bitworker's blog

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

opensource license types

a collection of the open source licenses can be found here

google blogscoped

http://blog.outer-court.com/
blog about google

http://blog.outer-court.com/files/google-history.html
google history / text art

WTL - windows template library

Windows Template Library (WTL) is a C++ library for developing Windows applications and UI components. It extends ATL (Active Template Library) and provides a set of classes for controls, dialogs, frame windows, GDI objects, and more.

WTL 7.5 and newer:
http://wtl.sourceforge.net/

Microsoft webpage:
WTL 7.0 download on msdn
WTL 7.1 download on msdn
WTL 7.1 release notes
WTL 7.5 download on msdn

Microsoft WTL Licensing

Microsoft development forums: here

cvs for windows

The WinCVS GUI:
http://www.wincvs.org/
for some features needs python:
http://www.python.org/
maybe you would consider using:
http://www.lucatec.de/tools/proxydiff-en.shtml
to select the diff tool used for wincvs.
or CVS SCC Proxy - add plugins for VS, BC++:
http://www.pushok.com/soft_cvs_proxy.php

Tortoise CVS - a windows explorer extension:
http://www.tortoisecvs.org/

CvsIn - an extension for Visual Studio:
http://www.geocities.com/kaczoroj/CvsIn/

favorite Firefox plugins

flashgot
duplicate tab
color-zilla
measure it
session saver
all-in-one sidebar
web developer
linkification
js console extras
adblock
customize google

Monday, December 05, 2005

PHP safe mode & gallery2

Some components need Safe Mode disabled for PHP:
Solution:
http://www.webhostgear.com/166.html

Customizing PHP Safe Mode

We’ll guide you through using PHP safe_mode and how-to enable it and to customize it for certain sites on your server. When using PHP as an Apache module, you can also change the configuration settings using directives in Apache configuration files (e.g. httpd.conf) and .htaccess files. PHP safe_mode is very important to in terms of server security because it restricts and disables the dangerous functions in PHP from the scripts like PHP Shell that can otherwise cause damages to your server and client sites.

Using PHP Safe_Mode

First of all we’ll take care of the files that you will edit, and make sure to have copy or backup .

Activate Safe Mode Globally

It is very simple to active safe mode on the entire server. All you need to do is just edit the php.ini file. If you can’t find where php.ini is or have multiple copies on your server the best thing to do is run phpinfo() to find it. Open up Notepad or your favorite HTML editor and paste in the following from this file.

http://www.webhostgear.com/phpinfo.phps

Save it as phpinfo.php and upload it to a website that you want to test on your server. Type in the URL and you’ll get a PHP configuration page telling you exactly where php.ini is located and all kinds of other useful information about the sites and servers configuration settings.

A few lines down you’ll see this:
Configuration File (php.ini) Path: /usr/local/Zend/etc/php.ini
Now that we know the location of php.ini we can proceed to edit it.

1) Open up php.ini in your shell with your favorite editing program.
pico /path to php/php.ini (replace with the path to your php.ini file)

2) Find the following line: safe_mode
Ctrl + W and type in: safe_mode

3) Turning safe mode on or off.
safe_mode = Off

You may active it by or turn it off by changing it to either On OR Off.
safe_mode = On

Good! Now save the file by ctrl + x then y

4) Restart the Apache web server by
/etc/init.d/httpd restart

Now safe_mode is active on all your server accounts.

Activate Safe Mode Using Per Site Basis

Now if you have scripts that require safe mode off like Modernbill or any script doesn't work well with safe_mode on what you will do? Disable safe_mode on the entire server just for these scripts? This isn’t very practical when you can disable php safe mode per user account/site basis.

Let’s do it!
1) SSH to your server and login as root.

2) Then find the httpd.conf, normally it’s in /etc/httpd/conf/ or /usr/local/apache/conf/
If it’s not in either of those places try search for it: locate httpd.conf

3) Then find the site you wish to edit.
Ctrl+W and type in the domain name

You should see something like this

ServerAlias www.domain.net domain.net
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain.net
DocumentRoot /home/domain/public_html
BytesLog domlogs/domain.net-bytes_log
ServerName www.domain.net
User domain
Group domain
CustomLog domlogs/domain.net combined
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /home/domain/public_html/cgi-bin/

4) Now add this line:

php_admin_flag safe_mode Off

We have also found that the following works as well if the above does not but DO NOT USE BOTH, pick one!

php_admin_value safe_mode 0

to be like this :

ServerAlias www.domain.net domain.net
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain.net
DocumentRoot /home/domain/public_html
php_admin_flag safe_mode Off
BytesLog domlogs/domain.net-bytes_log
ServerName www.domain.net
User domain
Group domain
CustomLog domlogs/domain.net combined
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /home/domain/public_html/cgi-bin/

5) Good :) Now save the changes.
Ctrl + X then Y

6) Restart the Apache web server by
/etc/init.d/httpd restart

Final Words

PHP Safe mode should be on by default on all your servers for added security. However there are some scripts that are not compatible with it on so you have to make an exception to some client sites. Make sure you know why they’re requesting to have it turned off because it is much more secure for everyone to have it on.

