Technowise

Countries and States/subdivisions SQL Dump script - ISO 3166 Country Codes, ISO 3166-2 State Codes

2011-11-06T20:24:00.000-08:00

Here is a dump of all countries and states/subdivisions in SQL script for MySQL.

Download Countries and States SQL Dump/Script

I couldn't find any such script readily available for myself. All there was dumps of States and Cities in US and Canada. So here you have what I created using the data from CommonDataHub data repository for ISO 3166 Country Codes and ISO 3166-2 state Codes.

Note that not all countries have states - some have subdivisions such as province, county, union territory etc. Also few countries do not have any states/subdivisions at all.

You can use the column country_code_char2 or country_code_char3 to related the tables countries and states_subdivisions, and you can remove the unwanted-columns.

"Goodbye World" from Dennis Ritchie

2011-10-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

Dennis Ritchie - The man who created the king of all programming languages has said Goodbye to the world :(

I have spent so much time fiddling with C language, and have loved it more than anything else. This man's influence has been on every programming language I have worked on till date - C++, Javascript, PHP, C#, Java, you name it.

This man has made greater contribution to computing world than Steve Jobs, but so much less known because he was a silent man and liked to keep his life private.

Good Bye Ritchie. Your legacy in computing will remain forever, Thank you so much.
R.I.P

Quoting from a reddit user(http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/la9wn/rob_pike_dennis_ritchie_has_died/c2r3drz):

"We've lost a man who has influenced all of us deeply, but his spirit will live on through his work, and more importantly, his philosophy. Out of the morass that was DEC and IBM, and heavily influenced from the ideas behind Multics came a method for easily building complex systems that ran at near-assembly speeds, yet was flexible enough to run on practically every hardware platform.

Whether you're writing functions in a program, command line utilities, or distributed processing systems, you're paying tribute to one of the fathers of it all.

Every brace and semi-colon (explicit or implied), every three-argument for(), every nuance that is the essence of C -- no matter what language you're using now -- they all stem from the decisions he and his colleagues made in the early '70s. Forty-ish years on, we are still following his lead.

Keep it small; keep it simple; and do one thing well.

Farewell, Mr. Ritchie"

scriptsvcs comments on Rob Pike: Dennis Ritchie has died
reddit.com

Make/Convert PHP/HTML files to UTF8 encoded

2011-10-02T23:33:00.001-07:00

Almost every web-developer has or will come across this problem - the pages displaying the character � where it is supposed to show Unicode characters. The problem here is the page is treated as ASCII page, while the actual data is in file is UTF-8.

To resolve this issue, and make sure you put the meta tag in the HTML head.


<meta charset='utf-8'>

Then, you need to convert your PHP/HTML files to UTF-8 encoded. For this, I recommend you use Notepad++. Open the file in Notepad++, go to Encoding menu, and select "Convert to UTF-8 without BOM". Then save your file.

Then, in your Apache server's config file(httpd.conf), add the below line:
AddDefaultCharset utf-8

This should resolve the issue with question marks in place of UTF-8 characters.

Playing .pls files in Android phones/devices with AOR

2011-07-22T03:39:00.000-07:00

Online radio streams(.pls) can be played on the android phones by installing AOR (Android Online Radio) application - available in the android market.

jQuery CSS Selectors in PHP using phpQuery

2011-07-12T05:54:00.001-07:00

Ever wished you could parse HTML data in your PHP like you would with jQuery? There is a library to do exactly that called as phpQuery.

Below is a simple code snippet showing how you could get an HTML document and parse it using phpQuery.


 require('lib/phpQuery/phpQuery.php');
 $newsURL = "http://mynewswebsite.com/mynews.html";
 $newspage = file_get_contents($newsURL);

 if( $newspage )
 {
  // INITIALIZE IT
  $doc = phpQuery::newDocument($newspage);

  // SELECT DOCUMENT
  // pq(); is using selected document as default
  phpQuery::selectDocument($doc);
            pq('#backBtn')->remove();//Remove back button.
            pq('script')->remove();//Remove scripts.
  $leftContent = pq('#leftBodyContent')->html();
  echo $leftContent;
 }
 else
 {
  echo "Error in retrieving news from  ".$newsURL;
 }

This above snippet is for obtaining an HTML page, select elements in the page using CSS selectors and perform some functions, and echo a section of that page.

