Clarence's Blog

It's November......

2011-11-09T22:09:00.002+08:00

What would you do if you really love that someone ? but at the same time you are struggling trying to convince yourself that everything gonna be just fine ?..I understand that love is not about sleeping on a bed of roses all the time. Conflict happens..small misunderstanding leads to a big fight ..worst thing is when the relationship has to be end. Love can never be taught. You might learn the lesson, never the feelings. Love fails me many times. I don't understand why is it so difficult for me to give all my heart to someone special when I have so much love to give....Am i falling in love with a wrong person ? Am I not perfect enough ? I don't know exactly. Yesterday is just to hard for me to get through tomorrow....but I know..if i keep on believing..follow my instinct..it's never too late. Trying to understand, care about every little things..to love..to be loved..and be someone who can lead a way..always be there no matter good or bad times...you know..words are most of time easy to be said than done..a soft knock on the head, who am I to talk all about this?. I don't even know how to appreciate people. Who doesn't like to be appreciated for who you are, what you did and what you really mean to them ?..If I can appreciate someone, why is it so difficult for me to feel some appreciation in return ?.. I just need someone who can understand me, can change me..can love me..for who I am. Am I asking too much ??.....there were times when you feel down..but things happen for a reason..it just doesn't simply happen without any reason. It is normal not to talk to each other when your mood is down..but if the silence is being translated into a break up...i mean i can't stop people from thinking negatively..it's their rights to make a decision....I just don't know why make permanent decision on a temporary emotion...I hate to think all this..but i never blame anyone for what had happened. Perhaps it is just me that need a change, live up to people's expectations..trying even if it's hard..Well, yesterday was sweet..the smiles..the happiness..the craziness..the memories..the jokes..that dirty look..the tears...life's full of colors...When someone had written a beautiful melodies in your heart, you will never forget it the rest of your life. It hurts..memories are indeed hurt..but the present is not that bad at all..

This would be my last post for 2011...See you guys next year!..Merry Christmas :)..

A day to Remember

2011-09-15T10:12:00.000+08:00

I'd like to take this oppurtinity to thank the British North Borneo through its Cobbold Commission for made it to be part of Malaysia 5 decades ago..I'm proud to be Malaysian..I may not be fully aware of what Sept 16 all about ..something that i know, it's more than a public holiday..it's a day to remember..and never stop questioning..if we were two steps smarter that time..who knows, perhaps, we are a same level as Singopore or Brunei today..Selamat hari Malaysia in advance !!..

Retrieving email using PHP IMAP

2011-08-10T12:41:00.004+08:00

Today, I'll show you how to retrieve emails using PHP IMAP. it is quite simple and usefull. For those who are planning to develop a Help Desk kind of system wherby you want each incoming email gets converted into tracebale ticket, stay tuned. However, I teach best by showing you a real working code so that you can play and twist at your own risk. Kidding..

Here we go. Basically you will need to connect to your email server by using PHP IMAP library. I assumed you are familiar with some basic PHP array and you are good to go..

Create a file name php_imap.php.

copy and paste below code to your newly create php_imap.php file.



$mbox = imap_open("{mail.yourdomain.com:143}INBOX", "clay@domainname.com", "password");



echo "Mailboxes\n";

$folders = imap_listmailbox($mbox, "{mail.yourdomian.com:143}", "*");



if ($folders == false) {

    echo "Call failed
\n";

} else {

    foreach ($folders as $val) {

        echo $val . "
\n";

    }

}



echo "Headers in INBOX\n";

$headers = imap_headers($mbox);



if ($headers == false) {

    echo "Call failed
\n";

} else {

    foreach ($headers as $val) {

        echo $val . "
\n";

    }

}

imap_close("{mail.yourdomain.com:143}INBOX", "clay@domainname.com", "password");

Run your php_imap.php to see the result.

And you are done. Feel free to ask me if you have any curiosities regarding this. Have a nice day!!

Malaysia Today

2011-07-07T10:38:00.000+08:00

I don't think the government has been doing bad for the country so far. In fact, we are better compared to other developing countries. But,if the government more transparent, less corruption, the courage to make a change, respect the constitution, no double standard, I think we can improve a lot and Rakyat will be getting what supposed to be their rights. Do you think TV3 news gonna tell people who's the Malaysia 3 richest people ? Do you think police permits will be issued to BERSIH ? Do you think Ahmad Sarbani "sendiri jatuh" dari bangunan SPRM ?...don't speculate. Just treat this as a wake up call !!.

November again!

2010-11-13T20:55:00.002+08:00

Woww..My last post was five months ago. Thanks god I'm still alive. So what's up everybody ? I guess life has changed a lot since then. So am I. Whether it's a good transformation or the other way around, it's really a different story. Things happen for a reason, so don't think too much. Be happy instead.

Well, I don't know what am I going to write here. On the Programming side or IT related things, actually I have a lot of new cool things I wanted to share but I think not today. Yes, I'm not a real man. Real man walk the talk. Hehe...

Oh my, don't remind me. I know it's November. Soon we will be celebrating Christmas. I can say it's just around the corner. But i guess my Christmas this year will not be the same as last year. I think I'll be celebrating it alone or maybe with friends, with family, with someone special ? maybe yes, maybe no...But for sure, it's gonna be a meaningful Christmas celebration for me as I'll take that as a way to conclude everything that happened to me throughout the year of 2010. A lot of things. priceless memories. Nightmare. Friends. Career. Improvement. Love. Happiness and a lot more.

To all my friends, thanks for being there when I need you the most. I still remember one day, when I was in trouble, you guys helped me a lot. I really appreciate that. And not forgetting to the person who had teach me a lot of things. I will never forget that for the rest of my life. Thanks and sorry for everything.

Officially, This will be my last post for this year. My few words, don't worry because of the mistakes you have done in the past. They will always trying to understand and forgive you. It's OK if things can never be reverted back. The most important thing is, we try to learn from mistake by not doing the same mistake again and again. Some people never learn and don't be that kind of person.

Alright, see you guys next year!!..

What's up ?

2010-05-14T16:33:00.002+08:00

So what's up?..Month of May already took place. Month of happiness, meaningful especially to all the dusun/kadazan in Sabah. I can feel the heat. Towards the end of this month, I'm sure there will be a lot of celebration here and there. People are busy doing preparation, relatives from far away going back to their hometown and ya..new chapter in life waiting to be created..wonderful isn't it ?

Well, nothing much difference compared to last year..just that, this month, this year, a few of my friends are getting married. Congratulations to them. My words, welcome to the new chapter in life..always remember that, every second counts. People are changing over time. What sweet today might not be sweet forever..so before saying these two meaningful words 'I do'..make sure you really mean it..again, may all the happiness be with you guys..looking forward to rock the party!!...

This 2 months remaining, I will be making a big decision which determine my career movement. I've made a decision and i hope i will be happy with it. I mean everyone has to make a decision..you don't want to stay at the same level. Right? ..I personally don't want to be a programmer for the rest of my life..enough with 4 or 5 years. People surrounding inspires me, and i'm going to take the challenge..

Happy harvest festival!!..

Just stopped by...

2010-03-23T16:14:00.001+08:00

Well, since my last post, I haven't seen a drop of rain. Kota Kinabalu, previously used to be green, clean, fresh city but now turned yellow and surrounded by haze, fire burning everywhere. I wonder how long we have to wait before the rain come down and clean the earth..

Looking at my desk calender, another 8 days to go before month's end. Means we had just reached the first 4 months (1 out of 3) in this prosperous 2010. What does it mean to me ? it means nothing but something. Apart from getting older, enjoying life like there is no end of the day, this blog is getting obsolete. I have to realize that this is part of the human life cycle...ok enough said..I'll be back when I have something cool to share..good day people.

Well, nothing serious

2010-03-15T11:57:00.002+08:00

Ohh..look at me...it's been 2 months since my last post. No update for few months, I guess that's terrible. Well, as we progress, as time goes, you'll learn a lot of things especially in everyday life. I used to write almost everything about Computer programming stuff here in my blog. No other purpose, but it's kind of sharing. When I learn new stuff, it's my pleasure to share it with others.

Ohrait, enough said. Today post, i don't want to talk about it..(i don't even understand what I'm talking)..haha..lets talk about real life. Well, too many things happened in the past few months. Firstly, yeah everybody talks about this..complaining like there is no tomorrow..shit there shitt here..like we all don't know..the weather in town at the moment might reached 35 Celsius. Can you imagine how hot the weather is ? even SK II no more can protect your skin from sun burn..(kidding)..anyway, instead of keep complaining, lets thanks god for what He gave to us. In some countries, like Saudi Arabia, the temperature is about 50 degree Celsius..you have no idea how good our life here in Malaysia...(bila la hujan ni ahh..hehe)..

Tips of the day:

1.Let say you want to look for a definition of a word that you don't know it's meaning. Like for example; do you know the meaning of 'tontolou' ? If you really want to know, go to Google home page and type as follow;

define tontolou

2. If you want to know the weather here in Kota Kinabalu, type as follow;

weather kota kinabalu

3. If you want to know the current time, type as follow;

time kota kinabalu

4. This one is cool, if you forgot to bring your calculator, don't worry. Go to Google hope page, and start calculating!! 500 * 12 = ?. In the search box, type as follow;

500 * 12

Cool!!!

There are so much cool things you can do with Google. Love it. Live with it..hehe

again, what's the meaning of tontolou again ?

MYSQL:Select/display all years between two years

2010-01-13T09:27:00.001+08:00

How one can select all of the years between two years?

For example, given the start year 2007 and the end year 2010, I want to return:

2007
2008
2009
2010

Yeah..in mysql, there are 2 steps of doing this;

step 1: create a numbers table


CREATE TABLE numbers (n INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY);
INSERT INTO numbers (n) VALUES 
 (0),(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9),...;

make sure there are as many numbers as you have for the largest gap of years

step 2: your query


SELECT 2007 + n AS year
    FROM numbers
 WHERE 2007 + n <= 2010

..and you're done!!

Mysql Temporary table

2009-12-03T14:51:00.003+08:00

Ok, It's been quite a while I have been idle from writing anything here. A lot of things went on and i almost forgot to drink my beer. Haha. Ok, So today we are going to get our hands dirty with one of the simple and significant mysql functions which is how do we create TEMPORARY table. In some situations, temporary table is the only solution to a problem. He were go;

1. Creating a database;

mysql>create database myproj;
mysql>use myproj;

2. Creating a temporary table:
mysql>CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE student(id int not null auto_increment, name varchar(100),unique (id));

Ok done. Pretty simple huh ?? How about insert data into the newly created temporary table ? follow me..

3. Insert data
mysql>INSERT INTO student (name) values ('clarence');

and you are good to go. Just output the table;
mysql>select * from student;

Whoa......mantapsiall!! have a nice day !!

