position: absolute;

But the parent container can simply have:

position: relative;

So in full:

<div class="container">
    <div class="abs-position">
        Hello world!
    </div>
</div>

And then simple CSS:

.container {
    position: relative;
}

.abs-position {
    position: absolute;
    left: 100px;
    height: 200px;
}

Easy solution to an age old problem.

$this->addElement('file', 'signature', array(
    'validators' => array(
        array('Size', false, 20480), //20k
        array('Extension', false, 'png'),
    ),
    'required' => false,
    'label' => 'Signature',
    'destination' => SIG_PATH,
));

For instance, on the above file input, if you attempt to upload something that is not a PNG file (i.e. photo.JPG, the message will be:

File 'photo.JPG' has a false extension

That’s not very user friendly as it doesn’t give the user any indication of what is an “allowed” file type.

So, to combat this, create separate Zend Validators and attach them to the Form Elements separately:

$this->addElement('file', 'signature', array(
    'required' => false,
    'label' => 'Signature',
    'destination' => SIG_PATH,
    'maxfilesize' => 20480,
));

$fileSize = new Zend_Validate_File_Size(20480);
$fileSize->setMessage('Please only upload a picture with a maximum 20kb file size');

$fileType = new Zend_Validate_File_Extension('png');
$fileType->setMessage('Only .png files are acceptable for signatures.');

$sig = $this->getElement('signature');
$sig->addValidators(array($fileSize, $fileType));

This way you have total control over the messages sent to the user. And after all, user experience is key these days.

$zip = new ZipArchive();
$zipFile = '/tmp/' . uniqid() . '.zip';

if (file_exists($zipFile)) {
    unlink($zipFile);
}

$zip->open($zipFile, ZIPARCHIVE::CREATE);

foreach ($files as $type => $file) {
    $zip->addFile($file);
}

$zip->close();

Now, pay particular attention to the files you are adding using addFile() as if you have entered them wrong, you won’t get an error message, and infact, if you use $zip->getStatusString() you will receieve a “No error” message – completely throwing you off the scent.

More information about ZipArchive can be found at http://www.php.net/manual/en/class.ziparchive.php

Simply click on the first (or last) bracket, and then press CTRL + [ and Netbeans will move the cursor to the matching bracket. Its not CTRL + ] for the reverse, its CTRL + [ for both.

I can confirm that this works in Netbeans 7.0.1 on Linux and Mac (seeing as its a Java app, it should be the same on Windows too)

So if you have a function called doSomething() and you want to call it from another page, but you’ve passed it like so:

<script type="text/javascript">
function startSequence()
    {
    var nextFunction = 'doSomething';
    return nextFunction;
    }
window[startSequence()]();
</script>

So what I’m saying is the function will be placed into the Window object, so you can call it :

window[variable]();

And it obviously extends to the window.opener object.

I’m sure there are better ways, but this is handy to know I think.

There is a practise called sharding that allows the database content to be split across servers.

If you were to take a very simple example, take a customer database and look at the main table, “customers” – this is going to be an ever growing table of customers details. If the business in question is very successful, the database may grow very quickly indeed. Historicaly you would have all the details in one table. Customer names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. This isn’t the most efficient way of storing a lot of data.

We have two methods of making it more efficient. Horizontal and Vertical partitioning. You may have heard of partitioning before in relation to disk drives, and its loosely based on the same principle. Putting data in different places to keep things tidy and more efficient.

1. Horizontal Partitioning is known as sharding. This involves splitting the data and tables and putting some data in one and some in others. In our example, we could have all customers starting with the letters A-M in one table, and the N-Z customers in another. Now potentially the tables are halved in size. And then you just have to change your lookup service to distinguish which table to get the data from. You could split it even further, down to Country, or Post Code, etc.
2. Vertical Partitioning is where you take the customers table, and split the fields out into separate tables. So you might have all the static details for the customer (stuff that doesn’t change very often, like name, address, email, etc) in one table, and data that changes often in another table. The static tables get cached and therefore become quicker, and the table size shrinks as it hasn’t got all the data in it. This is also sometimes called database normalisation.

That was just a small explanation about Database Sharding for you.

http://www.mysite.com/blog/index.php?category=news&year=2012&month=1

This is a rather simple request, but it is not very nice looking or easy on the eye, and it can be improved, for the user end experience.

Take this for instance:

http://www.mysite.com/blog/news/2012/1

That’s much nicer, and easier to read and understand even for a non technical person. They may understand the category, year and month without any input from you,

How do you convert your site? Well you don’t need to, but you can use a .htaccess mod_rewrite to change the url in the background.

RewriteRule blog/([a-z0-9]+)/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]) /blog/index.php?category=$1&year=$2&month=$3 [L]

This takes the first quantifier after blog (a-z0-9) and says any characters, put into $1. The second is a 4 digit number, and the third, any number.

The [L] tells the re-write engine that if this rule matches, don’t do any more rule processing (last one)

If you implement this way of displaying your links, then your site should be better off in the big wide world of search engines. A lot of search engine spiders ignore URL’s with & in them as it can cause recursive looping and its easier to just ignore them.

Also, if you come to rewrite your blog in a new language, ASP for instance (shudder at the thought) then you can change the rule simply:

RewriteRule blog/([a-z0-9]+)/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]) /blog/index.asp?category=$1&year=$2&month=$3 [L]

Thinking about your user experience, even if you are considering the search engines, is important.

If you want to read more about the Apache re-write module, you can go here

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type='integer', name='row_number')
     * @var int
     */
    protected $rowNumber;

Your ORM Annotations must be double quotes ” to allow the read ahead to read ahead…

Should be like:

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(type="integer", name="row_number")
     * @var int
     */
    protected $rowNumber;

VPNetMon is an application that montors your VPN connection and if it drops, the application can be configured to close certain apps.

So if you are using a BitTorrent client and using an anonymous VPN connection to download content this will make you feel much more secure indeed.

You can get it at http://vpnetmon.webs.com/

Upon returning to my desk (Ubuntu 11.10), I decided to merge the branch with the major trunk. I checked out a brand new copy of the branch, merged it (for the first time in several months) and then re-committed the pages.

Guess what, he’s still checking out the original!!!

Do yourselves a favour guys, make it Linux this Christmas…