Encrypting uploaded files in PHP
Posted in: php,security | ( 7 ) Comments
7 Nov 2010During a recent project, the client requested that uploaded files be encrypted for security reasons. As I already had the uploaded code ready and tested I just needed to add some extra encryption capability to the code. As earlier I’d encountered Zends wonderful Zend_Filter class, I decided to go with it and use the Zend_Filter_Encrypt and Zend_Filter_Decrypt to accomplish the work. The Zend_Filter component provides a set of common useful data filters, among which are the encryption filters. Although my project was not developed in Zend, I could easily integrate the required classes in the code. Note that Zend has a great upload library, Zend_File_Transfer, that lets you easily manage file uploading and also encryption, but as I already had the upload code tested, I decided to just add the encryption part.
Increase your MySQL productivity with Toad
Posted in: mysql,tools | ( 5 ) Comments
31 Oct 2010
Recently my favorite MySQL Swiss Army Knife has to be Toad for MySQL. Not only does it have a plethora of tools and interesting features, it is free. A few days back I’d to compare database schemas of different versions of a application to see if some table fields had changed between versions. Comparing a database schema containing above 200 tables can be a time consuming job if you do not have the right tools. Toad makes the work easier with its schema and data compare feature, which lets you easily compare schema and also the data from two different databases. You can even synchronize the two schemas or the data therein so both the databases contain the same schema and data.
Besides these it has a nice query builder, somewhat like the one in Microsoft Access. Toad also can manage your Amazon EC2 instances with its built-in tool, which I’ve yet to try. Other than these it has the other regular features – a database explorer, table builder, database diagram creator etc. Toad is now my favorite tool for managing MySQL data.
Creating a business application is one thing, measuring user-satisfaction another. Most software houses in recent years have woken up to the importance of user-facing metrics, the knowledge that user satisfaction regarding software application performance is an integral part of business success. But the problem in application performance measurement is that there are too many metrics and measurements which in the end adds nothing of real value to the performance reports. What most people need is a metric that is easy to calculate and interpret. Apdex is one such metric.
Changing MySQL clients default prompt
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20 Oct 2010Pixelation of images using HTML5 Canvas
Posted in: tech | Comments Off
19 Oct 2010Close Pixelate is a Javascript library created by David DeSandro that converts an image into a pixelated version using an HTML5 canvas element. The library works with all browsers supporting HTML5 canvas. You can view the online demo below.
The function takes various options, which you can tweak to your taste to render the final image.
- resolution : The distance in pixels between rendered pixels. Required.
- shape : The shape of the pixel. Accepts square, circle, and diamond. Optional. Defaults to square.
- size : The size in pixels of the rendered pixel. Optional. Defaults to value of resolution.
- offset : Offset in pixels. Optional. Defaults to 0. Can be a single value 15 for a diagonal offset, or an array or object for X/Y pairs: [ 15, 5 ] or { x: 15, y: 5 }.
- alpha : A decimal value for the opacity of the rendering. Optional. Defaults to 1.
You can download the code from GitHub.
Prevent hotlinking of your site images
Posted in: security | ( 1 ) Comment
18 Oct 2010A common problem with image intensive sites is “Image-Theft” also known as hotlinking. If your site hosts images that other sites are linking to, it can cause a substantial increase in your bandwidth costs. For small sites who pay by the gigabyte’s this can be quite a problem. For example, if a hotlinked image of 150K from your site is being accessed 1000 times a day, then that’s around 145MB of wasted data transferred from your site daily. Add a few more images and the bandwidth costs quickly add-up. A simple way is to use .htaccess to disallow other sites from hotlinking to your images.
Debugging and tracing PHP5 applications
13 Oct 2010debugConsole is a tool for debugging and tracing PHP5 applications on production servers without compromising the live-traffic.
With PHP functions you can inspect variables, watch changes in variables over the whole runtime, measure partial runtimes, set checkpoints and write logfiles. debugConsole also replaces the PHP error-handling so that notices, warnings and other errors are also shown in a popup, instead of displaying them in the application to be debugged.
Export Illustrator art to HTML5 canvas
Posted in: tech | Comments Off
13 Oct 2010AI-Canvas plug-in enables Adobe Illustrator to export vector and bitmap artwork to an HTML5 canvas element, which can then be rendered in a canvas-enabled browser. The plug-in provides drawing, animation and coding options such as events so that you can build interactive, well-designed canvas-based web apps. This is a wonderful tool if you are just starting with HTML5 canvas, helping to decrease the learning curve. This can really come in handy for people like myself who are not really into graphics programming.
Importance of logging in web development
Posted in: software,testing | ( 4 ) Comments
30 Sep 2010Software development is an exercise in managing complexity, and the more tools and methods we have at our disposal the easier it gets. One of my favorites is logging – recording important code execution points that I think are important, especially during debugging. Whenever developing functions or class methods I make it a point to add logging capabilities to the same. Logging helps one to quickly tracks bugs and evaluate the health of the system under development.
