I’m sorry that the blog wasn’t very active last year. This year will be different . I’m going to add a new category (SEO & Marketing) – because my current interests are in this direction.

I’ll to add a couple of posts regarding google analytics and adsence in the next weeks. The blog will be updated every Monday and Thursday.

If you want to have a post on specific topic in the field of SEO or advertising you can contact me and i could do some research on the subject, and comeback with a post about it.

Greetings

Ok so let’s get going:
1. Create the file “backup_database.php” and input the following code into it:
<?php exec(‘cd /home/your_user/backup/db/;mysqldump –add-drop-table -h localhost –user=your_user –password=your_pass database_name > `date +%y-%m-%d_%H-%M`.sql’); ?>

Sometimes the path to your home dir looks different than ‘/home/your_user/’, so execute the ‘pwd’ command like explained in my previous post

Here we use the command mysqldump in a tutorial that I wrote previously about the dumping the sql database from one host to another. Now the database will be saved directly on the server that is hosting your website

2. Create /backup/ and /backup/db/ directories via SSH or FTP if not created.

Of course you can use any names. But better do not create the /backup/ directory in the /public_html/ directory for security reasons

3. Upload “backup_database.php” to the /home/your_user/backup  directtory

If you upload backup_database.php to www.yoursite.com/backup_database.php by accessing it directly in your browser you will create a backup of your database.  However I do not recommend doing this First because someone can overload your space quota by accessing the backup_database.php many times and second because you probably don’t want to enter the URL in your browser every time you want to perform database backup.

4. Go to CPanel -> Cron Jobs and input the path to backup_database.php:

Click on the `Add new Cron Job` button…     and you are pimped out. In my case I added the option this cron job to be executed twice a day. In case you database is updated more often/rarely you can modify this setting to suit your needs.
You can also add option to save the dump of the database in tar format to save some space in your hdd quota by changing the script a bit.
Full database backup in tar format (save more space):
backup_database.php:
&lt;?php exec(‘FILE=`date +%y-%m-%d_%H-%M`;cd /home/ps3igri/backup/db/;mysqldump –add-drop-table -h localhost –user=your_mysql_user –password=your_pass db_name > $FILE.sql;tar czpf $FILE.tar $FILE.sql;rm -f $FILE.sql’); ?>
As you see here we use the ‘FILE’ variable to store information about the filename. We create a SQL Dump, then we archive it, and after that we delete the original file to save some disk space.
Good luck with the backup and see you next time

and after that executing the code by opening http://www.yoursite.com/exec.php in your browser.
So we can add this line directly into the Curl command field:

But now I am going to tell you better way to do it, because very often the commands directly typed at the cron’s `Command:` field are ignored because of some stupid quote convention etc.
Full website filesystem backup using php file and cron job:
1. First we are going to create the file backup_filesystem.php and put this code into it :
<?php echo exec(‘cd /home/your_user/backup/files;tar -cvpzf `date +%y-%m-%d_%H-%M`.tar /home/ your_user /public_html’); ?>

2. After that we’ll access the website via the FTP and put the backup_filesystem.php file into the /home/your _user/backup/. Make sure that you create “backup” and “backup/files” directories if they are not already created. Better don’t put backup_filesystem.php file into the /public_html/ folder because we don’t want the users to have direct access to the file.

3. Now we are going back to the CPanel -> Cron Jobs. On the common settings we enter Once a day (so the Command will be executed once a day) and on the Command field we enter:
php ‘the path to backup_filesystem.php’

After that click on the ‘Add new cron job’ button and Voila !! – the Cron Job for backup of your database is ready.
The archive is created using low tar compression, so if needed you can archive your site using stronger bzip2 compression by replacing: “tar –cvpzf filename.tar” with “tar –cjf tarname.bz2”.

The full backup of your website is created in the /backup/files directory and can be downloaded via FTP if necessarily – as you see the filename include the date and time of the moment it has been created, so it won’t be hard for you to guess which is the latest version of the backup if needed.
Thank you for your time, next time I’m going to show you how to perform similar backup, but this time full database backup instead of filesystem backup.
Cheers

I’ll copy here the most interesting of it.

