Date: 08/26/06     Keywords: php, web

Hello all. This is my first post to the community. I was recently offered the opportunity to develop a social networking website. The site is already functioning, but the owners (a print shop) are interested in a complete revamp, which likely will be required since the current site was developed by less experienced programmers. I will likely use a framework such as Cake, or Zend.

The site will offer the users personal profiles, the ability to "friend" one another, upload photos, write blogs, send messages to one another, review restaurants and hotels, and plot travel itineraries with the intention of getting advice from fellow travelers and possibly meeting up. It currently services less than 3000 users, but due to a book tie-in to be released early next year, it has the potential to be very high traffic. It's a large project, and one that I'm excited to be a part of.

Now to my questions. If any of you were presented with this size of a project, what would your time estimate be? Also, given the amount of work to be done, and the four month timeframe, how much would you charge? Would you charge per project, or per hour? I'm in the San Francisco area if that has any influence on the outcome.

The second question is; which framework/libraries would you use? I'm leaning toward Cake because I am a fan of MVC and Design Patterns, but I'm also attracted to Zend and Prado because of their modularity meaning I could reuse components that other people have written to speed development. Does anyone have any thoughts on these?

Anyway, thanks in advance for your comments. I look forward to being an active part of this community as I transition into full-time php coding on this project.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/488887.html

Date: 08/26/06     Keywords: php

http://extensions.iptsolutions.com/
Just found this thing for Dreamweaver, it's a in IDE debugger for PHP and it's free.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/488588.html

Date: 08/25/06     Keywords: html

    I offered to help out a musician friend of mine who wants to sell some of his music video's and donate the funds to UNICEF.  Trying to keep this stupid simple... so my thoughts are like this.

CC gateway -Paypal
Sale form that records the user's IP address (redundant because I always do this) and either makes a md5 hash of their first name and IP address or assigns a uniqueID to them.
Processing page (maybe xajax, not sure if I am ready to use it in production environment)
     Output buffer a processing page then print a link/JS redirect on response from paypal.

   If IPN data comes back good, changes a bool to true and purchase date.

1st option

Redirect to gateway form that takes via GET the unique ID hash and filename(validated against a regExp&ls listing of the secure file directory)
   If the uniqueID matches the customer table, the specified file name/title is in the sold field, and their IP is the same... redirects to a download page that sends header for the content type then prints the video file to the client.  To prevent file corruption, I'd used ob_start before the verification code, do a ob_get_contents() then log/email that to me if its length is > 0, then ob_clean_end output buffering, post the header and print the file on success.  On failure, post txt/html or something and tell them why they can't get the video and to enter their name, email address.  Most likely the customers will be French so this is going to be a bitch if something breaks.  Estimated file size is 70-120 megabytes.

OR

   On verification of emails, via Swift mailer, their invoice and requested video file is sent.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/488389.html

Date: 08/25/06     Keywords: cms, php, ecommerce, css

i'm pretty new to PHP -- I'd always been the "designer" before this job, but now, I've been moving  into coding...

and I really like it.... Well, I really think PHP is awesome!!!

Anyway. I need a good CMS. I'm leaning towards Post-Nuke or Mambo

I wanted to know what your opinions were on either of them

The site is a small site,  but it will need an ecommerce solution (I like CubeCart for that) and a forum solution (probably SMF).

The end user who will be updating is, is well, technically challenged.

I'd also like the layouts to be pure CSS.

as I said, I'd just like to hear some opinions...

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/487999.html

Date: 08/25/06     Keywords: php

So, I was contacted by a recruiter a couple of weeks ago about a php job. This particular job wanted to use a 'code challenge' to test it's potential employees. So, naturally they had me do the test. It was timed, I only had roughly 12 hours to do it. All they sent me was a .pdf file with a flowchart. It was obviously a logical diagram of a function. It seemed pretty simple.

Anyways, the pdf file is here. That pdf file is the ONLY thing I had to go by. They said they wanted working code and didn't care about a fancy gui.

So, the source code for it is here, and the functioning application is here.

The recruiter informed me that their client said I didn't meet the requirements, but didn't say why. I was hoping at least they could say why so I would know where I needed to improve. So, I'm asking you guys. I know there are a lot of good php developers in this community, so if any of you get an opportunity to look this over and tell me what I need to work on, I'd really greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/487840.html

Date: 08/23/06     Keywords: no keywords

So, I've gotten a script on one subdomain of mine to write (append) to a file on another subdomain of mine (even though is_writable said I couldn't do it)...