Please note however that this library does not have all the functions that jQuery does, but certainly has most of the basic functions which we would require often.

jQuery Numeric Only Input - Force numeric input for form fields

2011-06-29T04:15:00.000-07:00

For numeric only-input using jQuery, we can use jQuery numeric plugin or the function below.


jQuery(function () 
{
 jQuery("input.number").live("keydown", function (e) 
 { 
     var key = e.charCode || e.keyCode || 0;
     // allow backspace, tab, delete, arrows, numbers and keypad numbers ONLY
     return (
     key == 8 || 
     key == 9 ||
     key == 46 ||
     (key >= 37 && key <= 40) ||
     (key >= 48 && key <= 57) ||
     (key >= 96 && key <= 105));
 });
});

In HTML 5, we can just give input type='number', but we cannot depend on that as most users do not use HTML 5 compatible browsers yet.

Ajax Unicode Data Retrieval - overrideMimeType and IE

2011-03-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

While retrieving data from from Ajax request, the Unicode accent characters (German) were showing up as question marks in the browsers ( garbled characters in IE). After doing a lot of research on web, I found that using the function overrideMimeType as below fixed the problem.
xmlhttp.overrideMimeType('text/xml; charset=iso-8859-1');

However, this function is not supported in IE.

Here is what I did to fix this problem from the server side:

1) Make the PHP files send header as UTF8
2) Return data from Ajax data retrieval page using utf8_encode function.

Code sample shown below:


   header('Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
   ....

   echo utf8_encode($output);

Hope this saves someone's time.

Turning On Error Reporting in Joomla (configuration.php)

2011-02-18T00:40:00.000-08:00

We have an interface for setting error reporting for Joomla in
Administrator->Global Configuration->Server settings section.
However when even the administrator interface fails to open up (gives a blank page), we could only find out whats wrong by setting error reporting on through the configuration.php file.

Here is how to do it:

In the configuration.php file, set $error_reporting value to '6135' (as below):

var $error_reporting = '6135';

This is equivalent of E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE, this will show all the errors and suppresses the notices.

Hope this saves a few minutes for someone.

jQuery Balloon Tooltips using qTip Plugin

2010-02-11T17:58:00.000-08:00

qTip is one of the best plugins for creating tool-tips with jQuery. It lets you create visually pleasing tool-tips and balloon tips that are cross-browser compatible, highly customizable and all that without requiring you to include additional CSS or images for the plugin.

Click here to view Demonstration of qTip plugin.

The tool-tip can be easily positioned according to your requirement, and comes with a number of built-in styles.

Below image shows all the positioning options available with this plugin:

Note:
This plugin is tested to work well with jQuery 1.3.2. It has an issue with the latest version of jQquery 1.4.

Quick Links:
Download qTip
Download qTip Plugin Demo
View qTip Documentation

Clear File Input Field Using jQuery (Javascript)

2009-12-28T12:10:00.000-08:00

When we have to validate the type of files that the user can upload, it would be a good idea to validate by file extension using Javascript. Once we find out that selected file is not a valid extension, we'd like to clear the input field and ask user to select another. However, IE (Internet Explorer) does not allow Javascript to reset individual file input elements.

To workaround this problem, here is a simple jQuery solution:


//For IE
$("#myFile").replaceWith($("#myFile").clone(true));
//For other browsers
$("#myFile").val("");

This is just replacing the element with its own clone, which makes the IE render the element again without its previous value. For other browsers, just setting the value with empty will do.

Note: While there are other similar workarounds for this problem, they require you to enclose the file input element with some other element. The above solution does not require you to enclose file input element like that.

Uploadify ASP.NET C# & VB Examples / Demo

2009-12-04T10:16:00.000-08:00

The jQuery Uploadify website gives us ready example for PHP, but leaves the newbies to C# or VB clueless on how to implement the same in .NET.

