atomiku

Easiest way to get Lat/Long GPS coordinates from Google Maps API with PHP

atomiku — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 18:42:22 +0000

So I built a properties rental website and they wanted to show a marker on a google map for where the property was. Well before I could start plotting markers I needed to get the coordinates from the supplied address. Easy! Below is a handy function with simple usage. You’ll need to go and sign up for a free API key from: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorial#api_key.

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function getCoordinates($address) {
$apiKey = 'YOUR_KEY_HERE';
$address = urlencode($address);
$url = 'http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=' . $address . '&output=csv&key=' . $apiKey;
$data = getURL($url);
if ($data){
$data = explode(',', $data);
return array($data[2], $data[3], $data[1], $data[0]);
}
//return default data
return array(0, 0, 0, 0);
}

Now, just a quick bit of information on how to use this function. You can supply almost any type of address, postcode or country that you would normally be able to do on maps.google.com. For instance: getCoordinates(’140 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, Greater London WC2H 8HD’);

The getCoordinates function returns an array. 0 = lat, 1 = lng, 2 = accuracy and 3 = status. The easiest way to deal with the return array would be to use list, though.

list($lat, $lng, $accuracy, $status) = getCoordinates('Address');

I advise you use some error checking in your system, based on $status. Here are the available status codes that Google may return:

200 – Success
500 – Server Error
602 – Unknown Address
610 – Bad API key
620 – Too many queries

You are limited to around 25,000 API queries a day – that should be more than enough. (You can see your API usage in the Google API console.)

Credits to havlena.net for the original idea and code.

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Contact Form Hijacking – How to secure your PHP contact forms from header injection

atomiku — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:12:35 +0000

When coding contact forms in PHP, most people don’t realize that unless they’ve taken the necessary measures, it will probably be vulnerable to header injections. This basically means that the attacker can put his own To and From into the email headers using the textarea or inputs in the contact form. Why do people do this? For sending email spam. I found an article on anders.com, it explains this very well. As quoted from http://anders.com/projects/sysadmin/formPostHijacking/:

Spammers are constantly being blacklisted and kicked off of networks. Because of this, tricking a non-spamming website into sending spam has become a high priority. One way for spammers to find vulnerable webservers is to test for CGI applications that would allow the spammer to enslave the webserver. Once a vulnerable webserver is found, the spammer can mask the true source of his spam while the enslaved webserver does the bulk of the work.

The article also gives a technical explanation as to how headers can be injected and why it even works in the first place. Look for “I want a more technical explanation with an example!“.

The simplest way to protect contact forms against hijacking / header injection would be to strip \r and \n from all inputs that are placed within the mail function. You can use regex for that:

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$_POST['name'] = preg_replace("/\r|\n/", "", $_POST['name']);
$_POST['email'] = preg_replace("/\r|\n/", "", $_POST['email']);
$_POST['message'] = preg_replace("/\r|\n/", "", $_POST['message']);
//And then you can safely use the above variables in the mail() function.

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Mac: Don’t like pressing ALT+3 to do a hash #? Bind the \ backspace key to hash just like on Windows!

atomiku — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:35:54 +0000

I like my Macbook. Great for coding and internet browsing. I can’t really game on it, but who cares when you’ve got a gaming machine for those times? One small thing that annoys me is having to press ALT + 3 every time I need a hash #. Whether it be for CSS ids or hex colors, my thumb has to perform an awkward maneuver to reach that ALT key while my middle finger presses 3.

Only after a year have I ever thought about binding the backslash key to hash for ease of use. But what about doing backslashes if the key is bound to hash? Well you can press FN + \ to do a backspace.

Here’s how to bind your keys:

1) Download and Install KeyRemap4MacBook
From: http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/

2) Add an additional entry to the key binding’s XML file
Go to System Preferences, click KeyRemap4Macbook, then go to the Misc & Uninstall tab.
Click ‘Open private.xml’. You’ll want to open this in TextEdit or something similar.
Now add the following so your private.xml looks like this:

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version="1.0"?>
>
>
>Backslash(\) to Hash # (Alt+3)>
>(+Alt+Backslash to Backslash)>
>remap.iso_backslash_to_hash_option_backslash_to_backslash>
>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::BACKSLASH, VK_OPTION, KeyCode::BACKSLASH>
>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::BACKSLASH, ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::KEY_3, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L>
>
>

After adding that, save the file, close, then go to the ‘Change Key’ tab on the KeyRemap4Macbook window and click ‘ReloadXML’.

