PS: I wasn’t unable to find the source of this screenie but I do know this made it to the frontpage of Digg.

With global economic meltdowns & fluctuating prices, we often can’t rely on human entry to get up to date currency rates in our web applications. Especially if you are building a website which may require your products cost to be displayed in various currencies.

This is a very powerful and light weight PHP class that lets you convert between 65+ currencies using Google Finance (http://www.google.com/finance/converter)

Example:

CurrencyRates::Convert('USD', 'INR');

Output:

49 //Since $1 is Rs. 49

Downloads:

• CurrencyRates.class.php (Updated on 12th Feb, 2009)
• Currency Types Constants

1. In order to connect to Google Finance, you must have CURL library installed & setup with php on your server.
2. In case you do not have CURL installed, try deleting the getPage($url) function and uncomment the getPage($url) function below it. This function requires ‘allow_url_fopen‘ to be enabled on your server.
3. In case you have any further problems or in understanding, post a comment below or feel free to contact me
4. Also, if you found this article or code useful, post your comments to guide others!

Example:

<?php
    if(detect_ie())
    { //if internet explorer 6 being used, then apply IE png fix
    ?>
        <!--Begin IE PNG Fix-->
        <style type="text/css">
        #shadow_tp, #shadow_btm {
            behavior: url(iepngfix.htc)
        }
        </style>
        <!--End IE PNG Fix-->        
    <?php
    }
?>

Function:

<?php
	function detect_ie()
	{
		if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']) && 
		(strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'MSIE') !== false))
			return true;
		else
			return false;
	}
?>

Preview:

Instructions:

1. Download MyPHP.zip ( < 1 kb) & extract the zip folder to any path.
2. Open "config.bat" in any text editor.
3. Change the first line "PATH=C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.2.5" to the path of your php.exe (in my case, I used a WAMP installation)
4. Double click "run.bat".

This should open "test.php" in your default php editor and display output in a small window. Now you may edit code in test.php as you need to and press any key in the output window to update itself.

This is handy when you need to quickly try out some functions related to string manipulation, loops, etc.

• All Central, Western & Harbour rail timings in one compact java application.
• Pick between Fast & Slow trains.
• Get to know which stations your fast train on Western doesn’t stop at!
• Automatically displays the upcoming trains using your mobile’s time.
• NO additional network or GPRS charges. A one time install is all you need to do.
• Quick navigation & easy interface. Complete touch screen compatibility.
• Works on almost all Java MIDP 2.0 (j2me) cell phones.
• Additional features include emergency helpline numbers, application guide, etc…

The rights to publish, sell & update Mobile Mumbai Locals has been sold out to Mumbai77.com . The product is now open to the public and you can try it out by visiting the product page at http://mumbai77.com/mumbailocal/

]]> http://dayson.thewomo.com/2008/08/31/mobile-mumbai-locals-released/feed/ http://dayson.thewomo.com/2008/03/16/database-class-for-j2me/ http://dayson.thewomo.com/2008/03/16/database-class-for-j2me/#comments Sun, 16 Mar 2008 08:49:07 +0000 Dayson Pais http://dayson.thewomo.com/?p=41 EasyDatabase is a custom class which I developed to manage and save application settings in your j2me applications instead of dealing with sometimes confusing methods of the javax.microedition.rms. It is a wrapper class around the RMS methods provided by MIDP 2.0.

It is very easy and efficient to use and requires no knowledge about MIDP Record Management System. It more or less works like how you store values in the windows registry(if you come from a windows background). Every value has a unique property name associated with it. For e.g AppVersion, LoginPassword, StudentsName, etc..

The code below demonstrates how to create a database called “UserInfo”. First we add the users “Name” & “Age”. Then, we retreive it and print it in the console.

EasyDatabase myDB = new EasyDatabase("UserInfo");
 
if(myDB.dBExists() == false)
{
	myDB.createDB(); //creates the db
	myDB.addProperty("Name", "Dayson"); //adds name
	myDB.addProperty("Age", "20"); //adds age
}
 
myDB.updateProperty("Age", "25", false); //changes age
 
System.err.println( myDB.getProperty("Name") ); //prints name
System.err.println( myDB.getProperty("Age") ); //prints age

Similarly, we can create any number of databases, retrieve & store values as and when required.

The EasyDatabase.java file is what you need to download and include in your project. Every function is very well documented and most of the method names are self-descriptive. You can edit and adapt the code to your needs but remember to retain original author credits/e-mail id towards this website. So do download it & try it out…

Download: EasyDatabase.java

View a demo of pafiledb.

