Operating Systems of Choice
Server: Debian Squeeze
Desktop: Arch Linux
Phone: Android

I am starting to nerd out a lot more lately and will expand TechnoGeeks to be able to magically host several projects of mine. This includes web applications written in PHP, Ruby, and Lua! I started playing around with some of the Kepler Project frameworks (WSAPI, Xavante, and Orbit) and have a fully functioning Code Snippet library called Snippy. Orbit is ULTRA FAST but the documentation and code maintenance is VERY POOR. I really hope these guys clean things up as they have something really nice going here. More updates soon!

Update 12/5/2011:
I have several new projects and services that are now up!

• Snippy: Lua MVC App (Orbit) for Code Snippets
• Bittie: A personal link shortener
• Apache Vysper: XMPP Service

While learning Lua for WoW addons, I was lucky enough to discover a neat pure lua app called Sputnik. It is a wiki engine that can be extended to do just about anything you want it to do. For example, I have all of the data storing in git with a git plugin and changed the default auth to hit MySQL instead of a flat file. The possibilities are endless and they have several example plugins for ideas (issue tracker, discussion posts. etc).

I hope one day to get good enough with Sputnik and lua to provide a Postgres auth plugin and a blog plugin as well. Yuri, the project maintainer is really good at answering people that need assistance on their mailing list. It was there that I discovered they have a git repo and a new version: Galaxy.

The bottom line: this project is worth checking out and contributing to people so get to it!

Some essentials:

• WowLua – An addon that allows you to write and run Lua in game.
• Warcraft Addon Studio – A Visual Studio (VB) like application to let you quickly build frames and export them to XML.

Celistine
The first mod I wrote was called Celistine, and was written to monitor my wife in game It allowed her to whisper me for auto-invites to a group, monitors her range and informs me if she is far, and spams her with whispers if my health gets lower than 25%.

Deeps
After that, I decided to modify an example I found in the book I am reading (World of Warcraft Programming) and create a simple frame that displays DPS and other facts as I am in combat. I decided to call it Deeps See below for the screenshots, code, and feel free to try it out yourself.

-- Set up some local variables to track time and damage
local start_time = 0
local end_time = 0
local total_time = 0
local total_damage = 0
local average_dps = 0
local in_combat = false

function CombatTracker_OnLoad(frame)
	frame:RegisterEvent("COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED")
	frame:RegisterEvent("PLAYER_REGEN_ENABLED")
	frame:RegisterEvent("PLAYER_REGEN_DISABLED")
	frame:RegisterForClicks("RightButtonUp")
	frame:RegisterForDrag("LeftButton")
end

function CombatTracker_OnEvent(frame, event, ...)

	if event == "PLAYER_REGEN_ENABLED" then
		-- This event is called when the player exits combat
		end_time = GetTime()
		total_time = end_time - start_time
		average_dps = total_damage / total_time
		CombatTracker_UpdateText()
		CombatTracker_ReportDPS()
		in_combat = false
	elseif event == "PLAYER_REGEN_DISABLED" then
		-- This event is called when we enter combat
		-- Reset the damage total and start the timer
		CombatTrackerFrameText:SetText("In Combat!")
		total_damage = 0
		start_time = GetTime()
		in_combat = true
	elseif event == "COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED" and in_combat then
		local timestamp,log_event,source_guid,source_name,source_flags, dest_guid, dest_name, dest_flags, spell_id, spell_name, spell_school, amount = ...

		if string.match(log_event, "_DAMAGE") then
			if source_name == UnitName("player") or source_name == UnitName("pet") then
				--ChatFrame1:AddMessage(source_name .. " is doing teh hurt!")
				if amount ~= nil then
					total_damage = total_damage + amount
					end_time = GetTime()
					total_time = end_time - start_time
					average_dps = total_damage / total_time
					CombatTracker_UpdateText()
				end
			end
		end
	end
end

function CombatTracker_UpdateText()
	local status = string.format("%ds | %d dmg | %.2f dps", total_time, total_damage, average_dps)
	CombatTrackerFrameText:SetText(status)
end

function CombatTracker_ReportDPS()
	local msgformat = "Dished out %d damage in %d seconds (%.2f dps)."
	local msg = string.format(msgformat, total_damage, total_time, average_dps)
	if GetNumPartyMembers() > 0 then
		SendChatMessage(msg, "PARTY")
	else
		ChatFrame1:AddMessage(msg)
	end
end

