On starting my project, I looked around to see what everyone else was doing.  Since 1.8.4 is relatively new, and there were some pretty neat changes, there aren’t many good tutorials out there.

That being said, and because of said java/hibernate project I’ve been working on, I’ve become quite familiar with Apache Ant.  It’s basically an easy way to do some of the mundane work and sometimes heavy lifting in day to day programming.  That, and I use Eclipse IDE, so wasn’t too fond of always running to the command prompt to rebuild my models, create a zend module, etc.

So here’s what I’ve come up with.

I started with this tutorial: Doctrine ORM and Zend Framework It shows you how to create a Zend 1.8.4 project with doctrine.  The key aspect is the doctrine-cli.php script.

I should let you know, while I do use Eclipse for most of my projects, a while back I bought Zend Studio for Eclipse. I think it’s much better for writing PHP than any plugin for eclipse (PDT, PHPEclipse).  If you write a lot of PHP, ZS4E is very very worth the money.  While it does say it is “zend studio for eclipse”, it installs its own installation of eclipse.  If you find yourself in this boat, and want to use Ant in Zend Studio for Eclipse, check out this tutorial.  It’s rather screwy that you can’t install ant tools easily, but this definitely does the trick.

But I digress… let’s get started.

Here is the directory structure of my project, basically defined by the above tutorial:

- root
-  htdocs [zend framework project root]
    - application
        - [all application folders]
        - doctrine
    - library
    - public
    - scripts
    - test
-  .project
-  build.xml
-  env.properties

The body of env.properties looks like this:

zf.project.basedir=htdocs
doctrine.scripts.path=${zf.project.basedir}/scripts

And the body of the build.xml looks like this:

<project name="zf-doctrine-project">
     <property file="env.properties" />
     <target name="doctrine.cli" description="Run a doctrine task on doctrine-cli.php - default reload">
          <input message="Enter a task:"
               addproperty="doctrine.task"
               defaultvalue="build-all-reload" />
          <fail unless="doctrine.task" message="No task selected" />
          <exec dir="${doctrine.scripts.path}"
               command="php doctrine-cli.php ${doctrine.task} y"/>
     </target>
</project>

Although it’s painfully self-explanatory, for the sake of completeness, here’s what it does, line by line:

2.  Loads in the env.properties file
3.  Defines the target, which is like a job/task in ant
4. – 6.  Prompts the user to enter a task to pass to the cli script (just like you would pass in the command line)
7.  Makes sure the user enters a value
8. – 9. Executes the php script, passing in the entered task as a command line option, and forces yes to “are you sure?”

Now, the fun part.

In your project in Eclipse, open the ant window by going to Window > Show View > Other and select Ant under the Ant folder.  When you see the Ant View, either open your ant file in that window using it’s open dialog, or just drag your build.xml to that panel.  You’ll see the little white file with the ant on it and whatever you have as the name attribute of the <project> tag in your build xml.  Expand that so you can see the targets, and you should see this:

Showing the doctrine task in the eclipse ant view

Now if you double click that target, you should see a prompt for the task you want to run.  The default value there will run your schema.yml and rebuild your db and models.

Crafty kids may notice that i have the “Hide internal targets button” turned on in that image… well, those targets are for another show…  (damn you crafty kids…)

WEB-INF/flex/services-config.xml
in the channels definition at the top:

<channels>
    <!--USED IN THE LIVE ENVIRONMENT-->
          <!--channel ref="my-graniteamf-secure"/-->
    <!--USED IN THE LOCAL/DEV ENVIRONMENT-->
          <channel ref="my-graniteamf"/>
</channels>

Then in the channel definition below we have both definitions:

<channel-definition id="my-graniteamf"
	class="mx.messaging.channels.AMFChannel">
	<endpoint
		uri="http://{server.name}:{server.port}/{context.root}/graniteamf/amf"
		class="flex.messaging.endpoints.AMFEndpoint" />
</channel-definition>
<channel-definition id="my-graniteamf-secure"
	class="mx.messaging.channels.SecureAMFChannel">
	<endpoint
		uri="https://{server.name}:443/{context.root}/graniteamf/amf"
		class="flex.messaging.endpoints.SecureAMFEndpoint" />
</channel-definition>

Click Here to Download: services-config.xml

We couldn’t get {server.port} to work correctly, so we’re forcing the port in the address for now.

