One of our client wanted a different captcha in his website. We were using the default captcha plugin which bundles with CodeIgniter. I have used this script on a different project long ago and that one was a scratch coding. So, i took some of my time and ported it to CodeIgniter.

Features:

• Change the Captcha Background Color
• Choose Font / Random Font from fonts folder
• Increase Number of lines for Noise Creation
• Different color or custom colors for Line used for Noise.
• Captcha Letters have different colors or you can provide your own color set.
• Custom Image Height/Weight/Font-size
• Many more…

Expected Look :

Captcha CI libraray

Requirment: CodeIgniter 1.7.* , GD, PHP 4/5

SOURCE CODE: In github [ How to  Use?  Check wiki page. ]

At first when I saw drush i thought it’s not that handy as it seems to be. I thought some geek created this just to have fun and feel command line flexibility. But after i dig deeper i found it amazing. If you understand how to use drush you will be amazed by it’s power.

Now what is drush .. drush is a command line shell and Unix scripting interface for Drupal. as stated in here.  The most noteable features of drush from my point of view is :   module enable/disable, update script,  module download, cache clear. Just from command mode i can check latest version of module and dl them and enable them in just simple 3 to 4 commands.

I am not going to briefly explain drush functionality but will try to explain how to run drush in your system in this case Windows XP ( ) .  Here it goes:

• Download the latest version of drush from drupal
• Now open Command prompt and check and set initial settings.
  • Type ‘php’ and press enter if php command is not found then set php.exe path in your Environment
  • Also add the drush path into the environment path
  • By Closing and opening  command prompt again. check by typing ‘drush’
  • If by typing ‘drush’ shows error regarding drush.php open drush.bat file in an editor and  add the abosulute path of drush.php in that bat file.
  • This will fix the drush.php path problem.
• Let’s play with drush. Open command prompt again and traverse to a drupal installation for example:  ’cd d:/www/mydrupal’  and then type  ’drush status’. It will show initial settings of mydrupal installation. If it does not check for settings and environment path.

Drush has some nice extensions. You can play around with them. Here is another simple tip for you. If you study drush you will definately like “drush -v dl ” and ‘drush info” command. “drush info <module_name>” shows particular modules downloadable version and “drush -v dl” can help you to download and copy the file directly into your installation by just 1 single command. But to use ‘drush -v dl’ is little tricky. It uses gzip and tar command to extract the downloaded module file. You can download gzip and tar exe for windows from here.

It seems some ppl did able to use gzip and tar without any hasle but in my case i had trouble with tar. So i hacked into the core of drush and changed the tar command into izarce . If you face problem with tar then go with izarce. It worked for me.

Oops. To use izarce first install the command line version. Then add the izarce location into your environment path. THen goto drush directory and open file ‘drush\commands\pm\package_handler\wget.inc’.  Now find the line which says:

drush_shell_exec(“tar -xf $tarpath -C \”$path\”");

Now replace this with

drush_shell_exec(“izarce -e -d -p”. $path . ” $tarpath”);

It worked for me hope this does for you too. Have a nice drushed life.

[ N.B. At first i tried to use 7zip instead of izarce and gzip+tar but they have some absolute path issue; the solution of which i could not find. So, if you do know of any solution better than this do let me know.

For setting environment   press "windows key+ pausebreak" >> Advanced >> 'environment variable' >> now find variable path .. enjoy]

This is a personal note kind of post.. So, those who knew already about this… just can skip.. . But for a short summary, to use the power of GET method by not setting the CI as Query string based URL. 

Target To achieve: 

http://localhost/myapp/mycontroller/mymethod/?possible=yes

create file MY_Input.php in your application/library/
[ Reason: SO that CI does not destroy GET Method ] 

<?php

class MY_Input extends CI_Input {

    function _sanitize_globals()

    {

        $this->allow_get_array = TRUE;

        parent::_sanitize_globals();

    }    

} 

$config['permitted_uri_chars'] = ‘a-z 0-9~%?=&.:_\-’;

$config['index_page'] = “”;

Options +FollowSymLinks

Options -Indexes

DirectoryIndex index.php

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|img|css|js|robots\.txt|favicon\.ico)

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L,QSA] 

http://localhost/myapp/mycontroller/index/?possible=yes

http://codeigniter.com/forums/viewthread/47309/

I have just opened an account in twitter. http://twitter.com/neotohin .. I don’t know how long i’ll survive but let’s see. 

Here i am mentioning some of the firefox add-ons which makes me say ‘Wow’ in a not geekish way.  Though this is late but i found them just today and could not restrain myself from sharing these to all .

Cooliris
Full-Screen, 3D — Cooliris transforms your browser into a lightning fast, cinematic way to browse online photos and videos.

 This takes image/video searching   in a new height. Must see.

FoxTab

It’s better than FastDial in sense of look … But i like them both.  

Let me know if you have seen such kind of innovative add-ons or application .. Do share.

At last we ( JhoroTEK ) got our own T-shirt.. . Here is a visual demo of our T-Shirt…

From now on we are going to wear this T-shirt in our office.  Except in some formal meeting or other situation.

