There are two methods of doing the editing, depending on the Yahoo! Store platform that you have. If you’re on the Legacy version, you must go to the page itself, and click edit. This provides you with a series of fields and input boxes for each type of field. No intelligence in the design of what those fields are for or differentiation in how they interact.

If you’re on the Merchant Solutions platform, then you have the option of going directly to the page still, or you can do it in a flat-file pseudo database-like UI which is nothing more than a search-by-field interface, which presents you with a different-looking (but still the same) interface for editing the page.

Over the next few months, I’m going to embark on a web-based interface for importing the legacy store feed (objinfo.xml, which can’t be customized) and see what can be done with the data as far as modifying it, preparing it, cleaning it, and exporting it back to the store. I’m also going to attempt to code it entirely using Kodingen.com. I’ve done a highly customized version of this concept for the company I currently work for (at the time of this post), but none of the code will be reused from that project, and this project will have different, and limited features (in some areas, and expanded in other areas), but for a different data model. In some areas, this application will be more limited (since it’s working with a standardized data format, rather than a customized “catalog.xml” feed from Merchant Solutions. Once this basic version is solid, I may start working on a customized version, or even offering a customizing service to handle the catalog.xml file.

Some things I’d like to do differently with this basic version is:

• create an install process (a la phpBB)
• extensive automation, and possibly some AI concepts
• learn more about object-oriented design and how it can be extended conceptually
• experiment with some various php and javascript frameworks

There are plenty of other feature sets that I’ve learned and developed in addition to these in the past and plan to use as well. So we’ll see how this goes, and I’ll post some updates here. Depending on what I plan to do with it, I may or may not open-source it. If I do, I’ll host it on Google Code.

Technorati Tags: ajax, catalog.xml, Coding, jasper, JavaScript, kodingen.com, MySQL, objinfo.xml, PHP, Programming, yahoo store platform, yahoo! stores

Until now.

Our current order management software runs as a MS Access front-end to a MSSQL 2005 server backend through and ODBC DSN connection. This connection has been limited to MS Access and MS Excel application/queries, and thus, was the limiting factor to writing this most-complex cleanup process into Jada. The most difficult part in my development was finding an understandable article describing how to make an ODBC call, and then actually get the data back, in the same simple manner that one makes a MySQL query. The real issue has been once the connection is closed, the result cannot be accessed. I had to find that out the hardway, via Microsoft’s convoluted documentation on using ODBC.

Here’s the code I’ve used to make the ODBC connection in PHP (unfortunately my blog’s template can’t handle actual code right now):

Code Breakdown

We’ll start creating a function that makes an ODBC connection, passes it an SQL query, then parses the data into a table/array and return the array.

Function call

function odbcQuery($sql, $attempt="") {

When we call the function, we’ll provide the SQL Query we want executed, and an optional description of what we’re trying to do with the query. In this way, if it errors, an semantic error will be displayed along with the technical one to help locate the code easily.

Database Connection

// Establish an odbc connection with the database
$link = odbc_connect("My_DSN_Name", "", "");

When running odbc_connect() it takes 3 parameters:

• the DSN; Server,Port; or Server/SQLInstance
• username
• password

When connecting using Windows Authentication & a DSN (as this example is about), there are some caveats and things to remember:

1. On the web server, the User running the Web Service process needs to be a User with permission to access the SQL Server.
   1. In my case, the user running the web server is SYSTEM, and so the user trying to access the SQL server is “DOMAIN\COMPUTERNAME$“.
   2. There is no password for a SYSTEM account, and so on the SQL Server needs to have a user created named “DOMAIN\COMPUTERNAME$“.
   3. Due to some security concerns, I’ve decided to give the account read-only access to the database I want to access. You’ll need to consult your own IT Administrator or security advisor for your security concerns.
2. In the odbc_connect() statement, you then only need the name of the DSN (which I assume has already been configured on the Web Server you’re using) , followed by two null-quotes: “”.

