+01:00

I have been once on the very boring meeting recently. If I had Internet connection on my notebook working I could entertain myself in other ways. But with nothing else but MS Office I opened Excel and tried making 3D surface chart with animation.

Here's how I did it step-by-step instructions:

· Enter a couple of decreasing degree values and fill to the right

Enter a couple decreasing degree values vertically and fill to the bottom
On the row below convert degrees to radians with the formula =RADIANS(C1)
Do the same for the vertical row =RADIANS(A3) and fill the rest of the horizontal and vertical cells
The corner cell B2 will contain the phase component of the surface formula, put zero there for now.
In the cell C3 enter the formula for the surface point =SIN($B3*C$2+$B$2)
This formula takes a sin of the radian value above the current cell multiplied with a radian value on the left of the cell, adds a phase component (used for animation).
Fill the rest of the sheet with the same formula. Note that dollar signs in the formula which makes copy/paste operation to keep (!) the cell address prefixed with the dollar sign even though usually the formula which is shifted is having its arguments shifted as well. This makes sure we a locked to the B column (vertical radian values) and 2^nd row (horizontal radian values).
Select all the points and make a surface chart. You should get the static 3D function graph similar to mine.

As for animating, remember the zero at $B$2? If you change it to 0.1 for example, you may notice the chart has moved a little bit. We only need to make it move automatically now.

Create a new macro and start editing it.

· Enter the following into the selected macro:

PauseTime = 15 ' Set duration.

Start = timer ' Set start time.

Do While timer < Start + PauseTime

Range("B2").Value = Range("B2").Value + 0.15

DoEvents ' Yield to other processes.

Loop

This code is running for 15 seconds repeatedly adding 0.15 to the value in the B2 cell, which makes the 3D chart move a frame. DoEvents() is allowing Excel to redraw the chart, without it the cell value will increase but Excel will not have time to paint the new chart.

Assign a shortcut key (like Ctrl-A) to run this macro easily. And press the shortcut to test.
You may want to play around with another formula: =SIN($B19+$B$2)*COS(E$2+$B$2*2)

Petition to release Zend Studio 5.5.1 source code.

2011-02-03T00:50:00.001+01:00

Zend Studio 5.5.1 is the latest version of the famous PHP IDE which is not based on Eclipse. The next Zend Studio for Eclipse 6 has used the same name, but is a completely different software. Zend Technologies Ltd. has taken the open-source general purpose IDE and extended it to be suitable for PHP development. The main reason for the switch IMHO was that Eclipse is a well know, well supported IDE and Zend Technologies Ltd. can profit from many public extensions and improvements to Eclipse and can concentrate on the PHP support.

Zend Studio 5 has been almost the perfect IDE. Extremely fast (especially compared to Eclipse), relatively robust (crashes from time to time), but very well sewed. It had native (S)FTP support, more native then ZS4E. It had the debugger, profiler, code analyzer, CSV/SVN support - everything that PHP programmer ever needed.

ZS 5 is in many aspects superior to ZS4E and currently lacks some new features (PHP 5.3, Mercurial). Therefore we're kindly asking Zend Technologies Ltd. to release Zend Studio 5 source code to public. We are sure there are Java enthusiasts who will fix the stability issues and implement new features. The only reason Zend Technologies Ltd. has not done so already is because open-source ZS5+ may be a threat to their profits. Still we are sure that open-source product will only increase the popularity of the Zend Technologies Ltd. as a leading PHP company which will trigger increased profits in the long term.

Please comment to support this petition and share this page with everybody who might be interested.

1-Click Installer

2011-02-03T00:50:00.000+01:00

With the increasing popularity of portable software as well as single EXE file software (for example Process Explorer) there appears to be a need for a 1-click installer.

1-click installer will merely add a new context menu item to the Windows Explorer called "1-click install" for EXE files. Clicking it will copy the EXE file into C:\Program Files\ (or whatever path is set in the registry) and create a start-menu item with the same name. Two simple operations, which can be easily automatized.

It may need to be working on folders as well. In this case the whole folder will be copied and the shortcut should be created to the largest EXE file in that folder?

Car Driving Styles

2011-01-04T18:44:00.000+01:00

There are different driving styles. Novice drivers tend to be overly careful and slow. Some drivers remain in that state for their whole life. Most, however, evolve and become overly confident in themselves.

Such drivers drive too fast and hate every driver that's driving slower then 200 km/h.

Only the selected cultivated highly experienced people evolve into something bigger - serious, responsive, polite, friendly to other drivers, and best of all, remain as such even when in a hurry. They value not only their own time but also the time of others, understand and truly share the idea that the overall time of all travelers needs to be minimized and not only your own driving time on the price of time of others.

It took me a couple of months to outgrow the first novice stage. It took me 9 years of daily driving to glorify up to the responsible driver level.

Which level are you currently in? Make a comment below.

DebugPanel - Web 2.0 way of print_r()

2010-11-27T00:18:00.002+01:00

DebugPanel - Web 2.0 way of print_r()

Target Audience

Novice and intermediate PHP developers who are debugging the code by inserting


print_r($var); // or
var_dump($var); // or
var_export($var);

Note: those who are using DBG, Xdebug, Zend Debugger or others, please ignore this "lame" script - it will only make you laugh.

Purpose

Most of PHP developers start debugging by inserting something like this in their code and seeing results on the screen.


$var = call_some_obscure_function();
print '<pre>'.print_r($var, true).'</pre>';

DebugPanel also outputs the variable contents on the screen, but not directly at the place where it's called, but in a window floating over your script output with many convenience features.

