me talking out loud

Minutes PHP Developer Meeting

Ok - have read the minutes for what is going on with PHP6 and as odd as it sounds - it was actually quite interesting.

A couple of the subjects/discussions I found interesting:

• Unicode on/off modes
• register globals
• magic quotes
• register long arrays
• case sensitivity of identifiers
• moving ereg to pecl
• Adding a 64 bit integer
• Adding “goto”
• ifsetor() as “replacement” for $foo = isset($foo) ? $foo : “something else”
• Allow foreach syntax for multi-dimensional arrays
• Late static binding using “this” without “$” (or perhaps with a different name)
• Using an undefined property in a class with defined properties should throw a warning
• Merge Hardened PHP patch into PHP
• Sand boxing or taint mode
• All non-fatal errors should become exceptions
• E_STRICT on by default

There are many other decisions made that I sure others would be interested in (safe_mode and base_directory pop to mind) so take a look at the minutes and see what the future will look like.

InformationWeek > Security > Hackers Hitting Popular Apps > November 21, 2005

A quote from the article:

“The applications under fire span a variety of operating systems. They include enterprise backup software, anti-virus software, PHP applications, database software, peer-to-peer file sharing software, DNS software, media player software, IM software, and Internet browsers.”

Unfortunately we are the ONLY computer language mentioned specifically… This will not help with the acceptance of PHP as a solid, secure programming language.

Today I installed Apache 2 on to my test box (Wamp). Had a few problems for a while and couldn’t figure it out. Kept getting the error:

(OS 10048) Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted. :make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80 no listening sockets available, shutting down
Unable to open logs


First thing that popped into mind was maybe it was something with my firewall… so I turn it off… uninstall the apache and try to reinstall… same problem. Next figure maybe I have a bad download.. toss the old install into the trash - download a new one and try to reinstall. Same problem.

So I join the #apache channel on irc.freenode.org and start typing up my question. I note that I couldn’t find anything like this error in the Apache Docs… but then I start thinking that I really didn’t try google. Obviously I googled next using “error message OS 10048″.

First link I find is this and loe and behold I found my answer - It’s Skype. The blasted thing runs off the same socket as the apache server and doesn’t like to share. All I had to do was close it, run the apache installer and then reopen it.

Apache should make a note of this somewhere in their docs.

Ever have your work computer harddrive crash on you? That happened to me on Tuesday morning. So what do I do - I take the computer to the shop… have them try to save whatever they can (which turned out to be nothing), wipe out the slave harddrive and reload the OS. It only took them until Friday afternoon to do it (I read a lot and answered phones in the office). Figure - OK I can bring in my laptop and use that - right… Nope. Seems my office is rather hexed right now.

The laptop worked perfectly fine at home… take it to the office… won’t boot up. And before you say it - no there is nothing wrong with my connection… just bad juju.

Anyway - I am back up and running - and downloading, installing and configuring like a big dog. Figure it will take ~ a week to get everything back up and running again. Have a list of over 20 programs to install and that isn’t even a complete listing - just the big stuff. Oh well.

Ok the 3rd edition of the PHPC Gazette has finally been released (hey better late then never). Raj and I got caught up in some stuff so it is ~2 weeks late. Sorry about that.

The official announcement:

Please give a hearty welcome to the delayed, but information-packed third edition of the PHPCommunity Gazette - http://phpcommunity.org/gazette/2005/nov/index.html .

The first article is an introduction to Pear::Validate package, with an example on how you can use it for validating emails. The next article shows you the different ways to slice an array, to diff between two arrays and other nifty array operations. This is the first time that we have the polish translations of two previous articles on image manipulation (thanks to Jacek Barcikowski for the hard work). Next is an article introducing you to the basics of MySQL administration. Finally, you have the regular column ‘Threads of Interest’ which picks up three interesting discussions from various mailing list.

If you have any complaints or you see any problems, please drop a mail to gazette@phpcommunity.org.

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed putting it together

If anyone would like to participate in anyway with the PHPC Gazette - we would always welcome it. Hope you like it.

Well Jason and I went scuba diving this past weekend. We did 2 dives. The first was a Gab Gab II and the second and San Luis Beach. Both were dives from the shore (though swimming out to Gab Gab II took a while).

Jason had already gone to Gab Gab II earlier but this was all new to me. It should be noted that Gab Gab II is a site where a tourist submarine drives around, so divers have to make sure they stay well away from it and not get run over. I have to say Gab Gab II was absolutely incredable. While down we saw some HUGE trevally (jacks). I mean these things had to be ~3 feet long. Mmm talk about some good eating - too bad the area is a protected. We also saw these batfish… they were also huge - ~1 foot tall. I felt like we were shrunk and stuck into an aquarium… after a bit we also saw the little moray eel that lives there. It was about the size of my husband’s calf around. Supposedly there is a bigger one that lives there (reported to be as big around as a man’s thigh) but we didn’t see him. While we were down the fish swim all around you looking for food (the sub has divers that feeds them)… and I have to admit the trevallys really made me nervous. A bite out of you from one of them would take a large chunk of ya… I did get to touch one though as he was swimming by. We also saw a number of smaller fish - clown fish, sea anenome’s, angel fish, varius parrot fish and more… but the big ones really stand out in my memory.

After that we went to San Luis Beach. It is just a little bit down the road from Gab Gab. We ended up going here because the current at Gab Gab was getting really strong and I didn’t want to fight it to get back to Gab Gab.

Anyway - so down we went… we were only supposed to go down to 60 feet for ~ 35 minutes… Obviously we didn’t and it was all my fault… I wanted to see this HUGE sea fan and of course it was deeper then I thought - 67 ft. I have to admit is was a beautiful fan though… as tall as I am and an royal purple… anyway Jason and I swam along the reef shelf and managed to see a sea turtle also. He was so cool. We were at about 55 feet when we saw him and watched him slip deeper into the water and swim on by… it was outstanding. On we went exploring the various reef overhangs and eventually came out not far from where we started. Unfortunately we were down longer then we should have (accourding to our new depth calculations) by 1.5 minutes so we took our time at the safety stop to make sure we decompressed well.

All in all it was incredable. Here are a few pictures for you to get an idea what we saw. Unfortuantely they aren’t our’s since we don’t have an underwater camera, but I think you’ll get the idea.

Greenpeace to pay fine for damaging reef

Does anyone other then me see the incredable irony in this?

It ha been a very long time (over 2.5 years) since I wrote any stored procedures in PL/SQL. But now the MySQL 5 has them I will be pulling out those old rusty skills and turning my hand to them again.

Why - because *gasp* the boss wants to switch over to MySQL 5 now that it is production ready. I have been told to learn about the new cool features - stored procedures, triggers, views specifically - and how PHP can work with them. Very Cool.

Is it just me - or am I the bosses knowledge bank (not that I’m complaining). First learning about various bug tracking systems, then Perl and now this… When ever he wants to know about something - he sends it to me. Kinda nice since I get to expand my own knowledge with at least all of the subjects basics.

Wouldn’t mind playing a little bit more with Perl and it’s modules - but I think I pretty good basic grasp of it now. At least - enough of one not to hurt myself very much or often with it. Stored procedures are coming back kinda - again it has been a long while and I really only did basic stuff then - but it is fun learning this stuff.

“Jack of all trades - master of none”.