November Rain

2009-11-02T10:38:00.002+08:00

Came into office today and my desk Calendar reminds me that it's now month of November. Another 2 months to go before the end of 2009. Now, the question is, Are we ready for 2010's resolution ?..people out there keeps talking about all those fancy new technologies, move out the old way of doing things and now thinking semantic-ly. Well, what I'm trying to say is, life is getting better and perfect as time goes by..we are no longer talking about performance, but productivity. We all knew that good performance leads to better productivity..but in real life, that convention is no longer applicable but still doable. No big deal. Now, it's useless when you have all those expertise under your belt but didn't fully utilize it. People dont ask question about what are you good at ? they'll ask you on what have you done..as 2010 is taking place soon, lets get started!!

It's time to be more opportunist, stay competitive and be more productive !! ..

Joke for today
Don't buy a car made on Monday especially cars manufactured in the US. Sebab kebanyakan engineer masih 'kogutan' lagi disebabkan enjoy all night long the night before. So the chances of doing mistakes are higher. Kerana mereka bekerja tidak 100 % waras.. hahaha..it's true ! In US, they knew about this..oh wait, so did I..

Worth some thought...

2009-10-30T10:44:00.003+08:00

Recently, I have heard a lot of people involved in a car crash. More seriously, there are a few cases which causes injuries and death. Some people may still remember their past, losing their loved ones, because of involved in a car accident. This is something that we can't predict whenever we're on the road. Everything can happen in just a matter of seconds. Sometimes, we really drive our car carefully, but then still get hit by others. What the heck!!

Well, especially guys out there, don't ever drink & drive! Because when you're drunk, there is no way you can control your car very well. The worst case, you woke up and realized that you were in ICU, if you're lucky. Else, you'll find yourself in hell without had a chance to say good bye to someone you wish!

So, let's together be a good driver. Though bad things can happen to good people, anytime, anywhere, but better & always be careful while on the road.

I guess you don't want your lovely car turns into ugly '100 pounds Gorilla' like below;

(Sekadar Gambar Hiasan)

So, Love your body, remember your loved one !!

Happy tuesday

2009-10-13T09:58:00.000+08:00

The animals of a jungle have decided to hold a meeting. The lion has come, the tiger has come, the elephant has come, the monkey has come.. But The meeting hasn't started. Guess why ? Because the DONKEY!! is busy reading this blog !

hehehe..ok get back to work..nothing serious..

Drink water while diving

2009-10-06T14:49:00.002+08:00

You get RM5.00 (could be more) in just a couple of weeks ? wow..you did absolutely nothing but at the end of the day you get paid. That's amazing man! Who on earth gonna give you money for free ?, i don't and i bet you wont!. I was actually talking about an ads that can be attached in a website/blog. When visitors visit your blog and clicking on your ads (sometimes not necessary), you'll get paid based on their clicks. The more unique traffic goes to your website, will make it rank better. There are a few ways of getting traffic to your website the right way (not exactly the right way) everyday. One way is, force all of your friends to visit your website. There are a few active bloggers that I knew had started something to promote their blogs. Teruskan usaha !!

For those of you who happened to be here, thanks for reading or just dropped by. Don't forget to leave some comments on my shout box. Just say something. Nothing serious. Life is too short to take everything so serious..hehe..get some fun!!

Well, that is it for today. Have a nice day friends!

Best wishes

2009-09-18T14:22:00.000+08:00

Well, Hari Raya is just around the corner!! I want to take this opportunity to wish Happy Hari raya to all my Muslim friends on earth. Maaf zahir & Batin !!

Last but not least, if you guys have an open house invitation, don't fail to remember ring my mobile phone. Hehehe..

Again, Selamat hari raya!!

Heroku - Instant Ruby Platform

2009-09-11T11:17:00.003+08:00

It's time to talk about cool thing in Heroku. I believe you guys especially Ruby on Rails programmer out there knew HEROKU!. It is all about cool place to deploy any of your cool web projects. It is free indeed. However, getting up your first project with Heroku is not really a straightforward process. You will get to know a few things. Let me just list them;

1. Git
Git is a free & open source, distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Good enough ? OK let's move on..

2. a PC running under Linux OS
Yes, this is compulsory. Too bad. Meaning to say, I don't have a guide for windows OS users. Sorry.

3. A working Rails application

4. A glass of cold Tiger Beer..hahaha

Before that, make sure that git is already installed on your system. If not, go to git website and download the latest stable release of GIT.

In your terminal, just type below command;

$rails myapp

$cd myapp

$ git init

$ git add .

$ git commit -m "new app"

$ heroku create
Enter your Heroku credentials.
Email: joe@example.com
Password:
Git remote heroku added

$ git push heroku master

$ heroku rake db:migrate

And that's all!! Your application is now running live!!..so it's time to drink your beer!! enjoy.

Happy Tuesday!

2009-09-08T16:42:00.001+08:00

It's September!! reminds me of the song called wake me up, when September end. Well, gone through quite a busy life recently. My days were full with commitments. That's why you'll see my blog always on sleeping mode. Poor me!! Well, thinking back, it's been almost 2 years I have been living with this blog. I created this blog for the purpose of learning process. I learn best through reading and writing. And most of the time, sharing. Life as a programmer, you know it's not always fun. I get used to it and so far, life has been so great. But to be honest, I'm not impressed with the year of 2009. My progress was a bit slower compare to last year. Maybe it's because I have been forced to do things I don't really enjoy doing it..but who cares right ? well..the fact is, I'm happy..hehe..happy Tuesday people!!

Project A

2009-07-31T15:43:00.002+08:00

Ok, have you guys ever thinking of doing some investment ? It could be money investment ? Project-based investment or you wiling to buy something with hope that after certain amount of time, you'll get something in return ? I personally would say yes since I've started something and we're positive about it. We have just started it but whenever I think about it, I'm just so excited. Let's just call it 'Project A'. For those who's in the group, you know what we going to do and hopefully by the end of this year, we could get it up and running. Remember, we are now left behind and I guess this is not what we want right ? So let's work as a team and achieve what we have planned.

Computer Language.....

2009-07-30T14:15:00.000+08:00

Husband: Good Evening Dear, I'm now logged in
Wife: Have you got the grocery ?
Husband: Bad command or filename
Wife: But i told you in the morning
Husband: Erroneous syntax . . Abort ?
Wife: What about my new TV ?
Husband: Variable not found . . .
Wife: At least, give me your Credit Card. I want to do some shopping.
Husband: Sharing Violation. Access denied . . .
Wife: Do you love me or do you only love computers or are you just being funny.
Husband: Too many parameters
Wife: It was a great mistake that I married an idiot like you.
Husband: Data type mismatch
Wife: You are a useless nut.
Husband: By default . . .
Wife: What about your salary ?
Husband: File in use . . . , Try after some time.
Wife: Who was in the car this morning ?
Husband: System is unstable. Press CTRL ALT DEL to reboot.
Wife: What is the relation between U and your Receptionist ?
Husband: Only user in my WRITE group.
Wife: What is my value in the family ?
Husband: Unknown virus.
Wife: I will leave you forever.
Husband: Close all programs & log out for another user.
Wife: It is worthless talking to you.
Husband: Shut down.
Wife: I'm now going.
Husband: It's now safe to turn off your computer.

Above conversation is just a joke. but inside, you'll learn something about a man. So don't marry a Computer programmer..or a person who crazily in love with Computer. Hehe..happy Thursday!!

Happy wednesday

2009-07-08T09:30:00.000+08:00

I'm back! Since Google apps (Gmail) has finally out of beta version, I finally decided to create my very first Gmail account. Done, and ya, it was cool. I liked the interface and it's flexibility. I know Im a bit late into Gmail. It is because I already have my official yahoo mail and of course I dont like to manage more than 2 or three email account. But, from now on, I'll be using this new created gmail account as my secondary email. Should you have any enquiries regarding anything, be it a question or some sort of information, just send me an email. If it is a question, I'll try my best to answer where possible. So here is my email address;

mrclarenceclay(at)gmail(dot)com

Have a nice day !!

Today's Joke

2009-07-07T17:14:00.001+08:00

Wel...what a busy life!! so why don't we spend a moment to read something funny..hehe..(if you find it funny la)..enjoy reading!!

A fellow decided to decorate his bedroom. He wasn't sure how many
rolls of wallpaper he would need but he knew that the Irishman
who lived next door had recently done the same job and the two
rooms were identical in size.

"Murphy," he asked, "How many rolls of wallpaper did you buy for
your bedroom?"

"Ten" said Murphy.

So the fellow bought the ten rolls of paper and did the job. It
looked wonderful, but he had 2 rolls of wallpaper left over.

"Murphy," he said. "I bought ten rolls of wallpaper for the
bedroom, but I've got 2 left over!"

"Dat's funny," said Murphy. "So did I."

Ruby on Rails

2009-06-11T09:41:00.001+08:00

Good day everyone! I love the weather today, Cloudy!. As for what Oiga has requested, he wants to know what is Ruby on Rails. I'm glad you're asking about that Oiga. Ok, Let me describe a bit more what is Ruby & what is Rails. Ruby is a programming language. Means, It is a language which computer can understand. Rails is a web framework. So Ruby on Rails is a tool for creating a web-based applications. Dia lebih kurang macam PHP, cuma PHP dia guna scripting language so beza sikit ja la. If your organization is planning to use Ruby On Rails, then I'm pretty sure you're going to develop a website. All you need is install the ruby and Rails and of course, programming skills are mandatory needed. Hope this helps and good luck OIGA.

Streamyx new package with Fixed line

2009-05-28T08:47:00.001+08:00

Good day everyone. I hope all of you are in a very good mood today. This beautiful Thursday morning, I've just received an email from CEO and it's all about this Streamyx new package. I feel like it is also better to share it in here.

If you are using Streamyx package at home, please take note there is a new package which is cheaper and offer better facility

1. Package RM44/ month with 512K- Limited access
2. Package RM66 / month with 512K- Unlimited access
3. Package RM88 / month with 1MB. Unlimited access

On top of that, you can tag in your fix line telephone at RM10/month for unlimited Local and National call.

Normal fixed line is RM38/month - for local call only, anything you call outstation it is chargeable.

P/S: The package changing process is simple, just go to any TM branch nearest to you or you can go to TM at Sadong Jaya. It only take less than 15 minutes.

Happy Wednesday

2009-05-27T09:54:00.001+08:00

There was a time when I was a barMan. It was back to 5 years ago. You know, worked as a barman before is a great experience I've ever had. I went through with lots of wonderful moment and I'll never forget them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an expert liqueur brandy drinker nor cocktail mixer man. At that time, mixing up tequila sunrise, long island, margarita, Singapore sling, bloody Mary, blue Hawaii, you name it..all those cocktails are under my belt. But now, i can't even remember any. You know la, I'm now too old to remember. But I love and miss to drink the Triple sec & Cointreau. Sweet!!. The taste is just mar ve lous!!

