Gmail allows you to retrieve the email from other email accounts via POP3 (just as many desktop email clients do). The nice thing about it is that it will also filter email from that account and mark suspected SPAM as such.

This feature is found in:
Gmail -> Settings -> Accounts and Import (tab) -> Check mail using POP3

I set mine up to delete mail from Hotmail’s server upon retrieval to prevent email clog up. Also be sure to tag your Hotmail, so it doesn’t get mixed in with the important stuff. You may still need to log into Hotmail occasionally to prevent them from shutting down your account. I’ve thought about setting up another Gmail account to replace my beloved Microsoft email acct. but…

We’ve all seen this show before. The tricky part is finding your way back to XAMPP (Apache) from IE Tester while maintaining a consistent base URL. This isn’t important when running a few static websites, but many frameworks have this value stored in its database. When you view your site using a different URL, links to static files (CSS, images, etc.) and other pages become broken. In a few easy steps I’m going to show you one method to resolve this issue.

Go ahead and install the above applications and OSes if you haven’t already. Use the default network mode of “NAT” for VirtualBox. I’m going to assume that you can access your local sites (from your Mac) using – http://localhost/sitename/

- Step 1: Boot up your Windows install and use ipconfig (Run -> cmd -> ipconfig) to get your gateway IP. It was 10.0.0.2 for me.

- Step 2: Add the following lines to both system’s (Mac and virtual Windows install) hosts files (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file). ‘localhost.com’ can be replaced with a URL of your choice.

# Mac:
localhost.com 127.0.0.1
# Windows:
localhost.com 10.0.0.2

- Step 3: Be sure that all of your web frameworks (Wordpress, Magento, etc.) are aware of your new base URL ‘localhost.com’ (or whatever you chose in step 2).

- Step 4: Access one of your sites from each of your operating system’s browser using – http://localhost.com/sitename/

Download: jquery.content_expirator-0.1.0.js

Let’s say your client has given you a flyer to put on their website for an event.

<img src="easter_flyer_2010.jpg" class="aligncenter" alt="Easter Flyer" />

After Easter is over, you’re going to want to take this flyer off of their site. Instead of manually editing the site on the Monday after Easter to take it down, you can give it an expiration date so that it isn’t displayed after Easter.

<img src="easter_flyer_2010.jpg" class="exp-2010-04-04 aligncenter" alt="Easter Flyer" />

The Content Expirator looks for an element containing a class name (must be the first one listed) containing the prefix ‘exp’. When it comes across one, it compares the date (formatted year-month-day) with the current day to decide if the element’s ‘display’ (style) parameter should be set to ‘none’.

Calling The Function:

default:

$(document).ready(function(){
    jQuery.contentExpirator();
});
// looks for -> 'exp-year-month-day'

custom prefix:

$(document).ready(function(){
    jQuery.contentExpirator('end');
});
// looks for -> 'end-year-month-day'

Plugin Source:

(function($){
        $.contentExpirator = function(prfx){
            var pfix = prfx || 'exp';
            $("[class|="+pfix+"]").each(function(){
                var eString = $(this).attr('class').split(' ')[0];
                var dString = eString.split('-');
                var d = new Date(dString[1],dString[2].toString()-1,dString[3]);
                var today = new Date();
                if(d < today){
                    $(this).css('display','none');
                }
            });
        }
    })(jQuery);

The following script provides an easy way to perform unbiased rounding, convergent rounding, statistician’s rounding, Dutch rounding, Gaussian rounding, or bankers’ rounding using Javascript.

Examples

var numToRound = 10.005;
document.write(numToRound.rhte(0.01);
result: 10.00

var numToRound = 10.0015;
document.write(numToRound.rhte(0.001);
result: 10.002

var numToRound = 10.00500000001;
document.write(numToRound.rhte(0.01);
result: 10.01

var numToRound = 1005001;
document.write(numToRound.rhte(10000);
result: 1010000
 

/*
	Round Half To Even (rhte) extends the 'Number' and 'String' objects
	Argument(placeToRound) examples: 0.0001,0.01,1,10,100
	Usage:
		Number.rhte(rounding value)
			(124.34450000).rhte(0.001) - [Result: 124.344]
			(124.34450001).rhte(0.001) - [Result: 124.345]
			(124.34550000).rhte(0.001) - [Result: 124.346]
		String.rhte(rounding value)
			'124.34450000'.rhte(0.001) - [Result: 124.344]
			'124.34450001'.rhte(0.001) - [Result: 124.345]
			'124.34550000'.rhte(0.001) - [Result: 124.346]
*/
function rhte(placeToRound){
	var places = 0;
	var strThis = this.toString();
	var orgPlaces = strThis.split('.').length > 1 ? strThis.split('.')[1].length : 0;
	var pToRnd = (parseFloat(placeToRound)).toFixed(orgPlaces);
	pToRnd < 1 ? places = pToRnd.toString().split('.')[1].length : places = 0;
	var decNum = (parseFloat(this)/pToRnd).toFixed(strThis.length);
	var floor = Math.floor(decNum);
	var dec = (decNum - floor).toFixed(strThis.length);
	parseFloat(this) > 0 ? floor = Math.floor(decNum) : floor = Math.ceil(decNum);
	floor % 2 == 1 ? oddEven = 1 : oddEven = 0;
	if(dec != 0.5){
		return ((Math.round(decNum)) * pToRnd).toFixed(places);
	}
	else{
		if(oddEven == 1){
			return ((floor + 1) * pToRnd).toFixed(places);
		}
		else{
			return (floor * pToRnd).toFixed(places);
		}
	}
}
Number.prototype.rhte = rhte;
String.prototype.rhte = rhte;

Here I’ve modified the Recent Posts widget (file: /wp-includes/default-widgets.php) so that it’ll work with this plugin.

