I have updated my Easy Reflections script to version 2.1 (version 3.1 will follow shortly). This new version allows you to merge the original image in with the output image, thus cutting down on the number of image tags required in your HTML (but increasing server CPU time/RAM needed for the initial hit). This was in response to those people emailing me who were using the script with the Image Flow JavaScript library.

I will do the same for V3 - I'm thinking it would make a lot of sense to just merge both scripts into one and make the use of PNG/Alpha support a parameter, so I'll have a crack at that when free time permits - but right now I'm up to my eyeballs in ActionScript3 and Flash game coding.

I have released Version 1.1 of the NFO Viewer script today. This release includes one serious security fix, one minor usability fix and one parameter corruption. The new script can be downloaded (and demoed in action) at http://nfo.corephp.co.uk.

Interestingly I also received an email from Ben Garrett who has ported my script over to Cold Fusion! You can grab it from here.

Ahh finally I manage to get my blog back on-line again. I have installed WordPress and have been playing with that (this blog is powered by Serendipity at the moment) and it's got a very nice interface indeed, not to mention a great community behind it. However I managed to fix the speed issue with Serendipity (or rather, with the Extended Stats plugin for it) that caused my host to pull the database from use due to overloading.

I'm writing a script to convert all my sy9 posts and comments over to WordPress, but until that's ready I'll carry on here.

It feels good to be back, a lot has happened since July 2007

Just wanted to share some of my favourite lesser-known web sites and blogs with you. They are all web development related one way or another. Feel free to add your own suggestions to the comments.

Planet Web Security

This site takes in the feeds from various high profile web security and hacking sources and presents them to you for easy access. There are usually a stack of new posts every day, and they're nearly all extremely useful or invaluable reading one way or another. For example I've recently learnt about SQL Server Truncation Attacks (which is more serious than you'd think), Firefox httpOnly vulnerabilities, hacking with Yahoo Pipes, and a superb article on XSRF.

http://planet-websecurity.org/

A lot of the articles come from www.0x000000.com, the Hacker Webzine, which despite going for that 'jet black matrix' style design effect we fondly waved goodbye to in the 1990s, is still a goldmine of information. Don't hide behind your filterInput extension or framework of choice and feel that a number of these security concerns shouldn't worry you - the alarming rate at which they are discovered proves this isn't a safe option. Subscribing to their feed at the very least will keep you updated about what the current attacks are, even if you can't protect against them immediately.

MySQL Performance Blog

Think you know MySQL inside out? Think again. These guys REALLY know MySQL, and thankfully for us they blog about it on a regular basis. I've learnt an awful lot from their wisdom, everything from Innodb Recovery to the excellent article Large Result Sets and Summary Tables in PHP. They also run a forum, but the visitor count is pretty low which means you won't get a particularly rapid response, although it's nearly always a quality one.

http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com

ProgrammableWeb

This is a much more main-stream web site, but one well worth visiting. Think of them as an index to all of the public APIs out there. From YouTube to flickr to some you'd probably never even think of (WebPurifys Profanity filtering service API for example!). They also list and track mash-ups, API vendor news and have a decent "How To" list.

http://www.programmableweb.com

Ajaxian

If ProgrammableWeb is all things API, Ajaxian is all things ajax and javascript. Given the Web 2.0 hyperbole currently flooding the tubes the "ajax" world is a rapidly updating one, and Ajaxian offer a great means for you to tap into that pulse of change. They cover all JS frameworks (mootools, prototype, etc), all languages, have podcasts and showcases of work, and a great tag-line ("Trying to generate more hype than Rails") A superb resource, because let's face it - we can't really ignore what is going on in this neck of the woods. Unless you are (un?)lucky enough to be stuck maintaining decidedly ancient web apps for the rest of your life.

http://ajaxian.com

Deziner Folio

I may be a programmer first, but I love graphics and always have done. Deziner Folio is the home of Navdeep and Naveen, two very graphically talented brothers. Their blog often shares great Photoshop resources such as styles, PSD kits, wallpaper effects and actions. If you have an eye for the visual and like to tinker with Adobes beast then I urge you to consider adding this to your feedreader of choice. Go back through the archives for some great downloads.

http://www.dezinerfolio.com

While digging through the GD section of the online PHP manual I noticed two new entries on the function list that immediately caught my eye: imagegrabscreen() and imagegrabwindow(). Upon further investigation both of these commands can be used to take screen shots of the desktop of your server, or any applications window (such as a web browser).

Both commands are listed as being "Windows only" and also possibly only in CVS, but I found both of them are in the 5.2.3 standard release and compile without error. However at the moment neither appear to actually do anything other than return fully black images. The grabscreen command did indeed produce a PNG file exactly the same dimensions as my server, it just wasn't populated with anything. The grabwindow command didn't fare so well, and in attempting to launch and grab IEs current session my script just timed out. This could possibly be a simple COM issue, or perhaps the command just doesn't work properly yet.

Eitherway they are both quite interesting additions to the GD section, and while Windows only I could still think of a few nice uses for them in an admin capacity (certainly of limited use on a public web site). For example if your Windows anti-virus software doesn't have command-line access to its interface, you could schedule a window grab to run each night that launched your AV and grabbed the last updated time, so you could see if it had updated itself overnight. Alternatively you could grab browser windows ala Browsercam. Or perhaps screen shots from a package like TreeSize Pro.

