Code – Page 2 – DAN FOLKES

MailChimp – Pass Email to Form

mail chimp logo

I wanted to use a basic email field and send the information to a mailchimp form. I could not find the solution anywhere, so I decided to see if I could hack a solution.

When you go to MailChimp > For Your Website > Signup Form Link Code
You will get something like: http://eepurl.com/XXXX, which will take you to something like:

http://toolstoday.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=XXXXXXXXXXX&amp;id=XXXXXXXXXXX

If you look at the source on this page, you will see that the form elements are called: MERGE0, MERGE1…

On my form, the email field is MERGE0, so on my website, I was able to create a javascript link that will automatically fill in email by using this link:

http://XXXXXXXXXXX.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=XXXXXXXXXXX&amp;id=XXXXXXXXXXX&amp;[email protected]

You can fill in more than one field by adding more merge fields in the url:

http://XXXXXXXXXXX.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=XXXXXXXXXXX&amp;id=XXXXXXXXXXX&amp;[email protected];MERGE1=Daniel Folkes

Then, you can use this jquery to auto open a new window on enter key press:

            $("#ea").keypress(function (e) {
                if (e.which == 13) {
                    e.preventDefault();
                    //dan@dans
                    var url = "//XXXXXXXXXXX.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=XXXXXXXXXXX&id=XXXXXXXXXXX";
                    url += "&MERGE0=" + $("#ea").val(); // ea is my email input text box.
                    window.open(url, "mywindow", "status=1,toolbar=1,resizable=1,width=1000,height=600");
                }
             });

Moderating Comments on a Freehostia Chocolate Account (Free)

The problem: Freehostia Free Accounts block outside connections. This means that Akismet can’t access it’s servers and you can’t have spam checking. So, all of your comments are spam spam spam!

I tried to add a captcha, but they got around that. I tried to add Disqus using the plugin, but that failed to install because of the account’s limitations.

But, I was able to add moderated comments to my freehostia site by manually installing Disqus. This is very necessary because otherwise you get hit with a bunch of spammers.

Here is how you manually install Disqus on WordPress.

Create New Disqus Account
Go to your dashboard
Click on your site
Go to Settings
And then click Install
Select Universal Code
Copy that code
In /wp-content/themes/THEMENAME/single.php Replace:
<?php comments_template( '', true ); ?>
<?php comments_template( '', true ); ?>
with:
echo ' YOUR COPIED CODE HERE. But you must remember to ESCAPE the single quotes with backslashes example: \' ';
echo ' YOUR COPIED CODE HERE. But you must remember to ESCAPE the single quotes with backslashes example: \' ';
Save, Upload, then go to one of your posts. You should see Disqus loading at the bottom.
Remember to setup your Disqus the way you want it. It’s a little restrictive out of the box. You can even add Akismet to Disqus in their admin interface.

Short Domain Name Finder

This is a short url finder I created.
It checks to see if the domain is available remembers.

Short Domain Name Finder

There is a python script in the background that populates a mysql database which displays it with php.

Installing Diaspora on Ubuntu on VirtualBox

I wrote up a little howto on the Diaspora git hub:
https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Installing-Diaspora-on-Ubuntu-on-VirtualBox

Sending Email with PHP, Gmail or Google Apps, Mail, and PEAR on Ubuntu

First Install Pear, Mail, Mail Mime, Net SMTP. Restart Apache:

sudo apt-get install php-pear
sudo pear install mail
sudo pear install mail_mime
sudo pear install Net_SMTP
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Here is the PHP code I used to send an email:

try {
	require_once "Mail.php";
 
	$from = "[email protected]";
	$to = "{$email}";
	$subject = "Hi!";
	$body = "Hi,\n\nHow are you?";
 
	$host = "ssl://smtp.gmail.com";
	$port = "465";
	$username = "[email protected]"; //This can also be a Google Apps account
	$password = "PASSWORD";
 
	$headers = array ('From' => $from,
	  'To' => $to,
	  'Subject' => $subject);
	$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
	  array ('host' => $host,
		'port' => $port,
		'auth' => true,
		'username' => $username,
		'password' => $password));
 
	$mail = $smtp->send($to, $headers, $body);
 
	if (PEAR::isError($mail)) {
	  echo("<p>" . $mail->getMessage() . "</p>");
	 } else {
	  echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>");
	 }
} catch (Exception $e) {
	echo 'Caught exception: ',  $e->getMessage(), "\n";
}

Converting a Magnet Link into a Torrent

UPDATE – 2012-04-30 – User Faless on GitHub has added a good bit of functionality. Check it out.
—

For some reason, my version of the rtorrent client on ubuntu does not open magnet files. So, I wanted to see if there was a way to create torrent files from magnet files. I couldn’t find a good example, so I wrote my own.