#!/bin/bash
cd /home/jesse/rails/billing

if [ ! -f tmp/pids/server.pid ]; then
	script/server -d
fi

while [ `netstat -tan | grep 0.0.0.0:3000 | wc -l` != 1 ]; do
	echo "Server not started yet..."
	sleep 1
done

google-chrome http://localhost:3000/customers &
tail -f log/development.log

# Server can be killed with:
# kill -INT `cat tmp/pids/server.pid`

I then created a launcher simliar to this:

When I double click on the icon the first time it pauses for about 5-6 seconds while WEBrick initializes and binds to port 3000. As soon as it detects the webserver listening, I launch google-chrome to the default view. Each time I click the icon there after, the webserver is already running so the google-chrome tab kicks off instantly.

Mocha Shopping Cart

Mocha is written entirely in CakePHP and jQuery and is certainly the best CakePHP eCommerce app out there. Why do I say that?

Mocha Shopping Cart is…

• Fully hosted, secure, pre-installed
• Very easy to set up and configure
• Themable and Modular (Plug ins docs in the works)
• Works with most popular payment and shipping apis (UPS, USPS, Authorize.net, Paypal, etc.)
• Charges no transaction fees and no setup fees

If you still don’t believe me, Mocha is offering a limited time only Pre-Launch coupon code that gives you the first month FREE. You can try it for yourself and see how you like it. I think you will agree that it beats CakeCart and BakeSale, HANDS DOWN! And no, Mocha is not free (after the first 30 days). The costs help to speed up development, pay for server and hosting fees, and pay for that cup of coffee that us developers need when its 8 AM and we are having to talk with <insert_API_name_here> first thing in the morning.

Official Website: Mocha Shopping Cart
Blog with coupon code: Get a free trial of Mocha Shopping Cart

Controller example:

				$sizeArray = getimagesize('/path/to/really_cool_image.jpg');

				$outputArray = array(
					'file' => 'really_cool_image.jpg',
					'width' => $sizeArray[0],
					'height' => $sizeArray[1],
				);

				$this->set('result', $outputArray);

				$this->render(null, 'ajax');

AJAX View example:

Configure::write('debug', 0);
echo $javascript->object($result);

jQuery AJAX response handler example:

	  function(response, status) {
	  		imageDetails = JSON.parse(response);
	  		imageName = imageDetails.file;
	  }

So to make a long story short: I decided to make a quick hack up solution and write my own WP plugin. My only hurdle-like requirement is that it had to work for PHP4 as well because the client is on one of our older servers. I ended up finding a really good example by Ryan Stemkoski. He wrote a perfect function for me to tweak a little and expand upon. I am currently waiting to get approved on WordPress extend so I can host my plugin there. For now, I have created a page here where you can download the plugin.

Note: I haven’t tested this in a more recent version of WP yet but I will be soon. Let me know if you find any bugs!

I also figured I would post the source code in case someone needed a quick and dirty solution with some examples.

rss_lib.php

<?php

/*
* RSS Parsing Function
*
* Original Author: Ryan Stemkoski
* http://www.stemkoski.com/how-to-easily-parse-a-rss-feed-with-php-4-or-php-5/
*
* Slight modifications by Jesse R. Adams (DualTech Services, Inc.)
*/ 

function parseRSS($url) { 

	//PARSE RSS FEED
        $feedeed = implode('', file($url));
        $parser = xml_parser_create();
        xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $feedeed, $valueals, $index);
        xml_parser_free($parser);

	//CONSTRUCT ARRAY
        foreach($valueals as $keyey => $valueal){
            if($valueal['type'] != 'cdata') {
                $item[$keyey] = $valueal;
			}
        }

        $i = 0;

        foreach($item as $key => $value){

            if($value['type'] == 'open') {

                $i++;
                $itemame[$i] = $value['tag'];

            } elseif($value['type'] == 'close') {

                $feed = $values[$i];
                $item = $itemame[$i];
                $i--;

                if(count($values[$i])>1){
                    $values[$i][strtolower($item)][] = $feed;
                } else {
                    $values[$i][strtolower($item)] = $feed;
                }

