Today, I wanted to strip slashes from a comment field using SQL (INSTEAD of using php stripslashes).

Why you ask?

I was working on an application which had not considered stripslashes for formatting output.

So I had a look and realised. Do I change 40,000 lines of code to add Stripslashes, or 1 line at the SQL select statement?

OK, slight exaggeration, but you get what I mean.

Solution

MySQL

Select
  Replace(field_name, '\\', '') as stripped_field
from
  table;

Oracle

Select
  Replace(field_name, '\', '') as stripped_field
from
  table;

PHP EXTRA

If using in PHP add an extra backslash like this;

// strip slashes as part of the SQL select statement
$sql = "Select Replace(field_name, '\\\', '') as stripped_field from table";

Please get in touch if you know of an easier way to do this, for example, Oracle Functions, or MySQL functions.

Many thanks and happy coding.

Oracle SQL was different to Access SQL

mySQL was different to SQL Server SQL

… then somebody said no, stop, enough is enough.

Sometime in 2009 ADODB was born for PHP. The 1 wrapper for ALL database types. Ah, just what we wanted.

Wait a minute? This is ADO, didn’t microsoft do this in 1996? The short answer is yes. Database abstracting is old in theory, tried out by microsoft, worked to a degree but never fully made it in the world (for whatever reason).

This brings us up to ADODB  – the promise of a database wrapper that will make it through, and iron out the issues that microsofts offering had.

Today I got my hands dirty with ADODB and I liked it. Looks and feels just like any other wrapper such as ADO.

Actually, I think it’s the same same. So so… così così.

One thing for sure. It makes hot swapping between Oracle/MySQL (which is what i’m doing right now) a breeze.

That’s why i’m writing about it.

I like it… how about you?

The short answer is <pre>

It can output free text (i.e. non server side code) in a pre-formatted way. Yep, PRE = Pre-formatted.

On top of that, Preformatted also renders the php print_r() output in a nicely nested unordered list, which is great for debug purposes;

e.g. 

  echo "<pre>";    print_r($arr);  echo "</pre>"; 

I am sure there are other uses for the <pre> tag too, I have just scratched the surface.

Give it a go – let me know if you find other uses for it.

Thanks.

Sound’s obvious right?

You already know about the field, yes?

Great!

— but not everyone knows about it, or how to use it. I say this because I have had emails sent to me where ALL the contacts have been in the To: field.

This is bad practice because;

1) It violates the data protection act (we didn’t give permission for our email address to be shared)

2) Looks unprofessional

3) Opens us up to spam!

Whenever I get an email like this, it is usually because the person sending it is inexperienced/hasn’t had the training in proper use of email. So for those who use the BCC field correctly well done. For everyone else, please learn.

For MASS email, please enter ALL your to contacts into the BCC field, and then add your own address to the TO field. This way, ALL emails will appear to be sent to yourself, with blind carbon copies going off to everyone else.

Happy emailing.

After many years of freelance web development, I decided to bite the bullet and “open up shop”.

In Sky Design is an association of designers and developers working together to create user friendly websites. We offer web design, graphic design and web application development; for start up business and established businesses who need internet solutions.

Please take a look at www.inskydesign.co.uk

We have set packages along with a price guide to show what our customers most commonly ask for.

If you can’t find it on the website, no problem, please ask.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers]"$path"="WINXPSP2"

Replace $path with the absolute path to your program;

i.e.

c:\\program files\\myapp\\myapp.exe

Make sure you add double back slashes.

So what’s the problem?

I have been using the Microsoft Access 2007 object in Visual Basic at work, and attempting to open an instance of Access as hidden. The issue comes up when we distributing the application that we have created.

When the user installs Access 2007 – Run Time Edition, and then runs our application, the Access Window pops up, with the flashing logo.

How do I stop it from flashing?

This is the million dollar question that I’ve been trying so hard to find the answer to.

- Brielfly, I ran a registry comparison tool (RegFormApp) to see what happens when the user clicks on the microsoft logo in an office program.

The program showed that the following registry key was being updated.

 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\General]
"OfficeMenuDiscovered"=dword:00000001

Okay, for those of you who use windows registry edit, follow the following steps;

1) Navigate through the tree menu on the left, until you get to the right place.

2) Double click on “OfficeMenuDiscovered”.

3) Change the setting from 0 to 1. Click OK to save the changes.

The .REG File Method
Stick the following into notepad, and then save the file as a .reg extention.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\General]
"OfficeMenuDiscovered"=dword:00000001

This will make it into a Registry update file that you can use in installers, etc, to get the setting set!

All I can say is that it’s been a journey.

I hope this post saves you a lot of time and effort in your developments.

Well – i guess if the website is built with accessibilty in mind, then there is no problem;

The page will render correct, no matter what browser or platform… but… if you have to use absolute positioning, and specific font sizes… then please please bear these settings in mind.

Tools | Internet Options | Accessibility.

Happy coding people!

I wanted to split the pounds, and pence into two variables to make it easier to work with, but then save the results back into 1 field. So this is what i did.

http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/function.explode.php#63110

//If you want to split a price (float) into pounds and pence.
//or dollors and cents etc etc.

$price = "6.20";

$split = explode(".", $price);
$pound = $split[0]; // piece1
$pence = $split[1]; // piece2

echo "&pound $pound . $pence\n";</span></code>

Enjoy

Step 1: Log into logmein.com

Step 2: Click on “My Computers”

Step 3: Click on “Edit Computer”

Step 4: Click on “Desktop Shortcut”

Final Step: You can now drag the [Compuer Name] onto your desktop, to create a desktop shortcut.

When you click on this shortcut, it will go directly to the login page for the COMPUTER, instead of having to login to the logmein website.

Great HUH!

You can also right click, and copy the URL, and then do what you want with it. At work we have collated a list of all our computer connections, and published it in a central place, so that everyone in the office can access any machine, directly.

Nice One LOGMEIN.