This creates an active link via ODBC to the SQL Server…supposedly

Database Connection Checking & Error Handling

if (!$link) {
	die('Could not connect: '.odbc_error().': '.odbc_errormsg());
} else {

Next, we check the link . If it just flat-out doesn’t exist, then we kill the program, throw an error message that will read: “Could not connect: <insert odbc error code>:  <insert odbc error text>”. Otherwise, we move on…

Sending the SQL Query & Checking Response

$data = odbc_exec($link, $sql);
if($data === false) {
	echo "ODBC Query: ".$sql."<br /><br />";
	die("ODBC Query failed:  ".$attempt."<br />Error: ".odbc_error());
} else {

Now that we have a valid link to the database, we’ll send a request for data using the odbc_exec() function. This function sends the connection resource ($link) and the SQL Query we want run ($sql). It will return a “ODBC result identifier” or false.

Since a result identifier could, I assume, be the number 0 (zero) I want to ensure that $data is actually false and not just zero. That’s where the triple === comes in. When doing conditional statements, using == will convert the data being compared into a true/false value, where zero or nothing = false and anything else = true. When you use === you test for an actual boolean value, meaning anything including zero = true and false = false.

If the query failed, and resulted in a false result, we’ll display an error message: “ODBC Query: <insert actual SQL Query> // ODBC Query failed: <insert query description> // Error: <insert ODBC error code>”. Otherwise, we’ll move on…

Parsing the Query Results – Column Headers

// Initialization
$row = $fields = $records = $result = array(); 	

// Get the result's column names
$count = odbc_num_fields($data);
for($x=1;$x<=$count;$x++) {
	$fields[] = odbc_field_name($data, $x);
}

We start off by initializing all the variables we’re going to use in the next bit of code, to make sure they’re empty.

Then we’ll run odbc_num_fields() over the $data to get the number of columns we need to iterate through. For columns, the counting starts at 1, so the for-loop starts at 1.

Iterate through each column name and add it to an array, called $fields:

Array (
	[0] => field_name_1
	[1] => field_name_2
	[2] => field_name_3
)

Parsing the Query Results – Records

// Get the result's data: array[record#][column#] = value
$count = odbc_num_rows($data);
for($x=0;$x<$count;$x++) {
	odbc_fetch_into($data, $row, $x);
	array_push($records,$row);
}

Then we run odbc_num_rows() over the $data to get the number of rows we need to iterate through. For rows, the counting starts at 0, so the for-loop starts at 0.

Iterate through each record row and insert it to a temporary array $row using odbc_fetch_into(). Then take $row and put it into an array of records, $records giving you something like this:

Array (
	[0] => Array (
		[0] => record_1_column_1
		[1] => record_1_column_2
		[2] => record_1_column_3
	)
	[1] => Array (
		[0] => record_2_column_1
 		[1] => record_2_column_2
 		[2] => record_2_column_3
  	)
	[2] => Array (
 		[0] => record_3_column_1
 		[1] => record_3_column_2
 		[2] => record_3_column_3
  	)
 )

Making the data useable

Now that we’ve got two tables/arrays of data – the field/column names, and each record’s array of data – it’s time to make it usable in a format that we can consistently expect to be returned. There are two ways to do this. We can create an array listind every record as an array with column_name keys and values

// Return data in the format: array[record_id][column_name] = value
foreach($records as $rid => $record) {
	foreach($fields as $key => $name) {
		$result[$rid][$name] = $record[$key];
	}
}

or we can list every column as an array of record id’s as keys and values.

// Return the data in the format: array[column_name][record_id] = value
foreach($fields as $key => $name) {
	foreach($records as $record) {
		$result[$name][] = $record[$key];
	}
}

Personally I find the first option to be more consistent with my results when calling a 2-dimensional result from MySQL queries, so it is the one I have gone with in my example at the start of the post, and in this description.

The foreach() statements describe a compilation of a $result array in this manner:

1. For each item in the $records array, store the record_id as $rid, and the record array as $record.
2. Then for each item in the $fields array, store its cardinality as $key and it’s value/name as $name.
3. Then compile an array, iterating through each of the fields, storing this $record‘s associated cardinality $key‘s value into the $result array’s storage for this record’s id ($rid) under the appropriate field name.

