Basically, the Luhn Algorithm allows you to, before actually processing the credit card, check the validity of a credit card number. Well, it sounded pretty awesome and a very easy initial validation. After reading the steps carefully, I looked over the Python code sample provided (top sample as of writing this) and decided I would write one in PHP in order to understand how it’s working and to test it using the card in my wallet. I posted it on Gist if anyone is interested.

Now Songbird has come a long way since I tried it a while back, but it still has a lack of global shortcut keys on Linux.  A very helpful user of the Songbird community released an add-on which enables Command Line Support.

Now that I’ve set up my machine with Global Hot Keys, I’ll show you how to do so as well.  Here’s a step-by-step:

Note: If you are using the .deb installed from gotdeb, there is a wrapper script located at /usr/bin/songbird
Open this file as root in your favorite text editor. At the bottom of the short file, you’ll see:

./songbird

You need to add “$@” to the end of this line, so it should look like:

./songbird "$@"

This will allow the command line arguments to be passed to the actual binary.

· Run “gconf-editor” either from a terminal or the run dialog.  This will bring up an window to edit the gnome configuration options.

· In the menu list to the left, go to “apps” -> “metacity” -> “keybinding_commands”

· I used the first 3 commands as follows (double click on the line to edit):
- command_1: /usr/bin/songbird -pause
- command_2: /usr/bin/songbird -next
- command_3: /usr/bin/songbird -previous

· Once that is done, you will want to go back to your menu list on the left, and find the “global_keybindings” folder (“apps” -> “metacity” -> “global_keybindings”)

· Inside this folder, You should see run_command_1 through run_command_12.  You can now set you desired key bindings.  Personally, I set them similar to Amarok (since I’m used to them.)
- run_command_1: <Super>c
- run_command_2: <Super>b
- run_command_3: <Super>z

If you run into any problems during this process, or just want to keep in touch, you can contact me on twitter or leave a comment below.

If your a linux user, you can use wget (man wget for more info). Wget is a non-interactive network downloader. Mac users can try to get a binary <a href=”http://www.statusq.org/archives/2008/07/30/1954/”>here</a>.  Wget is a very powerful tool for many reasons, but it can be quite useful if you want to download multiple files from a site.

A few days ago, I complained that I didn’t have many fonts for use in designing, so a friend linked me to <a href=”http://www.fonts500.com”>fonts500.com</a>.  My first thought was “Wow, I want all of these fonts, but I don’t want to click all of those links, spread over 5 pages.” Enter wget!

Code block

wget -r --level=2 -A zip --quiet http://www.fonts500.com/

A little explanation of the command:

The -r is to be recursive.

The –level=2  sets the maximum depth (we don’t want to go too far off the page)

The “-A zip” sets the file inclusion parameter, which means we only want the zip files.

–quiet is just to squelch output, just a personal preference.

And lastly, the URL you want to use.

Hope it helps!

Here’s a quick and easy way to do that using <a href=”http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html”>mod_rewrite</a> in your .htaccess file. (<i>Note: You will need to have the mod_rewrite module enabled, and the directory will need <a href=”http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/core.html#allowoverride”>AuthOverride</a> All on, in the apache configuration</i>)

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php

This code basically tells mod_rewrite that if the requested filename is not a file, and not a directory (the first 2 lines), then rewirte the URL as %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php.  Take this code, create a new file in your web root, named .htaccess, paste the code in and save it. That’s all there is to it.

So if you have a file called “file.php” on your domain (http://example.com/), you should now be able to access it by going to http://example.com/file rather than http://example.com/file.php.

In MySQL, a field with the data type of int, without unsigned specified is capable of storing negative values. Since auto incremented primary keys will not use negative numbers for identifiers, you are limiting yourself to effectively half of the possible values of the int data type (between 0 and 2147483647).

That may seem like a fairly large number to most of you, but why take the risk?  If you specify your integer field as <b>unsigned</b>, you will double the number of values accepted by the field.

<b>Why?</b>  A <b>signed</b> integer, which in MySQL are all integers that are not specified as unsigned, will use the first of 32 bits as a marker for negative or positive.  This means that the possible values for are 2^31.  With an unsigned integer, the values are 2^32, or 0 to 4294967295.

The same exact rules apply for BIGINT (which is signed 2^63 and unsigned 2^64).

It’s pretty easy to do on a case-by-case basis, but after years of programming and writing the code to accomplish this, I decided it was easier to just create a Bench class.

The point of the Bench class is to allow me to add multiple data points throughout the code, and to show me the results upon completion of the script. I tried to make it as least obstructive as possible.

Please feel free to use and share this code as desired. If you run into any problems, or have any issues, let me know.

Bench.php Source Code:

Code block

<?php
/*
* author sgricci
* access public
* license gpl
* website http://deepcode.net
*/
class Bench {
	private $points = array();
	private $start;
 
	public function __construct() {
		$this->start = $this->utime();
	}
 
	private function utime()
	{
		$time = explode(" ", microtime());
		$usec = (double) $time[0];
		$sec = (double) $time[1];
		return ($sec + $usec);
	}
 
	public function pt($name = "")
	{
		if (!$name)
			$this->points[] = $this->utime();
		else
			$this->points[$name] = $this->utime();
	}
 
	public function __destruct()
	{
		$this->pt("total");
		foreach ($this->points as $name => $pt)
		{
			echo $name.": ".round(abs($this->start - $pt),4)."\n";
		}
	}
}
?>

Usage:

Code block

<?php
require_once "Bench.php";
$B = new Bench(); # Place at the beginning of the script.
// process some queries and then call
$B->pt("post-query process");
// process the data from the queries and then call
$B->pt("post-data process");
// go on with the rest of your script
?>