Posts Aboututilities
Centresource Releases New Plugins to the Symfony Community
Over the last week, the developers here at CentreSource have published nine plugins for the symfony community. The plugins have been used in several of our internal projects and client web applications, but have been developed on a private repository. We finally decided the plugins were properly documented and tested. These plugins can be found here.
1) csDoctrineActAsAttachablePlugin - associates various uploads with multiple models, and includes an AJAX uploading client interface.
2) csDoctrineActAsCategorizablePlugin - associates models into nestable categories and category groups.
3) csDoctrineActAsGeolocatablePlugin - integrate your model with the Google Maps API to pull in geocodes based on record fields. Supports radius and proximity searches.
Website Grabber | Offline Browser
Today, we had a client call us and ask if we can 'save' their website from an aggressive website designer that is holding their site hostage. I told them yes and thought an easy solution would be to find a utility that allowed us to easily clone/grab their website. I must say, I was surprised at the difficulty in finding a free utility to do this.
Part of the problem came from the search terms I started with. I thought this would be called a 'site grabber' - and many paid utilities thought the same :) I then switched to Website Clone, but to no avail. Finally, I that download.com called these utilities "Offline Browsers". Doing a quick search for Offline Browser struck gold!
Great USB Backup App / Utility
I just found a great backup app (utility) for my USB drive. The app that comes with PortableApps isn't very flexible and it drove me to finding something better. Luckily, I found Freebyte Backup through PortableFreeware.com. They even told me how to 'make it more portable' by avoiding the installation and simply running the .EXE & creating my own profiles. Hope this helps others looking for a stable, feature-rich USB backup utility.
sfAmazonS3 - Symfony Plugin for Amazon Simple Storage Service(Amazon S3)
Today, CentreSource has released its first plug-in for Symfony. This plug-in allows you to interact with Amazon S3 directly from Symfony.
Check it out: http://www.symfony-project.com/trac/wiki/sfAmazonS3
Ripping DVDs to MPEG format - A world of easy formats :)
Shout out to my friend, Sunny Patel, for passing along a great utility for both Windows and Mac users. Now everyone can rip their DVDs to an easier to use format, MPEG, thanks to a great program called MediaFork (formerly Hand Brake). It will rip DVDs to MPEG, thus making them MUCH easier to put on your iPod, Apple TV, generic Media Center, etc, etc. We are one step closer to making it easy to take your digital assets anywhere, anytime.
Web Based Time Tracking Nearing Launch - Dekko Time
Check out our latest product, Dekko Time. After 2 long years we have finally reached a beta stage in the development and we are working hard towards a full launch SOON!
All account types are being offered for free during this beta stage. Use the coupon code 'free' on the payment tab when signing up for single and multi-user premium account types. Using this coupon will allow you to bypass the payment step and get your premium account for FREE!
USB Drive 101: Actually making it useful
I'm now the proud owner of a 2GB USB Drive & I wanted to share a few tips/tricks I've learned for getting the most use from it! I want my USB to provide a self-contained computing experience that I can take with me. When I pop it in, I want everything that I'm comfortable with at my finger tips :) I'll help you setup your USB drive to address the following needs (no order):
- Sensitive Data Storage - Examples include financial info, passwords, etc.
- Email Access - Allowing you to comfortably check your mail from anywhere
- Synchronization - As storage amounts increase, more data can be backed up
- Buddies/Contacts - Instant messaging to friends is available anywhere
- Office & Productivity - Work on docs, spreadsheets, and presentations
Open Source Office can handle Blackberry
CentreSource has jumped on the Blackberry bandwagon! After complaining for months that I spend too much time with email, I gave up trying to avoid the problem and simply decided to further my addiction :) We purchased three new Blackberry 8703e's and have now started the painful process of getting them to work in our Open Source environment. That's right, Blackberries in a world without Outlook and Exchange. The verdict? It works, but not great.
Easy way to burn an ISO
If you own a single slot CD-R, you may wonder how you're supposed to burn copies of your disks and/or make exact images of your distributions. One popular way is to create an 'Image' of your CD-ROM in the format of an ISO. The ISO file is an actual image-copy of the CD-ROM - not the files itself. This may be hard to understand, but CD-ROM's have more info associated with them other than the files that are stored on them. Special security, volume info, etc. - all stored at the low level of the CD-ROM. While all of this fascinating, it isn't the point of my post :) If you need to burn an ISO, here is a great site that makes it super simple: Right click -> Copy Image to CD. That's it! Thanks Alex Feinman.
PHP Code Generator
I just spent some time playing with PHP Object Generator and thought I would share my thoughts.
I should mention that I think needing code generation is an indication of poor design. The reason is that in order for code generation to work there has to be enough code that is duplicated that the process of creating the code can be scripted.
I will take it a step further too and say that if you need code generation it is an indication that the duplicated code it too complicated as well.