It’s a lot easier to grasp than it sounds. Basically, take array from the Query Results – Records section, and replace the # with the column name in each: [#] => record_y_column_x, but store it as a different array, called $results. The resulting array would look something like this:

Array (
	[0] => Array (
		[column1] => record_1_column_1_data
		[column2] => record_1_column_2_data
		[column3] => record_1_column_3_data
	)
	[1] => Array (
		[column1] => record_2_column_1_data
 		[column2] => record_2_column_2_data
 		[column3] => record_2_column_3_data
  	)
	[2] => Array (
 		[column1] => record_3_column_1_data
 		[column2] => record_3_column_2_data
 		[column3] => record_3_column_3_data
  	)
 )

Close the connection, Return the result

		odbc_close($link);
		return $result;
	}
}

Now that we’ve stored the data we need from the volatile $data variable returned from the SQL Query into $result, we can close the connection to $link using odbc_close(), and then return $result for the program to do with it what it will.

Conclusion

This is just an example code that explains one way of many to extract a variable 1-2 dimension array of data from your SQL Query, using a Windows-Authenticated ODBC DSN connection. There are many other methods to do this, as well as security fixes, data scrubbing, and other modifications that one would probably want to do.

This is the first function I’ve written in any language to access an SQL Server via ODBC. This is also a function that has worked in tests, but that I have not yet put into production. I encourage you to take this bit of explanation and massage it into something that fits your needs in the code that you’re writing, and don’t rely on what I’ve got here as a written-in-stone example of good production-level code. This sample will change many times before I actually implement it.

Happy Hacking!

Technorati Tags: how to connect to sql server in php with odbc, microsoft odbc, microsoft sql server, mssql, odbc, odbc connection, PHP, php odbc connection, sql, sql server odbc connection, windows authenticated odbc, windows authenticated odbc connection, windows odbc connection

Over the course of the last couple weeks with the Chrome OS netbook, my file synchronization setup has come to this:

• Intranet web server runs Windows Live Mesh 2011 – syncs website files & database to Skydrive
• Work PC runs Windows Live Mesh 2011 and pulls files from Skydrive. It saves them in a DropBox subfolder, and sends them up to the DropBox server.

A couple things about why my configuration is the way it is:

• I use Windows Live Mesh 2011 for two reasons: the remote desktop feature and the fact that it doesn’t care where the folder you want to sync is, you can sync it right there.
• I only recently started using DropBox for the potential of its API functionality. However, not many people are using the API, and it’s only available in certain programming languages.
• I do use WAMP on my intranet server, so I am capable of moving the website’s files out of the www drive and into a DropBox subfolder and creating an alias in the Apache config for the new location. I haven’t done it yet, because I hadn’t found a web-based code editor that works with DropBox to provide a compelling reason to make that change – until now.

On to the good stuff.

For my web-based editing, I have decided to use a relatively new app from DropBox‘s own app site called: TextDrop. (Update, the app is no longer listed in the DropBox app site. The Link now goes directly to the app’s site.)

TextDrop - First Run

At first glance, this is a very basic text-editor. I do all my web coding in Notepad++, so using a notepad-type app is not an issue for me. If this is not the case for you, you may be better off using Kodingen.com or Bespin from Mozilla.

Also, right now, if you create a new page with the app, it is unable to save that back to DropBox. I don’t know what the status of this issue is, but at this time, it is only a minor annoyance as I’m not creating files usually, I’m editing existing ones.

TextDrop - Open files

The opening page has a Log In link, which gets you set up with DropBox to authenticate the app and give it permission to access/edit your files. Once you’ve granted TextDrop permission, you’re all set. Choose the Open button and you’ll be presented with the top-level directory of your DropBox cloud storage. Open up any text-based file, and you’ll be able to edit it right there, and save it back.

Since I only just found out about this app recently, I’m by no means an expert on it. However, Monday when I return to work, I will give all the pieces of my Living in the Cloud configuration a shot to see how productive I can be with only an internet browser.

