Gavinho Labs

RESTful webservice with Slim Framework

lgavinho — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:53:16 +0000

Ingredients

PHP 5
RESTful concepts
Slim Framework

Directions

Download Slim Framework
Extract and copy that to your folder

Create the index.php

get('/:type/:separator/:value', function ($type,$separator,$value) {
	//TODO validate param
	$sep = $separator;
	$val_type = $type;
	$param = $value;
	$extenser = new Extenser($param,$val_type,$sep);
	$data["sep"] = $sep;
	$data["value"] = $param;
	$data["type"] = $val_type;
	$data['text'] = $extenser->get();
	$data["success"] = $extenser->success;
	$data['error_message'] = $extenser->error_message;
	header("Content-Type: application/json");
	echo '{"result": ' . json_encode($data) . '}';
});

$app->run();

I used in that example a engine from Extenser to create the API for Extenser.

Create the .htaccess file

To Slim process entirely URL you need to create a .htaccess file at the same folder of index.php.

Add this code below:

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [QSA,L]

Test Example with cURL and PHP

In that example I use a cURL library. I suggest some links to learning more - http://delicious.com/lgavinho/curl

You just need the index.php file.

 $url,
						CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER 		=> TRUE,
						CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER			=> array ("Accept: application/json")
						)
	);

	$curl_response = curl_exec($curl_handle);
	curl_close($curl_handle);
	$data = json_decode($curl_response);
}

?>




    
    Extenser API Demo
    
    


Extenser API Demo with cURL


Type:

Number:


Comma for decimal separator. Ex. 3.451,23

Dot for decimal separator. Ex. 3,451.23






result->success) {
		echo $data->result->text;
	}
	else {
		echo utf8_decode($data->result->error_message);
	}

}

?>

You can see the demo here.

Extenser API – RESTful webservice

lgavinho — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:00:45 +0000

I implemented a simple API for Extenser just for fun and educational proposal. Now, you can create your software or use it in your website as you want.

URL: api.extenser.com.br

Technology

RESTful with Slim Framework
PHP 5

Method

GET

URL: /:type/:separator/:value

:type is:

0 (zero) for Cardinal numbers;
1 for Currency Brazilian Real;
2 for Currency Dolar;
3 for Ordinary numbers.

:separator is:

c when comma is the decimal separator and dot is the thousand separator. For example: 2.929,29.
d when dot is the decimal separator and comma is the thousand separator. For example: 2,929.29

:value is: It is the number to convert.

Response

The response is a JSON object with result main object.

Fields of result:

type: it is the same type that I told before.
sep: it is the same separator that I told before.
value: it is the same value that I told before.
text: it is the number converted.
success: true if everything works, or false if there is a error.
error_message: it is the error message if there is a error.

Example

 http://api.extenser.com.br/0/c/120

The result is:

 {"result": {"sep":"c","value":"120","type":"0","text":"cento e vinte",
"success":true,"error_message":""}}

My essential Apps for iPad

lgavinho — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:40:32 +0000

Here is my essential list of App for iPad.

Productivity

Evernote: notes, receipt, audio notes, meeting, financial documents, and much more. See the other article called My way to control things to do – Chapter 3 Software for Reference. FREE.
Wunderlist: task list control. FREE

Office

Calcbot: calculator. $1.99
Instaviz: diagram sketching for example for process workflow. $9.99
iThoughtsHD: mind-mapping. $9.99
DocsToGo: Read and write MS-Office files. It is very nice because it have a Desktop version to sync with PC. Visit the developer Dataviz. $9.99

News and Articles

Read It Later: save webpages to reader later. But I recommend to use the plugin for your web browser on PC. Visit the developer. FREE
Flipboard: Google Reader client, RSS reader and other contents from partner. FREE
Zite: It is like Flipboard, but it show articles related with your previous read. I define the type of stories (like: gadgets, technology, web design, android, game design, mobile, etc), and the Zite sends to my iPad articles related with these topics. FREE

Books

Apple iBooks: PDF and ePub file reader. FREE
Amazon Kindle: Amazon ebook reader. FREE

Social

Facebook: facebook client app. FREE
Twitter: twitter client app. FREE
Yammer: corporate social network client app. FREE
GetGlue: client app. I use it for share and archive what movies, TV series and games I saw. FREE

Video and Movies

Netflix: movie on-demand player. You need a account on Netflix. The app is FREE, but the service is not.
Goodplayer: movie player. I use it to play offline movie for my kids. $2.99
Youtube: youtube client app. FREE

For my Kids

Cake DIY: create your own cake. FREE
iColoringBook: to paint pictures. $2.99
MusicToy: play simple songs for children. $0.99
Talking John: bubbles that repeat what you say. FREE
Talking Pierre: parrot that repeat what you say. FREE
Talking Tom: gat that repeat what you say. FREE
Capri-Sun Talking Dolphin: it is a virtual dolphin that jumping in the water. FREE
Barbie i can be: make pizza with Barbie, or make a cake, or clean a dog. FREE
Barbie Fashionistas: changes the clothes of a virtual Barbie. FREE
DressUpBaby: changes the clothes and accessories of a virtual Kids (she likes a Polly). FREE

My way to control things to do – Chapter 3 Software for Reference

lgavinho — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:24:35 +0000

In Chapter 1 I talked about reference. I said that reference is everything that you use to do yours activities. It is a article, web pages, web bookmarks, books, pictures, audios, videos, any type of data. It is your knowledge base.