Now back to work..hehe..

Happy Wednesday!!

Tips of the day

2009-05-26T09:51:00.002+08:00

Some of you may already been practicing this while searching over the internet. Ya again I'm promoting Google. I want to be a Google hacker but johnny Long said don't!. Ok, 2 searching tips for today.

1. Using inurl
Let say you want to search for the URL that contain the word clarenceclay. Or you might want to know whether I own a website or not, just Google below syntax;

inurl:clarenceclay

Let say you want to search for the url that contain the word clarenceclay and mention the word “beer” anywhere in the document, fire up below query;

inurl:clarenceclay beer

Now you know how to hack my blog..use it for good. Hehe.

2. Using intitle

This one is pretty the same with inurl. But this one is for searching by website's title. Lets try search for..what ah...em..

intitle:facebook | clarence clay

OMG..I got Facebook!!

Actually there are a lot more searching tips, but we learn one by one okay! Remember, Google hacking is using Google in creative ways to find information not hacking Google. So do not evil. Practice it, enjoy searching..bye!!

Learning & Sharing

2009-05-21T16:29:00.002+08:00

Initially, I started this blog to express everything what I've learned especially in a world of web development. In early day of blogging, I mostly shared a lot about Ruby on Rails. I know you might asking me what is Ruby on Rails all about? Ruby is an Object oriented programming language where it is similar to Python whereby Rails is a web framework build on top of Ruby. In the past 2 or 3 years, Rails has became popular and programmers from all around the world keeps talking about it.

Although I'm a programmer, honestly speaking being a programmer in not only about reading & writing codes. Most of the time, I am involved in a complete System development life cycle. It covers from what operating systems being used, Databases, Web Servers, Application servers, you name it.

When it comes to system integration, we mostly talks about web services (blogspot uses web service to talk to other website). Now we are in web 2.0 technology where websites are fully integrated with AJAX requests and lots more powerful tools. It includes search capabilities and also reporting. When we talk about reporting, we are actually talking about BI (not Bahasa Inggeris). It's known as Business Intelligence. This BI is still new to me as I've just gone through with it and I'm still in a process of learning.

OK enough said, What actually I'm trying to say is "learning & Sharing". Honestly speaking, I'd always love to share my knowledge whenever necessary. I might not be able to write a full A-Z tutorial on something that I can think of. But if you happen to read my blog, and you want me to share & write about something you want to know. I'll make an effort towards that. In that way, we can learn together. In the meantime, I'll also blog about what's going on in my life as long as I'm still alive. Hehe.

That's all for today. Thanks for reading.

Life is uneasy..

2009-05-20T10:11:00.000+08:00

A month have gone since my last post on this blog. It is enough to tell that I really have limited time to do blogging lately. I have to give full commitment to the non-web apps projects that I'm handling right now. Most of them are completed. But as what I always tell to myself, never be content with just getting something done. So I'm trying to Always strive for a better way to do things. (I learnt this from my senior).

Ya, it's not easy being in a life nowadays. If we are not strong enough, don't even think of tomorrow. Sometimes, I spend a moment to think back whether I'm in a right direction or not. Few days ago, a friend of mine told me a story that did scared me a bit. He said he sold his car twice just to cover all his debt. He's a good and hard working person that I knew. I guess sometimes there is a situation when we work hard but get less in return. Well, that's life. That is what I meant by always strive for a better life.

For me, life is like playing a chess. We keeps on thinking every moment. At the same time, we also running out of time. At the end of the day, only the strongest will survive.

Not forget to mention, Happy Kaamatan to all who celebrating it!!!

Proton Exora

2009-04-16T15:46:00.000+08:00

As you probably already knew, Proton has just launched it's latest MPV car called Exora. The launching was done yesterday by our beloved prime minister. My first impression, The Proton Exora looks quite good. Its interior and exterior design was next to perfect. Well done Proton. The price for this Exora is below 70K which is reasonable price I guess. Feels like I want to change car. Haha. But since Im more to "need for speed" type of person, I canceled my plan. But overall, Siapa-siapa yang bercadang mahu beli Avanza, please think twice. Support our local products dengan membeli Kereta buatan Malaysia. Beli la Proton Exora.

IT vacancy in Sabah

2009-04-15T11:53:00.001+08:00

If you are a programmer who knows Apache, Mysql , and PHP and still looking for a job preferably in Sabah, there is a good company looking for a programmer in case you don't know yet. Just Check it out below link

Programmer

And if you are familiar with Linux/Windows server infrastructure especially in network/server configurations and troubleshooting, I believe you are the one they are looking for. Just Check it out below link

Network/Systems Engineer

Bah, apply saja!

Happy Weekend !!

2009-04-03T17:03:00.000+08:00

It's Friday again. So what's the big deal? haha! well, first week of April, time goes by very fast doesn't it ? That's it. From my side, so many things happened within the past couple of weeks. Life keeps changing towards better. Continuously.. But I don't know why I'm so lazy to blog lately. Start from next week, I'll be handling a part of a banking system that we have currently. Interesting part is, this project was just handed over to me. So I can say, I only know 60 % of the whole system. I really hate when it comes to reading and try to understand other people's code. Sometimes, very simple things become complicated. Why write this;


   if params[:first_name].blank?
     name = params[:last_name]
   else
     name = params[:first_name]
   end

if can do it in just 1 line only


name = params[:last_name] || params[:first_name]

So ya, forget about it, think about what's cool this weekend ? I think I'll go to the place that I never been before (Still inside Sabah la). Hey mansau-ansau oku..hahaha..

Have a Nice weekend ok !!

Apple products banned from the Gates household

2009-03-26T08:47:00.002+08:00

The big man in Microsoft prevent their kids from using iPods and iPhones ? Haha! This is all about PC vs Mac wars. Interesting isn't it ? That's what is going on in computer industry nowadays. Personally, I would prefer go for Ubuntu since it is free. But windows is not bad what. Just that, When it comes to business point of view, you know la. Haha!

Continue reading...

Apple products banned from the Gates household

Should Microsoft become more Apple-like?

Microsoft vs. Apple: Beware of your 'killer instinct'

Empty Updates..

2009-03-25T18:14:00.003+08:00

Nothing much to share in this post as I don't have useful information to post for today. This week, I'm away from my normal boring job because I'm attending the Microsoft Windows server 2003 active directory training. It was a good training and if you want to be a systems engineer, this is 1 of 7 courses you have to take. Different story, ya, this is my last day 'naik bas' going to work. hehe..I think for the past 2 weeks, sy naik bas saja pergi kerja and pulang rumah. I have to take 2 buses everyday for 2 weeks you know. Tapi bagus jugala..sepanjang naik bas pergi kerja, banyak benda2 baru yang saya jumpa everyday. Saya selalu terserampak dengan kawan lama, kawan baru tiap2 pagi time p keja..even kawan satu Universiti yg tidak pernah bertegur time di Uni dulu pun sekali terserempak di KK.."eh, macam kenal".....Pernah juga ada ni satu bas saya naik terlanggar dengan satu kereta..it was happened this morning..eh it doesn't mean that I've just bought a brand new car ah (how i wish)..cuma kereta lama diberi nafas baru saja..hahah..so that's all for today's story..

Tips for job interview

2009-03-16T19:02:00.002+08:00

I might sound like an expert on this matter but far from the sky, I’m not. Because I also failed in a few interviews I have had attended before. But, I think there is no wrong if I’m going to share some of the so-called 'interesting parts' when we go for job interview. Actually, most of the time, it's completely depends on what kind of job you're applying, what are the interviewer's expectations towards you and how much salary you willing to accept. Hence, let's look at below scenarios;

1. Find your field of expertise
It is always important for us to identify the areas that we expert at. So every time the interviewer asks you a questions, you should be able to answer confidently (like YB shows his/her janji manis during election campaign). When an interviewer ask you a question that is out of your mind (means you knew nothing about it), never pretend that you know and don’t start making bombastic words. Most of the time, it doesn't works. In large enterprise company like Petronas, or Maxis, they don’t really look for a person who can do multitasking. What they need is the person who expert in particular field of job. For small medium size of company, yes, they need a person who can perform multiple jobs.

2. Think of something which can make your interviewer impressed not depressed
This is a tricky part that we have to learn. There is an old saying that ‘First Impressions are Very Important '. How true is that? For me, the first word come out from your mouth is also matter. Imagine you are now staring and sitting next to a beautiful girl you never spoken before. Then she suddenly greets you with a word "30 bang". What do you think? I believe your feelings will drop drastically......So you know what I mean...

3. Jual mahal
Hahaha... is often applicable. Suppose you ask for a thousand in term of salary. That is the minimum salary you willing to sacrifice. In this case, don’t let the employer offer you a salary that is below your minimum expectation. Normally they will try to negotiate you with a very low salary at first. So don’t simply say yes. Otherwise you'll regret. You should be able to tell them why they worth to pay you with that particular amount of salary.

There are lots more but I just can’t think of all of them at the moment. Actually all those been said are very basic stuff that sometimes we forgot to take care of. It is my pleasure to warmly remind all of us that to find a job with decent pay is not that difficult if we really know the real meaning of ‘the small fish in a big pond’

Happy Friday

2009-03-13T12:41:00.003+08:00

I guess this week is the most memorable week for those who just received their spm or stpm results. Some got unexpected result, some end up with tears, smiling, and so on. I personally impressed when I heard that there is a student got 20A's. What a happiest person on earth. Then I started to think, is today's generation is better/smarter than us ? or the level of difficulty in spm/stpm examination has gone down? or is this what we called 'zaman sudah berubah, dunia sudah maju' ?. Whatever it is, we should proud of them who have had good results. They deserved it.

This month also becomes so busy for those students because they most probably in a middle of applying for entering University. I'm pretty sure they had been in a dilemma situation because of they don't really sure what course to choose. Too many choices.

For science stream students who loves computer programming or anything related to IT, I recommend you to go for software engineering or networking. Frankly speaking, we don't have a good university which very good in teaching/producing an IT expert/engineer/programmer in Malaysia. Too Bad. So, please be smart when choosing the right course and the right university. It is in your hand.

Happy Friday.

Paperclip plugin

2009-03-10T18:14:00.002+08:00

I know I'm a bit left behind on this but If you're just like me, still looking for a best file upload plugin that works with Rails, here it goes. I've been using the super old file_column plugin for a while but end up with finding another plugins. Just got my hands dirty with attachment_fu but I'm still not happy with it. At last I found this super simple and nice paperclip plugin. It's very simple to use and I very much like it. You just need to install imageMagic or Rmagic and you're ready to fly.

You can install & download Rmagick here and here is the documentation to start with paperclip. Ryan also has a nice screencast covering the beauty of paperclip. It's worth reading. Good Luck!