Another web-based app that I’ll be keeping an eye on (which is being actively developed as of a couple days prior to this posting) is SourceKit. Right now it doesn’t get past the login screen – apparently the developer is working on getting it approved as a Production Application from the DropBox folks (API Key requirements, etc., if you’re familiar with how all that stuff works). It will have a tree-structure file list, and include the Bespin code editor along side it – essentially a light-weight Kodingen setup, using the DropBox storage instead of an FTP backend. The author has released some updates and looks like everything is ready to go. I’ll be working on a blog post after I’ve spent some time with it on my web development projects. It might even become my de facto code editor.

There will be more Living in the Cloud posts to come as well, with some Google Chrome OS features, functionality examples, and hardware demonstrations, some of which will also have videos. But for now, this is a promising step in the right direction to make this a viably productive utility.

Technorati Tags: bespin, chrome os, cloud code editing, cloud coding, cloud computing, cr-48, cr-48 code editor, dropbox, dropbox app, file sync, google chrome, google chrome os, kodingen.com, living in the cloud, notepad++, textdrop, web-based code editor, web-based text editor, windows live mesh

Unfortunately, LogMeIn figured out they forgot about that page, I guess when people started reading this post and hitting it on their servers. They have removed the text status as well as all the others, and I can’t figure out why they would do such a thing.

I’m also not sure what they’re offering as an alternative either. So if you know, please leave a comment below. Thanks.

Depreciated Process…

A while back, I started a project called tsn.lcl or tsnlocal, but gave up on it when my electricity bill hit $400 in a month.

Today, I decided to fix up the domain name and get it back on the internet – at least to remove it from GoDaddy’s Parking Page – where they’re making money, not me, off of it.

When I got it published I noticed that none of the Hamachi Web Status images worked anymore, and that the link to such an image, redirected to their login page for your Hamachi Management Dashboard. However, upon further investigation, I found that there was not only an Image version of those status instances, but also a text version.

I really wanted to show the online status of all my machines again, so I wrote my own php script to parse that text data, and created some simple images to show on the website based on the returned status.

So here’s the code so you can do the same thing…

The PHP Function

{code type=php}<?php
function hamachiImg($ip) {
$url = “https://my.hamachi.cc/status/text.php?$ip”;
$status = file_get_contents($url);
$status = preg_replace(‘/\d*\.\d*\.\d*.\d* /’, ”, $status);
$image_url = “./images/$status.png”;
return $image_url;
}
?>{/code}
This code creates a $url variable with the address to the text status, based on the $ip that is passed to it. Then it requests the data, removes the ip address and the trailing space, leaving only the status text. On the server, I have a collection of images with the 4 different statuses as their file name, and with that an $image_url is created to be returned.

The 4 possible statuses are:

• – online
• – offline
• – unknown
• – error

The HTML Code and PHP Function Call

Once you have your php function in the page (I stuck mine before the first <html> tag), you can use the php function to insert the image url when you pass it an IP…
{code type=html}<table>
<tr>
<td style=”width: 100%”>[[Neo]]:</td>
<td style=”width: 100%”> <img src=”<?php echo hamachiImg(’5.37.117.104′); ?>”></td>
</tr>
</table>{/code}
Once you’ve done that, assuming you have entered a valid hamachi IP address, the results should look something like the image at right.

Technorati Tags: hamachi, images, status, vpn, Web

That’s right – it’s time for Quakecon 2009.

I’ve added a  Google Latitude App to the right sidebar of my blog to show where I am in the whole ordeal – but don’t be fooled, I will have remote access to both locations, from both locations – so no funny business.

Granted this idea works better for people that have to make a longer trek than my 35 mile drive – but it’s still cool none the less.

To get your own badge check out the Google Latitude badge page.

Technorati Tags: api, badge, google, gps, latitude, quakecon

My webhost says it is creating a lot of “sleeper” processes on the database server, and using up a lot of the processor resources. My account was even suspended until I fixed it.

SO – I am going to be rewriting the whole thing, pretty much from scratch now, and it will only be loosely based on Dan’s version…

Currently, the code will run through the database of posts, and find those that have shortened URLs stored for them, run a twitter search, and return/parse/store/display the resulting tweetbacks. And it does this every 5 minutes.

However, that sucks up a lot of processing power to do that, especially if you have a big blog, popular blog, or both. The Answer: A Rewrite. This one is going to run a single Twitter search for every shortened url in the database, return ALL the results once, and parse them out, store them in the database, and associate them to their respective parent posts.