If you run into trouble after editing httpd.conf you can run the apachectl configtest
in shell. This will test the Apache configuration for errors and report them back to you if you can’t start it, very handy indeed!
More PHP customizing commands here: http://php.us.themoes.org/manual/en/configuration.changes.php

Contributed by ReRoot, edited by Ramprage

Global filesystems and implementations

wiki on this subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_filesystem

AFS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_file_system

DFS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dfs

Coda:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coda_%28file_system%29
http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/4481/1/
http://www.mcc.ac.uk/~zlsiial/coda/
Repository for Coda:
http://www.konvalo.org/

Inter-mezzo, integrated in linux distributions:
http://www.inter-mezzo.org

libtorrent reloaded

here is the original homepage

here is the documentation page

for compiling one needs:
Boost Build System V2

the following description is taken from here:

LibTorrent description Download
LibTorrent is a BitTorrent library written in C++ for Unix. It is designed to avoid the redundant buffers and data copying that most (all?) other BitTorrent implementations suffer from.

The library is single-threaded and the client handles the select loop. An interactive ncurses client is included as an example.

Here are some key features of "LibTorrent":

· The client has full control over the polling of sockets.
· Sigc++ signals makes i easy for the client to react to events.
· Fast resume which checks the file modification time.

Direct reading and writing from network to mmap'ed files:

· Avoids duplication of data where both the application and the kernel has a copy of the file chunk.
· Unused chunks get thrown out or written to disk instead of the swap.
· Kernel handles caching of the file.

File hash check:

· Uses the same thread.
· Client can control the rate. (Will be improved)
· Non-blocking and preload to memory with the mincore and madvise system calls.

File handler:

· Fine-grained use of file read/write permissions, allows seeding of read-only files.
· Allows torrents with unlimited number of files.
· Opens closed files when mapping chunks to memory, with graceful error handling.
· Support for files larger than 2 GB.
· Different download priorities for files in the torrent.

· Multi-tracker support.
· No dependency on any specific HTTP library, the client implements a wrapper class.
· Dynamic request pipe size.
· Upload and download throttle.
· And much more i haven't bothered mentioning. (nor implementing)

Requirements:

· libsigc++ 2.0

What's New in This Release:

· Replaced most of the sigc++ slots used internally in libtorrent with my own lightweight functor. This saves some 600kb in debugging symbols.
· Various bug fixes.

dependency hell

A small introduction to linux dependency hell:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_hell

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Windows XP Tablet PC programming - first steps

Two of the most innovative features of the Tablet PC are the pen and microphone.

Much of the Tablet PC API is remarkably easy. With just a few lines of code you can attach an InkOverlay object to any Windows Forms control and implement functionality related to handwriting or voice recognition.
More details: here

For more accurate control over the features of Tablet PC there is an other, far more versatile API, the Real-Time Stylus.
More details: here

how to write a popular blog ? :)

I have created this blog to keep the track of some of the problems I had to solve and the solutions I found. So you don't have to learn the same things over and over, just look back in your notes.

Unfortunately google's blogger does not have categories for entries (yet) like other bloggers. It would make my task a lot easier.

I just wondered how other software developers do write their blogs. What makes a blog popular or accessible, readable.
For what reason?:) Because as I finally decided yesterday to publish the blog, in a few hours lots of people were interested in the blog, but.. they just checked the first page and got bored of the content. :) Maybe the name of the blog was interesting, but the content very boring. :)

So I will try to create a good combination of issues of possibble public interest and technical details.

A similarly challenging issue would be how the content will get to the potencial readers? Well.. time will tell.

The most popular blogs worldwide:
http://www.technorati.com/pop/blogs/

Friday, December 02, 2005

blog API's

There are several API-s to retrieve, add, delete, ... data from / to / on blog servers.

An overview:
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/10/15/dive.html

LiveJournal API:
http://livejournal.com/doc/server/ljp.csp.flat.protocol.html

Blogger API:
http://www.blogger.com/developers/api/1_docs/

MetaWeblogAPI:
http://www.xmlrpc.com/metaWeblogApi

Atom API:
http://code.blogger.com/archives/atom-docs.html
http://bitworking.org/projects/atom/draft-gregorio-09.html

acronyms

"tbd" means "to be determined"; that is, we are still discussing the best values for this entry

"n/d" means no data reported for this field name

POC - Proof of Concept - a small project sometimes done at no charge to validate a technology.

aka - also known as - author pseudonyms, aliases, nicknames.

UPnP

Universal Plug and Play

The goals of UPnP are to allow devices to connect seamlessly and to simplify the implementation of networks in the home and corporate environments.

the very idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPNP

architecture:
http://www.upnp.org/download/UPnPDA10_20000613.htm

bittorrent ...

Creator of bittorrent: Bram Cohen
http://www.bitconjurer.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Cohen

and his..

Getting Over Bad Habits
http://advogato.org/article/225.html

well he is pretty stressed guy.:)

here is a great article on bittorrent and its impact on the online world:

capturing video

directx 9.0 sdk:
download directx 9.0 sdk

firewire - IEEE 1394:
IEEE 1394 driver and API for Windows 98 SE -> Win XP
the 1394 driver driver source code -> windows
firewire for linux
video for linux resources

Capture video on windows:
Capture Live Video from webcam, s-video, composite video, tv-tuner
Capture and save in the same time