This is all well and good, and it will serve, but it's not perfect

I'm using this script to add contents to the file, each one timestamped.

if ($postresults == 'yes') { // add the result to a file
		$filename = '/path/to/file.txt';
		
		// because I'm opening $filename in append mode,
		// the file pointer is at the bottom of the file hence
		// that's where $posttext will go when we fwrite() it.
		if (!$handle = fopen($filename, 'a')) {
			echo "Cannot open file ($filename).";
			break;
		}
		
		// Write $posttext to our opened file.
		if (fwrite($handle, $posttext) === FALSE) {
			echo "Cannot write to file ($filename).";
			break;
		}
		
		echo "Success, wrote ($posttext) to file ($filename)";
		
		fclose($handle);
	}

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/487061.html

Date: 08/23/06     Keywords: php

       The biggest weakness I have is regular expressions, mostly because I haven't sat down to learn how to write them.  So I wrote this to do two things at once, test out xajax further and provide me with a regular expression testing tool that I can run live data against.  The three functions that I made sure work is preg_split, preg_grep, preg_match, preg_match_all.

If anyone's trying to learn pearl regExp's then this might be useful.

Preg_match.php.txt requires xajax php class

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/486728.html

Date: 08/22/06     Keywords: database

I am setting up an LAMP based events calendar for a client and they want to be able to add recurring events.  Whats the best way to add recurring event functionality.  Will I have to set up a cron script to add the events to the calendar once a day based on criteria in the database or is there an easier way?

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/486432.html

Date: 08/21/06     Keywords: php

I am used to PHP running as a CGI, so it was kind of "fun" to figure out why my user local php.ini directives were being ignored on my windows machine, running php as a module.  As a universal work around, I am using ini_set/ini_get in a common.php file so my directives will work on both Module/CGI php environments... barring safe_mode and other restrictions are not set by the master ini.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/486343.html

Date: 08/21/06     Keywords: php

    Please someone tell me they got the joke in the subject line... if not, then I am getting old.  But what I am looking for is a tutorial(s) for producing XUL enabled applications with PHP being the back end.  So far I am turning up bust for pet projects, and now I think I got one with learning XUL+PHP and using it to make a OO Admin system.  If there is already one out there, don't tell me about it.  I want to pretend I can have atleast one original thought.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/486142.html

Date: 08/21/06     Keywords: php, software, html, asp

Hi folks. I'm looking for a way to convert word documents to html using PHP. I've seen this done with various services, like gmail (using whatever it is they use) and monster.com (using asp) and some others, and I was wondering if there was a way to do that in PHP. Most of the stuff I've found is just some software that makes you do it manually, not meant for using as a library. So, anyways, I know this can be done, I'm just wondering what I can use to do it. Thanks for any info.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/485643.html

Date: 08/19/06     Keywords: php

If someone told you to brush up on your "technical php" by an interview on Monday, what would you study and how would you begin?

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/485607.html

Date: 08/17/06     Keywords: php, mysql, sql

   I've been thinking about an anti-flood mechanism for php that doesn't involve some sort of captcha method.  I looked into using shared memory but its back to the same problem of having a race condition between scripts.  As a temporary work around I guess I could just use a MySQL table, but I was hoping for something with a smaller memory and speed foot print.  Anyone got any idea's?

Example of what I mean:
  
   If 10000 hits are made in less then 30 minutes to a php script, the script has a switch at the beginning that immediately dies(). 

I thought of a cron script that runs every 30 minutes and counts the number of new lines from an offset in the record then adds "deny from $userIP" under the Order deny,allow directive of .htaccess, but was wondering if there is anything else before I start making a bunch of regEx's to parse the access log.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/485252.html

Date: 08/17/06     Keywords: php

I am kind of proud of this actually. I accidentally setup a recursive/loop pattern between my php scripts, and my ajax scripts which calls an alert() and adds an element to a popup window. At first I was annoyed then I opened up the process console and watched firefox.exe slowly balloon from its normal 40 megs to 490 megs before I killed the process.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/484990.html

Date: 08/17/06     Keywords: php, mysql, sql, google

Hello, I am new you can call me Kristi.

I have been searching google for a php calendar for a few days now, and haven't found one that I like. I specifically looking for one that just lists the dates of important events not an actual calendar. I've looked on codegrrl.com but I couldn't find the calendar my friend Crystal used. If you have any suggestions please post them!

Or if you just created a php calendar and want someone to try it out then that's fine too.

Oh by the way, I'm pretty new at PHP so I want a simple calendar that is easy to install also my server doesn't support MYSQL which can be a problem!

Thanks so much!

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/484796.html

Date: 08/16/06     Keywords: php, software, web, hosting

I'm working on an open source project called Appleseed, which requires server-to-server communication.

I'm trying to decide whether I should roll my own classes using internal PHP functions like stream_context_create (), or if I should use the CURL library.

I've benchmarked them both, and the CURL library is really close to the raw functions as far as speed goes.

Does anybody have any recommendations? The only reason I'm hesitant about CURL is that I really want this software to be very easy to install, even on a typical $9 a month php hosting account.