Searching through sphinxSE

2009-03-04T12:28:00.005+08:00

It's been a fairy busy week here in my place lately, So today I'm going to show you how one can embed search functionality in their web application. I believe most of us are using Google as our primary searching tool. Hey, Google is one of the powerful search engine ever exist on earth you know. So, you should impress, at least.
Don't ever tell me that you can easily implement search functionality in your apps by using below statement;


SELECT * FROM users where full_name = 'clarence clay'

Above sql statement looks OK, but when you're running above query on a table with billion or trillion records, don't even think you will get the results in very short time. You have been warned. So we came out with the full-text search solution. Meaning to say, you can search whatever you want. Be it a Phrase search, Boolean search or it can be any kind of search terms. So it's a right time for me to introduce this lovely Sphinx full-text search engine. For those who work as database administrator or expert, sphinx is definitely not a new thing for you.

Enough said, you may want to read on how to install sphinxSE on MYSQL database. Make sure everything has been properly configured before we go to the next level. As I always said, make sure your brain is in gear mode. OK, Once you've gotten this far you're probably itching to go. But before that, I'd like to mention what are the basic principles (how full-text search works) that we have to at least have in mind.

1. Indexing
You may be familiar with the word indexing. In every book you read, there is a section at the end of the page called index. it's purpose is to provide easy and faster way to search whole content of the book. Same thing goes to search engine. It's just a matter of converting the idea from manual to computerized system. In a couple of minutes, I'll show you how to index your database using sphinx.

For your information, sphinx work well with PHP. So PHP folks out there, why wait, give Sphinx a try. Else, you will left far behind.

OK, I'll go through with creating a simple mysql database in order to test the brilliant Sphinx. But before that, my apologize for not being loyal to windows OS because this tutorial is absolutely based on Linux OS. (Mac users used to laugh at windows users, but Linux folks used to laugh at both mac & windows users -old joke).

OK, open up your terminal and log in to mysql server

You can use phpmyqdmin or query browser to go to the mysql server. It is up to you. But I prefer text-based, you know, command lover. OK, I'll create a database call sphinx and 2 tables call users and profiles.


[root@clarence.com.my ~]# /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -u -p 

Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 1401
Server version: 5.0.51b Source distribution

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> create database sphinx;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.03 sec)

mysql> use sphinx;
Database changed
mysql> create table users( 
-> id integer not null auto_increment, 
-> login_name varchar(50), 
-> password integer, 
-> created_at datetime, 
-> primary key (id)
-> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec)

mysql> create table profiles(
    -> user_id integer,
    -> full_name varchar(50),
    -> address varchar(500),
    -> email varchar(15));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql>

OK, we have done with creating a database with two tables. Of course these tables are empty since there is no data inserted yet. But basically as you can see, these two tables are joined by parent-child relationship. Sometimes we need to know the information from both tables. So we join the two tables into one single sql statement. This statement will then be use for indexing the database later.

To join the users & profiles tables, we use sql join statement as shown below;


SELECT login_name, full_name, address, email 
FROM users
LEFT OUTER JOIN profiles on profiles.user_id = users.id

I wont explain further on the sql syntax I'm using above as I assumed you have enough knowledge in mysql database. So back to our Sphinx, it is time to index the database that we have created. go to the directory where sphinx has been installed. In my case, it installed under /usr/local/sphinx directory.


[root@clarence.com.my ~]# cd /usr/local/sphinx/etc
[root@clarence.com.my etc]# cp sphinx.conf.dist sphinx.conf
[root@clarence.com.my etc]# nano sphinx.conf

edit it to look like below;


source src1
{
 type     = mysql
 sql_host    = localhost
 sql_user    = root
 sql_pass    =
 sql_db     = sphinx
 sql_port    = 3306
    sql_query    = \
  SELECT login_name, full_name, address, email \
        FROM users LEFT OUTER JOIN profiles on profiles.user_id = users.id
 sql_attr_uint   = 
 sql_attr_timestamp  = 
 sql_query_info   = SELECT * FROM users WHERE id=$id
}

index myindex
{
 source     = src1
 path     = /usr/local/sphinx/var/data/index1
 docinfo     = extern
 charset_type   = sbcs
}

indexer
{
 mem_limit    = 32M
}

searchd
{
 port     = 3312
 log      = /usr/local/sphinx/var/log/searchd.log
 query_log    = /usr/local/sphinx/var/log/query.log
 read_timeout   = 5
 max_children   = 30
 pid_file    = /usr/local/sphinx/var/log/searchd.pid
 max_matches    = 1000
 seamless_rotate   = 1
 preopen_indexes   = 0
 unlink_old    = 1
}

OK, save it. We have done with minimum sphinx configuration. Now go to


[root@clarence.com.my etc]# cd ..
[root@clarence.com.my etc]# cd bin
[root@clarence.com.my etc]# ./indexer --all

That's it. Pretty simple isn't it ? But how do we search the index ? We first create a table call sphinx_search.
Execute below syntax to create that table;


CREATE TABLE sphinx_search
(
    id          INTEGER NOT NULL,
    weight      INTEGER NOT NULL,
    query       VARCHAR(3072) NOT NULL,
    group_id    INTEGER,
    INDEX(query)
) ENGINE=SPHINX CONNECTION="sphinx://localhost:3312/myindex";

We are now getting closer towards the end. You might wanna know how do we apply this full-text sphinx search ? Don't ask because it is damn easy. Just use below query statement;


select users.id, login_name, full_name, address, email from users, sphinx_search 
left outer join profiles on profiles.user_id = users.id
where users.id = sphinx_search.id
and query = 'hello world'

And DONE!! you have successfully implemented full-text search in your application. Personally, I have been using sphinx a little while and I'm impressed with the performance. You'll consider using sphinx if you really need a solution for full-text searching or when you have a large collection of data in your databases. There are a lot of things about sphinx I didn't mentioned here, but treat this as a starting point not a destination. Life is just like that. You will need to learn more yourself.

That's all for today. Happy learning !

Happy Wednesday

2009-02-25T13:29:00.001+08:00

Hi, I'm writing something today just to say happy Wednesday to everyone. Being in a busy mode, it is never going to be an easy task for me to post another useful information here. I have a lot of other commitments especially with my current project. Having said that, life as a programmer always deal with something unexpected. Time is golden and you know that. I've been spending lots of my time working with something which required me to think beyond tomorrow. It's all about problem solving. Definitely, It's not a life related problems which I think even complicated than I ever thought. So, Happy Wednesday!!

An empty update..

2009-02-16T18:55:00.002+08:00

V-day has gone. Are you guys happy ? (smiling face). Well, I guess you are. Tapi ada juga yang sedih2 time V-day kan..well, that's life..things are not always as what we wanted it to be..who knows maybe one day, the light of happiness would be yours..it could be. So,let the past be the past (pandai2 ja sy ckp kan)..hahah..

For me, everything gone fine except for one thing, my current projects. I'm talking about my job. Well, currently, Me and my colleague are working on Pentaho (what the hell is this). It's a software for enterprise reporting and analysis. We are trying to integrate it into our current web Application. But It's been over a week now and everything seems to be not working properly. It is all java & jsp based and I don't even have basic in that languages. What the heck Man..mo buka kitab pun nda sempat sudah..end of feb mesti mo siap..But, that's not a big problem at all..what matters is that, how we goin to solve the problem..I like this challenge, indeed.

By the way, No rails related post for today. Just an empty update.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-13T18:37:00.003+08:00

She's the one who always think of me. She wants me to be happy and success in my life. There were some moments, when she cried because of me. No matter how bad I'm, she never stops loving me. I know I'm not a good person, far from perfect..but I promise, for the rest of my life, my generations..you will always in my mind. Sorry and thanks for everything Mum. I love you. Happy valentine's day!!

Man out there, please don't forget to buy your special someone a flowers. This is the opportunity for you to show how romantic you are. Be a gentleman !!

Love is in the air.....but my love is too far from the sky..what can i say..hahahah

Again, happy Valentine's Day and Have a nice weekend.

Joomla (PHP-based CMS)

2009-02-10T18:45:00.004+08:00

Today post, I'm going to show you how to install joomla on windows-based operating system. Anyone who planning to use joomla or anyone who want to test joomla on their own pc, stay tune. You are in a right place. Continue reading. All the basic steps and configurations here are pretty similar to how joomla work in live production. So it's always a best practice to test your web application in a development environment before running it live on the Internet. At the end of This tutorial, you will have a better understanding on joomla in action. Before we begin, you will need to download some pieces of software;

1. Php
2. Mysql
3. Apache

You will probably spend about an hour or two just to download the software. So while waiting..why don't you get yourself a cup of hot Milo.....

Oh stupid me..I don't like to make things so complicated. So we got an easy & lazy option. Forget about the software I mentioned above. You only need to download this wamp server. Get it here . Wamp stands for windows, apache, mysql adn php. Meaning to say we don't need to waste a ton of time installing these 3 software. Wamp server will do all the job for you.

I assumed that you have successfully installed the wamp server. At the bottom right of your pc, there is a small wamp icon & click on it. Click on "put online". This is to run the wamp server.

So far everything goes well ? if for some reasons you can't get everything up, stop and tell me what was the problem. else....

go download joomla here
Unzip it. Copy the unziped joomla folder and paste it here C:\wamp\www
Now open up your browser and point to http://localhost/joomla

If you can see the joomla index page, then you are the man because you have just set up your very own joomla cms.

Now it's time to start the joomla installation and configurations.

1. Choose language > choose your language preference. look for dusun if any..hahaha
2. Pre-installation Check > just go next...
3. License > just go next
4. Database configuration >
Database Type: mysql
Host Name:localhost
username: just leave it blank
password: just leave it blank
Database Name:joomla
4. FTP Configuration > leave it blank..just go next
5. Main Configuration >
Site Name: whatever you want it la..
Your E-mail: <-- whatever you want it la..
Admin Password: <-- whatever you want it la..
Confirm Admin Password: <-- whatever you want it la..
Please choose --> Install default sample data
and go next
6. Go to C:\wamp\www\Joomla and look for installation folder. Rename it to installation.bak

Finished!! Now you can start to explore joomla. go to here http://localhost/joomla/administrator/

Play with it!....

For the best cms, give drupal a try (the winner of the 2008 Overall Open Source CMS Award).

Have Fun!!

Happy weekend

2009-02-06T18:47:00.002+08:00

Last post before I'm goin to hibernate for two days. As usual, when it comes to weekend (saturday & sunday), I mostly trying to get myself away from sitting in front of the computer. Cukup2 la tu 5 hari dalam seminggu menghabiskan masa di depan komputer. Biarla hujung minggu saya menghabiskan masa dengan dunia luar..(haha) To summarize everything what D hell happened this week, to be honest, I'm stressed..hahaha..I've been working with lots of new technologies which totally new to me. But ya, I do like it. You know what, kadang2 bagus lagi penat sebab berlari 100 meter daripada penat berfikir!! You know what I mean.