Feature list

Collect all variable dumps in one place.
Highlight the syntax a little (different variable types get different background).
Save screen space by toggling visibility of different variables.
Handle multidimentional arrays with ease.
DebugPanel is displayed with position: absolute which is not interfering with the output of your script.
Drag and drop DebugPanel so it will not cover important information on your screen.
Never get warnings that you are trying to send HTTP headers or set cookies AFTER outputting debug information.
Handle objects as easy as multidimentional arrays.
Use the included PHP profiler to find the slowest code block in your script.
Use the included server statistics module to know what's going on with your server.
Remembers it's position after dragging, giving you pleasant debugging time!

Demo

If you haven't noticed - here it is, on the right of this page. Drag it and inspect it. Click on array titles to toggle visibility.

Usage

Step 1

Include the PHP class into your initialization (bootstraping) script.


require_once('class.DebugPanel.php');

It will automatically attach itself to the end of your script by using


register_shutdown_function()

and so render the DebugPanel in the browser.

Step 2

Call



dp('return value from strange function', $var);

every time you want to debug something.

Download

DebugPanel.zip
Somebody wants to host the file for me?

Todo

I don't have any plans yet. Please try DebugPanel and report bugs and suggestions.

Hint about Taylor Profiler

That's the way I use Taylor Profiler in my code (which takes care of the current class name and current function name in one go):


function some_slow_function() {
 if (isset($GLOBALS['profiler'])) $GLOBALS['profiler']->startTimer(__METHOD__);
 sleep(1);
 if (isset($GLOBALS['profiler'])) $GLOBALS['profiler']->stopTimer(__METHOD__);
}

DebugPanel

Request (array[7])

key	typeName	value
v1st	string(16)	8485AB8ACB4BBF90
MANTIS_VIEW_ALL_COOKIE	string(2)	50
_csoot	string(13)	1268814504774
_csuid	string(16)	48b417b23862dc80
MANTIS_STRING_COOKIE	string(64)	8bac76e935a27df7c99e72a7536cbfaae589e74d8380b7c59f407a5626c4508d
MANTIS_PROJECT_COOKIE	string(1)	6
livecid	string(32)	WI0om32G7446uxjqY4Kzg3Rs5LhQ8Fr2

System Variables (array[7])

key

typeName

value

REQUEST

array[7]

REQUEST (array[7])

key	typeName	value
v1st	string(16)	8485AB8ACB4BBF90
MANTIS_VIEW_ALL_COOKIE	string(2)	50
_csoot	string(13)	1268814504774
_csuid	string(16)	48b417b23862dc80
MANTIS_STRING_COOKIE	string(64)	8bac76e935a27df7c99e72a7536cbfaae589e74d8380b7c59f407a5626c4508d
MANTIS_PROJECT_COOKIE	string(1)	6
livecid	string(32)	WI0om32G7446uxjqY4Kzg3Rs5LhQ8Fr2

GET

array[0]

POST

array[0]

FILES

array[0]

array[7]

COOKIE (array[7])

key	typeName	value
v1st	string(16)	8485AB8ACB4BBF90
MANTIS_VIEW_ALL_COOKIE	string(2)	50
_csoot	string(13)	1268814504774
_csuid	string(16)	48b417b23862dc80
MANTIS_STRING_COOKIE	string(64)	8bac76e935a27df7c99e72a7536cbfaae589e74d8380b7c59f407a5626c4508d
MANTIS_PROJECT_COOKIE	string(1)	6
livecid	string(32)	WI0om32G7446uxjqY4Kzg3Rs5LhQ8Fr2

SESSION

NULL

GLOBALS

NULL

Test (array[8])

key

typeName

value

string

string(12)

Hello World!

int

integer(2)

double

double(6)

3.1428

null

NULL

bool

boolean(1)

array

array[5]

array (array[5])

key	typeName	value
0	integer(1)	0
1	integer(1)	1
2	integer(1)	2
3	integer(1)	3
4	string(5)	asd

panel

array[1]

panel (array[1])

key

typeName

value

info

array[1]

info (array[1])

key	typeName	value
position	string(5)	fixed

someHTML

htmlString

someHTML (htmlString)

HiI am an HTML string.

TaylorProfiler (htmlString)

nr	count	time, ms	percent	routine
1	1x	1000.20	99.78%	some_slow_function
2	0x	0.00	0.22%	Missed
3	1x	0.03	0.00%	unprofiled
		1002.40	100.22%	OVERALL TIME

Server Stat (htmlString)

PHP Info


Server	localhost
PHP	5.2.8
Server time	16:27:50
memory_limit	262144.000 Kb
Mem. used	931.320 Kb
Mem. used %	0.355%
Mem. peak	931.781 Kb
Sess. size

Server Info


Disk space	20480.617 Mb
Disk used	13353.773 Mb
Disk used %	65.202%
CPU used %	5.736%
RAM	3955.957 Mb
RAM used	3215.152 Mb
RAM used %	81.274%
Uptime	82D 01:40:55
Server load	0.21

What requests do browsers' “F5” and “Ctrl + F5” refreshes generate?

2010-11-25T13:48:00.001+01:00

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/385367/what-requests-do-browsers-f5-and-ctrl-f5-refreshes-generate/385491#385491

Elastic Feedback

2010-11-17T17:52:00.004+01:00

I wanted to learn the animation features of jQuery and made the elastic feedback effect.
There's just a container DIV with a ball inside. The ball is made draggable, and once released it will elastically return to it's original position. The actual JavaScript code is amazingly short (thanks to the plugins).