HTTP with PHP Sockets

// don’t need to specify http, it’s the default protocol
$hostname = “www.google.com”;
$port = 80;

// create and configure the client socket
$fp = fsockopen($hostname, $port); // optional: $error_number, $error_string, $connect_timeout
if ($fp) {
stream_set_timeout($fp, 30); // seconds to wait for i/o operations

// send request headers
fwrite($fp, “GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n”);
fwrite($fp, “Host: $hostname\r\n”);
fwrite($fp, $additional_headers); // Accept, User-Agent, Referer, etc.
fwrite($fp, “Connection: close\r\n”);

// read response
$response = “”;
while (!feof($fp)) {
$response .= fgets($fp, 128);
}
echo $response;

// close the socket
fclose($fp);
}

Direct SSL Sockets in PHP

You don’t have to send request headers in the above example. You can actually connect to some servers and send raw text with fwrite. Because you have to implement the HTTP/HTTPS protocol yourself if you want it, sockets are considered “clean” connections.
You don’t have to send request headers in the above example. You can actually connect to some servers and send raw text with fwrite. Because you have to implement the HTTP/HTTPS protocol yourself if you want it, sockets are considered “clean” connections.

// note that “ssl” is the protocol, NOT “https”
$hostname = “ssl://your-secure-site.com”;
$port = 443;

// create and configure the client socket
$fp = fsockopen($hostname, $port);
if ($fp) {
stream_set_timeout($fp, 30);

// send data (or build HTTPS headers similar to first example)
fwrite($fp, “your message goes here”);

// read response
while (!feof($fp)) {
echo fgets($fp, 128);
}

// close the socket
fclose($fp);
}

HTTPS via cURL

PHP doesn’t directly support attaching client certificates to web requests with fsockopen, so you have to use the cURL library.
$url = “https://your-secure-site.com/secure-service.php”;
$port = 443;

// POST data, formatted just like a GET query string
$request = “name=hb&age=27&site=arguments.callee.info”;

// the client certificate path MUST be a physical path, not url
$certificate = “C:\\certificates\\test.crt”; // windows example
$certificate = “/etc/pki/tls/private/test.crt”; // unix/linux example
$password = ‘mypassword’; // client certificate’s key

// more details at http://php.net/curl
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PORT, $port);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $request);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSLCERT, $certificate);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSLCERTPASSWD, $password);

// fetch response and close the socket
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

first i will show you how to use mysqldump to backup your database on your harddrive on your local computer under windows. Go to your command prompt -> Start -> Run -> write “cmd” -> hit enter
go to your mysql bin directory, in case that you use xampp, and it’s installed on c:\xampp, it should be in c:\xampp\mysql\bin
you can do that by typing “cd \” and then “cd xampp\mysql\bin” (i’m trying to write this tutorial as simple as possible so that everybody will get it )

after that, to backup your database on local mashine you should write:
mysqldump –add-drop-table -h localhost –user=root –password=yourpass yourDBname > OutputFile.sql

voilla

so if you want to backup your database to remote host the command gets a bit more sophisticated
here we go:

copy databse and it’s data from one server to another:
mysqldump –user=root –password=yourPassword –opt localDB | mysql -h 192.168.1.35 –user=root –password=remotePassword remoteDB

In our case we copy our local database “localDB” into the database “remoteDB” on the machine with 192.168.1.35

we can also do the command like this:
mysqldump -h 192.168.1.17 –user=test –password=12345 –opt remoteDB
| mysql -h 192.168.1.51 –user=root –password=bg_820918 remoteDB

in this case we copy the database “remoteDB” from remote host to another remote host in the database “remoteDB”

now you see how powerfull mysqldump really is, and that’s only few of the things it’s capable of
I hope this will was usefull for someone

in this example i’m going to import feed from yahoo’s technology news rss:

first i’m going to use the “simplexml_load_file” to check what we got in this yahoo url

<?php
$xmlobj = simplexml_load_file(“http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/tech”);
print header(“Content-type: text/plain”);
print_r($xmlobj);
?>

my output on the browser looks like this

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [@attributes] => Array
        (
            [version] => 2.0
        )

    [channel] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [title] => Yahoo! News: Technology News
            [copyright] => Copyright (c) 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
            [link] => http://news.yahoo.com/i/738
            [category] => technology
            [description] => Technology News
            [language] => en-us
            [lastBuildDate] => Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:02:30 GMT
            [ttl] => 5
            [image] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [title] => Yahoo! News
                    [width] => 142
                    [height] => 18
                    [link] => http://news.yahoo.com/i/738
                    [url] => http://l.yimg.com/a/i/us/nws/th/main_142b.gif
                )