Now, I will talk about softwares that I use to control my references.

Evernote.com

Evernote is a great software for archive some types of reference, like: articles, webpages and notes. It is free* and you have version for everything: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry and Web.

*In a free version you have a limit of 60 MB per month to archive data. But I believe is is enough. For me it is.

Some features

Notebooks – It is like a folder and it is the place that you archive your references.
Tags – You can define words to create a second level of classification.
Search – It is basic but it is efficiently. It searches in image too.
Audio note – You can record audio. It is interesting because the file is not big.

What kind of data I archive in Evernote?

Notebook Financial:

Internet banking transactions receipt.
Record of payment without receipt.

Notebook Articles:

Web pages clipping.
Other articles.

Notebook Data:

Personal documents.
Other datas, like: birth dates, friend’s bank account.

Notebook Ideas:

Any kind of ideas.

Notebook Personal:

Business cards.
Other personal datas.

Notebook Inbox:

It is a transfer area. See Chapter 2 post.

Notebook :

Here I archive everything directly related with company where I work. Ex. Company Name = FPF, Notebook Name is FPF.

Others softwares and services

Delicious.com : web bookmarks.
Apple iTunes: musics and e-books.
Google Picasa: family pictures.

And I have a folder in my computer called “Reference” to other files, mainly the big files (ex. videos).

Don’t forget to backup your data in external hard disk. I suggest to use a cloud backup too, like Dropbox.

Debug PHP Web Application

lgavinho — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:09:35 +0000

At the time I started programming with PHP (2003) was very difficult to debug web applications. But now, it is very simple.

What you need?

A IDE - Eclipse PDT All-in-one
A server - Zend Server Community Edition

Download, install and open this applications above!

How to setup the Eclipse?

First, you need to create a new PHP project and your “home page”. For example: index.php. Don’t forget to create it inside the DocumentRoot of Zend Server. You don’t know where? Check it here.

Go to menu Preferences > PHP.

PHP Executables: Choose PHP 5.3.2 (CGI) or other;

PHP Interpreter: Choose the “PHP Version”, for example: PHP 5.3;

PHP Servers:

Define the URL to your Zend Server. For example: http://localhost:10088/. I suggest to change the default entry.

Click OK.

Go to Run menu -> Debug or Debug Configurations: right click on PHP Web Page -> New.

Define:

Name: A name that you prefer.
Server Debugger: Zend Debugger
PHP Server: Default PHP Web Server.

Test it! Click in Test Debugger. If got Success everything is fine.

One more thing, define the file to start the debug (your home page). For example: /extenser.mobi/index.php

Tip: tab Common: select Debug option at Display in favorites menu.

Click OK and Done!

And now?

Run the debug: right click in the file and choose Debug As > PHP Web Page.

Extenser beta was launched!

lgavinho — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:21:58 +0000

Extenser beta was launched. For now, only in portuguese.

www.extenser.com.br

What is the Extenser?

Extenser is a webapp to convert number to its text format. For example: convert 29 to twenty nine. In this version Extenser convert: cardinal, currency (R$ and Dolar) and ordinal numbers.

This project was made with:

PHP 5.3
HTML 5
Javascript
JSON/Ajax
Bootstrap, from Twitter
JQuery 1.7.1

This version is in continuous test. If you get any problem, please, send me a message.

Ajax is easy!

lgavinho — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:40:14 +0000

First, what is ajax?

“AJAX is the art of exchanging data with a server, and update parts of a web page – without reloading the whole page.”
w3schools.com

I used in this example:

PHP 5.3
Javascript
JQuery
JSON
HTML5

Which files did I use?

index.php: Page that user request the data;
getdata.php: PHP script to process the request.

Download the full source code here.

How does it work?

See the demo!

Index.php

First you need to create the page index.php.

Ajax with PHP

Ajax Simple Example

with PHP, Jquery and JSON

Param:

Write some data in Param and click in Get. You get the result here!

I used a simple rounded box to show the process’ result. For that, I define a CSS3 style for

. You can see this code at line 6.

I added the Jquery library in line 15. You can download the Jquery library from here.

