I began to search for my ISP's local and international peering as obviously they should reveal what networks and what routes my ISP has from my end to the servers I am trying to connect to. According to Wikipedia via Google, my ISP should have an assign ASN (Autonomous System Number). To cut the story short, I found my ISPs ASN and others and ended up here http://www.robtex.com/as/ where I can query for an ISP name. So far I have found:

SkyBroadband (SkyCable)
http://www.robtex.com/as/as23944.html#peer

Globe Telecoms (G-Net)
http://www.robtex.com/as/as4775.html#peer

PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company)
http://www.robtex.com/as/as9299.html#peer

You will notice that of the three, G-Net has the most number of peers. Look over at the graph tab and you will have a better idea of which other AS your ISP has direct peering with. Again, G-Net appears to have better peering internationally i.e. with Cogent and Level3.

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Plugin by name 'StringEquals' was not found in the registry; used paths: Zend_Validate_: Zend/Validate/

Given such validator would be useful on a number of situations i.e. confirming passwords, emails, etc. I present to you my own version of the class.

 
<?php
class Zend_Validate_StringEquals extends Zend_Validate_Abstract
{
    const NOT_EQUAL	= 'stringNotEqual';
    const MISSING	= 'stringMissing';
 
    /**
     * @var array
     */
    protected $_messageTemplates = array(
        self::NOT_EQUAL	=> "%field1% and %field2% are not equal.",
        self::MISSING	=> "One or both strings are missing."
    );
 
    /**
     * @var array
     */
    protected $_messageVariables = array(
        'field1' => '_field1',
        'field2' => '_field2'
    );
 
    protected $_case = false;
    protected $_field1 = null;
    protected $_field2 = null;
 
    /**
     * Sets validator options
     *
     * @param  boolean $case
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct($case = false)
    {
        $this->_case = $case;
    }
 
    /**
     * Defined by Zend_Validate_Interface
     *
     * Returns true if and only if the the 2 strings are equal
     *
     * @param  array $value
     * @return boolean
     */
    public function isValid($value)
    {
    	if(!is_array($value) OR sizeof($value) < 2) {
			$this->_error(self::MISSING);
    	}
 
    	$this->_field1 = array_shift($value);
    	$this->_field2 = array_shift($value);
 
        if($this->_case === true) $function = 'strcmp';
        else $function = 'strcasecmp';
 
        if(0 !== $function($this->_field1,$this->_field2)) $this->_error(self::NOT_EQUAL);
 
        if (count($this->_messages)) {
            return false;
        } else {
            return true;
        }
    }
}
 

Here is a sample test case. Validate password and confirm password elements represented by 'password' and 'cpassword' element names respectively.

 
$filters = array('password' => 'StringTrim', 'cpassword' => 'StringTrim');
$validators = array(
    'Password' => array(
        'presence' => 'required',
        array('StringLength',5,15),
        'fields' => 'password',
        'messages' => "Passwords must be between 5 and 15 characters in length."),
    'Confirm password' => array(
        array('StringEquals'),
        'fields' => array('password','cpassword'),
        'messages' => array(
            0 => array(
                Zend_Validate_StringEquals::NOT_EQUAL => "Passwords does not match.",
                Zend_Validate_StringEquals::MISSING => "Both password fields must be filled."))));
 
$inputdata = new Zend_Filter_Input($filter,$validators,$_POST,$options);
 

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Although the subject matter is new to me, the first few pages provided a quick grasp of what the book is all about. As a freelance web developer I would constantly look for ways to improve my craft, alone or with a virtual community of mailing lists and forums. After reading in its entirety I was already reevaluating on a different way to improve my skills. The book provides proven and tested patterns on how to constantly rise up as a software developer. These patterns, like its "software development patterns" counterpart, only applied to real world career mode, is meant to provide indispensable knowledge on how to gain an edge on our ever changing industry.

If you come to me with a cup that is already full, how can you expect me to give you something to drink?

A very encouraging one line to always remind us that what knowledge we know now is not enough, empty our cups to fill them something new.