I have been planning to write a post regarding drupal for quite a long time. Today i am enlisting some of the modules which I use most and a sentence or 2 to explain their task:

1. Administration Menu:
   It’s an elegant Navigation menu for Drupal for Administration. It creates the navigation menu on top of the site in a sleek bar. I always put this in my development and remove the navigation block. Don’t forget to add $closure in your custom theme when you are using this module.
2. WYSIWYG API : ( Previously TinyMCE )
   An elegant RICH text editor is enough to satisfy the client or me. Though with many unwanted behavior or so.. I still like to use such module in my installation. IMCE is another module to integrate with TinyMCE which supports Image Upload mechanism on Flow.
3. CCK ( Content Construction Kit ):
   This can add Additional Fields in your custom content. Must have tool.
4. VIEWS:
   Drupal to me is uncomplete without CCK and VIEWS modules. These two can make like as easy as possible. Views helps you to fetch contents they way you want it.. and Theme wizard is a bless.
5. WEBFORM:
   To fetch some additional data or Registration form, most time I depend on this module. This has some cool features like sending mail when someone fill ups the form. Must have tool for all.
6. Date:
   It provides a date field for your contents. Really Helpful.
7. Acidfree:
   Many may say it’s not ready for production use. But i use it a lot where i need a gallery.  It has some nice features too.
8. Lightbox2:
   Combine this with Acidfree you will get a nice gallery.
9. Image :
   If you need an image Content, here you have it.
10. Pathauto:
    If you are tired of calling your contents by node/1 or node/420 then this can help you to automate or manual entry to change it to meaningful reference.
11. Calendar:
    To create an Event page, Calendar module is very helpful.
12. Devel :
    Though this one is a geeky module but it helps a lot to understand how drupal works out.
13. Contemplate:
    I have not used this in any place but i think it can be helpful for many that’s why i am enlisting it here.
14. Jquery Update:
    Pretty self explanatory.. i think.

There are many other modules which can be enlisted here but i think these are the basic and must have modules to have to start your work.  I will add more modules later .. please drop you suggestion .

Breaking a Habit is tough; But was planning this for long to migrate to linux. In my case i had two options : Fedora Core 9 and Ubuntu 8.10. At the very end, i choose Ubuntu 8.10 . Someday i will briefly discuss about that. For now , I am about to discuss how i moved to linux without breaking most of my habits:

Total Commander  Vs Krusader

I am a total Commander User and  i don’t know how could i have survived in linux without Krusader. It’s a nice replacement of Total Commander with little bits of lacking. But i am fine with it. Another hint,  If you are too glued with total commander then use WINE ( windows enviroment in Linux )  and install totalcommander in it.

NOTEPAD++ Vs Kate /Vim

As i have already told you about WINE so i think you may not want to know about KATE. But KATE can be a good replacement for Notepad++. But if you are a NOTEPAD++ addict like me then install an FTP server and then use total commander ( inside wine) and then work in your files.

WINE( Microsoft Windows Compatibility Layer )

This will remove most of your headache but don’t expect much from it.

Multimedia

I use gxine, VLC, Rhythmbox player for multimedia purpose.

Some other tools :

Openoffice , Firefox, Downloader 4 X ..

Still Looking for :

I am still looking for a nice visual MySQL management like SQLYog replacement in Ubuntu. Currenlty i am using PHPMyAdmin. If anyone knows a better one leave a comment.

Recently i have installed Ubuntu and trying to move all my work and tools ( some replacements ) in Ubuntu. The first thing i was troubled by was to install LAMP. After searching and reading some of the blogs it helped me to solve the problem.  Here is the collection of commands that helped out:

sudo aptitude purge apache2 apache2-common php5 php5-common libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server
sudo aptitude install apache2 apache2-common php5 php5-common libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server
sudo aptitude install phpmyadmin

Here are the 2 blog posts which helped me :  by wulfshayde and from here

Hopefully this will help others …

I was looking for a character limiter for jhoroTEK SMS server reporting panel. Then i found this one in ajaxray’s blog.  Though i liked the code much but writting some extra targeted code seems too much for me. So, i forked a jquery plugin from that one.

Let’s say your textarea class name is ‘test’.

in your HTML head add this :


$(document).ready(
function() {
$('.test').startCounting({limit: 160});
}
);

And here is the plugin file name:  ajaxray_textcounting.js


/*
Original Code was by: AjaxRay ( http://www.ajaxray.com/blog/2007/11/09/interactive-character-limit-for-textarea-using-jquery/ )
Plugin Written by : Mohammad Amzad Hossain ( tohin.wordpress.com)
Thanks to : http://www.learningjquery.com/2007/10/a-plugin-development-pattern
*/

})(jQuery);


I hope this comes handy… as it comes to me. Dont’ forget to add jquery as it depends on jquery.

Note: Please let me know if you have any pointing, suggestion or bugs .

Please Download the js file from Download Section or click here . Thanks