Have a Nice weekend kawan-kawan!!

It's February babe

2009-02-03T09:19:00.002+08:00

It's been quite a long time since my last post about Ruby on Rails. There was so many recent updates and rails 2.3 is almost ready for release.


You can install the release candidate with:
gem install rails --source http://gems.rubyonrails.org

So rails programmers, let's together do thorough testing of this release candidate. Looks very promising! As for the time being, I'm still working with java-based search engine call Lucene. Damn it. It force me to learn java. I hope I can post something about this once everything set up.

Not forget to mention, we are now in month of February..time goes lightning fast..hopefully you guys had a much better day today than yesterday..happy working and stay tuned !!

6 random things about Me

2009-02-02T12:49:00.003+08:00

Link to the person who tagged you
Post the rules on your blog
Write six random things about yourself
Tag six people to your post and link to them
Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a
comment on their blog
Let the tagger know when your entry is up

I WAS TAGGED BY HoneyBUZZ

So here we go;
1. I'm not married yet (smiling)
2. Sometimes I'm talkative. Sometimes I'm a man who speaks only when necessary. Depends on who I'm talking to.
3. Most of the time, I don't share my problems with others.
4. I look 2 years older than my actual age (orang yang cakap, not me..huhu)
5. Apart from programming, I'm good in mixing different types of liquer, whisky or brandy. (tapi lupa2 sudah la..haha)
6. I'm not generally interested in fashion or particularly stylish. I enjoyed simple & casual life.
7. Ni rashia saya sebenar..oppsss..hanya 6 saja pula dibenarkan..so canceled. kuangkuangkuang!!

So, Who are the next 6 people I'm gonna give this lovely tag? I decided to tag the person who never SEE or MEET me in real. (Only friends on my bloglist)

1. Mell
2. Davelynne
3. Sumunie
4. Kengkaru
5. Hornbill

Only five of them..haha..good luck!!

Design your Web site using CSS

2009-01-30T15:35:00.004+08:00

As you know, CSS found everywhere inside between head and /head tag in HTML. Some web designers are good in designing but they do not know how to transform the design into a code in a way that web browsers can read it. Actually, it's easy to style your webpage using CSS. I'll show you the basic of how to do this. Ok, open up your favorite text-editor or you can happily use Notepad for this. We going to follow below standard weblayout for this project.

A standard web page layout has what we call body, whole page, header, navigation bar, sidebar and mainpage. It could be more. Below is the complete html code for this project. It's only take a few lines of code to do the design. You can easily do this by using drag & drop tools such as Macromedia Dreamweaver but believe me, it's very hard to maintain the code. The generated code also take hundred or even thousand lines of code and it's very hard to read. That's why I dont like it. Copy & paste the code into your Notepad and save it as myweb.html and open it to see what does it look like. Learn it, try it and have fun with it.


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
       "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
  <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
  <title>MyWebSite</title>
  <style type="text/css">
  
   body {
    font-family: sans-serif;
    background: yellow;
    margin: 0;
    text-align: center;
  }
 p, ol, ul, li,td {
    font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
    color: yellow;
    font-size:   13px;
    line-height: 18px;
    list-style-type: none;
  }
 #whole_page {
    width: 60em;
    margin: auto;
    padding: 0;
    text-align: left;
    border-color:  red;
    border:  dashed;
    height: 100%;
  }
 #header {
    color: white;
    background: purple; 
    font-size: 24pt;
    padding: 0.5em;
    margin-bottom: 0;
    height: 80px;
  }
 #nav {
    color: red;
    font-size: 10pt;
    font-weight: bold;
    background: blue;
    padding: 0.3em;
  }
 #nav a, #nav a:visited  {
    color: white;
    text-decoration: none;
  }
 #nav a:hover {
    border-bottom: 2px dotted maroon;
  }
 #content {
    height: 350px;
    background:  grey;
    padding: 1em;
  }
 #left_column {
    float:  left;
    width: 200px;
    background-color:pink;
    padding: 0;
    border: 1px solid #aaa; 
    height: 300px;
    text-decoration:underline;
  }
 #main_content {
    margin-left:  200px;
    text-align: justify;
    background-color:red;
    border: 1px solid #aaa; 
    height: 300px;
  }
</style>
</head>
<body>
 <div id="whole_page">

  <div id="header">Welcome to mysite.com</div>
   <div id="nav">
    <a href="/#">Home</a> |
    <a href="/#">About Us</a> |
    <a href="/#">Download</a> |
       <span style="float: right">

     <a href="/#">Login</a> |
        <a href="/#">Signup</a> |
       </span>

   </div>
   
   <div id="content">
    <p style="color: green"></p>
          <div id="left_column">

<ul>
<li><a href="/#">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="/#">About Us</a></li>
<li><a href="/#">Download</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="main_content">
 <p>What is HTML? It is a special kind of text document that is used by Web browsers 
 to present text and graphics. HTML documents are often refered to as "Web pages". 
 The browser retrieves Web pages from Web servers that thanks to the Internet, 
 can be pretty much anywhere in World.</p>

</div>
   </div>
 </div>

<small>Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.</small>
</body>

</html>

Happy Chinese New Year 2009

2009-01-23T17:38:00.004+08:00

Sempena tahun baru cina tahun 2009 ini, saya mengucapkan selamat tahun baru cina kepada seluruh warga cina, cino, dan rakyat malaysia umumnya. Semoga tahun ni 'fengsui' ada banyak bagus. Sempena tahun baru cina ini juga saya bercuti start dari esok sehingga la 28 Jan 2009. So, be happy, enjoy holiday and stay healthy!!

Special wishes from

Clarence
p/s: the picture taken 3years ago..hahaha.

HTML & CSS

2009-01-20T09:38:00.003+08:00

After done my blog walk to a few friend's site, I noticed that some of you are having problem with HTML or CSS. I must say that I'm proud of all of you. Because at least I know some of you are having hard time playing with HTML, CSS , or even JavaScript. Which is a good thing. I love to see more and more people who are good in HTML. So whenever you have free time, learn some basic HTML. Here is a good website where you can start learning web stuff in no time. I used to learn from this website when I first started my programming. Honestly speaking, HTML & CSS ain't hard to master. It's just a matter of time. With a basic knowledge in HTML & CSS, you can do a lot of modification or enhancement to your blog. Another things I like to mention, if you're looking forward for a better & faster web browser, give this a try.

p/s: Ohya, if you made HTML & CSS changes to your blog, please always do backup or save a working copy of your html script. So that whenever you encountered a problem, you can always restore back to the previous working script.

An empty update..

2009-01-19T18:25:00.003+08:00

Hi all..busy..busy..busy..itu la yang mampu saya katakan..sejak kebelakangan ni pun jarang ada masa untuk update blog. Masih ada hutang tag lagi ni..hehe..sorry la ya..nanti kalau ada masa I try k..kadang-kadang time di office saya tidak stress pun tiba2 jadi stress nampak colleague ke hulu ke hilir macam tu problem tidak pandai habis2..haha..anyway, thanks kawan2 sebab singgah2 di blog yang memboringkan ni..haha..stay cool, stay cute, and stay mantap ya!!

Another searching tips

2009-01-15T17:15:00.002+08:00

Type this in google search

*forgiv* drink*

This query finds unforgivable drinking and forgiven drinkers. The query does not find unforgiving nondrinkers, since there is no * at the beginning of the clue word drink*.

So you get the idea ? practice it, try it. Be a good searcher. Make google as your best friend but dont be a google hacker!! use it for good.

Some dirty searches you might be interested.

"Active Webcam Page" inurl:8080
index.of.dcim
filetype:ctt "msn"

for more searching tips, read this.

Informix Search Engine

2009-01-13T17:18:00.002+08:00

Today's post will be on Informix Database. Due to lack of documentations on the web, I decided to write a short tutorial on how to configure Informix database with Excalibur text search. It's all about search engine. If You have a need to implement a full text search in your web application, you are in the right place. Continue reading.

Requirements
1. Informix Dynamic Server 11.5
2. Excalibur 1.3
3. RedHat Linux Enterprise 4
4. Terminal
5. Knowledge in Informix database administrations (optional)

Ok, I assumed that you have installed the IDS and Excalibur DataBlade modules.
Well, installation part is not that difficult. But when it comes to configurations, make sure your brain is in gear 1. Otherwise, you will find your head banging against the wall. Next, if you have not created any dbspace or sbspace, you should create that first. To create a dbspace and sbspace, use the onconfig utilities;

The following example creates a dbspace named dbsp1 with an initial offset of 0 and a size of 100 MB:
onspaces -c -d dbsp1 -p /Dbspace/dbsp1 -o 0 -s 100000

The following example creates two sbspaces named sbsp1 with an initial offset of 0 and a size of 100 MB, and logging turned on:
onspaces -c -S sbsp1 -g 2 -p /SBspace/sbsp1 -o 0 -s 100000 -Df "LOGGING=ON"

Ok, done with db storage creation.

Now, edit your ONCONFIG parameter. Look for SBSPACENAME and set the value to sbsp1 (the sbspace that we just created).

Be sure to update the ONCONFIG file before start the database server.

Now, it's time to initialize your database SERVER. You can do this by using oninit function;

oninit -iv

Now your database server is started and can now use the dbaccess to create, select and drop databases.

OK, lets create a database call test. And create a table for this database call reports.


CREATE TABLE reports 
( 
doc_no INTEGER, 
author VARCHAR(60), 
title CHAR(255), 
);

Before you can perform text search, you need to register the datablade modules first. Type

blademgr
>help

see the command on how to register the modules. It's pretty much straight forward.

After the modules has been registered, you have to create an indexes. Each column you plan to search must be indexed.

The following example creates an etx index on the title column that is of type CHAR:

CREATE INDEX idx1 ON reports (title etx_char_ops) USING etx IN sbsp1;

Now with indexes and excalibur set up, you can fire a query to perform a full text search;


SELECT title FROM reports
WHERE etx_contains(title, Row(’get ready’)
);

And done ! That's all.

Rails Updates

2009-01-02T10:51:00.004+08:00

It's been a while I haven't post anything about Ruby on Rails. I didn't code anything in rails for the last couple of weeks and goodness, there are already a lot of updates from the edge rails. Meaning to say I need to keep myself always up-to-date. I've gone through all the updates and here are the major changes.

Merb is being merged into Rails 3.0
Rails 3.0 is not officially released yet but the main idea behind it is that Merb team is putting their efforts into bringing all of the key Merb ideas into Rails 3. For those who have no idea what's Merb all about, check this out!.