The only problem with this is you have to remember to switch the AMF channel before deploying.  It’s on our checklist before doing the full deploy, but we’re most likely going to add it to the ant task list to deploy dev, deploy live.  Something like that.

The KEY THING TO REMEMBER is this: although this file is deployed with the war/ear, it is ALSO COMPILED INTO THE APPLICATION SWF when it is built.  Make sure to change it locally and rebuild your swf before posting, or you will see no change in your app. (found this out after a significant amount of time changing the file on the server to no avail…)

(Ref: http://www.mail-archive.com/discussion@affug.com/msg00605.html)

I’ve decided I would like to jump on the Python bandwagon.  I’ve been living the Ubuntu life for a while now, so I figured I should make myself at home…

Whenever I learn a new language, I need a pet project.  I’m not one that can learn just by doing a Hello World, so I came up with this idea.

At work, I deal mainly with kiosks in the field.  They leave the factory and exist in a Toys R’ Us, Walmart, even BMW showrooms (check my company:  http://www.realityi.com).  When they go out, they have a certain version of content on them.  By content, I mean usually .swf, .xml, etc.  These are files that can easily be updated and are in a predictable file structure (seeming as I made it).  We’ve begun to finally use version control, using subversion as our drug of choice.  After much googling, I wasn’t able to find a viable way to create an update package.  It seems that most applications of subversion are connected and can use rsync/svn checkout to get the most update to date content, but machines in my situation are either completely disconnected and updated via USB, or connected to a network but behind a hefty firewall (eg: bmw).

What I needed was a way to find what files have been added or modified between a certain revision and the current content to build an update package (no removals, tell you why in a second).

Enter: SVNUpdateBuilder

I’ve taken on a small, linux-based (for now) project that does just what I need.  It uses the pysvn library, and creates a .tgz file with a directory tree of files that have been added or modified.  I’m learning how to use Python, but also Glade User Interface Builder to create a GTK application.  Check out the website for more information.

You may be asking: “Why is it a compiled python file?”  Well, I’ll tell you.  This is still my learning tool.  I have a few more items on my wishlist that I want to complete before I release it to the masses.  Like I said on the website, this isn’t a difficult project for someone more skilled than I to build, but I would like to be selfish with it until I figure I’ve learned all I care to.  Then I definitely plan to release it on Sourceforge.

You may also be asking “What about files that have been removed?”  In my line of work, with how fickle clients are, it’s better, for now, for us to leave content on the machines and just remove the link to the file in the xml (read: send a modified file).  That way, if a client wants a video relinked on a kiosk, we just have to relink it, not send it out again.  Disk space, for this current project, isn’t a concern as much as bandwidth, so we chose to leave the files out there.  Plans for this project include having output methods for bash scripts or batch files to clean up the target machine, but they haven’t been implemented yet.

So, I will continue to code…  I’ll keep you posted.

WARNING!!!

I’m assuming you’re going to use this for indie/underground music.  This is in NO WAY TO EVER BE USED TO DOWNLOAD LICENSED OR ILLEGAL MATERIALS.  You’ve been warned….

That’s right, it’s so important, that I used the <blink> tag… *shudder…

Setup
For clarity, let’s call my two machines “home” and “remote”.  “Home” is an ubuntu box in my home office.  “Remote” can be any web browser, for example, my laptop at work.

Registration
For this example, go to www.mininova.org and sign up for an account.  Once you are logged in, in the top right, point at your username, and select My Bookmarks.  You will need this RSS URL during installation.