            [item] => Array
                (
                    [0] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                        (
                            [title] => Cable's answer to online's ad success: targeting
    (AP)

                            [link] => http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/ap_on_hi_te/cable_targeted_advertising

                            [category] => technology
                            [pubDate] => Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:37:20 GMT
                            [description] => <p><a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/ap_on_hi_te/cable_targeted_advertising"><img src="http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20090407/capt.0d1190bc652444d0b0f4eb9bb9f0836c.cable_targeted_advertising_nybz175.jpg?x=130&y=86&q=85&sig=52xM5q9qwuq.Eq2_2pqO3A--" align="left" height="86" width="130" alt="FILE - In this April 2, 2009 file photo, a view of the user interface for Tru2way technology is seen on display inside the Broadband Nation exhibit at The Cable Show at the Washington Convention Center in Washington. Cable's efforts to standardize their systems around Tru2way will make it easier to deploy so-called 'addressable' ads regardless of operator, said Dallas Clement, senior vice president of strategy and development at Cox Communications. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, file)" border="0" /></a>AP - You're watching Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," when suddenly you see a commercial for the Mustang convertible you've been eyeing — with a special promotion from Ford, which knows you just ended your car lease.</p><br clear="all"/>
                        )

so i won't be needing the RSS's channel news, i want only the items in that -> so i do:
<?php
$xmlobj = simplexml_load_file("http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/tech");
print header("Content-type: text/plain");
print_r($xmlobj->channel->item);
?>

after that i can remove the "print header("Content-type: text/plain");" ( i used it just not to show the images but to be able to see all the site just like a raw text   )

so all the code that i'm going to need for my RSS Feed importer will be :

<?php
$xmlobj = simplexml_load_file("http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/tech");

foreach($xmlobj->channel->item as $item){
	echo "<a href='".$item->link."'>".$item->title."</a><br />";
	echo $item->description."<br />";
}
?>
and here is the result:



so 4 rows in php and voilla( i hope that's the way to spell it  )
we gotta fully working RSS(xml) importer for our shiny site -)

Let’s say we need to have some root class – lets say “Base”, with the __construct() (the class’s constructor) – notice that since PHP 5.0 the constructor of a class is defined in __constructs(), instead of “the-name-of-your-class”(). Anyway you can define the constructor information in Base() as well, but better do it in __construct, because you don’t know if there will be support for the old PHP 4 constructors in PHP 6

so let’s get on business..

In our Base class we are going to add some protected variables (they are going to be viewed from all delivered classes, and from the Base itself)
In our case we add a constructor that creates a mysqli connection to our host, and that’s all we are going to use this class for – for the connection with the DataBase.

Class Base {
protected $host = “localhost”;
protected $user = “root”;
protected $pass = “”;
protected $name = “MerchantsDB;
protected $char = “utf-8″;
protected $table = “merchants”;

function __construct(){
if(($this->link = new mysqli($this->host, $this->user, $this->pass, $this->name)) === false){ $this->error(“cant login”);

}else{
//echo “logged
“;
$this->link->set_charset($this->char) or $this->error(“set charset”);

}
}
}

Class Merchant extends Base {

function AddMerchant($mName, $mURL, $mAgent, $mUID, $mDate, $mManager, $mStatus, $mComment){

$q = mysqli_query($this->link, “INSERT INTO “.$this->table.” (`MerchantName`, `MerchantURL`, `MerchantAgent`, `MerchantUserID`, `MerchantReceivedDate`, `MerchantManager`, `MerchantStatus`, `MerchantComment`) VALUES (‘$mName’, ‘$mURL’, ‘$mAgent’, ‘$mUID’, ‘$mDate’, ‘$mManager’, ‘$mStatus’, ‘$mComment’)”);

if($q){
echo “Merchant Successfully added !!”;
return true;
}else{
echo “Invalid input data or duplicated URL !!”;
return false;
}

}

function RemoveByID($id){
if(mysqli_query($this->link,”Delete from “.$this->table.” where MerchantID = “.$id)){
//echo “entry $id successfully removed”;
}
}
}

function GetAll($order){
$q = mysqli_query($this->link,”select * from “.$this->table.” ORDER BY “.$order.” desc”);
$count = 1;

while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($q)){
include(“Merchants.table.inc.php”);

$count++;
}
}

}

So we have a class Merchant that is delivered from Base and so we inherit $link variable from the Base’s constructor. So when we call $this->link we have a fully working mysqli connection (that is more secure than the standard mysql).