Automobile Traffic Trains

2010-11-03T18:22:00.001+01:00

Now that Prius III (they call it Prius 2010 in US) and some other new cars has the Lane Keep Assist (Wiki), Pre Collision System (Wiki) and Dynamic Radar Cruise Control why not combining them into a Active Dynamic Traffic Follow up System which would allow the driver to snore (joking) while driving as GPS navigation will know the route, LKA will keep your car straight and DRCC will make sure you follow the car in front of you?
Many cars equipped with Active Dynamic Traffic Follow up System would be chaining to each other, switch the lanes automatically (Blind Spot Assist) and get you to your destination without your effort.

This system doesn't require a lot of investment into the highway infrastructure itself, the road remains passive. It raises the safeness of the driving a lot - no risky maneuverers, it will keep the safe distance in all circumstances and will react in a split second instead of 1.5 seconds human reaction time.
One important thing to note: there must be a loud buzzer to wake the driver (can he be called a driver still?) when approaching the highway exit ;-).
It doesn't seem like a lot of work to me, all the components exist already - they only need to be combined in a central car computer.

FloatBox (floating effect for
using CSS3 box-shadow)

2010-10-14T18:39:00.001+02:00

I've been bored at the IPC10 so I've been playing around a bit and made a hovering floating box effect in JavaScript. This thing is dynamic so the screenshot is not so useful.

The script is using jQuery and Shadow animation jQuery-plugin. I had to fix the RegExp of the plugin to accept negative shadow offsets like this:

(-?\+?[0-9]+)

Download: http://jump.fm/CUKDM

International PHP Conference from the inside

2010-10-12T15:12:00.001+02:00

This is how IPC looks like from inside:

Alien rods invasion 2010 (skyfish, solar entities)

2010-10-08T18:16:00.000+02:00

Repost from the Get Rich Blog: There are two types of people. Those who strive and those who don’t.

2010-10-08T16:58:00.000+02:00

There are two types of people. Those who strive and those who don’t.

You should know the normal people. They go to their work, get their salary, meet with friends, drink beer and even watch TV. They even save some money for a vacation or hobbies but don’t have a Goal (capital G). They may have a goal to get better house, car, postcards collection…, but it’s not something they think of every minute. They just live with auto-pilot turned on. I don’t mean they are bad in any way, but they are not doing what other type of people do.

The striving people are not satisfied. They eager to change their life. While most of them eager for money, some eager for peace in the world or personal spiritual development. Those people understand that watching TV is not only killing time. They understand that working for some guy is like a permitted slavery. They understand what means to be independent - you can do what you want (legally), regardless of how much money you have or what your boss thinks (they don’t have a boss) or what their neighbours think.

I’ll try to estimate the ratio between those types of people. On average a company has 1000 employees (who knows more exactly?). So there is just one striving person in a thousand. It is likely the boss of the company (if he made the company from the scratch). Sometimes there’s noone.

There are also those who are in the middle. They understand (like striving people) but are not yet on the way to their Goal.

What kind of person are you?

Repost of the GPS navigation software ideas I had in 2007

2010-10-08T16:56:00.002+02:00

About

This site is about a new PDA GPS navigation system called we-go. Why having another when there are already a lot? Read on...

Disadvantages of the existing navigation software

I started working on we-go because the existing software didn’t satisfy my needs:

They cost money
Their user interface is far from being user friendly
They are mostly 2D even when they display it on the pseudo-3D perspective
The maps get rarely updated
No way to use bitmap maps (aerial map of the region - Google Maps) or if there is one, then the combination of vector and bitmap data on the same screen is not possible.

Key features of we-go

I think navigation software can be much better:

It should be free
Maps should be updated as frequently as possible
3D view is not a cool feature; it’s a visual aid for navigation. Think of a highway intersection where there can be even more than three lanes over each other. See how it’s displayed in pseudo-3D compared to the real 3D view.
User interface should be skin-able to allow for customizing the user interface for each individual user. This is the most important for navigation software because it’s used during the intensive traffic and the time necessary to perform an operation should be minimized.
Bitmap maps like those found in Google Maps could be layered over for even greater navigation hints.
A desktop version of the program with all the features of the PDA version should be available (.NET can help with it) for managing the data, route pre-planning and transfer of the collected GPS data (see next topic) to the server.

Handicaps to jump over

The software itself is not enough to fulfill all the tasks of navigation. The data of different kind are as crucial as the software itself. Here are ideas where to get the missing data from:

Maps. Usually maps are bought from Tele Atlas or NAVTEQ. Buying maps from them would not only violate the free software principal of we-go, but would not give large enough data update rate. In the case of we-go the data for the roads will come from the users driving on them. That’s not unique way to gather the road information, but that’s unique that everybody is contributing to the system not only the special teams of cartography trucks. This solution gives the cheapness of the maps together with the most frequent updates to the maps as possible. And I don’t need to pay for it. J
As a side effect, collecting data of GPS positions of many cars allows us to find out the traffic lights rules: duration of each color, the ordering of green color switches on the same intersection.

Height maps can be obtained from USGS GTOPO30. The resolution is about 1km, the missing details to be covered by collecting GPS data from end users. (Yes, GPS supplies you with the height from the see level information as well.)