Installation

1. I’m using KTorrent on my home machine.  Install that by opening a terminal and typing:

   sudo apt-get install ktorrent

2. Set it up to auto-launch when the system boots by
   1. Go to System > Preferences > Sessions
   2. Click Add
   3. Name: KTorrent
   4. Command: ktorrent
   5. Comment: <whatever you want>
3. Run ktorrent by either clicking Applications > Internet > KTorrent, type ktorrent at the command line, or reboot your machine.
4. Click on Settings > Configure KTorrent
5. Select Plugins
   1. Click on RSS Feeds and click the Load button in the top right.
   2. [OPTIONAL] You may want to enable/configure Bandwidth Scheduler as well to not piss off people in on your “Home” machine’s connection from slowing it down during heavy use hours, but that is outside the scope of this tutorial.
   3. ClickApply and OK to exit the window.
6. Back in the Application, you should now see a RSS Feeds tab, click that.  On that tab [Figure 1 Below]:
   1. Click New in the bottom left to add a new feed.
   2. Name it whatever you want.
   3. Copy/Paste the RSS Feed URL you got from your Mininova.org site into the URL line.
   4. Change Keep Articles (days) to something smaller, like 7 days
   5. Click Ignore TTL and enter something more reasonable like 10 minutes (it is in the format HH:MM:SS)
   6. Click the Active checkbox in the top left.
   7. Set up the AutoDownload Filter [Figure 2 Below].
      1. In the top left of the RSS tab, click the tab that says Filters*.
      2. Under Accept Filters, click New
      3. Type in a title
      4. Under Regular Expressions, type .*    (period asterisk, no spaces before, after, or in-between) and click Add
      5. In the top right, click the Active Checkbox.

Figure 1	Figure 2

* NOTE: Since you are setting up a personal RSS feed, I am assuming you want to download everything you mark for download. This Filter tool is very powerful.  You are able to watch the rss feed on any torrent site and filter out things that you want to download automatically such as episodes, new albums by bands, etc.  A handy tool to generate the regular expressions needed for the Filters page is called kregexpeditor and can be installed with apt-get.

Testing
Go to www.mininova.org and log in.  Search for anything you’re looking for, click on it, and at the top of the page you should see a button under the Download this Torrent link to Add to Bookmarks.  Clicking it adds this torrent to your RSS feed.  Your home machine will refresh your rss feed (at the period you set the TTL to, 10 minutes in this example) and mark that file for auto downloading.

Final Notes
I just got this working and I was rather excited to see how well it worked right off the bat.  I’ll edit/update this article as I find problems/fixes.

checking for intltool…
found intltool
checking for libtoolize…
found libtoolize
checking for automake…
found automake
checking for autoconf…
found autoconf
Running ‘autoreconf -v –install’…
autoreconf: Entering directory `.’
autoreconf: configure.in: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal –output=aclocal.m4t
aclocal: configure.in: 28: macro `AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT’ not found in library
autoreconf: aclocal failed with exit status: 1

Any ideas/suggestions would be fantastic..

I still want to make the change over to Linux full time, but I just keep reverting to Windows due to the familiarity.  But not anymore.  I’ve instituted a “no windows in my house” rule.  So, while my machine is still dual boot, I refuse to go back into vista business.

So, I’m adjusting.  I wiped my linux partition and did a fresh install of Hardy Heron.  No complaints there.  I’ve gotten Zend Studio for Eclipse installed, so my PHP coding questions are covered…  Thunderbird takes care of my imap mail accounts and Firefox for my web broswing needs…  Then there’s Pidgin for IM.

So, again, the only thing I’m missing so far is NaviCat for remote mySQL connections (via http tunneling, wicked handy), but I might just have to suck it up and purchase a license for Linux.  I’ve tried installing via Wine, but the http tunneling feature doesn’t work, probably because it relies heavily on the windows network layer for communication.  I’ll have to research that some more.  So, so far, so good.

As always, I’ll keep you posted.

As I said in my Ubuntu post, I purchased a Dell XPS M1710 with a Core 2 Duo T2700 2GHz, 2gigs of RAM and a 150gb 7200 RPM SATA harddrive. It ain’t nothin to sneeze at, but I was disappointed at it’s performance running Vista Business (well, more than I expected to be). And don’t bother asking me why I didn’t revert to XP, I’m just going to play the “early adopter” card there.