I'm not so sure about the use of grabbing the entire server desktop, but I'm sure someone will come up with something. If you've managed to get either of these two functions to work then please comment about it.

Just a short entry to let everyone (and the search engines) know that I've updated my comprehensive WAMP guide so it now covers PHP version 5.2.3. I always had a help file on how to upgrade to 5.2.3 at the end anyway, but now that 5.2.3 is officially released I updated the core guide to reflect this. Although I'm sure 5.2.4 is just around the corner

While working on a project I noticed some interesting issues regarding GD images and the amount of memory they take up simply down to where you store them in your PHP script. If you are working with GD a lot then reading this short entry might save you some time / RAM! Update: I've also discovered something very interesting relating to autoloading classes, which again is related to memory allocation.

I'm very happy to announce that I've just released my comprehensive guide to installing, configuring and running Apache 2, PHP 4.4.7 and PHP 5.2.2 on Windows XP. The guide is broken down into small manageable sections and contains over 50 screen shots of the entire process, so you won't go wrong while following it.

It covers everything from installing Apache, to setting up a Virtual host to switching between PHP 4 and 5. A troubleshooting section and further advice rounds-off the guide.

Read the guide here: http://wamp.corephp.co.uk

If you have any comments, questions or find problems with the guide then please post your comments in this blog entry.

I've released Version 1.0 of my NFO Viewer. NFO files are 'information' files, made infamous during the cracking / demoscene of the early 90s, often featuring extremely clever artwork considering the images are made of nothing but extended ASCII characters. This script will parse and display an NFO file using a custom font that ensures the extended character set is displayed accurately.

It's always pleasing when you've been sat there all day, coding away in your PHP IDE of choice, to receive an email which starts:

"PhpED 5 is now available. It's the biggest release ever in our 7-year history, with all-new tools for PHP code folding, embedded Mozilla browser, a powerful database form wizard, a completely new look and feel and so much more."

Alllrighty, I'll have me some of that! I logged in, grabbed the new version, backed-up all of my config settings, and installed with fingers crossed. Here is what I've found so far, along with the answer to the million dollar question - are the new features worth the upgrade fee?

If you use NuSphere's excellent PhpED IDE then you'll know it has built-in CVS support for source control. This is a guide I wrote to using PhpED with the CVSDude.com service, so you can get your projects up and running in no time at all.

CVSDude.com offer free CVS hosting for projects up to 10MB in size, and then very reasonable monthly rates for extra storage space, users and features. I personally have a Developer account with them, which gives me 1GB of space and a host of other extras.

This guide will take you through linking PhpED to cvsdude.com.

After wasting hours and hours on this, I've come to the conclusion that the PDO SQLite blob support is totally borked, and just doesn't appear to work properly. I really don't know why, or what is going on, but after spending hours trying various code permutations I'm just not getting anywhere. I tried asking on php_general to no avail, so I consider this blog entry my last ditch attempt to get someone to shed some light on this issue before I give-in and ditch PDO for good.

I'm trying to store an image in a SQLite database using PDO. Yes yes, we all know that storing images in database files is a bad thing but none-the-less, it should technically be able to handle it. The source code given on http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/ref.pdo.php under Example 1669 appears to be just plain wrong. For example you can't beginTransaction() on a statement! So I had to re-write it a little, but no matter what it just doesn't play ball.

The problem appears to be the PDO LOB type. It will only ever send the first 21 bytes of the image to the database. Here's the code:

Have you ever run into this problem when using PHP on Windows: You have uncommented an extension in your php.ini, you've checked that the DLL file exists, and is actually present, ready and waiting in your extensions folder, but when you start Apache you get a 'could not load module' error, claiming that the DLL you KNOW exists, isn't there.

It can be frustrating at best, but there are several mistakes people make that cause this error, and there are also a number of 'hidden rules' that need to be obeyed in the php.ini file as well.

To aid you, I have put together this guide which covers *every* default extension that comes with PHP5 and tells you how to get it working on Windows, what dependencies they have and also some vital tips on how you need to arrange your php.ini file and file system to ensure a painless set-up and no messy DLL conflicts.

Today I released Version 3 of Easy Reflections. This version brings about some significant advances, including full support for PNG alpha transparency in the source image, alpha transparency in the output image allowing for overlaying the mirrored images on-top of complex backgrounds or gradients, and colour tinting / saturation support.

I have updated my Easy Reflections code and released v2. Thanks to feedback and some code from Monte Ohrt (co-developer of Smarty) he added in cache support and fixed a banding issue with the alpha levels. It all works really nicely now - and the new version, with the new docs are available at http://reflection.corephp.co.uk.

Easy Reflection is a PHP script that will take any given image (jpeg, png) and create a 'reflection' of it, ala Apple iTunes style. You can control the height, the intensity, the background colour and more. Monte has deployed this script all over a new site he built (http://www.motortopia.com) and I too integrated it into a private gallery system, so it can cut the mustard if you have a need for it.