So, there’s the update for why this hasn’t been released yet.

I’m also working on trying to get the retro-active TweetThis buttons working on old posts – but something isn’t working right – either it’s the original code that isn’t comparing what’s in the database to the conditional statement correctly (if this.url = “”, then make new ones), or something. It’s going to take some more testing on my own test database, since my webhost is getting antsy with all the processes I’m using.

I’ll keep everyone updated as it moves along. Thanks.

Technorati Tags: api, code, database, MySQL, Ping.fm, plugin, Programming, tweetback, tweetbacks, TweetSuite, webhost, WordPress

Sure enough, Dan Zarrella over at danzarrella.com had. He wrote one for Tweetbacks, and then expanded on it with TweetSuite. So I gave them a shot.

I started with Tweetbacks on the FreeformFrog.com Blog and everything seemed to be working fine – until one day when the Tweetbacks stopped. It just stopped finding them – even though I knew they were getting tweeted – because I was using Ping.fm to syndicate my blog posts to the appropriate social networks.

I gave it a couple weeks, and then decided I was going to fix it. I was tired of not having my TweetBacks working – especially during my efforts pushing a Social Networking campaign at job.

So, I added @danzarrella, and asked…

@danzarrella do you have plans to integrate ping.fm posting in TweetSuite? If not, mind if I take a crack at it?
from @neotsn at 4:32 PM Mar 18th from web

A few minutes later, I got a response…

@neotsn go to town
from @danzarrella at 4:34 PM Mar 18th from TweetDeck in reply to neotsn

Excellent…now I had his blessing to hack his codes. And so I have…

The download is coming soon

I have to get my Ping.fm API Key approved before anyone but me can install the plugin.

And now I present to you a general overview of what I wanted to accomplish, and how I did it. (Please note, this is a GENERAL overview with some examples – it’s not meant to be a how-to, so don’t try to just copy/paste the samples – there is much more to do than can be explained here). Let’s get started…

Objectives…

1. Make it post through Ping.fm – I syndicate all my stuff through twitterfeed.com and it pushes everything out through Ping.fm for me. Upon further investigation, I noticed that TweetSuite used its own publishing code to push out the updates – after it created its own shortened urls and attached them. So of course it would never find my updates – it didn’t know what urls to search for, because it didn’t create them.
2. Make it find my tweets that were pushed through Ping.fm – After realizing that it stopped searching for blog titles and started searching for the shortened urls as the unique identifier on the web, I realized that I needed it to create my urls and push them out with my Ping.fm update text. That was the only way to let TweetSuite know that there were tweets out there about my blog, and obtw here’s the link.
3. Clean up some of the things that were a little messy – Once I got poking around in the code, I noticed that it some parts of it were written a little redundantly, and in order for me to maintain understanding of what was going on, I needed to clean it up a little.

Let’s Code…

Well, for starters, to accomplish #1, I had to write a function that would validate the user’s app key with Ping.fm:
{code type=php}
/* [[Neo]] */
//BEGIN Ping.fm functions
function pingfm_verify() {
// request app key verification
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, ‘http://api.ping.fm/v1/user.validate’);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, Array(
‘api_key’ => get_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_api_key’),
‘user_app_key’ => get_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_app_key’)
));
$output = curl_exec($ch);
// update database with response
if (preg_match(‘/OK/’, $output)) {
echo ‘ <strong>Your key has been verified.</strong> Your can now post to your
<a href=”http://www.ping.fm” target=”_blank”>Ping.fm</a> account.’;
update_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_keyVerified’, 1);
} else {
echo (‘<strong>Your key could not be verified.</strong>.’);
update_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_keyVerified’, 0);
return false;
}
}

// END Ping.fm Functions
{/code}
Just your basic curl function to contact http://api.ping.fm/v1/user.validate and pass the api_key and user_app_key to the api, per the API Documentation on user.validate. Depending on the response, store it to the database, and display the appropriate message.