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When you want to store stories, you would also want to record when it was originally created as well track the last time it was updated. The problem here is that adding a `DEFAULT NOW()` clause will not work for the `CREATE TABLE` query above as it is not supported. So when your insert a new story you will have to explicitly add a `NOW()` function for the `creationdate` row so it will reflect the current date as creation date. This should've been a simple schema functionality, turns out after more than a year MySQL seems to ignore for some reason.

Go on have yourself a read here http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=27645

How about you, how many times have you have to work around this from your application code?

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Source MSFTPSVC Event ID 8: FTP Server could not create a client worker Thread for user at host xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. The connection to this user is terminated the data is the error. (No error Code)

Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the host attempting to connect.

The MS KB article here http://support.microsoft.com/?id=293637 proposes a solution with regards to a related metabase error and how to delete such. However some users may not have the "ipsecurity" error described in the KB, so instead you will have to check each of you individual FTP sites. Make sure that in the Properties -> Directory Security tab, Granted Access is selected. If in any case Denied Access is selected, make sure the connecting host above is added in the exception list.

After making changes to the Directory Security property, double check with the KB article again as changes to the metabase have been made.

After the two checks above and you are still getting tons of Event ID 8, you can also check here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc783062%28WS.10%29.aspx

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To achieve this, make sure the following items a re true:

• HOST » VMWare » Edit » Virtual Network Editor

1. Automatic Bridging - "Automatically choose an available physical network adapter to bridge to VMNet0" is UNCHECKED
2. Host Virtual Network Mapping - VMNet0 is mapped to you chosen physical adapter, NOT automatically.
3. You can disable NAT, DHCP and Host Virtual Network Adapters

• HOST » Control Panel » Network Connections

1. Right click your chosen physical adapter, then Properties. Make sure "VMWare Bridge Protocol" is CHECKED.

• GUEST - Assign an unused static IP, the same network/netmask and gateway that is used on your host's physical adapter.

Other items worth checking when inbound and outbound connections from the guest OS:

• Host firewall
• Guest DNS server settings, resolv.conf.

This checklist should get you up and running with a virtualized development platform with the same network visibility as a physical machine in your office.

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The point of this article is how much should we get involved on getting our customers "PCI Compliant"?

From a customer's point of view, generally they would expect all the technical work necessary be done out of the report. From my point of view, this should not be the case. Security compliance is another box when it comes to web hosting, if the customers are employing a third party security company then they should do most of the leg work. We do not need to analyze pages of report that those security comapnies are supposed to be doing. We'd more than happy to get the customer compliant, but we only need the specific technical points to do our part. Yes, the customer gets confused at first when we throw back at them these ideas, fortunately they would get our point and point back to the security vendor then the vendor liasing directly back to us.

I'd hope there is a much more structured process between the security vendor, the customer and the hosting company. How about you, how have you been doing so far as a customer, vendor or a hosting company  with your part on the PCI compliance process?

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PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/lib64/php/modules/ffmpeg.so' - /usr/lib64/php/modules/ffmpeg.so: undefined symbol: php_gd_gdImageSetPixel in Unknown on line 0

Surely enough, the GD extension was there, but why is ffmpeg complaining about not finding that shared symbol? Because, ffmpeg is loading first than GD (alphabetically) and such symbol has not been loaded. After adding the GD extension line on top of ffmpeg making sure it loads first the error went away and all is well again.

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One problem everytime I install a Linux or BSD variant on any laptop is the widescreen resolution. Except for Ubuntu and Fedora, much of them needs manual intervention to have their native widescreen resolution working on that particular distro, Slackware included.

To cut the story short, if you are installing X server for whatever dekstop manager you intend, the default xorg.conf configuration will not help with the widescreen. Simple really, just run xorgsetup, follow your instinct and startx. You should have your beloved widescreen back.

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Looking at job posts from all over the internet, you should've noticed at one time a PHP gig that requires MySQL administration skills and/or knows their way around Linux. PHP does not come by itself anymore, at least commonly, thus I've thought the term "LAMP Integrator".  A quick Google search does not seem to turn much on how to define such, thus I have a simple one.

LAMP Integrator - is a PHP developer primarily using MySQL as data backend with strong Linux administration and Apache tuning skills.

It may sound primitive, I am writing as I am thinking so comments and revisions are welcome.

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