So, here I am presenting you with example of C# and VB.NET implementation (upload.ashx) for the jQuery Uploadify plugin:

<%@ WebHandler Language="C#" Class="Upload" %>

using System;
using System.Web;
using System.IO;

public class Upload : IHttpHandler 
{
   public void ProcessRequest (HttpContext context) 
   {
      context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain";
      context.Response.Expires = -1;
      try
      {
          HttpPostedFile postedFile = context.Request.Files["Filedata"];
  
          string savepath = "";
          string tempPath = "";

          tempPath = context.Request["folder"];

          //If you prefer to use web.config for folder path, uncomment below line:
          //tempPath = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FolderPath"];

          savepath = context.Server.MapPath(tempPath);
          string filename = postedFile.FileName;
          if (!Directory.Exists(savepath))
          {
              Directory.CreateDirectory(savepath);
          }

          postedFile.SaveAs(savepath + @"\" + filename);
          context.Response.Write(tempPath + "/" + filename);
          context.Response.StatusCode = 200;
      }
      catch (Exception ex)
      {
          context.Response.Write("Error: " + ex.Message);
      }
   }

   public bool IsReusable 
   {
      get 
      {
          return false;
      }
   }
}

To download complete implementation/demo of this example (including VB source for this, click the below link):
Download Uploadify Examples (VB.NET and C#)
These examples have been tested on .NET 2.0 (Visual Studio 2005).

Numeric/Digits Only Input for Textbox in .NET

2009-10-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

To set a particular textbox control to only accept Numeric/Digits values, we do not have any property for textbox .NET control. To do this, we can add add an event handler on KeyPress event - where we check the input key value on each key-press, and then only let the digit to go through.

Below is a simple example of event-handler using VC++ to accept only digits:


System::Void MyButton_KeyPress(System::Object^  sender, System::Windows::Forms::KeyPressEventArgs^ e)
{
   if( !(e->KeyChar >='0' && e->KeyChar <= '9' || System::Char::IsControl( e->KeyChar )))
   {
       e->Handled = true;
   }

}//End keyPress handler

The expression 'System::Char::IsControl( e->KeyChar )' is required because we do not want to block the control key functions like Tab/Enter etc.

In your form's class constructor, you will have to assign this event handler function using a statement like below:


this->MyButton->KeyPress += gcnew System::Windows::Forms::KeyPressEventHandler(this, &TCPListenerForm::MyButton_KeyPress);

Free & Open Source PHP IDE

2009-09-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

Aptana Studio with the PHP plugin installed makes for the best free PHP IDE available today.
Aptana is cross-platform and open source web development environment that combines powerful authoring tools for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It offers excellent code-hinting, reference, code completion, and edit-time syntax checking. You can also preview your pages in Firefox and IE within the IDE, and you can configure other browsers for preview as well.
The free version of Aptana Studio has Javascript Debugger for Firefox, and has support for all the leading Javascript and Ajax libraries including jQuery, Prototype, YUI, dojo, Ext JS and MooTools.

What more? It also includes support for FTP and SVN to upload/download and synchronize your project files to remote systems easy.

Below are some quick links to get you started with Aptana:
Download Aptana Sudio
Aptana Sudio Online Help
Aptana Knowledge Base and FAQs
Aptana Blog
Wikipedia Article On Aptana

Advanced File Search Software For Windows - Fileseek, Astrogrep

2009-08-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

Fileseek

Fileseek is an awesomely fast file searching tool for windows with rich set of features that can help developers search through their codes super quick. This shows the context of matched text/data, and this tool includes regular expression search as well.
This is pretty stable and they release updates to their software quite often. However you require MS .Net framework installed to use this.

Astrogrep

Astrogrep is a free file searching software for Windows with advanced search features including regular expressions and negation search. Its a Windows alternative to grep command on Unix/Linux, and this has a cool user interface. This software serves as great tool for software developers to search source files as it helps in finding tiny details within source files that the default Windows search cannot find/filter. This utility also shows context of the text where the given text in each of the file, including its line number.
Quick Links:
Download Astrogrep
Screenshots
Features List

Note: You need to have .NET framework 1.1 or higher for using Astrogrep.