Anyway, Rails 2.3 is just around the corner and as soon as that’s done Rails 3 is going to kick ass. Seems like 2009 gonna kill me!! lol

GOODBYE 2008 AND WELCOME TO 2009

2008-12-31T13:00:00.003+08:00

(New Year is about 11 hours to go (last time of 2008) at this time of writing. I do it on purpose)

Impressive year of 2008 has gone. It is all over now. What left is an unforgotten wonderful memories that happened throughout the years. We gonna miss it. Now, we are in year 2009 and I can feel there are so many challenges waiting out there. Another prosperous year has just begun. What are my resolutions for this lucky year of 2009? Life is just wonderful and I’m sure nobody wants to live life like “the big fish in a small fond” isn’t it? If you know what’s that mean. For me, of course I have a lot of things in mind what should be done and what are my target and maybe a tiny part of my life have to be changed. OK, I will just summarize what are the things need to be done this year and onwards.

1. Further study
I am thinking about further study. I’m planning to take a Master in Software engineering. Since I'm a full time programmer, I have no choice but to take a class in every weekend only. I have not decided which University to go. I will decide later.

2. My job
I must say this is a big challenge for me everyday. I have less than 2 years experience in programming especially in web development and that is still not enough to determine my future. So I think I will not change my job for the time being unless there is really good opportunity. I can say my life is all about gamble. There are only two probabilities. If or Else!!

3. Myself on weight
Apparently, I’m very observing with my weight. Weight keeps finding me whenever I’m trying to lose them. But never mind. I’m trying hard this year to lose about 10KG. That should be OK I guess.

4. Myself on Love
I’m not married yet anyway. But when the time comes, I must think about it. Who on earth doesn’t want to have own family? Love is not my first priority this year as I need to concentrate more on my career. It is just too complicated for me for the time being. Do I have gf? I should not talk about this here. It’s too personal or rather complicated. But honestly, I have no idea about this. Let fate decide which way to go.

5. Myself on life
I’m happy with my life now. I have a lot of good friends and really had a good time with them. I don’t know what they think about me, but I can’t tell how much I appreciate them. So in year 2009, I want nothing but a good friends, better environment, better life, good health and also good income. Seriously.

I think that’s all about what should take place in 2009. Surely there are other things might happens as time goes. I just need to GETReady all the time. So I’m officially started my first blog post for this year. I’m looking forward to share more on programming (theory, tutorial or real-time example), and what’s going on in my life as well.

Lastly, Happy New Year 2009 and let’s started our brand new life style. Change to better!! Throw away all the bad things!! Start new life!! Love ourselves!! And be happy always!!

To all who happen to read my post, two thumbs up!! I sing you a song. It sounds like this…..

Don’t worry..
About a thing..
Cause every little thing..
Gonna be all right..

That’s all. Thank you very much and WELCOME TO 2009!! Keep rockin !!

I'll just summarize..

2008-12-10T18:19:00.006+08:00

It’s December again. See how time flies. Feel like everything happens very fast. If I could summarize everything what happened in year 2008, there is only one phrase in my mind. It is ‘what a good start.’ I graduated with a degree in multimedia technology in late 2007. Believe it on not, I’ve never felt enjoy with my major. Been 3 years in University, I've learned almost nothing. I still remember one of my lecturers told me that I’ll find my way once I leave the University. I could not believe what he said is absolutely true. When I was in U, I hardly believe that one day I could find a job. Just a couple of weeks after graduation, I have been offered a job as a programmer in one of the IT Company in Sabah. I was lucky at that time because being a programmer is always my big dreams. I’m not saying that I have a good working experience prior to joining this company but with dedication and a strong feel to achieve high, I manage to put myself at a good level. I put priority in every aspect of my life and that’s a key to success, I believe. I’ve learned not to depend on someone to do a job. This is very important when you have to do something yourself. I gained lots of self-confident when dealing with critical situations. Have you ever heard of people say ‘don’t say you can do this if you don’t know how to do that’ or in very simple term ‘things are easier said than done’? Yup, it’s not true at all. If there is logic behind it, lots of things can be done. Simple as that and that is my principle. As I’ve been said before, if you never take risk, you’ll never learn and improve and will always remain the same. Through the year, I have changed a lot. I’m on my way to be an expert. How long it takes to be an expert, I don’t know. As I said before, this year is a good starting point for me. Things got done just the way I planned it. I must say I have started my long journey and will never stop. It is likely a destiny that never ends. I just hope next year will be better than this year.

To all my friends, I’m not the best person to advice but ya, enjoy every single moment in our life. Appreciate it. Never blame yourself for not being a better person and the most important thing is, try to appreciate people all around you. Without their support (physically or emotionally), you’ll never be as what you are, today.

Christmas is coming very soon. I always remind myself to take a moment and think back what I have done for the past few years. I might have hurt someone’s feelings, not being appreciative and many more things I couldn’t remember. All these things make me think deeply what does Christmas really mean to me. Rather than being happy and jingle all the way, there is still sorrow...that’s part of life..don’t know how to say. From the bottom of my heart, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you and sorry for everything.
I think this is my last post for this year. Friends, visitors, once again, I wish you a happy merry Christmas. If anyone’s plan an open house, don’t fail to remember inviting me!

Again, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009!

Learning Ruby On Rails

2008-12-02T15:34:00.007+08:00

Newbie, beginner or anyone who want to learn web programming, I highly recommend You to take a deep look at this new 15-minute blog video on Rails 2.2. You will learn webblog with comments, Ajax, ATOM feed, XML, JSON, and much more in just 15 minutes. Thanks to Ryan's. He is one of the great man in Ruby on Rails community.

MySQL installation on Linux-based systems (with SphinxSE)

2008-12-02T10:21:00.002+08:00

Installing MySQL on windows-based OS is a straight-forward process but not in Linux. If you want to install MySQL and SphinxSE on Linux OS, I assumed that you have basic knowledge of bash linux commands and mysql as well. Ok, here are the instructions. I will be compiling the current version of sphinx with mysql (5.0.51). Get the packages first; Just open up your terminal and type

wget http://www.sphinxsearch.com/downloads/sphinx-0.9.8.tar.gz
wget http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.0/mysql-5.0.51b.tar.gz/from/http://mysql.he.net/
tar -zxvf sphinx*
tar -zxvf mysql*
yum -y install bison patch automake libtool

If this is your first time installing mysql, make sure user "mysql" already exists. If not, create one

groupadd mysql
useradd -g mysql mysql

Ok, continue with patching mysql source with sphinxSE

cd mysql*
assumed that your mysql and sphinx installation folder are under root directory
patch -p1 < /root/sphinx-0.9.8/mysqlse/sphinx.5.0.37.diff
make sure everything ok without any error
BUILD/autorun.sh
mkdir sql/sphinx
cp /root/sphinx-0.9.8/mysqlse/* sql/sphinx
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-sphinx-storage-engine
make
make install

Ok, once the installation process done, you need to configure mysql

cp support-files/my-small.cnf /etc/my.cnf
chown root /etc/my.cnf
chgrp root /etc/my.cnf
chmod 644 /etc/my.cnf

Last, we need to edit the file

nano /etc/my.cnf

Search for [mysqld] clause, and add immediately below it:
user = mysql

save all changes (ctr X)

For the first time usage, MySQL needs a "mysql" database. To create this database, simply run:
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_install_db

Now, start the MySQL server for the first time
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe

Connect to MySQL server:
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -u root

Dont forget to set root user's password. You can do this by simply run
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_secure_installation

or use following method

DELETE FROM mysql.user WHERE User = '';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
SELECT Host, User FROM mysql.user;

Look for the record that has root in the User column and something other than localhost in the Host column. This is the host_name.

SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('new_password');
SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'host_name' = PASSWORD('new_password');

After finished, exit MySQL: exit

restart mysql server
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root -p shutdown
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe

Set up an automatic startup after each system reboot. cd to your mysql source installation tarball
cp support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/mysql
chkconfig --add mysql
chkconfig --level 35 mysql on

Ok, lets check it out if SphinxSE exist

mysql > show engines;

you will see something like below

*************************************
Engine: SPHINX
Support: YES
Comment: Sphinx storage engine 0.9.8
*************************************

You are now ready to explore the power of SphinxSE. Just like the power of how google search engine works. The next part of this tutorial, I'll show you how to use SphinxSE. Now, time to drink beer.

Simple as that

2008-11-28T14:17:00.002+08:00

Most of us want to practice the things we're already good at, and avoid the things we suck at. We stay average or intermediate amateurs forever.

Think about it..again, anyone willing to do what's required to keep getting better will get better

Short post today

2008-11-26T08:38:00.002+08:00

No rails related post for today as I've been busy with lots of new things need to be done. Yesterday I spent whole day just trying to get something to run. After hacking here and there, finally it's work. But im not going to post what it is, because im trying as much as i can to not make my readers feel headache. You know la. Ohya, for those whom I have mentioned before, there is a plan to develop a website (not decided yet). But for sure this gonna be a trademark once the project is completed. So for now, if anyone's interested, just buzz me ok.

Rails 2.2 is done !

2008-11-24T12:19:00.001+08:00

As you probably already know, Rails 2.2 is finally done. It has a number of new and improved features. I haven't had time to fully look into it yet but seems like I'll really enjoy the internationalization. Awesome, Congratulations on the release!

As always, there are only 2 lines of code to get the latest and greatest Rails 2.2
gem update --system
gem install rails

Current mood:sleepy (6:21PM)

2008-11-18T18:22:00.004+08:00

Just got back to my desk. As usual, completed day 2 of my Citrix training. Honestly speaking, I have a better understanding now on how does Citrix works. Basically, lets suppose you have installed Microsoft words on Windows server 2003 and you wanted to access that application on your own computer which doesn't have microsoft office installed. So in order to access that application, you must have Citrix installed on that server and have it properly configured. It is more like Client and Server communications. That's all about Citrix (it is actually more than that). The hardest part is how you gonna configure Citrix working together with Active Directory, Domain Control and so on. So far, everything is ok and Im looking forward to the next level. I mean tommorow.

Tips of the day:
Again, another searching tips. if you want to find a certain files or documents on the internet, always use filetype:pdf clarence or filetype:doc helloworld or whatever you want la..try it.

Happy tuesday

2008-11-18T08:43:00.001+08:00

I think I still have time to write something here. Nothing much to say la..just wanna share sikit2 story about whats interesting on yesterday Citrix training. I was one of the yang ikut tu training la. Yang lain dari UMS KK dan UMS Labuan. Know what, this is the things that I cant believe. Can you imagine seorang PEGAWAI TEKNOLOGI MAKLUMAT have no idea bila kena tanya what is TCP/IP ? and lots of funy2 things happen la..haha..saya bukan la cakap saya ni tau semua pasal IT tapi kalau sudah jadi IT officer tu, takkan la basic pun nda tau kan ?? so..no comment la.. but ya, the training was very interesting. I was impressed!!

Have a Nice weekend.