3) Enable the key binding:
First, check ‘Backslash(\) to Hash # (Alt+3)’.

There, you’re done. The hash # is now easily inserted by pressing the backslash key. If you need to do a backslash, press ALT+\, or if you need a pipe | just use SHIFT+ALT+\.

If you found this useful, share on facebook, twitter, or just make a comment. I’d appreciate the comment, actually

The post Mac: Don’t like pressing ALT+3 to do a hash #? Bind the \ backspace key to hash just like on Windows! appeared first on atomiku.

jQuery HTML5 Placeholder Input Fallback (for browsers that do not support the placeholder attribute)

atomiku — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:05:07 +0000

Hey, placeholder is a really useful HTML5 feature but unfortunately not all browsers support it. So here is a small jQuery script that will replicate placeholder functionality for older browsers. Read more for the code.

Here is an input with a placeholder attribute:

And here is the code:

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$(document).ready(function(){
$('[placeholder]').focus(function() {
var input = $(this);
if (input.val() == input.attr('placeholder')) {
input.val('');
input.removeClass('placeholder');
}
}).blur(function() {
var input = $(this);
if (input.val() == '' || input.val() == input.attr('placeholder')) {
input.addClass('placeholder');
input.val(input.attr('placeholder'));
}
}).blur();
$('[placeholder]').parents('form').submit(function() {
$(this).find('[placeholder]').each(function() {
var input = $(this);
if (input.val() == input.attr('placeholder')) {
input.val('');
}
})
});
});

The post jQuery HTML5 Placeholder Input Fallback (for browsers that do not support the placeholder attribute) appeared first on atomiku.

atoChat v1.0.1 preview video

atomiku — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:07:55 +0000

The video can be seen at http://atomiku.com/files/atochat/preview.html

atoChat needs beta testers so please email me via the contact page if you’re interested in the free beta and leave me your email address so I can get back to you. Thanks. (atoChat v1.0.1 release imminent!).

The post atoChat v1.0.1 preview video appeared first on atomiku.

My pastebin site is back online

atomiku — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:57:10 +0000

After 2 years of the site being offline and the code hidden away on an old development machine, I decided to dig it up and put it online again. You can paste code at: http://paste.atomiku.com/. It has Private/Public Posts, Syntax Highlighting for almost every language and the ability to set an expiry time. Enjoy.

The post My pastebin site is back online appeared first on atomiku.

PHP function for Resizing and/or Cropping images with GD

atomiku — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 22:50:31 +0000

There are a number of classes or functions available on the internet for resizing or cropping images, but none of them suited me for one reason or another… so here is my function. It supports JPG, PNG and GIF. It can resize an image by width, or create a cropped fixed size image. This will preserve aspect ratio.

Please note: it doesn’t yet preserve transparency; resized/cropped images will have a white or black background. I will update the resize_image function in the near future to support PNG/GIF transparency.

Resizing then cropping to a 200px square:
resize_image('source_image.jpg', 'image_cropped.jpg', 200, 200);

Resizing to width of 200px:
resize_image('source_image.jpg', 'image_resized', 200, false);

Download link: http://atomiku.com/files/resize_image.php.zip

Any feedback, suggestions or improvements would be greatly appreciated so leave a comment if you have anything to say, thanks!

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function resize_image($file, $destination, $w, $h) {
//Get the original image dimensions + type
list($source_width, $source_height, $source_type) = getimagesize($file);

//Figure out if we need to create a new JPG, PNG or GIF
$ext = strtolower(pathinfo($file, PATHINFO_EXTENSION));
if ($ext == "jpg" || $ext == "jpeg") {
$source_gdim=imagecreatefromjpeg($file);
} elseif ($ext == "png") {
$source_gdim=imagecreatefrompng($file);
} elseif ($ext == "gif") {
$source_gdim=imagecreatefromgif($file);
} else {
//Invalid file type? Return.
return;
}

//If a width is supplied, but height is false, then we need to resize by width instead of cropping
if ($w && !$h) {
$ratio = $w / $source_width;
$temp_width = $w;
$temp_height = $source_height * $ratio;