Bitmap maps can be downloaded from different sources including but not exclusively from Google Maps. Downloading from Google Maps can be online for users with internet in the car or offline - using the desktop version to retrieve the maps for the selected area or route.
Collecting map by driving and recording the GPS data is not enough to know the street names and house numbers. There is got to be a way of specifying this information by users (if they want and can). So in the beginning we-go would not have any addresses available. And that’s the point: we will build the database of addresses unrelated to any authorities and regardless of any borders.
There is a small relief as there is an open database of German city names and postcodes related to GPS coordinates at OpenGeoDB. This would be the first possible way of navigating where there is no street information collected. Similar databases can be available or obtained for other countries.

Code structure

I imagine that the data for the final rendered picture should come asynchronously. This means that in the situation when CPU is busy with something, graphical engine may not have the height map information and would need to display the view in preudo-3D, but in the same time it ensures that the frame rate will not drop and the navigation will be interrupted leaving the user helpless as where to drive. In the current navigation systems this effect is especially annoying as the device tends to react sluggish especially on complicated intersections where navigation help is especially important. Another example could be missing road names or not yet loaded far roads which will be needed only later and not now. It also has a win on the startup time, as only little amount of data has to be loaded before the actual navigation starts.

Currently the calculated route is defined once during route calculation and is only changed when the driver drives off the route. I would like to have we-go telling me on each crossing that there is another way which is maybe just 30 seconds (estimated) longer, but in my current road conditions will be preferable because of the traffic jam or just because this road has been driven by me too often and got boring.
In relation with previous item we-go could detect that driving 5km/h or stopping on the highway means the traffic jam and would suggest the detour without being asked to do so. In other words it should be active and proactive.
I imagine having 3D navigation window with the following layers (only some of them may be available at the time):

3D rough surface
3D detailed surface (may not cover the whole globe)
Vector roads
Vector road names
Semitransparent aerial bitmap of the area
Preplanned route
Alternative routes with information how much slower they are (e.g.: +3:15 min, -1.2 km)
Car position
Actual GPS position (dot like in i-go)

On top of the 3D view there can be several layers of 2D information and buttons (configurable with INI-file, BTW INI-file should be watched for changes, so that changes can be previewed without time-consuming restarting of the program). Simple information can be shown opaque near to the border:

Time, date
Current speed
Current GPS location (less important)
Maximum speed on that road
Destination (I sometimes find myself following my navigation software with old or incorrect destination set)
Time to destination
Distance to destination
GPS reception strength
Compass
Battery indicator
Next turn or action (e.g.: turn left or enter the highway)
Time to the next turn or action
Distance to the next turn or action

Clicking at upper right corner should minimize the software immediately (many PDAs are equipped with the cellular-phone or user needs to react on the event notification)
Clicking anywhere else should bring the semi-transparent (!!! it allows to continue navigation even when buttons are visible) user-configurable set of mostly frequently used buttons like:

Cancel route
Turn off sound
Start navigating somewhere else
Enlarge/reduce the zoom (I prefer to use hardware buttons for this)
Etc.

BTW, regarding finding the navigation target: I think it’s worth having general input field for finding whether city, street name, POI name without specifying precisely what is it you are typing. This allows finding faster what you are looking for by typing first several letters of the name without clicking on the country, typing the city, typing the street or POI name only after that.
The list of suggested destinations should not be sorted alphabetically, but should be sorted by the frequency this item was searched by specific user or all users (remember the global database) and size of the city. For example typing simply "f" should first show me Frankfurt am Main instead of hundreds of smaller villages (think of Google Suggest)

Technical details

The code should be written in .NET
The code should be shared between PC and PDA versions as much as possible (I can imagine that showing 3D display window can be much different on the PC and on PDA)
The asynchronous data delivery classes should be named “suppliers”.
All data should be stored in a database. I don’t want to invent the new file formats and write reader and writer classes for them. I know MS Access API exists already for .NET, but sqlite could be a faster solution, which, although, requires native code.
Having database for everything really solves a lot of problems with data access methodology and speed (I suppose SQL-database is already optimized a lot for quick data access). This seamlessly allows for easy new data storage.
We can use MySQL as free database for the huge online database of everything. Route analyzer-spider would crawl every submitted road from users to fill the gaps in the existing vector maps and detailed height maps.
Once connection to the server is possible we-go would submit all collected raw GPS data to the server and download updated road information, height-map information, road names and whatever else gets updated. Having local database for storing the data simplifies finding out what has changed a lot as well as requires much less data to be transferred between the server and the client (it will not download the complete map of the changed city but really only the roads and POI that had changed or added).
I think of having single version of we-go with all debugging functionality always enabled, but it is simply not visible for the users who just started using a system. It should be easily available if users want to get deeper into we-go.
Commercial license should be available for companies willing to pre-install we-go on their hardware.

I am looking for sponsors and donations as we-go doesn’t yet allow me to feed from itself. My fulltime dedication to the project would boost the speed of development a lot.
Community support is the question of life-and-death for we-go.

Displaying data from myTinyTodo somewhere else

2010-09-21T16:56:00.002+02:00

For my project bug tracking I use myTinyTodo. One day I decided that it would be nice to show my todo list to the beta users of my project. So here's a simple class which is doing the job.