Today’s Focus: Turn EVERYTHING off

Ok, while I don’t necessarily mean everything, here’s a bunch of stuff to turn off. Here’s things, in order of importance (or so I think):

1. Windows Sidebar
An analog clock? Rotating pictures from My Photos? No thanks. When I’m trying to get s#!t done, I don’t need to see windows default pics scrolling by. I shut that bad boy off as soon as I first booted into the OS. This is done by right-clicking the icon in the tray, going to properties, and turning off “Start Sidebar when Windows Starts”. You just saved yourself approximately 25 to 30mbs of ram right there, about the amount it takes to run Outlook in your task tray.

2. Windows Search
I don’t know about you (yeah, you, I’m talking to you) but I’m a rather organized guy when it comes to my computer. I formatted and partitioned my drive when I took the machine out of the box. The C drive is installed programs only (except for the desktop folder, obviously) and the D drive is my storage. I know where things are and I never open search and just blankly search my entire system for something. When I got this beastly laptop, I noticed it would just sit there with the hard drive spinning and spinning, and thought “well, that ain’t right…” Turns out it was the Windows Search indexing my life for me. Well, we can’t have that, it’s actually turning out to make me less productive.

To turn off this hindrance, go to start > run and type “services.msc” (without the quotes) and hit enter. Scroll down to the bottom and you should see Windows Search. Right-click it and hit Properties. Change the Startup Type to Disabled and click OK.

3. Aero Glass
I like the new look of Vista. It’s not a bad thing, but the transparency is a resource whore for my tastes. Shut it off and see how much of a difference it really makes. But, like i said, I like the new window look and the explorer nav bar, and the Windows menu (more on these later), but you can also go retro to Windows Classic and save even more.
Right click on your desktop, go to Personalize. Click “Window Color and Appearance” (should be the first option in the list you see.

Stay tuned, kids, upcoming topics include User Access Control, shortcuts, helpful tools, registry cleaners.

JOY!

In my “free time” I’ve been idly trying to become proficient at the *nix command line. As told by my previous “converting to Linux” article, I’m trying to make the shift over to Ubuntu full-time, but for a Microsoft-head such as myself, the move isn’t exactly instantaneous.

So, in an attempt to log my efforts, I’m going to start posting little pieces of information that learn/figure out. Today we start with a light lesson in grep.

Side-note(s)
While I am trying to make the switch over to Linux, I find it unfair to my clients to be uncomfortable on my laptop while working billable hours. So this particular lesson will consist of Linux commands, but are run via Cygwin under windows. For those who don’t know, Cygwin is an implementation of the Linux command line and tools that run under windows. Read more about it on the Cygwin website or at the wiki.

My example is at the bash command line. If you’re using a different command line, the methodology may change, I don’t really know (insert lack of Linux knowledge here).

Also, grep is an unbelievably powerful tool. Books upon books have been written on it. This is in no way the only use of grep, nor is it a comprehensive account of using grep in this scenario. I’m just laying the groundwork. The internets (sometimes called blagosphere, tubes, whatever you may like) are a wonderful place, do some more research…

Scenario
I’m working on a website where we had to find all files containing the word “Leads” and change it to “Prospects” (clients… they ask for such weird stuff…). In the project directory, there are a bunch of common website files (php, html, css, js, etc…). But this particular project folder is also maintained by Subversion version control. On windows, that means there is a hidden .svn folder in every directory to maintain the changes to that file. This will make sense in a minute.

Technique – Step 1 – Grep
The manual page for grep says to do a simple search through files is something like this:

grep -R "search value" ./

translation: find every file within my directory and its subdirectories containing this search value.

Technique – Step 2 – | [pipe]
There is a rather handy thing called “piping.” It allows you to run more than one command at once, but also run each subsequent command on the previous commands output. Semi-unrelated example:

ls -la | grep .txt

ls -la will give you a directory listing. What this statement then does is say “ok, with the output of the directory listing, give me only lines containing .txt” giving you a list of all text files in a directory.

ls -la | grep .txt | wc -l

this does the same thing, but wc -l (that is a lowercase L) means “word count, lines only” showing you how many text files you have in your directory.