Insert the following code after line #545 ($r = new WP_Query(array(’showposts’ =>…)(WP ver-2.8)

$r->set('orderby', 'menu_order');
$r->set('order', 'ASC');
$r->get_posts();

Everything sounded interesting, so I decided to try my first “slice”. I went with the 256, knowing that I can upgrade at any time. After you pay, your slice is ready within minutes and your ip address and root password are emailed to you. I chose to go with an Ubuntu image (8.04 LTS) and I’ll show you how to get it up and running ASAP!

If you like this tutorial and think would like to try out a slice for yourself (currently starting at only $20/mo.), please don’t be affraid to use my refferal link:
https://manage.slicehost.com/customers/new?referrer=6167bb58471750b3ab3d4ece5277a150

Go ahead and login to your server (I use PuTTY for Windows for my SSH needs). The first thing that you’ll probably want to do is change your root password and then setup a user for yourself, so that you won’t be working as root all of the time.

Next we’ll install Apache 2:

sudo apt-get install apache2

… and then MySQL. Be sure to set your root password:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

For MySQL management I installed phpMyAdmin (this will also install PHP as a dependency):

sudo apt-get install phpMyAdmin

As an extra admin tool, you can install Webmin. I just downloaded this into my home directory with wget:

wget http://link_to_current_webmin.deb

To install Webmin you can use (replace current_webmin.deb with the name of the deb file that you downloaded with wget):

dpkg -i current_webmin.deb

It will probably fail due to a lack of dependencies, so you can run apt to fix it. This should also continue the Webmin installation:

sudo apt-get –fix-broken

You should now be able to access your server at: https://your-ip-address:10000
You’ll have to add an exception to your browser for the invalid SSL cert. It’s ok to do so.

Lastly I just installed ProFTPD, for my FTP server, through Webmin. There’s a one click install under unused modules or you can use:

sudo apt-get install proftpd

Once this was installed, I used Edit Config Files to uncomment (remove the ‘#’) “DefaultRoot ~” (this allows users access to only their home directories) and add the line: “IdentLookups Off” (this speeds up the login process).

At this point, Webmin showed my memory usage at less than half (102MB) of the 256MB allotted and my disk usage at around 1.2GB of the 10GB for this plan! I just set my slice up, so I can’t comment on it’s performance as of yet.

I hope this is a good start to get you up and running. I can’t guarantee that this is the most secure setup, but it’s a start…

- A plugin that adds class functionality to jQuery: jQuery-Klass

- John Resig himself wrote this library/plugin: Classy Query

Pete Tong:
rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk:554/radio1coyopa/radio_1_-_friday_1900.ra
Fabio and Grooverider:
rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk:554/radio1coyopa/radio_1_-_sunday_0100.ra

In need of a JavaScript function that would parse an ISO8601 compliant date, I came across an attempt (http://delete.me.uk/2005/03/iso8601.html) and rewrote it (because I’m all about reinventing the wheel). My function extends the Date object and allows you to pass in an ISO8601 date (2008-11-01T20:39:57.78-06:00). The function will then return the Date. In the date string argument the dashes and colons are optional. The decimal point for milliseconds is mandatory (although specifying milliseconds isn’t). If a timezone offset is specified, the ‘+’ or ‘-’ sign must be included. This function should also work with iCalendar(RFC2445) formatted dates. If a the date string doesn’t match the format, there will be a final attempt to parse it with the built in Date.parse() method.

Code:

Date.prototype.setISO8601 = function(dString){
var regexp = /(\d\d\d\d)(-)?(\d\d)(-)?(\d\d)(T)?(\d\d)(:)?(\d\d)(:)?(\d\d)(\.\d+)?(Z|([+-])(\d\d)(:)?(\d\d))/;
if (dString.toString().match(new RegExp(regexp))) {
var d = dString.match(new RegExp(regexp));
var offset = 0;
this.setUTCDate(1);
this.setUTCFullYear(parseInt(d[1],10));
this.setUTCMonth(parseInt(d[3],10) - 1);
this.setUTCDate(parseInt(d[5],10));
this.setUTCHours(parseInt(d[7],10));
this.setUTCMinutes(parseInt(d[9],10));
this.setUTCSeconds(parseInt(d[11],10));
if (d[12])
this.setUTCMilliseconds(parseFloat(d[12]) * 1000);
else
this.setUTCMilliseconds(0);
if (d[13] != 'Z') {
offset = (d[15] * 60) + parseInt(d[17],10);
offset *= ((d[14] == '-') ? -1 : 1);
this.setTime(this.getTime() - offset * 60 * 1000);
}
}
else {
this.setTime(Date.parse(dString));
}
return this;
};

Usage:

var today = new Date();
today.setISO8601('2008-12-19T16:39:57.67Z');

-

v0.3.0 (August 5, 2009)

• Accepts events that span across multiple days
• MooTools v1.2.3 required.

v0.2.2 (April 11, 2009)

• Fixed a rendering problem for people outside of the U.S.
• Added the option for weeks to start on Monday

v0.2.1 (Feb 9, 2009)

• bug fix – usage error with parseInt(). Events wouldn’t load on the 8th and 9th of a month.
• HTML allowed in events. This allows for events to link elsewhere.

v0.2.0 (Feb 1, 2009)

• uses plug-ins or direct loading through the constructor for events
• uses iCal/ISO 8601 dates/times for event input
• different style sheets can be used for 3 different sized calendars

v0.1.0 (Oct 3, 2008)

• month, week, and day views
• tool tips for month view events (using Tips)
• scrolling day events for month view (using Scroller)
• events loaded manually or possibly through a JSON feed