Next, I had to implement the fields to make that happen. We’ll start with the database…
{code type=php}
/* [[Neo]] */
//ADDED:
add_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_api_key’,’333333333333333333333333333333333′);
add_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_app_key’,”);
add_option(‘tweetsuite_use_ping’,0);
add_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_keyVerified’,0);
//END ADD
{/code}
This sticks those fields into the wordpress database table “wp_options” where all the config values go. My developer’s api key, a blank user application key, a field for the checkbox “Do you want to use Ping.fm?” and one for whether or not the user_app_key successfully verified.

Then I create the user interface for those fields (as well as rearrange the rest of the fields since these have to flow right to make sense…
{code type=php}
/* [[Neo]] */
//ADDED:
update_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_app_key’, $_POST['tweetsuite_ping_app_key']);
//END ADD

//tweetsuite_use_ping
($_POST['tweetsuite_use_ping']) ? update_option(‘tweetsuite_use_ping’, 1) : update_option(‘tweetsuite_use_ping’, 0);
{/code}

That part allows the database to be updated with the data from the fields below…
{code type=html}
<!– /* [[Neo]] */ –>
<!– BEGIN ADD –>
<tr valign=”top”>
<th scope=”row”>Ping.fm :: Use Ping.fm to publish new posts (via your default method)?:</th>
<td><INPUT TYPE=CHECKBOX NAME=”tweetsuite_use_ping” <?php if(get_option(‘tweetsuite_use_ping’)) { echo “checked”; } ?>>
<br /><b>["Send a Tweet when you publish" is required for this to work]</b>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign=”top”>
<th scope=”row”>Ping.fm :: Your Ping.fm <a href=”http://ping.fm/key/” target=”_blank”>Application Key</a>:</th>
<td><INPUT TYPE=text NAME=”tweetsuite_ping_app_key” value=’<?php echo get_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_app_key’); ?>’ /><br /><?php if(get_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_app_key’)) { echo pingfm_verify(); } ?>
</td>
</tr>
<!– END ADD –>
{/code}
This is below the checkbox for “Send a Tweet when you publish a post?”…if that is checked, then if you check “Use Ping.fm to publish new posts (via your default method)?” and fill out the next field for “Your Ping.fm Application Key” then it will send your post details on Publish through Ping.fm instead of Twitter itself, appending the tinyurl associated with the post to your Ping.fm message. All this is done by editing the function that sends the tweets…
{code type=php}
function tweetsuite_send($msg) {
/* [[Neo]] */
//REMOVED:
//$prefix = urlencode(get_option(‘tweetsuite_prefix’).’ ‘);
//REPLACED:
$prefix = (get_option(tweetsuite_use_ping) and get_option(tweetsuite_ping_keyVerified)) ? get_option(‘tweetsuite_prefix’).’ ‘ : urlencode(get_option(‘tweetsuite_prefix’).’ ‘);
$msg = $prefix.$msg;

/* [[Neo]] */
//ADDED
if(get_option(tweetsuite_use_ping) and get_option(tweetsuite_ping_keyVerified)) {
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, ‘http://api.ping.fm/v1/user.post’);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, Array(
‘api_key’ => get_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_api_key’),
‘user_app_key’ => get_option(‘tweetsuite_ping_app_key’),
‘post_method’ => “default”,
‘body’ => $msg)
);
$output = curl_exec($ch);
} else {
//END ADD
$username = get_option(‘tweetsuite_twitter_username’);
$password = get_option(‘tweetsuite_twitter_password’);
if(($username) and ($password)) {
$url = ‘http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml’;
$curl_handle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, “$url”);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, “status=$msg”);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, “$username:$password”);
$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
curl_close($curl_handle);
}
/* [[Neo]] */
//ADDED
}
//END ADD
}
{/code}
This starts off by swapping out the original urlencode() function for a conditional statement deciding if this is a ping.fm post or a twitter post. If it’s a ping.fm post, then we don’t want to urlencode() the prefix, because it sticks + signs where there should be spaces in the prefix to the title. However, if we don’t want to use ping.fm, then don’t mess with the original code.

Following that, it splits which method we used to post, based on the same criteria – make sure the checkbox is true for “tweetsuite_use_ping” and that the user’s app key is verified in “tweetsuite_ping_keyVerified”. If that’s the case, then post it through ping.fm – if any of that is not met, then go ahead and try to post it through twitter. If there is no username and password supplied on the options page, then we just won’t post anything.

