Development, Analysis And Research

The never ending list of functions… Some more for me to learn and play with, many are part of the Zend Platform….

accelerator_get_blacklist()  array
accelerator_get_blacklisted_paths()  array
accelerator_get_configuration()  array
accelerator_get_scripts()  array
accelerator_get_server_start_time()  long
accelerator_get_statistics()  array
accelerator_get_uris()  array
accelerator_get_version_info()  array
accelerator_reset()  void
accelerator_set_status(boolean $status)  boolean
accelerator_unlock_functions(string $password)  boolean

confirm_extname_compiled(string $arg)  string

leak(int[optional] $num_bytes = 3)  void

output_add_rewrite_var(string $name, string $value)  bool
output_cache_check_file(string $filename)  array
output_cache_disable()  void
output_cache_disable_compression()  void
output_cache_exists(string $key, int $lifetime)  mixed
output_cache_fetch(string $key, string $function, int $lifetime)  string
output_cache_get(string $key, int $lifetime)  mixed
output_cache_get_statistics()  array
output_cache_output(string $key, string $function, int $lifetime)  string
output_cache_put(string $key, mixed $data)  bool
output_cache_remove(string $filename)  string
output_cache_remove_key(string $key)  string
output_cache_remove_url(string $url)  string
output_cache_stop()  void
output_reset_rewrite_vars()  bool

time_nanosleep(long $seconds, long $nanoseconds)  mixed

PHP, Zend

Popularity: 2% [?]

Zend Studio Xenon

Unfortunately no code folding (Collapsable Source), however….:)

• Web Services Support (SOAP)
  • WSDL Generator
• Subversion Support
• Code Completion for nested functions.

Zend Studio - Early Access Program Xenon

PHP, Zend Studio Xenon

Popularity: 3% [?]

Yesterday Andrew Gearing (AGCC), took me on a tour of London Meridian Gate DC. You cannot go anywhere without a PAC security card access and it was very noisy on the datacenters floors. Anyway was very interesting to see, thanks Andrew:)

Security

• Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus (VESDA) installed
• Smoke detection system
• FM2000 fire suppression system
• CCTV system covering all entrances/exits and main areas
• 24-hour video recording
• Full perimeter alarm
• PAC security card access system
• Visual verification of all persons entering the data floor

Popularity: 1% [?]

A very quick thing I learnt yesterday as well..
When using a hyperlink to a pdf file you can search the document by suffixing a hash.

.pdf#search='query'

Ensure the query is within quotes.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Yesterday I had a nightmare with some very unusual character encoding issues. This only occurred in internet explorer, however the text of the page was static, the charset for the page was:

  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">

and also the http header for the charset was set to UTF-8. Halfway through the body of the content ie did not recognise a character skipping the next few characters and cutting off half of a strong tag. eg “etcetc…strong>” where as the source was “etcetc…</strong>”. I haven’t found the particular cause at present, however overwriting the file with a previous version overcome this problem. Will be curious to know if anyone else has come across any peculiar results such as the above.

i18n, i18n & l10n, i18n & l10n, Internationalization, l10n, Localization

Popularity: 2% [?]

A particular interesting project, as I have been doing a little research into this topic and recently retrieved the specifications for ETSI.

The BBC TV-Anytime Java API is for parsing, manipulating and creating TV-Anytime metadata. It is currently released under LGPL

TV-Anytime is an open standard for metadata describing TV and radio programmes that is designed to support Personal Video Recoders (PVRs), programme guides and related technologies. The TV Anytime Forum is an association of organisations which seeks to develop specifications to enable audio-visual and other services based on mass-market high volume digital storage. For further information go to www.tv-anytime.org. The TV-Anytime specifications are published by ETSI as the TS 102 822 series and are available at the ETSI web site (http://www.etsi.org/)

BBC R&D White Paper WHP060
TV Anytime

• CPAN modules
  These are projects we have released the following distributions to CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network)
• Apache Modules
  These are modules extending the capabilities of mod_include type functionality.
• Dirac
  Dirac is a state of the art video codec that provides general-purpose video compression and decompression tools. It is cross-platform and written in ANSI standard C++.
• Media Lounge
  A C++ application, based on the “Crystal Space 3D” game engine SDK. It displays an interactive, shared virtual world, in which the content author can embed audio and video sequences
• TV-Anytime Java API
  The BBC TV-Anytime Java API is for parsing, manipulating and creating TV-Anytime metadata.
• Kamaelia
  Kamaelia is designed as a testbed for network experimentation using a component architecture designed to simplify creation and testing of new protocols for large scale media delivery systems.
• Media Dispatch
  A reference implementation of the Pro-MPEG Media Dispatch Group’s Media Dispatch Protocol.
• MXF File Test Engine
  Provides a system that allows various tests to be performed on MXF files
• Video Shot Change Detector
  A simple DirectShow video shot change detector filter, suitable for a wide variety of applications.