            } else {
                $values[$i][strtolower($value['tag'])] = $value['value'];
            }
        }

	//RETURN ARRAY VALUES
	return $values[0];
} 

/*
* Convert Raw RSS Parse into concise list of items
*
* Optionally pass in limit (on number of items)
* and/or array list of words to grab items by.
*
*/

function extractRSSItems($xmlArray, $limit = null, $filteredWords = array()) {
	$array = array();
	$regex = null;

	if (count($filteredWords) > 0) {
		$regex = implode('|', $filteredWords);
	}

	foreach($xmlArray['rss']['channel']['item'] as $item) {
		if (!$regex || ($regex && preg_match("/$regex/i", $item['title']))) {
			$array[] = $item;
		}
 	}

	if($limit) {
		array_splice($array, ($limit - 1), (count($array) - $limit));
	}

	return $array;
}
?>

selective_rss.php

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Selective RSS
Plugin URI: http://techno-geeks.org/selective-rss
Description: Simple Plugin that allows you to embed RSS feed items into Pages or Posts. Optionally allows you to choose how many items to display and allows you to limit items to ones that contain certain words in the titles.
Version: 0.1.0b
Author: Jesse R. Adams (DualTech Services, Inc.)
Author URI: http://www.dual-tech.com/about-dualtech-services/
*/

require_once('rss_lib.php');

function filter_feeds($content) {
	$limit = null;
	$filter = array();
	$url = null;

	$inputTag = preg_match('/\[srss (.+)\]/', $content, $matches);
	$rawArgs = explode(',', $matches[1]);

	foreach($rawArgs as $input) {
                preg_match_all('/^(url|filter|limit)=(.+)$/i', $input, $matches);
                $key = $matches[1][0];
                $value = $matches[2][0]

		if ($key == 'filter') {
			$filter = explode(';', $value);
		} else {
			$$key = $value;
		}
	}

	if ($url) {
		$xml = parseRSS($url);
		$items = extractRSSItems($xml, $limit, $filter);

		$htmlToAdd = '';
		foreach ($items as $item) {
			$htmlToAdd .= '<a href="' . $item['link'] . '" target="new">' . $item['title'] . '</a>' . "<br/>\n";
			$htmlToAdd .= $item['description'] . "<br/><br/>\n";
		}

		$content = preg_replace('/\[srss .+\]/', $htmlToAdd, $content);
	}
	return $content;
}

add_filter('the_content', 'filter_feeds');
?>

Update 06/19: Fixed the way arguments are parsed to be less limiting on possibilities.

1. Controller::loadModel();
This method actually calls ClassRegistry::init() and saves the instance of the model as a parameter in the controller.

Example:

Controller::loadModel('Car');
$cars = $this->Car->find('all');

2. ClassRegistry::init()
This method creates an instance of the Model and returns it for use.

Example:

$car = ClassRegistry::init('Car');
$cars = $car->find('all');

3. App:import() (not recommended)
This method only includes the file. This requires you to create an instance each time.

Example:

App::import('Car');
$car = new Car();
$cars = $car->find('all');

As you can see this is really simple and basic stuff. However, I felt the need to re-post this information. If for nothing else, I will be using this as a reference point for myself

Update 5/27/09: Miles Johnson has a nice write up on this on his blog

1. Database Config

Add ‘encoding’ => ‘utf8′ to app/config/database.php

	var $default = array(
		'driver' => 'mysql',
		'persistent' => false,
		'host' => 'localhost',
		'login' => 'user',
		'password' => 'password',
		'database' => 'database',
		'encoding' => 'utf8'
	);

2. Make sure your layout has the charset line in the

	<head>
	 	<?php echo $html->charset(); ?>
	 	Other elements...
	</head>

3. This one is set by default, but make sure App.encoding is set in app/config/core.php

/**
 * Application wide charset encoding
 */
	Configure::write('App.encoding', 'UTF-8');

And thats it!

Finally, after over a year, we decided to create this perfect GTD compliant web service that will help people, like us, be able to incorporate Allen’s system and become more productive. Peep! is “a simple and easy-to-use tool to help you focus and start getting things done.” I highly suggest you all try it and let me know what you think.

Head over to http://trypeep.com and get started today!