Javascript start() function (index.php)

	function start() {
		param = $('input#param').val();
		resultBox = $('div#result');
		request = new XMLHttpRequest();
		sendRequest();
	}

First, I get the value that user wrote at input named param. After, I get the object that represent the box to put the result. These codes (line 2 and 3) I used Jquery.

After that I create the ajax object (or a XMLHttpRequest).

Javascript sendRequest() function (index.php)

    function sendRequest() {
 		request.open("GET","getdata.php?param=" + param,true);
 		request.onreadystatechange= requestHandler;
 		request.send();
    }

This code prepare the PHP script getdata.php (line 2) adding the param. It is similar to a

with get method.

After associate the requestHandler and start the request process with send() method.

The requestHandler is a variable that represent a function that will be execute when the request process is finished. It is called a callback function.

getdata.php

Define the content-type of the result page (line 2). Get the param (line 3). Create an array with the element “text” and the string “You wrote…” (line 4). And finally print to the result a JSON data with function json_encode (line 5).

Javascript requestHandler callback function (index.php)

	 requestHandler = function() {
 		if (this.readyState==4) {
  			if (this.status==200) {
		    		console.log(this.responseText);
		    		resultData = jQuery.parseJSON(this.responseText);
		    		resultBox.empty();
		    		resultBox.append(resultData.text);
  			}
  			else {
  				resultBox.empty();
      			resultBox.append('Error');
  			}
 		}
 	};

Every time this function is executed, and you can use it to control all the process. But in this example I manage only the readyState 4 (request finished and response is ready).

If the status is 200 (OK), I parsed the json data with jQuery function parseJSON. And change the page with others Jquery functions empty() and append(). Did you see you can access the json value like a property (resultData.text)?

But if it is not OK, I change the page with a simple error message.

Don’t forget to declare all javascript variables.

	var
		request,
		param,
		resultBox,
		requestHandler;

That’s it!

You can download the full source code here and see the demo here.

My way to control things to do – Chapter 2 Workflow

lgavinho — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:12:29 +0000

What is a thing? Thing is a Task or Reference.

New thing

When you have a new thing, you put it in the inbox quickly. In that moment don’t worry about how you write this thing. You need to write words that remind you of the idea.

After that, in another day or a better time, you process all things in inbox.

I have two ways to processing the inbox depend the type of the thing: task or reference. It is recommend to process your inbox 3 or 4 times per day.

Task Processing

If you can resolve it in 3 minutes. Go on and do this task.

Otherwise, follow this steps:

Fix the description.
Define a due date, if it is applied.
Move this new task (in inbox) to another box (Week, Today, Future, Big Rocks).

Just to clarify

Week – task you intend to do in the same week.
Today – task you intend to do today.
Future – task you intend to do in the future.
Big Rocks – task you need to analyse and breakdown to do it in the future.

Reference Processing

Fix the description.
Define tags (it is a short text related with the content).
Move this new reference to another box.

Bepuu Beta was launched

lgavinho — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:14:29 +0000

Today, I launched the first Bepuu beta.

www.bepuu.com.br

This project was made with:

PHP 5.3
HTML 5
Javascript
JSON/Ajax
Bootstrap, from Twitter
JQuery 1.7.1
MySQL
APC (Alternative PHP Cache)
Cron Job

Features:

Upload any type of file.
Max size is 90MB. I still trying to setup the host to support until 300MB.
The file is available for 10 days.
Download link is static, but it is available only for one day after it is generated.

For now, the upload progress bar isn’t working properly.

E-mail:

The sender email is no-reply@bepuu.com.br.
If you don’t receive an email, please, check your anti-spam.

Any problem?

This version is in continuous test. If you get any problem, please, send me a message.

Name *

Email *

My way to control things to do – Chapter 1

lgavinho — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:56:07 +0000

I will write here how I control my things to do. It is based in methodology, like Get Things Done (GTD). I divided it in some various post and I pretend to show which softwares I use, and how I use it.

First I need to explain some concepts.

In all life we have tasks, references and tasks with certain schedule.

Task with certain schedule

It is a activity that you need to do in certain date and hour. Most of times with other people like a meeting.

Reference

It is everything that you use to do yours activities. It is a article, web pages, web bookmarks, books, pictures, audios, videos, any type of data.

Tasks

Tasks is everything you need to do. Sometimes your task has a deadline, but you can do at any time until this date. It is different of task with certain schedule.

Task types

Big Rock - Sometimes you have a idea or a thing to do, but you don’t know what tasks you need to do to do it. When it occurs it is a project, or a Big Rock task. In the future you need to breakdown this task in other minor task, or The Task (see below).
The Task – it is the activity that you do and you don’t breakdown.

I’ll see in the next chapter called Workflow.