Fixing `SOCKET' does not name a type error - MySQL library in MinGW / VC++ compilers

2009-08-09T07:38:00.000-07:00

Trying to use the recent versions of MySQL library header may give you this error as:

`SOCKET' does not name a type

To fix this error, just include winsock.h before including mysql.h header as shown below:


#include <winsock.h>
#include <mysql.h>

Otherwise, you can add the following lines to mysql_com.h


#ifndef my_socket_defined
#if  defined(__WIN32__) && !defined(__WIN__)
#define my_socket SOCKET
#else
typedef int my_socket;
#endif /* __WIN__ */
#endif /* my_socket_defined */

This error is known to occur in VC++ and MinGW(Code::Blocks /Dev C++) compilers on Windows (Win32) platform.

Orkut Community Manager - Greasemonkey userscript

2009-07-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

There is a new way to fight spam on orkut forums for all community owners and moderators. The new Orkut Community Manager helps you kick out spammers from every your community you own or moderate at once. The script makes your life easier by providing options to ban, boot or delete all spam messages across all your communities with just a click!

The settings page lists out all of your existing communities, from which you can select the communities you want the script to manage/operate on as shown in the below screenshot:

The script runs on the community-topics page, member-manage page, and spam-topics folder page providing you with many moderation options as shown in the below screenshot:

Member Manage Page:

This new script is a major upgrade to my previous Mass Moderation Script. This new version of script adds mass-spam reporting feature, and a much more usable settings page for managing your communities. If you had liked my previous script, I'm sure you will like this even more!

To use this script, you need Firefox browser with Greasemonkey addon.

To install the script, just click on the below link:

Install Mass Moderation Script

You can send me your feedback on this script in the script's discussion page or just leave me a comment here.

jQuery: Finding/Traversing Child and Descendant Elements

2009-06-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

To traverse or select child/descendant elements in jQuery, we can use Hierarchical parent>child expression, children() function or the find() function (Perhaps there are more, but these are what I have been using). The difference among children and find functions is that children() only selects the immediate children from the given element, while find() function selects all the descendant elements within the given element.

Example:
Suppose we have we have the following in the document:


<div id="main">
 <div id="sub1">
     <input id="input1" type="text">
     <input id="input2'" type="text">
 </div>

 <div id="sub2">
     <input id="input3" type="text">
     <input id="input4'" type="text">
 </div>

 <div id="sub3">
     <input id="input5" type="text">
     <input id="input6'" type="text">
 </div>
</div>

Using Children() Function:

To select all the children div elements within the 'main' , we can simply write:


 $('#main').children('div')
     .css("background", "red");

This will select 'sub1', 'sub2' and sub'3'.

Using Hierarchical Parent > Child Expression:

We can select all the children div elements within the 'main' selection using hierarchical expression as below:


 $('#main > div')
     .css("background", "red");

Using Find Function:

We can also use find function select all the children div elements by writing as below:

    $('#main').find("div")
     .css("background", "red");

But you should note that find() function will find every child in the hierarchy of the parent (that is including all its grand children, and grand-grand children!). So if there are some other div elements within 'sub1', 'sub2' or 'sub3', even those elements will be selected. So be careful, and use them according to what you need.

.NET Framework 2.0 Configuration Tool Installer - Download

2009-03-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

The .NET Framework 2.0 doesn't come with Configuration Tool (unless you install the SDK). But there is a simple way around to get configuration tool in your Control Panel - Administrative Tools. Just download the Configuration Tool Installer/Setup(MSI) and install the configuration tool, or follow the instructions in Aaron Stebner's blog to manually add the configuration tool.

Download .NET Framework configuration tool installer(MSI)

After you install this, you can go to Control Panel and find the configuration tool in the Adminstrative Tools. This setup also works for .NET Framework 3.0. So now there is no need to install the bulky SDK just to get configuration settings wizard for your Framework.

Adding Elements to Head Tag In C#.NET

2009-03-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a simple method to add Javascript (or any other code like CSS link tags) to the head of your HTML document using C#.
This will be useful if you want some script to be executed before the document starts loading (like initializing some Javascript globals).


HtmlHead head = Page.Header;

LiteralControl lctl = new LiteralControl("<script type='text/javascript'>"+
" /* Write your JavaScript Code here */"+
"</script>");

head.Controls.Add(lctl);

Although there are few other methods to do the same, this is one of the simplest and easy method I've found. You can place this code within the Page_Load function, or elsewhere you may want to.