Now…about the whole $msg – that part got skipped in the logic of everything. This was the tricky part, for me. Originally, I stumbled across an API Documentation page for the ping.fm method “url.shorten” and that was the very thing I needed – something to grab a ping.fm url, without passing it through ping.fm yet. However, I found out, after much frustration, that this method was mysteriously “depreciated” (which should be read as “edited off the page, and 404′d when you try to use it). But, I found another solution in the knowledgebase at Ping.fm…
{code type=php}
function ts_send_tweet($postID) {
global $wpdb;
if(!is_int($postID))
$postID = $postID->ID;

$table_name = $wpdb->prefix . “shorturls”;
$line = $wpdb->get_row(“select * from $table_name where postID=$postID”);
if($line->postID==$postID) {
/* [[Neo]] */
// ADDED: “*”.
$shorturl = “*”.$line->tinyurl;
$post = get_post($postID);
if(get_option(‘tweetsuite_send_posts’))
tweetsuite_send(trim($post->post_title).’ ‘.$shorturl);
}
}
{/code}
The article said you can prepend a * to the front of a url and it would not shorten it (in addition to the fact that they said they wouldn’t re-shorten any URLs 24 characters or smaller). So, I went with the * solution, because we’re already providing short URLs, but don’t want to risk the functionality in future updates to allow for custom url shortening services.

And that accomplishes both #1 and #2. We have the TweetSuite posting its updates through the Ping.fm API, and pushing a shortened url out with the post. TweetSuite then becomes aware of this url at publish, and stores it in its database. Then the cron job that runs every 5 minutes searches on any version of the URL that was stored and pulls back all the entries from the search.twitter.com Atom feed – parses them, and updates the database with them.

The rest of the stuff I did in the plugin was merely cleaning up…for example, reading the shortened urls from the Atom feed. The original code was:
{code type=php}
if(stristr($tweet, ‘http://bit.ly’)) {
if(strstr($tweet, $bitly)) {
$add = true;
} else {
$add = false;
}
}
{/code}
Because the urls are using alphanumeric sequences to track what link is what – and the url’s are case-sensitive, it was returning links that were not related to the post. For example, I got someone’s tweet about Rush Limbaugh because the bit.ly url (“http://bit.ly/fyhz”)was the same letters, but in a different case then my original “http://bit.ly/FyhZ”. So I changed the order of the search, did it for all the services currently supported, and cleaned up the code a little:
{code type=php}…
if(strstr($tweet, ‘http://bit.ly’)) { $add = (stristr($tweet, $bitly)) ? true : false; } else {
…
{/code}
The function strstr() is not case-sensitive, and that’s ok for a search on the domain name – we want anything that looks close to “bit.ly” to return positive. However, once it does, it’s imperitive that we use the case-sensitive stristr() function to return a positive result only if the full url matches what we have in the database case-for-case.

Wrapping up…

I made a couple more additions to the code beyond that, some of them required for functionality, some of them for cosmetics. I’ve submitted my plugin version to Ping.fm to approve it, and take my Developer’s Key out of “Pending” status. Once that’s done, I’ll send it off to Dan Zarrella to take a look and see how he wants to move forward. Then I’ll be able to post the plugin for download (definitely here, but also on the WordPress Plugin directory.

Continuing on…

I have read through the comments on Dan’s blog from the people, and have taken note of the things that they are asking for. After reading the code, he had already been working on some of the features. There are 5 main ones that people are asking for, and I’ve already done one of them in this release:

1. TweetThis link opens in a new window.
2. AutoUpgrade via WordPress Plugin Directory
3. Allow customized URL Shortening Services
4. TweetThis links for pre-installation posts
5. TweetThis links on the home page.

I’ll be looking more into the other options and see what I can do.

One More Thing…

This post was syndicated through the TweetSuite + Ping.fm plugin .