This will convert a magnet link into a .torrent file:

First, make sure your system has Python and the Python Library:

sudo apt-get install python-libtorrent

Then, you can run the following code by calling this command:

python Magnet2Torrent.py

File Magnet2Torrent.py:

'''
Created on Apr 19, 2012
@author: dan
'''
 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    import libtorrent as lt
    import time
 
    TorrentFilePath = "/home/dan/torrentfiles/" + str(time.time()) + "/"
    TorrentFilePath2 = "/home/dan/torrentfiles/" + str(time.time()) + "/" + str(time.time()) + ".torrent"
    ses = lt.session()
    #ses.listen_on(6881, 6891)
    params = {
        'save_path': TorrentFilePath,
        'duplicate_is_error': True}
    link = "magnet:?xt=urn:btih:599e3fb0433505f27d35efbe398225869a2a89a9&dn=ubuntu-10.04.4-server-i386.iso&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80"
    handle = lt.add_magnet_uri(ses, link, params)
#    ses.start_dht()
    print 'saving torrent file here : ' + TorrentFilePath2 + " ..."
    while (not handle.has_metadata()):
        time.sleep(.1)
 
    torinfo = handle.get_torrent_info()
 
    fs = lt.file_storage()
    for file in torinfo.files():
        fs.add_file(file)
    torfile = lt.create_torrent(fs)
    torfile.set_comment(torinfo.comment())
    torfile.set_creator(torinfo.creator())
 
    f = open(TorrentFilePath2 + "torrentfile.torrent", "wb")
    f.write(lt.bencode(torfile.generate()))
    f.close()
    print 'saved and closing...'
 
#Uncomment to Download the Torrent:
#    print 'starting torrent download...'
 
#    while (handle.status().state != lt.torrent_status.seeding):
#        s = handle.status()
#        time.sleep(55)
#        print 'downloading...'

This will create a folder inside of ‘/home/dan/torrentfiles/’ with a structure like:

/home/dan/torrentfiles/545465456.12/545465456.12.torrent

I added this to GitHub if you want to Fork it.
https://github.com/danfolkes/Magnet2Torrent

ENJOY!

How to Remove All Facebook Friends – Script

I made a script that will allow you to automatically remove all your Facebook friends at once.

Here is what you are going to need:

Firefox
Selenium IDE (under Selenium IDE paragraph)
You will have to restart Firefox after the plugin installs.
Script File: Facebook – Remove All Friends Script for Selenium IDE.txt

1. Open Firefox, Open Facebook and login!

2. Now, you must open the IDE by going: Firefox > Developer Tools > Selenium IDE (Ctrl + Alt + S on some computers)

3. Load Script File :
In Selenium IDE, do a File > Open > [Select the script file from above]
OK, the script is loaded and should look like this:

4. Test the script before you start by clicking on the individual items and watching what Firefox does. Start by clicking on the first few in order. (open /friends/,click css=… , click=…Report,)

5. If all that seems good, then run the test by doing : Actions > Play Current Test Case.

6. Now you wait. Go get some coffee. You should now see your browser doing a bunch of automated things and wave goodbye to all your precious friends.

Tips:

You can easily modify the script by looking through the documentation.
You can easily lengthen the script by going clicking on the [Source] tab and copy and pasting from OPEN friends to click OK
Or, you can add flow control/loops
You can ask questions here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/selenium
A warning message will not be sent to your friends, so feel free to delete as many friends as you want.

Web Service using JSONP from External Domain – PHP – JQuery

You may want to look at this previous post where I setup a PHP Webservice that uses JSON PDO – Accessed by JQuery AJAX

OK, so this code will use php to generate the JSON code that will get delivered over the internet to the JSONP (JSON Padding) client on an external domain. This allows your webservice to be available too whoever wants to call it.

Here is the PHP Code: (Not all of it, but enough to get the idea)

//http://SERVER_domain.com/webservice.php
private function GetTriviaTag($row) {
	$t = new Tag();
	$t->id = $row['id'];
	$t->triviaid = $row['triviaid'];
	$t->tagid = $row['tagid'];
	return $t;
}
public function GetWhere($where) {
	$retArray;
 
	$sql = "SELECT * FROM trivia_tags WHERE {$where}";
	foreach ($this->pdo->query($sql) as $row)
	{
		$retArray[] = $this->GetTriviaTag($row);
	}
	return $retArray;
}
$where = " (1 = 1)";  // THIS WILL SELECT ALL
$tarray = GetWhere($where);
 