2008-11-14T18:34:00.002+08:00

Starting from Monday next week, I'll be attending Citrix training for the whole week and will probably be not available to do any updates to this blog. So I'm gonna make sure to get enough rest this weekend. To all, have a nice weekend..stay cool..stay health..and don't forget to smile always !!..

SQL Injection

2008-11-14T07:56:00.002+08:00

SQL injection is hardly a problem and common attack in web applications. It is important to understand how this SQL injection works. SQL injection attacks aim at influencing database queries by manipulating web application parameters. A major goal of SQL injection attacks is to bypass authorization. Another goal is to carry out data manipulation or reading arbitrary data. Here is an example of how not to use user input data in a query:

Project.find(:all, :conditions => "name = '#{params[:name]}'")

This could be in a search action and the user may enter a project's name that he wants to find. If a malicious user enters ' OR 1=1', the resulting SQL query will be:

SELECT * FROM projects WHERE name = '' OR 1 --'

The two dashes start a comment ignoring everything after it. So the query returns all records from the projects table including those blind to the user. This is because the condition is true for all records.

Was tagged by bossing..

2008-11-13T17:57:00.004+08:00

First of all, bossing, boleh ka ni saya reject ko pya tag ? camera fon saya tiba2 temasuk sana gelas saya ba time minum cofee tadi..hahah..ba yalah, kena tagged suda pa blh buat..apa2pun check it out..

Tag Instructions

1. Take a recent picture of yourself or take a picture of yourself right NOW!.
--> OK Done.
2. DON'T change your clothes, DON'T fix your hair... Just take a picture.
--> Manada sy change apa2 ni..
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
--> Alala..ni tag ah kasi malu saya ja oo..ndapala..hahaha..
4. Post these instruction with your picture.

--> Ni la jadinya. I just cant believe it's me..haha
5. Tag 10 people to do this.
-->Nda mo la saya mentag orang ni..heheh..

p/s : thank you bossing kerana sudi mentag saya. kalau ada lagi lain kali, I'd say no thanks la..hahaha

Finding out who/how many people are logged on

2008-11-13T11:51:00.004+08:00

If you are using restfull_authentication, add the following code in your login_controller; and dont forget to add before_filter in applicationController
It would be something like this;

def login
 if logged_in?
 current_user.update_attribute("updated_at",Time.now)
 #your code goes here
end

then simply put this in your view

<% @user_online = User.find(:all, :conditions => ["updated_at > ?",2.minutes.ago]) %>
<% @user_online.each do |u| %>
<%= u.login_name %>
<% end %>

Just incase if you are not sure whats going on, If you're logged in to any website for the last 2 minutes, you're considered online.

Pictures inspire me today

2008-11-13T09:21:00.009+08:00

Scaling Ruby Envycast

2008-11-13T09:04:00.000+08:00

Scaling Ruby Envycast from EnvyAds on Vimeo.

DB2 on Rails now available

2008-11-13T08:48:00.002+08:00

The IBM API development team has released version 1.0 of the ibm_db gem, which includes both the Ruby driver, and the Rails adapter, for IBM’s databases. With Rails 2.2, which is about to be released, you can simply run

rails my_app -d ibm_db

You can install the IBM DB2 database as follows (on Linux)


$ . /home/db2inst1/sqllib/db2profile
$ export IBM_DB_DIR=/home/db2inst1/sqllib
$ export IBM_DB_LIB=/home/db2inst1/sqllib/lib
$ gem update
$ gem install ibm_db

On Windows, simply run:

gem install ibm_db

For more info, visit here



Good code refactoring
2008-11-12T18:45:00.008+08:00
Before

if name.blank?
       @users = User.paginate(
           :per_page => 100,
           :page => params[:page],
           :conditions => conditions
          )
     else
       @users = User.paginate(
           User.find_by_name(name),
           :per_page => 100,
           :page => params[:page],
           :conditions => conditions
          )
end

After

options = {:per_page => 100,
           :page => params[:page],
           :conditions => conditions
          }
@users = name.blank? ? User.paginate(options) : User.paginate(User.find_by_name(name), options) 


Nice and perfect !!


Searching Tips
2008-11-12T17:39:00.006+08:00
Ok, So today I wanna share something about how to search something on the Internet. Yup I know you guys know how to search. But sometimes when you do search, the search results is not exactly what you are looking for. Actualy there are a few symbols that we can use to perform search. Remember, searching for specific words or phrases are two different things. 

Let's say you want to search for 'hello world'. YOu can use below operators;

1. Using operator AND: type  hello & world
2. Using operator OR: type  hello | world
3 Using operator NOT: type  hello -world
4 Using grouping: type  (hello world)
5 Using field search operator:type   @title hello @body world
6 Using phrase search operator: type  "hello world"

Applying above techniques while performing a search will return relevance search results. So try to play with it and you'll notice the difference. For a better search engine, always use google search because google is your best friend.


Book you must read
2008-11-11T19:06:00.004+08:00


You can get it here


life as a programmer...
2008-11-11T18:08:00.004+08:00
Hmm..i spend most of my time concentrating on programming stuff which i noticed nobody really interested..hehe. Nevermind. For those whom keep reading my blog post, thank you very much. I guess you all hardly understand what the hell this blog all about. heheh. You know, life as a programmer is always boring..but honestly, I love my career and I love to solve a problem..


DbVisualizer
2008-11-11T13:37:00.001+08:00
DbVisualizer is a database tool for developers and database administrators, helping you with both the development and maintenance of your databases. It is the perfect solution since the same tool can be used on all major operating systems accessing a wide range of databases. Try it for free. Get it here


Web Services
2008-10-31T17:24:00.006+08:00
Everyone in my workplace keep talking about web service. What so special with this web services ? Actually, it's become important only when you need it. Talking about web giants such as google and yahoo, these websites has their own APIs thus make them a perfect apps with their own web services. 

Most web services are based on one of three architectures: 
Representational State Transfer (REST), 
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), or 
Extensible Markup Language Remote Procedural Calls (XML-RPC)

Frankly speaking, I only know and have little experience with REST. But Im eager to know how to build web service. That's fine and Im actually in luck. Building web service clients with Ruby on Rails requires only a few simple steps and involves just a few Ruby libraries. So, my next presentation would be "web services with Ruby on Rails".


Im off to a Halloween
2008-10-31T13:45:00.002+08:00



Rails 2.2 RC1
2008-10-30T09:38:00.005+08:00
Below is some of the improvements in Rails 2.2 RC1

1. Improving performance in association_id methods
Post.first.comment_ids
=> SELECT 'comment'.id FROM 'comments' WHERE ('comments'.post_id = 1)

2. Another Dynamic Finder
find_last_by
find_by
Comment.find_last_by_author("Clarence")

and a lot of new features of Rails 2.2 that I can't cover here.

As usual, to test the Rails 2.2 release candidate, you can install with:
gem install rails -s http://gems.rubyonrails.org -v 2.2.0

I just can't wait to see how awesome it is.


Top 10 IT certifications
2008-10-30T09:08:00.001+08:00
Sun Certified Programmer for Java 
  Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) 
  Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) 
  Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) 
  MySQL Certification 
  Linux+ 
  Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD)  
  Dell certification 
  Microsoft Certified Database Administration (MCDBA) 

p/s: I'd love to get CCNA.


Hoe much should I be earning ?
2008-10-30T08:56:00.002+08:00

ActiveTechPros is a destination for IT professionals to benchmark their salary and know their tech worth in different job markets.

For those IT expert, you should know how much you're supposed to get. Don't be surprised!!


It's 9.05AM......
2008-10-29T09:02:00.001+08:00
Does anyone knows how to use INformix DB which running on windows ? I've been struggling for almost a week just to make it work but no luck. Sia-sia saja download tu IDS for windows.  Now i know why developer tries to get rid of windows. For right now, Im downloading the IDS for Linux. I hope I could make everything works before my talk on friday this week. If not then..mengelentong saja la..what to do..

Different story, apa software untuk download yang paling hebat ah?? Now Im using FlashGet..the download speed is quite good, but Im not impress.


Rails 2.1.2: Security, other fixes
2008-10-24T08:44:00.000+08:00
As always, you can install with:
gem install rails --version 2.1.2

For more info, visit here


Test Driven Development (TDD)
2008-10-24T08:41:00.000+08:00
Those who experienced developing a large enterprise web-based applications knew what exactly is TDD. Personally, I have not using this methodology  when developing an application. Now I realize that I have no choice but to write better code. Basically, TDD is used to write a tests first before proceed to write code. I would say that the standard rails test unit is good but I thing this is time for me to start learning TDD together with RSpec. it's the sort of thing I can't understand until I try it and you should too.


How to use class variables (Ruby)
2008-10-22T18:36:00.009+08:00
class Human
  @@clarence = { :buy => "Car" }
  
def clarence
   @@clarence
  end

end

Human.class
=> NoMethodError: undefined method 'clarence' for Human:Class
clay = Human.new
=> #
clay.clarence
=> {:buy=>"Car"} 



File Uploading using Rails
2008-10-22T16:25:00.010+08:00
You may have a requirement in which you want your site visitors to upload a file on your server. Rails makes it very easy to handle this requirement. It can be done in less than 5 minutes using ruby on rails. Ok, assuming you have your web application ready. Now, just follow my simple steps below;

1.Install rmagic
2.Open up command prompt and cd/to/your/root/app_directory
3.Type the following command to install atachment_fu plugin
ruby script/plugin install http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/plugins/attachment_fu/
you'll see a bunch of files created

4.Generate a scaffold for User. Just type the following command
ruby script/generate scaffold User

5.Modify your migration file to look like this
 class CreateUsers < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table :users do |t|
      t.column :parent_id,  :integer
      t.column :content_type, :string
      t.column :filename, :string    
      t.column :thumbnail, :string 
      t.column :size, :integer
      t.column :width, :integer
      t.column :height, :integer
    end
  end
 def self.down
    drop_table :users
  end
end

5.Run rake db:migrate
6.Now, modify your new.html.erb file to look like below;
<%= error_messages_for :user %>
<% form_for :user, :url => { :action => "create" }, :html => { :multipart => true }do |f| -%>
  Upload A Picture:
    <%= f.file_field :uploaded_data %>
    <%= submit_tag 'Create' %>
  <% end -%>

7. Now, modify  your index.html.erb file to look like below;
<% for user in @users %>
<%= link_to image_tag(user.public_filename(:thumb)), user.public_filename %>
 <% end %>

8. Modify your User.rb (User model). Populate this file with the following code
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
   has_attachment :content_type => :image, 
                 :storage => :file_system, 
                 :max_size => 500.kilobytes,
                 :resize_to => '320x200>',
                 :thumbnails => { :thumb => '100x100>' }
  end

9. There is no step 9 and you're done. Don't forget to restart the server.
Enjoy!!


Ruby On Rails Vs PHP
2008-10-22T11:49:00.003+08:00



Ubuntu 8.10 coming soon
2008-10-22T08:17:00.003+08:00
Im a Ubuntu lover. Only few days to go until Ubuntu 8.10 is released. Cant wait to check it out..there must be new great features..