/**
 * Class to read data from http://www.mytinytodo.net/ and display it somewhere else (as a part of your own application).
 * Allows to integrate your todo list into some other web-site.
 * You only need to comment line 68 in todo/ajax.php "exit;" for this class to work. THIS IS IMPORTANT!
 *
 * © 2010 spidgorny@gmail.com
 *
 */
class Todo {

    // structure: array('total' => 15, 'list' => array(...));
    protected $tasks = array();            // the data will be stored here

    /**
     * We imitate an AJAX request for the data and grab it with ob_get_clean().
     * Then we decode JSON data and voilà!
     *
     */
    function __construct($tab = 1) {
        $_GET['loadTasks'] = 1;
        $_GET['list'] = $tab;            // which tab to display
        $_GET['compl'] = 0;
        $_GET['sort'] = 0;
        $_GET['tz'] = 120;
        $_GET['rnd'] = rand();
        //debug($_GET);
        ob_start();
        require_once('todo/init.php');
        $GLOBALS['lang'] = Lang::instance();
        require_once('todo/ajax.php');
        $json = ob_get_clean();
        $this->tasks = json_decode($json, TRUE);
        //debug($this->tasks);
    }

}

Download: http://pastebin.com/FgQNapF3

Three Prius Tricks

2010-09-20T17:26:00.003+02:00

I'm am an owner of European Prius II (2006) and want to share some tips which I find useful, but which took me some time to grasp.

You can go as fast as 182 km/h on Prius if you step on the accelerator (driving at 180) and then the road starts going downhill. It takes the system several seconds to adjust to reduced necessary torque and until then it keeps accelerating as if you're going up-hill leading to 182 (I did this several times already).
You can get 181 km/h on the plain road by stepping on the accelerator, but that's not as interesting.
Don't use "B" mode to regenerate more energy (I was doing it on every traffic light for half a year because of many contradicting posts in the forums). Read this and apply brakes gently to regenerate more. Use "B" mode only when going down-hill (that's the rare case when you should follow the manual and you will do it right).
If you don't like Pulse&Glide technique then at least use Glide mode to reduce the breaking force when approaching a distant red light.
Navigation without GPS applies to Prius II as well! I noticed it in the underground parking and the system information screen has some kind of bearing information (displayed in degrees) which, combined with distance traveled, can replace GPS for some short distances.
How to get to the system information screen in Prius II - get to the display screen and follow the instructions here (it's not on the Navigation Voice screen, at least not in Prius II).

array_merge() vs array concatenation and array_merge_recursive_overwrite()

2010-09-20T16:48:00.001+02:00

I never seem to remember all the differences and aspects of the array_merge() function and array concatenation (not even documented thoroughly). On top there is this array_merge_recursive() which behaves like array_merge() though.

To start with I’ll say that array() + array() (called array concatenation) is in general NOT the same as array_merge(). It may behave in the same way if your arrays have all keys different. In this case you get both function and operator return the same result:

Next step: the function and the operator differ in the way they process numeric indexes as opposed to string keys.

For numeric indexes:

· operator + is appending new numeric indexes to the end of array 1, but keeps the newly added indexes intact.

· array_merge() is appending second array values and reindexing all indexes starting from 0.

· both will NOT overwrite the values in array 1 with values of array 2.

For string indexes:

· operator + is NOT overwriting the values

· array_merge() is overwriting.

· both will not reindex string keys (this makes no sense, really).

· array_merge_recursive() is doing something unprecedented and undocumented though. For a value with the same key it’s making a sub-array with both values combined.

That’s why people create such an amount of custom merge functions like

· array_merge_recursive_distinct

· array_merge_recursive_leftsource

· array_merge_recursive_unique

· array_merge_recursive_keys

· array_merge_recursive_keep_keys

· array_merge_recursive2

· array_merge_replace

· array_merge_n

· array_merge_2

· array_merge_replace_recursive

all of which are described in the comments to http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.array-merge-recursive.php

As you see the choice of the way to combine arrays is not so trivial. I’ve tried to summarize the data into the following table.

Operation/Function	Source Data	Overwrite?	Reindex?	Recursive?	Compares	KeysOrder?
array() + array()	Numeric	NO	No	Yes	Keys!	important
array() + array()	Associative	NO	No	Yes	Keys!	important
array_merge(a, a)	Numeric	NO!!!	YES	No, ?	Values!
array_merge(a, a)	Associative	Yes	NO	No, ?	Values!
array_merge_recursive	Numeric			Yes
array_merge_recursive	Associative			Yes

This was much to hard for me to remember so I’ve made a function which serves most of my purposes and behaves consistently and conveniently:

· it preserves keys both indexes and string keys (no-reindexing)

· it overwrites values from array1 with values of array2 provided they have the same keys

· it works recursively as much as it can, but doesn’t create sub-arrays when source values are not arrays

· pretty simple and straightforward it is (probably too simple to be built-in into PHP).

Enjoy:

function array_merge_recursive_overwrite($ar1, $ar2) {

       if (!is_array($ar1)) {

              $ar1 = $ar2;

       } else if (!is_array($ar2)) {

              //return $ar1;

       } else {

              foreach ($ar2 as $key2 => $val2) {

                     $subindex = isset($ar1[$key2]) ? $ar1[$key2] : NULL;

                     $ar1[$key2] = array2::array_merge_recursive_overwrite($subindex, $val2);

}

}

       return $ar1;

}

Car of the nearest future

2010-07-30T14:42:00.002+02:00

Recently I've been driving some couple of thousands km in a couple of days (from Frankfurt to Zadar to Scalea to Frankfurt) and you might know that 37 hours driving can be very boring. It's during this long boring time I was dreaming of what my car could become in the near future.

Here are my dreams listed in no particular order. Now that own Prius II and like it, I've taken Prius III as a base (pretty advanced vehicle, BTW) and thought of some extra features.