IMDB + Rotten Tomatoes Popular Torrent Search Linker - GM Userscript

2009-02-03T10:28:00.000-08:00

Now find torrents to download movies you like right within the movie review pages! Yes, that's what the new IMDB + Rotten Tomatoes Popular Torrent Search Linker script does for you. No more going to torrent sites and keying in the movie titles to search for torrents. The script does this job for you by automatically picking up the title text from the movie pages of IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes sites and showing you the results found for the title.

The script offers you with the torrent search results from four best popular torrent sites: Btjunkie, Mininova, Isohunt and The Pirate Bay.

To install this script now, just click here. If you do not see a pop-up window with install option upon clicking the above link, you need to read about installing GM scripts.

Snapshot at IMDB:

Snapshot at Rotten Tomatoes:

Have a change or feature request?
Just leave me your comment!

Fix: PHP stops at PEAR DB::connect() call.

2008-12-01T04:38:00.000-08:00

I had this problem where the script abruptly stopped executing as soon as
the PEAR DB::connect() function was called. This was strange because there wasn't any error message displayed and all error reporting was set to On.

After looking at another project, I figured out that the problem was with where the DB package was located.

Previously I had put PEAR package in:
/PEAR/PEAR.php
And DB package in
/PEAR/DB/DB.php

I got the problem fixed after I put all the pear DB package within PEAR directory itself.
That is PEAR package in:
/PEAR/PEAR.php
And DB package in:
/PEAR/DB.php

Not sure why exactly this problem occurs, but apparently this change in directory of DB package solves this problem.

Rotten Tomatoes Popular Torrent Search linker : Userscript (GM)

2008-10-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Do you often search for torrents to download movie after looking at good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes? Then this script is just for you!

This script adds search-links and drop-down results of most popular torrent sites for the movie pages of Rotten Tomatoes. So using this you can instantly find torrents to download the movie within the Rotten Tomatoes page. Below is a snapshot for one of the movie on RT:

It includes links and drop-down results for Btjunkie, Mininova, Isohunt and The Pirate Bay.

To use this script, you need Grease Monkey addon installed in Firefox browser.

If you have it, just click here to install the Rotten Tomatoes Popular Torrent Search script.

Credits to mungushume (This script is a fork from 'IMDb popular torrent search') and parts of this script is also taken from IMDB Pirated Version script.

Updates:

Jan 13, 2009 Version 0.2.2: Added drop-down torrent results feature for all torrent links, and removed Torrentz search link.

Enjoy!

Why would PHP $_FILES[] array go empty.

2008-09-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

If you're finding that $_FILES[] array is empty after submitting the form with file input, then first make sure that you have the form enctype attribute is set to "multipart/form-data".

That is as below:
<form enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input name="myFile" type="file">
...
</form>

If enctype attribute is not set in the form, then it would take default value for it as "application/x-www-form-urlencoded", which will make the form not send any file data to target program/PHP file.

If $_FILES array remains empty even after setting enctype right, you should check against other settings in your PHP server to make sure it allows the server to upload files.

A new vulnerability is discovered in orkut albums.

2007-10-11T22:05:00.000-07:00

A new bug is discovered in orkut, using which users can inject scripts into orkut albums.
By just visiting someone's album, you could lose your orkut account, or your communities.

To get the feel of how this works, visit my album on orkut here:
http://www.orkut.com/Album.aspx?uid=13571966778342355640

So, whenever you visit other's album, you are at risk of running a malicious script, which could steal your cookies. This could be a start of yet another episode of stolen communities and deleted accounts in orkut. Because, by using this, users can easily exploit other peoples accounts.

The script is injected to the album by just making modification to the photo caption. I am not going to reveal how the script can be injected for security reasons. However, I will tell you that its pretty easy for anyone who knows some HTML and Javascript.

So, as a precaution, do check albums of people you do not know (until orkut fixes this bug).

Glitter your scraps with the new formatting toolbar for orkut!

2007-08-31T00:22:00.000-07:00

With the new formatting toolbar for orkut, you can glitter your scraps instantly!
Just select the text you want to glitter, and then select the glitter style from the toolbar, it will automatically insert the HTML tags for glittering text!