Orang paling pemalas di dunia
2008-10-21T18:41:00.002+08:00
Ahli matematik adalah orang yang paling pemalas di dunia kerana mereka telah mencipta calculator. Disebabkan mereka malas mengira, mereka telah mencipta calculator yang dapat membantu mereka mengira dengan tepat dan cepat. 100000000 X lebih cepat. 

P/s : ya it's true. Just like me..get smart and get lazy..if you dig what i mean.


Today is better than yesterday
2008-10-21T18:16:00.004+08:00
1.days.from_now is better than Date.today
What a nice code ? And that's the reason why I would never want to go back to PHP.

Apart from that, yaa..i do feel that today is better than what have i done yesterday. It's true.


What Next ?
2008-10-21T07:59:00.004+08:00
Time goes by very fast. Now, only 2 months left before year's end. Not much i've done for this year but ya, things went exactly as planned. Im proud of it. I really started to feel ready for any challenge. That's my resolution for this coming year. 



Dont Forget to be happy. Smile always!


Thinking sphinx
2008-10-17T13:37:00.009+08:00
After about a day setting up thinking_sphinx in one of my rails applications, I end up writing this simple guide to help people out there getting started with thinking_sphinx. Before that, let me explain a bit what thinking_sphinx is. Sphinx is used to perform full-text search in any web based application. Just like how Google search engine works. Currently, sphinx can only talk to Mysql and PostgreSQL database. Thinking_sphinx is a plugin for rails to work with sphinx.
Ok, I’m running on Linux for this. Simply follow the steps below;

1. Go get sphinx here. Download the source code: sphinx-0.9.8.tar.gz (728 KB)
tar zxvf sphinx-0.9.8.tar.gz
cd sphinx-0.9.8
./configure
make
make install

Ok, assume that everything running fine. Next step is to install git. Git is an open source version control system. Just like svn.

2. Head on over to the git download page. Download the tar.gz
Refer to the step in no.1 to install the source code. 

3. Now grab the current version of thinking_sphinx
ruby script/plugin install git://github.com/freelancing-god/thinking-sphinx.git

Ok. Finish. The installation process done.

Now, it’s time to configure thinking_sphinx. We will work with indexes. So open up your Model.rb file and start create your own indexes. Just modify below code to suit your own requirements.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  define_index do
    # fields
    indexes [:first_name, :last_name], :as => :name, :sortable => true
  end
end

Of course you can add more indexes if you want. I also assumed that your application ready with search function so that you can play with sphinx later on.

Now, it’s time to rake your indexes.
cd to your/app/directory
rake thinking_sphinx:index
rake thinking_sphinx:start

DONE! Now you can test sphinx! It’s lightening fast. 

P/s: Some of you might get into trouble while perform above steps as I didn’t explained it in more detail. Treat it as a starting point not a destination. At least you’ll get idea all what you need to do.


Full text search engine (Sphinx)
2008-10-13T17:11:00.001+08:00
Im having a problem implementing full-text search engine in one of my rails application. I know ferret can perform such tasks but I have heard it has some stability issues. Finally i found Sphinx! Sphinx is a free open source SQL full-text search engine that is working well with mysql and postgreSQL. Unfortunately, Sphinx is not supporting Informix database yet. I have successfully implemented Sphinx in my application and i was impressed. The search speed was lightening fast. Currently known systems Sphinx has been successfully running on is Linux and Mac. It's pretty well documented on how to use sphinx with rails out there. So I won't be talking about installations and things like that here.


Always use unless instead of if
2008-10-08T16:36:00.003+08:00
Why should you use unless when it is little more than if !?

Because unless let’s you write code like this:

clarence.punch clarenceclay unless clarenceclay.is_hard?

Isn’t that what code should look like!


named_scope using Ruby On Rails
2008-10-07T14:51:00.002+08:00
Just recently, someone asked me how to use named_scope in Ruby on Rails. That is damm easy I can tell you. Lets check it out below code;

example
lets say you want to find certain User with status = active
User.find(:all, :conditions => {:active => true})

look nice Isn't It ?

But using named_scope you can make your code much more nicer! Look at what I've done below;

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  named_scope :active, :conditions => {:active => true}
end   

Then i can just call something like 
User.active

Just Nice..


OpenID
2008-10-07T14:00:00.001+08:00
Do you have any idea what is OpenID? What's the use of OpenID? And why we need to use OpenID? Im going to develop simple website and make it OpenID enabled. To know more, please come to my sharing session next week at Srikom Ruby Lab. Questions are greatly welcome. Thanks.


Happy Hari Raya to all my Muslim friends
2008-09-30T17:04:00.003+08:00
Wah, hari raya is coming..cant wait to eat nasi Briani. Hehe. I would like to take this opportunity to say happy hari raya to all my muslim friends. One best thing about hari raya is I can save lot of money. This is because I dont need to spend money to buy food. I can just go to my friend's house and eat for free..hehehe. To all my friends who lived out of KK, Im sorry I can't visit you. But if you can send me Kuih Raya, then i must said "apa salanya". hehehe.. Again, Happy Raya!.


One year gone so well..
2008-09-26T17:30:00.002+08:00
One year ago, I was nothing. I came to programming world with zero experience and today, i couldn't believe I can be at this level. One year experience in Ruby on Rails, I still consider myself as noob because there is a lot of things i still have to learn. Thanks to the person that I've learned so much. Thanks to the person who made my dream came true. You know, I always love programming and I knew I made the right decision. For everyone who happen to read this, what we have today is not forever so aim high & achieve more.


What is EdgeRails ?
2008-09-26T11:15:00.002+08:00
Do you know that you can run your rails applications in the machine without rails installed ? the answer is yes you can. With EdgeRails, means you are running a local copy of a developmental version of Rails.

Advantage of EdgeRails
You can run your super old application in the machine that running newest version of rails

Disadvantage  of EdgeRails
Developmental versions are not generally regarded to be stable. So it’s a tradeoff.

How to running on EdgeRails ?
Simply use this command from your application home directory 
rake rails:freeze:edge

If you would like to run a specific revision of EdgeRails
rake rails:freeze:edge REVISION=1234

To revert to GemRails, issue the command:
rake rails:unfreeze

That command empties the vendor/rails directory.

A third option is to issue this command:
rake rails:freeze:gems

Thats all.


Programming tips (more to Ruby on Rails)
2008-09-24T14:43:00.005+08:00
I was a speaker at last week sharing session with our software team. Below is what i have shared with other developers. This is just a self-advice so that we can become a better programmer. 

1. Don’t code if you're not in a good mood.
This is the things I've experience as a programmer. Sometimes when i feel lazy or something had just spoiled my mood, I can’t write code in an elegant way. Even worst, I can't figure out how to solve simple problem. Too bad. What I always did is, read/watch some good things to get me back on track.

2. Learn some basic JavaScript, Ajax, and CSS
Because of everything can't be done in Ruby on Rails, you have to enhance your knowledge by learning JavaScript, Ajax or CSS or XML or HTML. Especially now we are in "web 2.0 technologies", all those web tools has become essentials.

3. DRY - Don’t Repeat Yourself
This tend to be popular trade mark invented by the core rails programmers. Why repeating your code when you can just write it all in one line? 

4. Get rid of windows
No offence. If you're open source programmer who has nothing to do with Microsoft tools, you better go for Linux distribution. Everything will run faster. I’m a windows user but...I just started don't like it.

5. Be alert!
Ruby on Rails community grow faster. If you are not aware of what's happening out there, you'll be left too far behind. Make yourself online most of the time. But remember, search for goodies only.

6. Never copy and paste code if you don’t understand it.
Copy & Paste is a very popular trend for those programmers who had just step foot in the world of programming. I’m not saying anything wrong against but please understand every single line of 'copy & paste" code.

7. Follow the rails conventions
If I could offer only one piece of advice, it would be this, follow the Rails conventions. Learning Ruby on Rails can be difficult, but applying this advice will make it much easier. For example table name should be plural, and for class name should be singular. If you break the rules, thats your own risk. 

8. Human first
Code for human first, computer second. What i mean, make the code as readable as much as you can. 

9. Refactoring
If you want to be a better programming, learn refactoring. Never leave the code messy as it will be headache to maintain. That’s what I mean by writing beautiful code. Everybody wants to look great. Isn't It ?

10. Test driven development
This is a fundamental when we run software testing. Knowing this method of testing can be your advantage. I won’t talk much on this because I haven’t use this technique before. Will give it a good read when I have free 
time.

it's always a great feeling to share something.


Merb
2008-09-23T10:05:00.001+08:00
MERB.You may have heard of, or be familiar with. aren't you? Having said that, Merb will be a strong contender for Rails. As i can say the code being used in merb is pretty similar to rails. Like Rails, merb is also an MVC framework which also support ActiveRecord. Im not really sure how powerful it is (merb) but for right now, rails is still a wonderful framework for me. With very little effort, you can build up some amazing sites.


lovdbyless
2008-09-19T14:09:00.000+08:00
I've Recently downloaded a rails application called lovdbyless. It's a social networking site like friendster. The application is fully created using ruby on rails. I highly recommend newbies to take a look at this app. Very cool web site. I've experienced the pain while trying to get the app up and running but finally its work. Just ask me if you have trouble installing it. You can download it from here


So tired...
2008-09-18T14:06:00.001+08:00
Im not stress but i just feel lazy to think and want to just do nothing. As a programmer, you need to always write beautiful code. What I mean by writing beautiful code are, its readable, scalable, nice and concise. Unfortunately I can't do that right now. Because im so lazy. Who cares.

Beautiful code
User.find(:all, :conditions => ["id NOT IN (?)", [1,2]])

Ugly code
User.find_by_sql(" select * from users where id NOT IN (1,2)") 


Rails 2.0.4 and Rails 2.1.1
2008-09-17T16:34:00.001+08:00
As you probably already know, Rails 2.0.4 and Rails 2.1.1 were released last week. Enjoy!

To install, just do: gem install rails --version 2.1.1.

Next upcoming release will be Rails 2.2 beta which is quite close. Cant Wait :-)


Lotus Symphony. Be Free. Work Smart.
2008-09-12T09:04:00.000+08:00
I knew this software since last week after my colleague told me something about this software from IBM. I just don't have time to install it as I've been a bit busy recently. Today, I manage to get Lotus Symphony and successfully installed it on my computer. For those who have no idea what is Lotus Symphony, Lotus Symphony was voted office productivity software product of the year for 2008. The only different is symphony is 100% free. In fact, Symphony even comes with its own browser. Lotus Symphony, beat out Microsoft Office, OpenOffice 2.3.1, ThinkFree Office and other nominees. Just nice. Why wait ? You can get it here.