Back to the task at hand: find all files containing the word Leads.

grep -R "Leads" ./

Output:

$ grep -R "Leads" ./
././.svn/text-base/Popup.php.svn-base:    case 'Leads':
./.svn/text-base/Popup.php.svn-base:            require_once("modules/$currentModule/Leads.php");
./.svn/text-base/Popup.php.svn-base:            $focus = new Leads();
./.svn/text-base/README.txt.svn-base:12. 131  - Sorting Name in Leads
./.svn/text-base/README.txt.svn-base:49. 1161406: Assigned ToUser in Leads can be Assigned to User
./.svn/text-base/README.txt.svn-base:16. FORUM:1276 - Converting Leads and assigning to user
./.svn/text-base/README.txt.svn-base:20. FORUM:1559 - Tasks not working in Leads
./.svn/text-base/README.txt.svn-base:31. SF1095038 - Import Leads - No Mapping Fields
.... more of the same ....

That seems pretty useless because this is all information contained in the .svn files. Eventually, the appropriate info will be contained in there, but make the machine do the work. We want all files containing “Leads” that aren’t in a .svn directory. The -v flag is your friend… It means “find things that don’t contain this.” Code:

grep -R "Leads" ./ | grep -v ".svn"

Output

$ grep -R "Leads" ./ | grep -v "svn"
./include/js/general.js:           if(record_id != '' && module[0] == "Leads")
./include/js/general.js:           if(task_recordid != '' && task_module[0] == "Leads" )
./include/language/en_us.lang.php:'LNK_IMPORT_LEADS' => 'Import Leads',
./include/language/en_us.lang.php:'SINGLE_Leads' => 'Lead',
./include/language/en_us.lang.php:'COMBO_LEADS' => 'Leads',
./include/language/en_us.lang.php:'Leads' => 'Prospects',
... more of the same ...

See the en_us files there? That’s all I’m worried about, so I can do another pipe to only view those files:

grep -R "Leads" ./ | grep -v ".svn" | grep "en_us"

Output

$ grep -R "Leads" ./ | grep -v "svn" | grep "en_us"
./modules/Emails/language/en_us.lang.php:'LBL_LEAD_TITLE'=>'Leads',
./modules/HelpDesk/language/en_us.lang.php:'Leads'=>'Lead',
./modules/Home/language/en_us.lang.php:'LBL_LEADS_BY_SOURCE'=>'Leads By Source',
./modules/Home/language/en_us.lang.php:'LBL_LEADS_BY_STATUS'=>'Leads By Status',
./modules/Leads/language/en_us.lang.php:'LBL_IMPORT_LEADS'=>'Import Leads'

My task is complete. I’ve gotten all the translation files that contain the word Leads, and I can either manually edit them, or use the command line to edit them, but that’s another lesson.

Optional Step 3 – >>

I want to make a checklist that I can print and have on my desk while i’m working with these files. There’s a simple way to do this:

grep -R "Leads" ./ | grep -v "svn" | grep "en_us" > /path/to/file.txt

This will take all the output and drop it in the file I specified. If you use one >, it will create the file if it doesn’t exist, and if it does exist, replace all content in that file with the output from our grep. If you use two >>, it will create if it doesn’t exist and it will append the text if it does exist.

I know it’s a sloppy example, but that’s how I achieved my goal, and it was MUCH faster than finding all the translation files in the application and doing it by hand.

Ok. First off, I’d like to lay out my credentials. I can actually play guitar. Granted, I’m no Jimi Hendrix, but I can play more than just the intro to Nothing Else Matters or the beloved 3-chord songs of the 90s (do I hear Green Day in the background?). Also, I can play the drums. I even took about 8 years of piano, although I really have nothing to show for that.

So, I’m not trying to live a dream of playing guitar. I understand that this game is just Dance Dance Revolution for your fingers. But I bought it anyway.