As you see we have created 3 very simple functions of the Merchant class GetAll, RemoveByID, and AddMerchant
in all of them we use $this->link delivered from our base class, which is very cool, because we can have a bunch of other classes – like Product, Car, Student… whatever and we don’t have to specify a single connection for each of them – we just inherit it from the Base class – with “extends Base” at the class declaration

that’s it for now i hope this example was useful for you

I will give you simple example where i login through script on localhost on some site – in this example: “gametrailers.com” – without actually enter any username and password , i think this will be the easiest way to understand it.

so here is the example:

on your localhost create php file – “loadUrl.php”

<base href=”http://www.gametrailers.com/” />
<!– we use base href to be able to load the css and the js paths correctly on the site –>

$port = 80;
//usually this is default http port so probably u won’t have to change this

$server= ‘www.gametrailers.com’;
//i tested thet with this host, but i guess it will work on many other URLs as well

$url = ‘/index.php?’; //this is the index file of the url

$content = ‘userlog’;
//these are custom variables especially for gametrailers – probably you won’t have to use them
$content .= ‘&try=1′;
//these are custom variables especially for gametrailers – probably you won’t have to use them

//enter your site login name
$content .= ‘&username=your_username’;
//enter your site pass
$content .= ‘&password=your_pass’;
$content_length = strlen($content);
//don’t touch this one – the header has to have valid lenght

$headers = “POST $url HTTP/1.0\r\n”;
$headers.= “Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n”;
$headers.= “Host: $server\r\n”;
$headers.= “Content-length: $content_length\r\n\r\n”;

$fp = fsockopen($server, $port, $errno, $errstr);
//we open connection to our URL
if (!$fp) return false;

fputs($fp, $headers);

fputs($fp, $content);
$ret = “”;
while (!feof($fp)) {
$ret.= fgets($fp, 1024);
//we get the content of the URL
}
fclose($fp);

print “<pre style=”position:absolute;z-index:100;”>”.$ret.”</pre>”;

//we print the actual content of the website, and finally we are logged as user
?>

You see – succeed to login on this URL (gametrailers), but on for some other URL you will have to make some more custom solution. For example you will have to check the login form – what are the “name” properties for the html input elements, and to change that in the script, but after that everything should be fine

How about dinamically resize the image at the very  moment that client requests it?

So that way we wont have a big image that the client has to download, and at the same time we will still have the original, good resolution copy of the image, in case that we need it. We can also use the following PHP script for creating thumbnails.

Well – as you will see below it’s not hard at all to do it,  i mean not hard at all

So what we are about to do is create a PHP file that we are going to use for resize of the image.

We are going to pass the images to it like $_GET parameters, for example:

resizeImage.php?image=/images/file.jpg

and the image on our site will look like <img src=”resizeImage.php?image=/images/file.jpg” alt=”#” />

so let’s get to the script:
filename: resizeImage.php
$f = htmlspecialchars($_GET['image']);

$im = imagecreatefromjpeg($f);
//we create the image from the $_GET path
$a = getimagesize($f);

$newwidth = 400;
//we decide to make the picture 400px width and depends on the width/height ratio we calculate what should be the height
if ($a[0] > $a[1]) {
$percentage = $a[0] / $a[1];
$newheight = 400 / $percentage;
} else {
$percentage = $a[1] / $a[0];
$newheight = 400 * $percentage;
}

$d=imagecreatetruecolor($newwidth,$newheight);

imagecopyresized($d, $im, 0, 0, 0, 0, $newwidth, $newheight, $a[0], $a[1]);

header(“Content-type: image/jpeg”);
//we modify the header to treat resizeImage.php as image

imagejpeg($d, null, 90 );
//here we show our modified image at quality 90

imagedestroy($im);
//we free the memory (not necessary, but it’s good practic)
imagedestroy($d);
?>

So that’s about it I hope it was useful for you.
Anyway i wrote another script that replaces all the content from your site ( for example joomla site)
and basically does the following: when we have it uses regular expression to replace it like this and basically it does all the work for you with the replacing
if you need it i can post it here as well

have a nice one -)

if you want to play the game – click Continue reading