A couple of futuristic features which make Prius III a good base candidate for “the car of the future”:

It has a “Lane Assist” feature keeping you in the middle of the lane.
It has a “Smart Key” feature allowing you to open and close the car without touching you car keys.
It has a “Pre Collision System” which applies brakes when you’re about to crash into something.
An “Intelligent Parking Assist” which can park the car in the relatively narrow space automatically.
“Head-Up Display” like in the Jet Fighters.

Now my extension requests:

Hey Toyota, get a softer arm rests both on the door and in the middle arm rest. My elbows got hurt and I had to put towels to soften it. This is my priority #1, but maybe it's fixed in Prius III though.

The fuel indicator could be more sensitive and show the fuel level in percents instead of 1/10 of the tank.

Get some way of smelling diesel and stop fuelling with wrong type of fuel (yes, it happened to me).

Even the stupidest of cars shows how many km you can go with the fuel rests that you have.

Update: Prius III has it

The vehicle could notice the low fuel level and automatically search for the next fuel station along the route, add it as via point and inform the driver whether it's the last chance or he can go further to the next fuel station still.

Automatic tire pressure detection and pumping (there was a post apocalyptic movie with such feature about 20 years ago).

Or even better use the Tweel.

The current windshield can be made into a large semi-transparent LCD display able to show additional information about the objects visible to the driver. It could show the speed of the cars in front of you, detect make/brand of them, show full-screen (full-windshield) driving instructions and many other things.

It could also detect road signs (with speed limits for example) and display them in the corner of the windshield while this road sign is due (see the image above).

Install rain sensor into Prius, it exists for many years now.

Turn off the cabin and headlights (to save the battery) if the car is locked and nobody is inside (Prius has a seat-belt warning, so it’s not a big deal to detect peoples’ presence).

Allow driving in a follow-the-leader mode where I can track the car in front of me (on the Navi or on the LED-windshield) and follow it. This will allow me to catch up even if I get lost (like in GTA).

The “Select User” function should also remember the left and right mirrors orientation (similar to the feature in one of the sports cars). Ideally it should detect the driver automatically (by the weight, fingerprint reader on the On/Off button or any other means).

Driving backwards could detect obstacles and brake automatically (in the case of a sudden child on the way or a dog, which is easy to overlook because of their low height).

Do you have more realistic ideas for the future car improvements? Send a comment, I’ll post best ideas in the update to this post.

CSS3 Full-Screen Gradient Flashlight (jQuery)

2010-06-21T12:37:00.004+02:00

Want to share a small tech-demo which simulates a moving flashlight (spotlight) over your web-site (without using Adobe Flash). The light is following mouse cursor. Uses jQuery. See the screenshot and the corresponding code:

<html>
 <head>
  <style>
   .fl {
    background-image: -moz-radial-gradient(center 45deg, circle closest-corner, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 0%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 255) 10%);
       background-image: -webkit-gradient(radial, center center, 0, center center, 350, from(rgba(255, 255, 255, 0)), to(rgba(0, 0, 0, 255)));
    width: 5000px;
    height: 5000px;
    position: absolute;
   }
  </style>
  <script type="text/javascript"
 src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
  <script type='text/javascript'>
$(document).ready(function(){
    $(document).mousemove(function(e){
        $("#fl").css({
            top: (e.pageY - 2500) + "px",
            left: (e.pageX - 2500) + "px"
        });
    });
});
</script>

 </head>
 <body style="
  height: 100%;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  background: url(http://www.onestopwebmasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/new-vista-wallpaper.jpg);
  overflow-x: hidden;
  ">
  <div class="fl" id="fl">
  </div>
 </body>
</html>

Prius as service car in Frankfurt

2010-06-18T12:23:00.006+02:00

I'm a fan of Prius and live in Frankfurt. Fan pictures of service-Prii (Priuses).
Location: Alte-Oper Frankfurt.

Location: Sandweg.

Extension to the bookmark JSON viewer to have collapsable folders

2009-12-10T19:07:00.004+01:00

This is a follow-up of my previous post on "Parse and display Firefox bookmarks.json on the fly as HTML with jQuery". The modification allows to collapse/expand (open/close) the bookmark folders. The collapsed folders are stored in cookies, this way they persist between page views. Download the new code and put it into your Firefox profile folder.

I want to stress one aspect of this small "application". The whole application is done in Javascript, it requires no PHP or even the web-server at all and even the body part of the HTML is empty. The whole thing that you see is dynamically generated with Javascript. Quite a different approach to the usual web-programming.

Parse and display Firefox bookmarks.json on the fly as HTML with jQuery

2009-12-07T14:15:00.004+01:00

Abstract: this small HTML/JS/CSS file is parsing the bookmarks.json file located in the Firefox profile directory and displays all of your bookmarks as HTML. This file can be set at a default home page and so you can choose any of your bookmarks with less clicks.

Screenshot:

Note: This code has been programmed as an exercise to learn jQuery, but serves my own practical needs as well. The same effect (displaying bookmarks) can probably be archived by using a Firefox plugin, but I like it this way.

Usage:

Download the code and put it into your Firefox profile directory "bookmarkbackups" subfolder.
Adjust the name of the bookmark file on line 58.
Navigate to the file like this: file:///C:/Home/Mozilla/bookmarkbackups/view.html. The exact address will be different on your computer (how to find out).
Optionally set this URL as a default.

Code documentation: the script is loading jQuery from google.com and loads the specified JSON file upon startup. Then it converts it from JSON to Javascript objects and loops through them making DIVs for folders and A HREF for bookmarks.