Considering that, how widespread is CURL support amongst php webhosts?

Also, if anybody has rolled their own functions before, how difficult can it be? I'll mostly just be transferring data between servers, nothing too complicated. Maybe CURL is overkill for that?

Thanks!

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/484379.html

Date: 08/16/06     Keywords: php, jsp, web

How would one go about making portions of a website serve through HTTPS? I'm thinking of something like here at LJ, where only the login and some internal pages are served via HTTPS; all the rest are via ordinary HTTP.

Frankly, I'm even a little confused as to HOW exactly making a web application serve via HTTPS. I've been doing a lot of Googling, and all I can see are how to set up SSL with servers et al—which are too technical for me. I understand I can ask my host to enable SSL; but after that? I seem to "get" that after that, a new folder will be open to me where I should place the pages I mean to make secure. Is this correct? So that means I either have a few pages of my application in one folder, and the rest in another; or two full copies of the application in both folders. Right?

So if I just need certain pages to be served from it, like the login page, user profile page, etc—is it really as "simple" as putting those pages in the secure folder instead of the normal folder, linking to it via the https protocol, and then linking/redirecting back to http after? (Never mind the whole "but the cookie will still be present, you have to put the whole application in https!" argument because if it's one-tenth in terms of speed, that's definitely a no-no.)

What happens if I use a page loader to load the application pages? I then have to put the page loader etc into the secure folder then, right?

And, I seem to read that with JSP there's a way to "transparently" do this—I mean redirecting automatically (i.e., if user tries to go to http://website.com/login.jsp, it gets redirected to https://website.com/login.jsp automatically; or, https://website.com/whateverpage.jsp goes to http://website.com/whateverpage.jsp because it doesn't need to be served via HTTPS). Is there a way to do this with PHP?

Thanks in advance, I'm getting rather frustrated with Googling since I don't seem to get any headway at all into this. :p

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/484250.html

Date: 08/15/06     Keywords: php, web

For anyone who's used PHPmailer, ever get  "550 Administrative prohibition" failure messages?  The odd one is that it only fails going to my personnel email addresses.

SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:host personnalServer.org [216.227.217.101]: 550 Administrative prohibition



/*
* Purpose: Send email to myself, the server, and to company techsupport line
*Arguments:
*              $subject - string  => Subject header for email
*              $body - string => the Body text of email
* Return:  False on success and string error message on failure
*/
myMail($subject, $body)
{
if(defined('SERVER_SWITCH'))  //On local network server
 {
  $mail = new PHPMailer();
  $mail->Host = "smtp.comcast.net;mail.iCutThisOut.com";  //my ISP SMTP gateway
  $mail->IsSMTP();  // set mailer to use SMTP
 }
 else //assume were on the remote
 {
  $mail = new PHPMailer();
  $pop = new POP3();  //Got this from 
   $pop->Authorise('mail.iCutThisOut.com', 110, 30, 'USER_NAME', 'PASSWORD', 1);
  
  $mail->IsSendmail();
  $mail->Host = "mail.companyServer.com"; 
  $mail->SMTPAuth = true;     // turn on SMTP authentication
  $mail->Username = 'USER_NAME';  // SMTP username
  $mail->Password = 'PASSWORD';// SMTP password  
  
  $mail->AddAddress("techsupport@companyEmail.com"); //Only send to this if production server
  //$mail->IsMail();  // set mailer to use PHP mail system  
 }
 $mail->SetLanguage("en", SECUREDIR . 'language/');
   
 $mail->From = "webscript@companyServer.com";
 $mail->FromName = "companyServer Script";
 
 $mail->AddAddress('report@companyServer.com');
 $mail->AddAddress("david@myPersonnalAddress.org");
 
 $mail->WordWrap = 50;                                 // set word wrap to 50 characters

 
 $mail->Subject = $subject;
 $mail->Body    = $body;
 if(!$mail->Send())
 {
  $retVal = var_export($mail->ErrorInfo,true) . "
\n";
  $retVal .= "Error Count: " . $mail->error_count . "
\n";
  return $retVal;
 }
 else  //No errors
 {
  return false;
 }

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/484070.html

Date: 08/15/06     Keywords: no keywords

How do I get ls to do the equivalent of dir /b *.htm?   I tried ls -1 to bring it down to 1 column, but I can't remember ever making ls filter down to one type of file extension.  I know the answer is stupid obvious but I can't think of it.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/483832.html

Date: 08/14/06     Keywords: php

I am using the newest version of php on a Windows machine. I am trying to connect to eDirectory (by Novell) using ldap. I am able to connect fine, but I am not able to successful execute ldap_bind(). I have used the sample code on Novell's site along with all the sample code I could find on php.net. I know the username and password I am using works correctly as I can login using different means with that username and password. I am at a loss. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing the problem or where to go from here?

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php/483170.html