Also don’t forgett to go backstage.
And other R&D Projects.

Popularity: 2% [?]

This has been around for a little while, however I received an email today publisizing Zend Core for IBM and i’m still just as confused as when it was anounced back in February.

I’m still scratching my head as to why it is certified?

• PHP Configuration - configure and view existing configurations and changes in a phpinfo display.
• Reference Information - search reference information included in Zend Core for IBM to get immediate answers to questions. Zend Core for IBM provides advanced search functionality, for searching across all included reference information at once.
• Support - directly access support and information regarding IBM and Zend products and services.
• Server Monitoring and Control - view the overall condition of the server and control server start/stop directly from Zend Core for IBM.
• Extension Configuration - control the memory footprint of the PHP solution.
• Benchmarking – build and deploy database-driven web applications.

The only aspects I can really see that are an extension to the Zend Platform, is added control of extensions, CloudScape and searching documentation. Would be nice to see a live demo… Or get a real contrast of the differences.

PHP, Zend, Zend Core for IBM

Popularity: 2% [?]

Should be very interesting to see the capabiilities from the new portal first hand…

• Launch SiteControl, allowing you to register “wtv” URLs for your site with us for the first time! SiteControl will then become your means to test and launch your site in the new portal.
• Make available SkyKey pre-registration. Many people have asked for the availability to “reserve” a SkyKey, and you will then be able to do so.
• Show you early stages of what the iDTV interface to the new portal will look like, with a demonstration.
• Publish the final rate card for the “value add” options available to purchase in the portal.
• Introduce various tooling and technical partners that we are working with that can help you with the “wtv” version of your site.

Current Software I have seen…

• www.wtvstudio.com
• craftwork.dk

Sky, Sky Active, Sky Interactive, WTVML

Popularity: 2% [?]

Theres always something to learn, and a couple things i’ve learnt recently.

MS Access does not support multiple querys as in the following…

ID=Request.Form(TableKeyIDName)

SQL = ""
SQL = SQL & "INSERT INTO MetaData            " & VBCRLF
SQL = SQL & " (Fid, IndexKey, IndexValue)    " & VBCRLF
SQL = SQL & "VALUES                          " & VBCRLF

For i=1 To Request.Form("AssociateDataKey").Count
   If (Request.Form("AssociateDataKey") <> EMPTY) Then
    SQL = SQL & " (                       " & VBCRLF
    SQL = SQL & "    " & CInt(ID) & ",    " & VBCRLF
    SQL = SQL & "    '" & Request.Form("AssociateDataKey")(i) & "',     " & VBCRLF
    SQL = SQL & "    '" & Request.Form("AssociateDataValue")(i) & "'    " & VBCRLF
    SQL = SQL & " )                       "
    If (Request.Form("AssociateDataKey").Count <> i) Then
       SQL = SQL & ", " & VBCRLF
    End If
   End If
Next

The Query:

INSERT INTO MetaData
    (Fid, IndexKey, IndexValue)
VALUES
    ( 18, 'a', 'a' ),
    ( 18, 'b', 'b' ),
    ( 18, 'c', 'c' ),
    ( 18, 'd', 'd' ),
    ( 18, 'e', 'e' );

The Error:

Error Type:
Microsoft JET Database Engine (0×80040E14)
Missing semicolon ( at end of SQL statement.
/admin/example/Submit.asp, line 84

The wildcard for MS Access is ‘*’ not ‘%’.

where (
        A.TITLE like    '*criteria1*'
     or A.SUBTITLE like '*criteria1*'
     or A.ABSTRACT like '*criteria1*'
     or A.CONTENT like  '*criteria1*'
        )
    and (
        A.category = 937
     or A.date_added >= '2005-01-01'
        )

and a Handy App…

Also, i’d just like to thank Eric for pointing out a nice app to mount ISO’s; a very handy little application.

Access, ASP, Db, SQL

Popularity: 2% [?]

Today I found an odd bug in MSXML.

<!--
  <xsl:comment> -----BEGIN call-template name="article" EMPTY PathID----- </xsl:comment>
-->

msxml3.dll error '80004005'

The stylesheet does not contain a document element. The stylesheet may be empty, or it may not be a well-formed XML document.

"C:\DOMAINS\HOSTELHOST.COM\WWWROOT\CLIENT\DK\EYEWITNESS\../includes/src/default.asp, line 43″

MSXML, XML, XSL

Popularity: 2% [?]