Installing pafiledb:

• Unzip the file you downloaded from the paFileDB homepage.
• Open the “upload” folder, then open “includes” and then open the file “config.php”. You will need to edit that file to reflect your MySQL server information. You will need to edit the server, username, password and the database name.
• Make a folder in your drupal root directory called “downloads“.
• Open up the “upload” folder from the file you just unzipped. Copy everything, except for the “upgrade” folder from this folder into the “downloads” folder you just created.
• Navigate to the “downloads/install/index.php” folder using your web browser and setup pafiledb with any settings you want.
• Once you’ve done so, you will be prompted to delete the install folder and then you can easily view your pafiledb by browsing to your /downloads/index.php folder.

pafiledb has been successfully setup. For now, do not modify much. Just login to your pafiledb admin panel and create two categories and add a file.
Now we need to modify pafiledb a bit in order to work with drupal. The template style needs to be changed to removed the headers & unwanted content. I’ve created a custom template which you could install:

• Download the modded template of pafiledb by clicking here.
• Extract the downloaded file and copy all the files from the extracted “templates” folder into the “downloads/skins/default/templates” folder. Make sure this replaces the files in the templates folder.

Now we need to mod drupal to implement pafiledb into it.

• Create a static page say “Downloads” by using the Create Content >>> Page option in drupal.
• Set the input format of the page to “PHP code“
• Paste the code below in the Body of the new page (Updated on 16th March 2008)

<?php
if ( isset($_GET["fileid"]) )
{
	$pafile_params = "?act=view&id=" . $_GET["fileid"];
}
elseif( isset($_GET["admin"]) )
{
	$pafile_params = "?act=login";
}
?>
 
<iframe src="downloads/index.php<?php echo $pafile_params; ?>" name="frame1" scrolling="auto" frameborder="no" align="center" height = "500" width = "100%">
</iframe>

• Save the page & view it.

You will realize that pafiledb appears embedded within an iframe in the page you created. Read on to learn how to make your download system more powerful & integrated.

Q1) How to link to a file’s download page directly so that the user doesn’t have to go through the trouble of browsing through categories.
- Go to the download page for the file. (e.g /downloads/index.php?act=view&id=1 ) As you can see the “id” of the file is 1 in the url. Therefore, in the drupal page which displays the pafiledb, you can pass on the same id as a paramater using &fileid=1 at the end of the url. This will directly display the download page of the file in the iframe.

Q2) How do I make sure my visitors are not able to access the download page (/download/index.php) outside the drupal interface.
- To make sure, your downloads page is always inside your drupal theme as an iframe, we need to make the following changes:-

• Open the file “downloads/index.php” in your text editor.
• Paste the code below at the top of the file.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE='javascript'>
//this script makes sure that pafiledb is not loaded outside the downloads page iframe on drupal
try
{
	if (top == self)
	{
		top.location.href='../index.php?q=downloads';
	}
} catch(er) { }
</SCRIPT>

• Make sure to edit the “top.location.href” in the code above to the path of your drupal page which the user should be always directed to access the downloads page.

Q3) How to administer my pafiledb? (This addition was made lately so please update the code in your static page before trying this out)
- To administer your pafiledb, visit   yoursite/index.php?q=downloads&admin to login. After logging in, if you want a full page view of your admin panel, visit yoursite/downloads/admin.php

I hope this article was helpful. If you need any more help.. feel free to contact me!

Goofy Messenger is a Chat Client with advanced & entertaining features for Chatroom Servers on the Ares p2p network. It is built using C# on the .Net framework 2.0.

Development of Goofy Messenger Discontinued: I have discarded the development of Goofy due to lack of time. Though I hope someone picks up from this release and keeps it going. Perhaps, the open source release might help developers understand many concepts of networking, user interfaces, .Net framework & Ares protocol.

Source Code Released under GNU GPL v2: Yes, the source code is now available to those who would like to have a look at how things worked & for those who’d like to append to it and carry on. You can use the source code to compile, test, update & produce copies as long as you do not take out original “Developer” credits. Visit http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt for more…

If you need any help in understanding how certain parts of the code works, you can contact me via the contact page of this site. I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Download:

Goofy Messenger v2.0(beta) Source Code (VS 2005 - C# Project)

Screenshots:

If you want to download the setup of the beta version to try it upto where I develeloped, you can download it from http://www.aresusers.org/dload.php?action=file&file_id=201