Snapshots:

Glitter Text Select menu:

Smiley Select menu:

Text Color Select menu:

How to install the toolbar:

1. Get Firefox browser (if you do not have it).
2. Install Greasemonkey.
3. Restart Firefox
4.Click here to install orkut formatting toolbar script.

Thats it, now you can go to your friends scrap-book and start sending glittering scraps!
Enjoy!

Updates:

version 0.7.4 with more options for glitter and graphics text.

version 0.7.5 Fixed some problems with script, and simplified the script. No more graphics or glitters now.

Manage all your communities easily with the Mass Moderation script 1.6

2007-08-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

You no more have to go to the member manage page to ban or delete posts. With the new Mass-Moderation Script, you can mass-ban, mass remove and mass-delete posts right from your community topics page. The new script gives you a drop down list for the moderation actions as below:

Once you select an action for the selected topics, you will get a confirmation message to perform the action as below:

When you select 'ok', the processing status will be shown as below:

After performing the action is done, the status message changes as below:

Procedure to install this script:
1. Install Firefox browser (if you do not have already).
2. Install the Greasemonkey plugin for Firefox by clicking here.
3. Restart Firefox (after the install of Greasemonkey).
4. Install this script by clicking the below link:
http://avsharath.googlepages.com/massmoderation1.7.user.js

After installing, go to the community topics page, and click on the 'Settings' button. It will display the settings page as below:

You should add all the community IDs that you would like to manage in the settings page.
Community ID is the unique number given to your community, example:
http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=419822
In the above address, the number given at the last (419822) is the community ID.

After you have added the list of communities, you should save and exit.

Thats all, you're now ready to use the script and manage many of your communities easily.
Enjoy!

The Orkut Mass Delete tool !

2007-06-18T00:44:00.000-07:00

Now deleting anything from orkut is a lot more easier with the Mass Delete Tool!
This tool is for mass deleting messages, topics, events, friends and testimonials. It will be very useful for all orkut users, especially the community owners and moderators. The orkut interface only provides multiple selection and deletion of scraps, and this tool provides options for everything else!

Below are a few snapshots of Mass Deletion Tool at work:

Community Messages interface:

Community Topics interface:

Friends interface:

Interface for deleting events and testimonials are similar to the above.

To install this tool, just follow these steps:

1. Install Firefox browser (if you do not have already).
2. Install the Greasemonkey plugin for Firefox by clicking here.
3. Restart Firefox (after install of Greasemonkey).
4. Click here to install the Orkut Mass Delete Tool.

Thats all, now just log in to orkut, you can find the mass-delete options as shown above.
Enjoy! :)

Mass Community Moderation Script - for Orkut Community Owners and Moderators

2007-05-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

Mass-ban spammers, and mass-delete spam messages in all your communities with just a single click!
You no more have to visit every community to ban spammers and delete spam messages in them. This script adds the feature to mass/global ban spammers and mass-delete spam messages from your orkut communities.

Below you can see the snapshot of member-manage page:

Procedure to install this script:
1. Install Firefox browser (if you do not have already).
2. Install the Greasemonkey plugin for Firefox by clicking here.
3. Restart Firefox (after install of Greasemonkey).
4. Right click on the below Greasemonkey script link and select "Save link as" to save it to your disk.

http://avsharath.googlepages.com/massmoderation.user.js

After that, open the saved file in any text-editor like Notepad.
In the code, you will find a declaration as follows:

var communityIds = ['419822','6413141','1027'];

You just have to remove all the ID's there and put your own community ID's in the same manner. Make sure you put them in single quotes and saparate them using commas.

If you do not know what a community ID is, then look at the address bar of your browser when you visit your community, you will find the address as below:

http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=419822

In the above address, the number given at the last (419822) is the community ID.

After you have added the list of communities, just open that script file in Firefox browser, you will get a dialog box to install the script.

Once you have installed that, you will be shown the options buttons as in the above picture for managing members in all the communities that you moderate or own.

Multiple Topic Selection and Deletion Script - For orkut community owners and moderators

2007-05-02T12:09:00.000-07:00

Would you like a facility to select and delete multiple topics at a time in your orkut community?

This script is here to do just that. It adds check-boxes using which you can select multiple topics and then click on the "Delete selected Topics" to delete them all.