What's next: I hope this code makes an interesting reading for jQuery novices. I'm happy to receive comments and improvements to this code.

Dirty PR: see the links on the right for other sites I've made.

RIP Zend Studio 5.5.1

2009-12-03T10:30:00.001+01:00

Although it's been several years since Zend Studio development has been ceased (the new product Zend Studio 6+ is a completely different application with just the same name), I'm still using it. And I know there are others who just can't get used to the new Exclipse IDE (Can't believe zend made this). Here I'll describe some of the bad things in Zend Studio (not necessary bugs) and propose a list of new features (this makes no sense, I know).

Problems:

Hangs a lot. Especially when switching projects or using SVN, CPU usage goes to 100% (or 50% on dual-core) and you can't close it, except for killing javaw.exe.
No code completion for arrays:

Impossible features:

Some nice refactoring like clicking on variable and making it a class member (with replacement suggestions from other places in the code):

to be continued...

Seeing all Google Analytics profiles at once

2009-08-28T23:50:00.003+02:00

As I have several different sites to manage in Google Analytics (and more come from time to time) I wished I could have a quick overview of all the profiles under my control. I found no ready software for this hence I wrote it myself. Here you can see the first initial version. If anybody extends it, please let me know so others can download it too.
Screenshot:

Download PHP source: gaChart.rar

Installation instructions: copy the files (there's just two) to your web-server, change index.php to contain your own Google Analytics login and password (line 15) and run index.php with web-browser.

Should you like to use this, but don't have a web-server, please let me know and I will install it on my server for everybody to test.

Disclaimer: I've used the Google Analytics PHP library from http://www.askaboutphp.com/tutorials/63/google-analytics-api-class-for-php.html

Top 20 Hauses

2006-03-26T20:16:00.000+02:00

http://www.interhome.de/buchung/basket/01/59/buchung.css/719595

Hausboot.

2006-03-26T17:17:00.000+02:00

h ttp://www.wasserundland.de/
http://www.ferien-auf-dem-wasser.de/

Ferienwohnungen.

2006-03-25T00:50:00.000+01:00

http://www.interhome.de/index.asp?userlang=01&&rdgo=N&so=59

Политическая карта с названиями регионов.

2006-03-25T00:46:00.000+01:00

О путешествии на катере на немецком

2006-03-24T21:52:00.000+01:00

Вот тут еще разные подробности, как это здорово и приятно скользить по паутине французских рек на небольшом катере.
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/label_france/DEUTSCH/REGION/eau/eau.html

Palavas-les-Flots

2006-03-24T21:15:00.000+01:00

Городок под Монпелье на море. С красивым отелем и на полуострове-косе. Вода с двух сторон. В Монпелье типа можно работать в ИТ.

Школьные каникулы во Франции.

2006-03-24T15:52:00.000+01:00

http://www.education.gouv.fr/prat/calendrier/calendrier.php
Синяя зона: du samedi [15-04-06] au mardi [02-05-06]
Зеленая зона: du samedi [22-04-06] au mardi [09-05-06]
Мы едем: 08-04-06 .. 18-04-06
Перекрытия есть - в синюю зону надо ехать сначала (с 08-04-06 по 14-04-06). Придется ехать через Швейцарию. Потом по берегу с востока на запад. Возражения есть?

Марине понравится...

2006-03-24T15:43:00.000+01:00

http://www.turizm.ru/france/articles/p-1235.html

St. Tropez

2006-03-24T15:36:00.000+01:00

Avignon.

2006-03-24T15:28:00.000+01:00

Забегая вперед, скажем, что дорога от Страсбурга до Марселя обошлась примерно в 100 евро. Впрочем, есть альтернатива - ехать не по хайвею, а по параллельным ему дорогам местного значения, но другого скоростного режима. Кроме того, о немецком придорожном благолепии можно сразу забыть. Пива не купить, с едой проблемы. Под Лионом с трудом нашли какую-то харчевню на другой стороне дороги…

Carcassone. Details.

2006-03-24T15:23:00.000+01:00

http://www.turizm.ru/france/articles/p-1218.html

Monaco.

2006-03-24T15:16:00.000+01:00

Старые лимузины и сегодня встречаются на улицах Монако - все вылизанные, заново отделанные, сверкающие. В Монако не бывает битых или даже слегка помятых машин. Если вы собрались ехать туда на личном автотранспорте, учтите: машина должна выглядеть oХkey, иначе ее в княжество не впустят. Знакомой переводчице, опаздывающей на гонки в Монте-Карло, на которых она должна была работать, пришлось в течение получаса уламывать и задабривать взятками (майками с эмблемой гонок) полицейских - в конце концов ее впустили, но взяли обещание, что, добравшись до места, она поставит машину где-нибудь за углом и не станет пользоваться ею внутри страны.

http://www.turizm.ru/france/articles/p-1221.html

Nice. February.

2006-03-24T15:07:00.000+01:00

И, наконец, по воде поплыли лодки, а в них создатели цветочных композиций целыми семьями с детьми, с собаками. Публика их узнаёт, подбадривает, а они бросают зрителям охапками цветы: мимозы, гвоздики. На импровизированных трибунах соревнование, кто больше словит. Это и есть "битва цветов"! По городу потом все ходят с букетами.

http://www.turizm.ru/france/stories/p-2242.html

Не в тему, но интересно. Диснейленд.

