My first big project at my new job has been to rewrite the forward-facing part of our booking engine. The old design used very static page structures with a lot of form submits, and was not navigation-friendly. Moving through the process required a lot of submit and back actions, with the associated page loads that go along with that - very time consuming and frustrating.
The calendar portion of the page was an ugly behemoth in and of itself, consisting of an HTML table element (with borders!) embedded in an iframe. Woof. I definitely wanted to get away from the page refreshes, as well as provide a much easier method of selecting unit types, dates, and length of stay. Enter AJAX and Prototype.

AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript And XML, and Prototype is the javascript library I am using for this functionality. With AJAX, calls to the database happen behind the scenes and update content on the page without having to refresh the page. However, I ran into a minor difficulty while working on this project, namely, that certain functions have to be executed upon completion of the AJAX call.

Prototype provides a way to specify what happens after the AJAX call has finished, and that method is onComplete.

[js]var params = 'function=getAvailsByWeekNumber&invID=101';
try { var myAjax = new Ajax.Request(strURL, {method:'get', parameters: params, asynchronous: true, onComplete: function(request) {
// Call some function
someFunction(request.responseText);
},
onException: function(req,exception) {
alert("The request had a fatal exception thrown.nn" + exception);
},
onFailure: function(request) { return reloadPage(); }
});
}
catch(Exception) {alert("Exception detected: " + Exception); }[/js]

In this example, I am calling someFunction upon completion of the AJAX request, and I am passing the result of the AJAX call to the function. But what if I needed to pass something else to the function, like the inventory ID defined in the query string?

As it turns out, IE and Firefox behave differently when it comes to doing this (go figure...). In Firefox, the following works:

[js]onComplete: function(request)

{

// Get the parameter property of the Ajax.Request object

var params = this.parameters;

// Parse the key/value pairs and pass to function

}[/js]

This fails in IE, because this.parameters is undefined. However, the params variable defined from above the try/catch block is available, where in Firefox it is not.

Hopefully, this helps someone out...

[tags]Prototype, AJAX, Web+2.0, javascript, XML, asynchronous, Firefox, IE, Internet+Explorer, onComplete, ResortScope, Ajax.Request, code, programming, Beyrent[/tags]

I recently migrated from Drupal to Wordpress on this site, and needed to migrate all of my old content to the new database. However, One of the problems with migrating the data from one content management system to another is dealing with the differences in database schema.

Drupal stores content timestamps as an int(11) field, which represents the number of seconds since epoch (midnight, January 1st 1970). Wordpress uses a datetime field. As the two formats are completely different, a conversion must take place. Drupal stores content in the node table, and the field that stores the content creation date is called created. We'll need to select that field, and use the MySQL function FROM_UNIXTIME() to convert the date. Here's how you do it:
mysql> SELECT title,type,FROM_UNIXTIME(created) as created,body FROM
> node ORDER BY created;

+-----------------------------------+--------+---------------------+
| title | type | created |
+-----------------------------------+--------+---------------------+
| Story1 | story | 2005-03-10 11:28:22 |
| Story2 | story | 2005-03-11 16:25:14 |
| A New Story | story | 2005-03-11 16:31:18 |
+-----------------------------------+--------+---------------------+
The FROM_UNIXTIME() function also supports formatting of the result:
mysql> SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(created, '%Y %D %M %h:%i:%s %x');
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| FROM_UNIXTIME(created, '%Y %D %M %h:%i:%s %x') |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2005 10th March 11:05:32 2005 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
To reverse the conversion, you would use the UNIX_TIMESTAMP() function to convert your datetime field to a Drupal-style int(11) timestamp.
[tags]MySQL, Drupal, Wordpress, database, migration, data+conversion, date+functions,from_unixtime(),content+management+system[/tags]

We had a situation at work where a Windows XP computer had a completely corrupted installation of Internet Explorer - the browser simply was broken.  It is not incredibly obvious, but it is possible to reinstall Internet Explorer without having to try and fix the operating system itself.

From the Start menu, select "Run" and entering the following command:

rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %windir%\Inf\ie.inf

You will need to have your XP CD available.

This command line is not the easiest thing in the world to type, so for those with weak typing skills, a small VBScript that will execute the command for you can be downloaded here.

Save the file to your hard drive and double click it to run IE Setup.

Of further interest:

• How to Reinstall or Repair Internet Explorer and Outlook Express in Windows XP (Q318378)

[tags]Windows, XP, Internet+Explorer, repair[/tags]

So now I finally have things working with my new Vonage service, but it required some additional configuration.

In my previous post, I made some changes to IP addresses on my routers to get everything connected.  However, something was not quite right - when talking on the phone, the sound would fade in and out, and was basically unusable.  I also noticed that I could only get DHCP addresses on one of my routers, and only if I was directly connected to it.  Clearly, this was no good.

So, to recap, my network layout is like this:

I have a cable modem, addressed at 192.168.1.1.  Directly attached to it is a Linksys WRT54GX wireless router, addressed at 192.168.1.3.  I have another router, a Linksys BEFSR41 addressed at 192.168.1.2 connected to the wireless router via cross-over cable, and the Vonage Linksys RTP300 router also connected to the wireless router via cross-over cable.  Its address is 192.168.2.3.

I logged into the BEFSR41 router, and disabled DHCP.  I was getting conflicts by having two DHCP servers on the same subnet dishing out address to multiple clients.  At this point, I could only get an address if I was physically connected to the wireless router, which still had DHCP enabled.  That's when I discovered the Advanced settings on the BEFSR41 router.

First, I had to go the Dynamic Routing table, and set the working mode from Gateway to Router.  I then set Dynamic Routing TX and RX to RIP2.  This changed the behavior of the router, and made it act more like a switch, leaving my wireless router to act as the sole gateway on my home network.

Surprisingly, I discovered that my Vonage phone service suddenly became usable.  The sound quality was fantastic, there was no dropped sound, and no chirpiness to the sound quality.

Life is once again happy.

Vonage, routing, Linksys, gateway, DHCP, switch, RIP2, dynamic, VoIP