Below you can see a snapshot showing the check-boxes and the link to delete the selected topics:

Procedure to install this script:

1. Install Firefox browser (if you do not have already).
2. Install the Greasemonkey plugin for Firefox by clicking here.
3. Restart Firefox (after install of Greasemonkey).
4. Then click here to install the Greasemonkey script, this will add the multiple topic deletion facility for all your communities.

I'd like to hear feedback and suggestions from you, please leave them as comments below.

Orkut formatting toolbar

2007-01-19T01:49:00.000-08:00

Orkut formatting tool-bar helps you easily insert formatting tags and smiley tags. Once you have your text typed, just select the text you want to format and click on the tool-bar buttons like you format text in Ms-Word or any other editing tools you use.

Toolbar for scrap-message editing, it will also display similarly for sending forum/community messages.

How to install :

1. Get Firefox browser (if you do not have it).
2. Click here to install Greasemonkey.
3. Restart Firefox
4. Click here to install orkut formatting toolbar.

Thats it, now just go to your scrap-book and you can see the toolbar as in above picture.
Enjoy!

Auto-Spam-Deleter for orkut communities.

2007-01-10T13:11:00.000-08:00

Are you sick of spam messages in your orkut communities ?

This script can make your job of moderating a lot more easier.
It automatically searches and prompts you to delete almost all spam messages, saving a lot of your time in finding and deleting them. It scans for common spam topic titles(which are mostly brazilian porn/MLM website links), non-English characters in topics and also numerical-digits embedded within the name of the user (which spam accounts use) . It asks for confirmation for deletion of each topic it detects as spam, so you don't have to bother about accidentally deleting genuine topic.

Steps To Install:
1. Install Firefox browser (If you don't already have it)
2. Install Greasemonkey plugin for firefox.
3. Restart Firefox and click the below link: http://avsharath.googlepages.com/spamdeleter1.0.user.js
You will find a pop-up message, click on "install" button there.

Using the Spam-Deleter:

To use this script, simply go to your community, and click on "view all topics" button. It will start searching for spam messages and prompt you to delete if it finds any. For a shortcut, just enter: http://www.orkut.com/CommTopics.aspx?cmm=xxxx
Replace xxxx with your community ID.

Above you can see an example of confirmation message given to delete after detecting a spam topic.

Customizing The Script For Detecting More Spam Topics:
Download this script source: (Right click and select "Save Link as")
http://avsharath.googlepages.com/spamdeleter1.0.user.js
Open the downloaded file in notepad(or any other text-editor), you can find instructions to modify in the script itself (in the comments).

To Uninstall:
To uninstall, go to Tools/Manage User Scripts, select "Auto-community-Spam-deleter V1.0", and click Uninstall.

Orkut cookie exploit, anyone can steal your orkut community ownership, BEWARE!!!

2006-12-13T03:45:00.000-08:00

There is yet another exploit on Orkut(the Google affiliated Social Networking Service), and this exploit can easily be made use of to obtain ownership of someone else's community, with just a click on a community link.

[Orkut has fixed this security bug and the exploit no more works]

Removing the Yahoo / AOL / MSN Messenger Virus

2006-10-17T03:40:00.000-07:00

Virus Name: W32 Sohanad.B or W32 Sohanad.C

This is a worm that spreads itself by sending links to your contacts in Yahoo, AOL and Windows Live messengers. It disables the Registry Editor and Task Manager, changes the Internet Explorer (IE) home page and also modifies registry such that you cannot change the homepage address. For more details on this worm, read the TrendMicro virus Information.

Here are simple steps to get this worm removed from your system:

1) Download this file: http://avsharath.googlepages.com/DisableW32Sohanad.vbs

2) Double click on the downloaded file, it will execute to restore from the damage done to registry by the worm.

3) Restart your system.

4) Delete the file svhost32.exe from your Windows folder( If it is present).

5) Delete the file svhost.exe from your Windows folder( If it is present).

And the silly worm's story ends!!!
You can now use the Yahoo messenger peacefully.

By the way, I have a suggestion for you: Use Firefox browser to avoid such worm attacks in future. It is much more secure than the Microsoft Internet Explorer.