Ryan's Bliggity Blog: needs revision

Showing posts with label needs revision. Show all posts

Thursday, November 02, 2006

PHP Gas Mileage Application

Here's a little something I wrote out of necessity and decided not to stop before it was completed. I'm pretty proud of it and am surprised how easy PHP was to learn. It basically helps me keep track of my gas mileage over the web so I can throw the receipt out faster, and don't have to carry a spreadsheet around. The following is from the program itself:

This program is a gas mileage database and analyzer written in PHP. It is self-contained (has a single source code file). It stores data in a simple text file in HTTP-query format. It allows users to add new records, and add new data files for different vehicles. It creates a backup before a new record is added. It also implements password protection before users can add refueling records.

Source Code:
Source Code
See it in action

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Simple Web File Upload Form

I put the following form and post processing files together from a manual on PHP. The HTML could really be embedded in the PHP file, but this might be better if you only want one copy of the PHP code on the system. Modify both to fit your environment and make sure the PHP file is executable.

Example .HEADER.html

<br /><h1>Index of /srv/pub</h1>
<br />
<br /><a href="/">Back to Welcome Page</a><br>
<br /><br>
<br />This form allows you to upload a file of up to 10 MiB:
<br />
<br /><!-- The data encoding type, enctype, MUST be specified as below -->
<br /><form enctype="multipart/form-data" action="/cgi-bin/getfile.php" 
<br />method="POST">
<br />    <input type="hidden" name="dest_dir" value="/srv/pub/" />
<br />    <!-- MAX_FILE_SIZE must precede the file input field -->
<br />    <input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="1000000000" />
<br />    <!-- Name of input element determines name in $_FILES array -->
<br />    Send this file: <input name="userfile" type="file" />
<br />    <input type="submit" value="Send File" />
<br /></form>
<br />
<br />

Example getfile.php

<br /><html>
<br /><head>
<br /><title>File Upload</title>
<br /></head>
<br /><body>
<br />
<br /><h1>File Upload</h1>
<br />
<br /><?php
<br />// In PHP versions earlier than 4.1.0, $HTTP_POST_FILES should be used instead
<br />// of $_FILES.
<br />
<br />//$uploaddir = '/var/www/srv/Public/';
<br />$uploaddir = $_POST['dest_dir'];
<br />$uploadfile = $uploaddir . basename($_FILES['userfile']['name']);
<br />
<br />echo '<pre>';
<br />echo "Trying to save to: ".$uploadfile."\n";
<br />
<br />if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name'], $uploadfile)) {
<br />   chmod($uploadfile, 0644);
<br />   echo "File is valid, and was successfully uploaded.\n\n";
<br />   echo "Saved in: ".$uploaddir."\n";
<br />   echo "Note that this program sets the file permissions to 0644.\n";
<br />
<br />   echo "<a href=\"javascript:history.go(-1)\">Click Here to Continue.</a>\n";
<br />
<br />} else {
<br />   echo "File upload failed.\n";
<br />     switch ($_FILES['uploadFile']['error'])
<br />     { case 1:
<br />         print '<p> The file is bigger than this PHP installation allows</p>';
<br />         break;
<br />       case 2:
<br />         print '<p> The file is bigger than this form allows</p>';
<br />         break;
<br />       case 3:
<br />         print '<p> Only part of the file was uploaded</p>';
<br />         break;
<br />       case 4:
<br />         print '<p> No file was uploaded</p>';
<br />         break;
<br />     }
<br />}
<br />
<br />echo "<br><br>Here is some more debugging info:\n<br>\n";
<br />print_r($_FILES);
<br />
<br />print "</pre>";
<br />
<br />?>
<br />

This code is derived from a few examples.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Using the Same Thunderbird Storage Folder on Windows and Linux

Today I finally solved the problem of having multiple e-mail clients and multiple storage folders. First I used an IMAP account I have access to in order to move all the old e-mail I have on multiple computers onto the Thunderbird "Local Folders" in Linux on my server. This is as easy as copying all the messages in one Inbox to the Inbox on the IMAP account, and then on the other computer moving the messages out of the Inbox on the IMAP account to the local Inbox account. It's not the fastest, but it's the most compatible as Thunderbird doesn't support much importing from other e-mail storage folders.

So once I had everything on the "Local Folders" account in Thunderbird on Linux, I changed the Local Message Storage directory on Windows (not on the Server) to the storage directory in my home folder on my Linux server via a drive-mapped Samba share:
Y:\.thunderbird\ayrxordj.default\Mail\Local Folders
This can be found by going to Tools->Account Settings->Local Folders. Click Browse. You'll have to have "Show Hidden Files" ON to locate your Local Folders path with the GUI. You also need to make sure that all your e-mail accounts you have are set up to store the mail in the "Local Folders" rather than an individual folder for that account.
After some testing with no networking on the Windows computer, if the client doesn't have accesss to the network drive, you just get nothing under "Local Folders". In other words, it doesn't crash or anything.

So what does this mean? If I download a message on my Windows Thunderbird client, it is exactly like downloading it on the Linux Thunderbird client. It is the same for the Linux client (vice-versa). It also means that now I can have "Delete message from POP after download" set to "Yes" on both clients and avoid downloading e-mail that I've already seen.

Issues I can imagine running into include having both clients open simultaneously and possible Operating System dissimilarities in the implementation of Thunderbird. Also, it took a long time to open the gigantic storage folder the first time over the network, but cleaning up the 2-3 thousand messages and perhaps "compacting" the folders should help. The other issue is, since I merged the two clients, there are several duplicate e-mails, but there is an extension to find & delete duplicate messages which has already solved this problem for me. I removed all the duplicates (leaving me with only roughly two thirds of the messages, because this merge was so large) and compacting the folders did solve the long-to-load problem.

Now I can load up Thunderbird on Windows or Linux using the same "Local Folders" storage directory. Finally, no more getting on different computers/clients to find different mail.

There are still issues with using this technique. If you have a laptop or are losing connectivity, Windows will let you know that "Delayed Writing" failed. Also, a solution like having IMAP storage would be much more network-friendly in terms of bandwidth. See my post on setting up Cyrus IMAPD