I’m going to keep saying that… But I bought it anyway…

And if you can get past all of that, it really is fun. The songs can get a bit old (I’m really sick of Pat Benatar, seriously), and easy is really way too easy, but try playing Muse – Knights of Cydonia on hard. But don’t try expert unless you want to blow a gasket, or you’re some 9 year old wiz-kid on youtube. And, believe what you will, but drumming skills actually translate better for this game than guitar skills. It’s all about realizing that the frets are quarter notes and figuring out where the notes fit the song. (I know, I know, that’s obvious, but that’s really the summation of it).

But… I bought it anyway.

There are some good songs. Queens of the Stoneage – 3’s & 7’s, Muse – Knights of Cydonia, Weezer – My Name is Jonas, Rage Against the Machine – Bulls on Parade, Pearl Jam – Even Flow, Tenacious D – The Metal, and a few others. But again, I’m sick of Pat Benatar, and there are definitely a few others on the shit-list as well.

Battling is well done too. They haven’t come out with a guitar without a game for the Wii yet, so I haven’t tried it against another person, but the in-game battles are pretty good once you get past medium. It took me a few tries to get past Slash on medium, I’m scared to see that on hard.

So, go ahead, make fun of me. There are 3 kinds of people. Those who play and enjoy the game for what it is, like me, those who live the game and have a serious problem, and those who won’t play the game because they think that it’s trying to replace guitar playing. I expect comments making fun of me for playing or comments making fun of me for having trouble battling Slash on medium.

…. But I bought it anyway…

But man was I wrong. This game is damn impressive. There isn’t a single thing this game has in common, playability-wise, with other platform games I’ve played. Here’s why:

Gravity
Yeah, big deal, right? Up till now, video games taught us that “if you run over the side, you’re dead…” Not here. If you’re on something like a tiny planet you can just run over the side and end up on the bottom. It’s disconcerting at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s fun as hell. Likewise, you can be on one planet next to another, jump and get pulled to the neighboring orb.

Camera Work
You’re gonna hate it. When you pick up the game, you will actually shout “why aren’t you staying behind him?!?!” at the camera man. But play it. Get used to it. Be one with the camera. The camera work is definitely great. Soon after you start playing, the camera becomes predictable, even helpful. If you had to deal with positioning it all the time (think Zelda, Ocarina of Time), you’d probably throw yourself out a window. One level has you running up around a column, reversing gravity, and avoiding baddies, but the intelligent camera just swoops around so you always have the right point of view.

Tasteful use of the Wii controller
The Wii controller for bowling was cool, boxing was fun, baseball, smeh… Then, after a while, you start to long for the simple controls of the gamecube/360/ps3 type controller. For a comparison, Tony Hawk: Proving Ground is a good example of this. There was nothing wrong with the Tony Hawk controls of old, but now they tried to use the Wii controller and went way overboard (but that’s for another review). In Galaxy, player 1 only uses the Wii motion/point controls for a few things: collecting star bits, shaking the controller for a spin attack or high jump, and a few mini-games. That’s it.

Two can play
The best part is the seamless 2-player co-op. It’s not your usual alternating players like Super Mario 3 for NES. My roommate can be playing and I can pick up player 2 in the middle of his game, power it on, and I’m in, collect star bits for Player 1 with a point of the wii controller. The fun part is actually being able to watch and be useful. Player 2 can just point at an enemy and press A to hold them in place, or shoot them with star bits to get them out of the way for good. It the game so much more fun for spectators than just watching someone else play, it almost makes you feel useful.

So is it the best game ever?
Well, don’t go that far. It’s great. But… It’s a little easy. I don’t know why, but it seems like you go into a world, and before you know it, you’ve completed the level and are back out in the overworld. I guess I want more within each world rather than so many worlds? I’m not sure. But seriously, this is probably the best game that doesn’t have that Wii Sports control novelty on it. If I wasn’t such a fan of Zelda, it’d probably be the best game available for the Wii.

Go buy it. You will definitely thank me.