//OUTPUT JSON:
header('Content-type: application/json');
echo $_GET['callback'];  // <-- THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR EXTERNAL DOMAIN ACCESS!!!
echo "(" . json_encode($tarray) . ")";

And now, to access it from javascript in an external domain (non – SERVER_domain.com ):
http://CLIENT_domain.com/Test.html:

<html>
	<head>
		<title>Test</title>
		<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
	</head>
	<body>
		<div id="triviaQuestions"> loading... </div>
		<script>
			$(function() {
				// THE 'callback=?' in this request is IMPORTANT FOR EXTERNAL DOMAIN ACCESS!!!
				$.getJSON('http://SERVER_domain.com/webservice.php&callback=?', function(data) {
					var items = [];
					var htmlResult = "";
					$.each(data, function(key, val) {
						htmlResult += "<br />Q: "+ val.id +", '"+ val.question +"";
					});
					$('#triviaQuestions').html(htmlResult);
				});
			});
		</script>
	</body>
</html>

PHP Webservice that uses JSON PDO – Accessed by JQuery AJAX

You may want to look at this previous post where I setup a Web Service using JSONP from External Domain – PHP – JQuery

The HTML that calls the Javascript:

<div id="taglist"></div>
<input name="searchTags" id="searchTags" type="text" />
<input type="button" name="searchtags" onclick="getTags()" value="search"/>
<div id="tagresult">
</div>

The JavaScript (JQuery) AJAX Request and Response Processing:

function getTags()
	{
		var q = $('#searchTags').val();
		$.getJSON('ws.php?type=tag&wN=name&wO=like&wV=' + q, function(data) {
			var items = [];
			var htmlResult = "";
			$.each(data, function(key, val) {
				//As you can see, you can access the JSON (at the bottom of the page) by doing val.PROPERTYNAME:
				htmlResult += "<br />Add : <a href=\"#\" onclick=\"addTag("+ val.id +", '"+ val.getfullname +"'); return false;\">"+ val.getfullname +"</a>";
			});
			$('#tagresult').html(htmlResult);
		});
	}

PHP Code that returns JSON in the PHP file called by the AJAX: (ws.php)

	$ta = new TagAccess();
	$tarray = $ta->GetTagsWhere(" {$whereName} LIKE '%{$whereVariable}%'");
	header('Content-type: application/json');
	echo "",  json_encode($tarray), "";

The GetTagsWhere Helper Function:

    public function GetTagsWhere($where) {
    	$retArray;
 
    	$sql = "SELECT * FROM tags WHERE {$where}";
    	// THE PDO Object was created previously
	foreach ($this->pdo->query($sql) as $row)
	{
		$retArray[] = $this->GetTag($row);
	}
	return $retArray;
    }

JSON Returned:

[{"id":"4","name":"FICTION","parentid":"3","getfullname":"BOOKS > FICTION"},{"id":"5","name":"NON-FICTION","parentid":"3","getfullname":"BOOKS > NON-FICTION"}]

ASP.Net Update Panel – Javascript Event – jQuery Click

I needed to add a onclick event to a textbox in asp.net to change it to remove text from a textbox onClick when it is clicked.
The normal code would look something like this:

1	<asp:TextBox ID="txtStoreLocatorZip" ValidationGroup="CustomerServiceEmail" runat="server" Text="Enter Zip" CssClass="txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass" />

<script>
        if ($('.txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass').val() == 'Enter Zip') {
            $('.txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass').click(function () {
                if ($('.txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass').val() == 'Enter Zip') {
                    $('.txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass').val('');
                }
            });
        }
</script>

But, this won’t quite work because my textbox is in a UpdatePanel’s ContentTemplate and the javascript is not read on postback.

So, This is what I ended up doing (a simplified version):

<asp:UpdatePanel ID="UpdatePanel2" runat="server" UpdateMode="Conditional">
	<ContentTemplate>
		<asp:TextBox  ID="txtStoreLocatorZip" ValidationGroup="CustomerServiceEmail" runat="server" Text="Enter Zip" CssClass="txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass" />
	</ContentTemplate>
</asp:UpdatePanel>

<script>
	Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().add_endRequest(endRequestHandler);
	function endRequestHandler(sender, args) {
		if ($('.txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass').val() == 'Enter Zip') {
			$('.txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass').click(function () {
				if ($('.txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass').val() == 'Enter Zip') {
					$('.txtStoreLocatorZip_CssClass').val('');
				}
			});
		}
	}
</script>

This will add an endRequest handler to the end of the partial page postback so that you can call a nice little function at the end of it.

Hope this helps some people!