Just saw on /., that Mandrake is out of their Chapter 11 like protection which they filed some months back. Good to hear for my favorite linux distribution. I have some reservations over the new Mandrake, however I will not pass any judgement until I get the official release from the MandrakeSoft store.
Support your linux companies, time is not free and their efforts are definetly appreciated.
~david macias
Upgraded the code base of the website, looks like it was succesful. I will kep the old site for a while, just in case I missed something. Seems a little faster, I wish my host was running PHP 4.3 or atleast running PEAR, but alas no :-(
~david macias
So I decided to play around with PHP and XML. My objective was to create a site which will retrieve job postings from a RSS feed. I am currently tweaking it but so far it is working great. Here are some pointers for any souls trying to to do something similar.
~david macias
I retrieved this tutorial from this Great Site.
I have updated this article with this new story.Please take a look at the comments made in the source code. This code will retrieve a feed, parse it, then print only the parts I really care about. For the most part the code is self explanatory, but I have included some comments to help out the newbies like me.
<html>
<head>
<title>DAM's RSS/XML and PHP</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Currently...</h2>
<dl>
<?php
class RSSParser {
var $insideitem = false; //Check out the what is inside the <title> tags, and these variables should reflect what you want to pull out
var $sectitle = "";
var $title = "";
var $link = "";
var $creator = "";
var $language = "";
var $source = "";
var $rights = "";
var $date = "";
var $type = "";
//This function checks if you are inside a new item
function startElement($parser, $tagName, $attrs) {
if ($this->insideitem) {
$this->tag = $tagName;
}
elseif ($tagName == "ITEM") {
$this->insideitem = true;
}
}
//functions prints out the data retreived from the RSS feed
function endElement($parser, $tagName) {
if ($tagName == "ITEM") {
printf("<dt><b><a href='%s'>%s</a></b> [ %s ]</dt>", trim($this->link),htmlspecialchars(trim($this->title)),htmlspecialchars(trim($this->source)));
printf("Date: %s <BR>",htmlspecialchars(trim($this->date)));
printf("Creator: %s<BR>",htmlspecialchars(trim($this->creator)));
printf("Rights: %s<BR><BR>",htmlspecialchars(trim($this->rights)));
$this->title = "";
$this->link = "";
$this->source = "";
$this->date = "";
$this->rights = "";
$this->creator = "";
$this->insideitem = false;
}
}
function characterData($parser, $data) {
if ($this->insideitem) {
switch ($this->tag) {
case "DC:TITLE":
$this->title .= $data;
break;
case "LINK":
$this->link .= $data;
break;
case "DC:CREATOR":
$this->creator .= $data;
break;
case "DC:RIGHTS":
$this->rights .= $data;
break;
case "DC:DATE":
$this->date .= $data;
break;
case "DC:SOURCE":
$this->source .= $data;
break;
}
}
}
}
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
$rss_parser = new RSSParser();
xml_set_object($xml_parser,&$rss_parser);
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
$rss_parser = new RSSParser();
xml_set_object($xml_parser,&$rss_parser);
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");
$fp1 = fopen("htt://YourSiteFeedGoesHere/rss.xml","r")
or die("Error reading RSS data.");
while ($data = fread($fp1, 4096))
xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp1))
or die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d", xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)), xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
fclose($fp1);
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
?>
</dl>
</body>
</html>
So I finally cracked down and started playing with the future of the Windows Servers. I am talking about the Windows 2003 server. Read on to find out what some of my initial thoughts on this new operating system.
edit: 04/08/04
Security Focus just posted a new article on the IIS6.0 security :-) Talk about timely.1. It actually loaded pretty fast, which I was surprised, I didn’t use a beast of a machine, but what I did use, seemed to work well and have a nice response time.
2. Security, this has to be the first server where it seems like the computer is tight down out of the box. A couple of ports were open which seem to be unnecessary, but I will not close then until I find out more about the operating system.
3. The interface is a great improvement from that horrible interface called Windows XP.
4. Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition v8 does not play well with 2003, at least for me, and I am having a hard time automating the virus updates. I think it might have something to do with Windows security.
5. I absolutely love remote desktop connection; MS finally got on the ball and did what PC Anywhere and tightVNC have been doing for years.
6. Sharepoint is nice; I just need to read up on how to configure it correctly.
I don’t see the migration from Windows 2002 Server to Windows 2003 should be too painful. However, I think that with the new IIS 6.0 that my Linux server might end up doing something else.
-david macias
Kind of a sign, was just thinking about this song, when my favorite internet radio station played it. So this song is about hope after love, the words might seem a little depressing, but the underlaying message is that there is "still tomorrow".
And we sing.One! Two! Three!
To every broken heart in here
Love was once a part, but now it’s disappeared
She told me that it’s all a part of the choices that you’re making
Even when you think you’re right
You have to give to take
But there’s still tomorrow
Forget the sorrow
And I can be on the last train home
Watch it pass the day
As it fades away
No more time to care
No more time, today
But we sing
If we’re going nowhere
Yeah we sing
If it’s not enough
And we sing
Sing without a reason
To ever fall in love
I wonder if you’re listening
Picking up on the signals
Sent back from within
Sometimes it feels like I don’t really know whats going on
Time and time again it seems like everything is wrong in here
But there’s still tomorrow
Forget the sorrow
And I can be on the last train home
Watch it pass the day
As it fades away
No more time to care
No more time, today
But we sing
If we’re going nowhere
Yeah we sing
If it’s not enough
And we sing
Sing without a reason
To ever fall in love
Well we sing if we’re going nowhere
Yeah we sing if it’s not enough
And we sing
Sing without a reason to ever fall in love
But we sing
If we’re going no where
Yeah we sing
If it’s not enough
And we sing
Sing with out a reason to never fall in love
To never fall in love again
The saying is that treat a job search like a full time job. Right, specially when you already have a job that is close to full time and you’re a full time student. So can you really have 3 full time jobs? Not really.
The point is that I looked around the web for a tool that would help me manage all my information concerning my job search. The tool I am createing will manage:
Read on…So ideally this tool would be web accesible, however due to time constraints and the fact that I have “3″ full time jobs, I will be releasing the first version of this tool in MS Access. For those of you who do not have Access, I will release a MySQL version as soon as the Access version is usable.
This is just a heads up on what is to come at the end of the week, hopefully sooner.
-david macias
David Macias from the beautiful state of Texas and currently residing in Dallas. A place for ramblings, digressions, and the occasional insight into life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