Technorati Tags: beta, dan zarrella, database, internet, MySQL, PHP, Ping.fm, site, syndication, tweetbacks, TweetSuite, twitter, WordPress

However, with the downturn in the economy (and my slightly-better-than-arbitrary prediction of a <7,000 point stock market by the end of the month…Spring Break at the latest), I figure it’s time to start taking into consideration other possible sources of income. Not for fear of losing my job, but rather to help get my bills in check Credit Cards, primarily, who have decided it is time to raise the minimum payment – which is the only thing enabling me to devote a greater portion of my money to one in order to pay it off, while keeping the others at par until it is their turn.

I only bring it up here, because selling coding services on a site dedicated to funny t-shirts and custom graphics doesn’t make a whole lot of sense…not logically, and not for SEO. So this seems like the most likely place such a service would be offered.

Taking into account everything that’s been going on in the news for the last few months, I have been considering offering a side-job service during weekend, and possibly evening hours, for creating RTML solutions for yahoo stores that don’t have the “luxury” of hiring an IT person capable of deducing how the big-shots do what they do, in the limited environment that Yahoo provides/imposes.

So, with that in mind, would anyone be interested in such a service? Any takers? Feel free to inquire about what kinds of scripts I can write – as well as posing suggestions for something you might like to see done – and we’ll go from there.

Technorati Tags: code, developer, economy, RTML, rtml solution, server, setup, site, solutions, website, yahoo, Zen Cart

You don’t have to worry about spam or anything – I don’t like it either.

In other news, I’m also working on a tutorial entry that describes how to get data from a Google Docs Spreadsheet. Normally, I wouldn’t worry about trying to release this code, but since it was such a pain for me to figure out (like the UT3 Server setup), I’m sure it’s a pain for others to figure out as well.

The code creates a secure-authenticated session to Google Accounts, and then requests the data from a particular cell on a spreadsheet. My code goes one step further though, and posts that data to Twitter – which means it also creates an authenticated POST request via the Twitter API.

“Why do that?’ you ask…Well, if you want to be able to update a spreadsheet from, say an iPhone or other Mobile Browser, Google Docs will not let you. But I’ll explain more in the coming entry. Be looking for that sometime this week (I hope).

Technorati Tags: api, beta, blog, Connect, google, server, site, Technology, ThePizzy, twitter, ut3

Of course, with any new technology I try to build or incorporate into something bigger, I first test it on my own site, the-spot.net, and then implement it elsewhere as intended.

Most of the work I had learned by reading “Professional AJAX” beforehand, and doing the XML-Http-Requests manually, and creating my own classes and such. But this time around, it was much simpler.

We implemented the Lightbox image overlay script, and found that it made use of the Prototype.js framework (for handling the asynchronous JavaScript calls) and Script.aculo.us for handling the animation of the overlaid image.

So I took it one step further, and decided to read up on the various ways to make use of these frameworks, and ended up calling all the various modules on the My Spot page of the-spot.net, it does create a problem for SEO-driven development.

If you’re looking for automatically updating content on a page that doesn’t have to change for it to happen, then you cause this code (once you include the prototype.js script in your page):

new Ajax.PeriodicalUpdater(‘products’, ‘/some_url’,
{
method: ‘get’,
insertion: Insertion.Top,
frequency: 1,
decay: 2
});

But while this code does the job to get your content updated automatically, at the given frequency in seconds (multiplied by the decay per each cycle containing unchanged content), the Google crawlers aren’t going to find it – because all that is on your page is this:

<div id=”products”></div>

…and that does not have any content in it for the Google crawlers and other search engine bots to read.

I’m still grappling with how to get content into that box for the crawlers to read, but not my users – and since my site is php-driven, I should be able to include the normal template includes enclosed in <noscript> tags:

<noscript>
<!-- INCLUDE “modules/module.html” -->
</noscript>

…in order for my pages to show content for the crawlers, but not my visitors – unless they have JavaScript turned off, of course. I’ll give it a shot though, and post more information later. I have to go back and re-edit my pages and templates to make sure they are still compliant with the original template architecture.

Technorati Tags: ajax, asynchronous javascript, code, decay, development, div, framework, frameworks, frequency, google, image overlay, insertion, JavaScript, Lightbox, noscript, PeriodicalUpdater, prototype, SEO-driven, technology, url, XHTML, xml http requests