2006-03-24T14:50:00.000+01:00

Обзор: http://www.turizm.ru/france/articles/p-1222.html
Цены:
Erwachsene Kinder
1-Tag / 1 Park -Ticket 42 Euro 34 Euro
1-Tag-Park-Hopper-Ticket 51 Euro 43 Euro
2-Tages-Park-Hopper-Ticket 93 Euro 77 Euro
3-Tages-Park-Hopper-Ticket 113 Euro 92 Euro

Не по теме но интересно. Сан-Вермишель.

2006-03-24T14:31:00.000+01:00

http://www.turizm.ru/france/articles/p-1223.html

Ссылки на отзывы туристов.

2006-03-24T13:22:00.000+01:00

Чуваки на джипе с россии во францию: http://www.turizm.ru/france/articles/p-2321.html
Чуваки тоже на джипе с испании в германию: http://www.tours.ru/country/stories.asp?id_stories=4989&id_country=FR
Лазурный берег: http://www.turizm.ru/france/p-1214.html
Средняя температура в Ницце в Апреле - 13 градусов: http://www.turizm.ru/france/p-188.html

Formule 1

2006-03-24T13:17:00.000+01:00

В Формуле1 останавливаться будет дорого и не интересно, но на всякий случай проверил - в этом районе формул полно. Цены: 28-30 ЕУР за комнату с двух-этажной кроватью.

Lyosha's tip

2006-03-24T12:29:00.000+01:00

Oleksiy Chagovets (10:52 PM) :
тогда в Нормандию :-)
или на юго-восток Франции!!! около Бордо
Oleksiy Chagovets (10:53 PM) :
там где залив в котором устриц выращивают и самая большая дюна в Европе
Marina (10:53 PM) :
ок, если доедем, у нас дней 8-9 будет
Oleksiy Chagovets (10:54 PM) :
ключевые слова:
Arcachon (город и залив)
Dune de Pyla
Marina (10:55 PM) :
ок, спасибо, посмотрим
Oleksiy Chagovets (10:55 PM) :
по пути можно заехать в St.Emilion подегустировать вин - это тоже около Бордо

Largest bridge in France (on Earth?)

2006-03-24T12:26:00.000+01:00

Way 2

2006-03-24T12:19:00.000+01:00

Frankfurt - Montpellier (over Lyon). 994 km. 9:56h.

Way 1

2006-03-24T12:15:00.000+01:00

Frankfurt - Nice. 974 km. 9:40h. We'll have to go through Schweiz - +25 EUR za proezd

Carcassone

2006-03-24T12:11:00.000+01:00

Going to France

2006-03-24T12:01:00.000+01:00

Preved!
Мы типа собрались во Францию. Предлагаю использовать этот сайт для обсуждения и сохранения информации о нашей поездке. Сначала нужно определить куда мы хотим, потом куда мы можем, а потом где мы будем спать.
Итак, список: куда можно поехать:

SPidgorny

Android app for Rechnung+

Progress bar for a lengthy PHP process

How to change the collation for all tables in a MySQL database to UTF-8?

Решение судоку с помощью веб-камеры в реальном времени

Running multiple SQL commands from the dump file (UTF8 compatible) in MSAccess

PHP security tips

Validating input

Escape output

Test View Controller

Friend Share idea for Android

Route Frankfurt -> Le Grau du Roi

NL visit 2011

Take List

We're going to NL for a three day trip. Some links to some interesting places.

PHP: Transparent Self-Caching of Objects

Augmented Reality for Car Drivers

How did ancient languages get complicated in the first place

ALL of the 2010 Toyota Prius How-To Youtube Videos

No comment

Transpose 2D array in PHP

Someone knows how to fill-in waiting time at the Frankfurt airport ;-)

I’m looking for someone...

Preamble

Eco Driving Analytics

Prius driving on it's own

Почему богатые не делятся деньгами с бедными

What is the best?

Rechnung+

3D graphics animations in Excel

Petition to release Zend Studio 5.5.1 source code.

1-Click Installer

Car Driving Styles

DebugPanel - Web 2.0 way of print_r()

DebugPanel - Web 2.0 way of print_r()

Target Audience

Purpose

Feature list

Demo

Usage

Step 1

Step 2

Download

Todo

Hint about Taylor Profiler

DebugPanel

Request (array[7])

System Variables (array[7])

REQUEST (array[7])

COOKIE (array[7])

Test (array[8])

array (array[5])

panel (array[1])

info (array[1])

someHTML (htmlString)

TaylorProfiler (htmlString)

Server Stat (htmlString)

What requests do browsers' “F5” and “Ctrl + F5” refreshes generate?

Elastic Feedback

Automobile Traffic Trains

FloatBox (floating effect for using CSS3 box-shadow)

International PHP Conference from the inside

Alien rods invasion 2010 (skyfish, solar entities)

Repost from the Get Rich Blog: There are two types of people. Those who strive and those who don’t.

Repost of the GPS navigation software ideas I had in 2007

About

Disadvantages of the existing navigation software

Key features of we-go

Handicaps to jump over

Code structure

Technical details

Displaying data from myTinyTodo somewhere else

Three Prius Tricks

array_merge() vs array concatenation and array_merge_recursive_overwrite()

Car of the nearest future

CSS3 Full-Screen Gradient Flashlight (jQuery)

Prius as service car in Frankfurt

Extension to the bookmark JSON viewer to have collapsable folders

Parse and display Firefox bookmarks.json on the fly as HTML with jQuery

RIP Zend Studio 5.5.1

FloatBox (floating effect for
using CSS3 box-shadow)