$desired_gdim = imagecreatetruecolor($temp_width, $temp_height);
imagecopyresampled(
$desired_gdim,
$source_gdim,
0, 0,
0, 0,
$temp_width, $temp_height,
$source_width, $source_height
);
} else {
$source_aspect_ratio = $source_width / $source_height;
$desired_aspect_ratio = $w / $h;

if ($source_aspect_ratio > $desired_aspect_ratio) {
/*
* Triggered when source image is wider
*/
$temp_height = $h;
$temp_width = ( int ) ($h * $source_aspect_ratio);
} else {
/*
* Triggered otherwise (i.e. source image is similar or taller)
*/
$temp_width = $w;
$temp_height = ( int ) ($w / $source_aspect_ratio);
}

/*
* Resize the image into a temporary GD image
*/

$temp_gdim = imagecreatetruecolor($temp_width, $temp_height);
imagecopyresampled(
$temp_gdim,
$source_gdim,
0, 0,
0, 0,
$temp_width, $temp_height,
$source_width, $source_height
);

/*
* Copy cropped region from temporary image into the desired GD image
*/

$x0 = ($temp_width - $w) / 2;
$y0 = ($temp_height - $h) / 2;
$desired_gdim = imagecreatetruecolor($w, $h);
imagecopy(
$desired_gdim,
$temp_gdim,
0, 0,
$x0, $y0,
$w, $h
);
}

/*
* Render the image
* Alternatively, you can save the image in file-system or database
*/

if ($ext == "jpg" || $ext == "jpeg") {
ImageJpeg($desired_gdim,$destination,100);
} elseif ($ext == "png") {
ImagePng($desired_gdim,$destination);
} elseif ($ext == "gif") {
ImageGif($desired_gdim,$destination);
} else {
return;
}

ImageDestroy ($desired_gdim);
}

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TotalFinder: Tabbed Mac Finder, Sort Folders on Top, and more

atomiku — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:55:14 +0000

Sometimes while working on a project I would have 3 or 4 finder windows open at a time and things could get messy quite quickly. Trying to find a particular finder window that had been hidden under Firefox or Thunderbird for instance. The finder is very useful but I felt it was missing something… This is where TotalFinder comes in.

TotalFinder is a utility that allows you to have multiple tabs, plus a few extra handy features such as easily being able to Show/Hide hidden files, and my favourite: showing folders at top. I never liked the way the Finder would sort the files. There was the standard options such as sorting by Name or File Size but it would mix the files and folders together, which is annoying when you’re traversing through directories. Having folders first then files seems much more logical to me. Luckily TotalFinder answered my prayers on that one. So here’s a screenshot of it in action, and you can download it from http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/. I recommend this to absolutely every Mac user.

The post TotalFinder: Tabbed Mac Finder, Sort Folders on Top, and more appeared first on atomiku.

Show CPU / Memory / Network stats and more in the Mac OS X menubar with iStat Menus

atomiku — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 10:51:12 +0000

Hey, just thought I’d share a nifty application I recently discovered for Mac. It’s called iStat Menus and it allows you to view a wide range of different stats straight from the menu bar.

Every menu such as network, CPU usage or memory have a number of customization options. Primarily the Color and Display Format (Pie/Graph/xx% view). Clicking a menu item will show a nice drop-down containing a lot of useful information. Check out the memory drop-down for instance:

Typically, Firefox is using the most ram – but that goes without saying really. iStat Menus has a replacement menu for the clock, too. I never liked the default clock menu because it didn’t show me a calendar which can be handy at times.

Hint: You can drag to reorder the menus by holding CMD before you drag a menu item. You can also remove items this way, too, by dragging it off the bar.

You can buy iStat Menus for $16 from http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/. Sixteen dollars might seem a little steep for an app that just displays info but you can tell a lot of effort went into this and it’s only the same price as 3 pints of Lager! Have a think about that next time you’re at the pub.

Next: Tabbed Mac Finder (literally the best productivity app I’ve used).

The post Show CPU / Memory / Network stats and more in the Mac OS X menubar with iStat Menus appeared first on atomiku.

Brilliant HTML/CSS3 form, input and validation styles

atomiku — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:53:18 +0000

Below are a few excellent form designs I stumbled across while looking for inspiration. I will be adding more here as I stumble across them. Where possible, there are links to the tutorials or articles – the rest are just screenshots.

WebTuts

A great article / tutorial on how to design and develop a form and make it look nice with CSS3. What I like about this is the validation class style, click a field to see what I mean. Visit here.

JetPack

Lore

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