header('Content-Type: image/png');
// Text to be converted to image
$text = 'Hello World';
// Font to use, give accessible path from script
$font = './arial.ttf';
 
// Convert HTML entities into ISO-8859-1
$text = html_entity_decode($text,ENT_NOQUOTES, "ISO-8859-1");
 
// Create the image
$im = imagecreatetruecolor(160, 160);
$white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255);
$black = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 0);
 
// Create some colors
imagefilledrectangle($im, 0, 0, 160, 80, $white);
 
// Add the text
imagettftext($im, 12, 0, 20, 20, $black, $font, $out);
 
imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im);
exit;

GD can also be used to create and manipulate image files in a variety of different image formats, including GIF, PNG, JPEG, WBMP, and XPM.

Limitations:

• Though GD supports Unicode text inputs, it doesn’t support complex text rendering
• Complex Text Rendering is required for properly displaying many language texts, such as the Arabic alphabet and scripts of the Brahmic family, which includes Tamil and many other Indic scripts.

There is a alternative for this using Pango and Cairo in PHP. I’ll post a detailed update on that in my next post.

Text to Image in PHP with GD is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

1. In your XAMPP Start Page, go to phpinfo, look for string oci8. If string found it indicate that connection to oracle is available, otherwise to activate connection do the following steps:
2. Open the currently used php.ini file by looking at the phpinfo, from the XAMPP folder.
3. Find string ;extension=php_oci8.dll. Remove the semicolon (;) ahead of the string to activate the oracle extension.
4. Save the php.ini file.
5. Download the “Instant Client Package – Basic” for Windows from the OTN Instant Client page. Unzip it to c:\instantclient_11_1
6. Edit the PATH environment setting and add c:\instantclient_11_1 before any other Oracle directories. For example, on Windows XP, follow Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment Variables and edit PATH in the System variables list.
7. Set desired Oracle globalization language environment variables such as NLS_LANG. If nothing is set, a default local environment will be assumed. See An Overview on Globalizing Oracle PHP Applications for more details.
8. Unset Oracle variables such as ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID, which are unnecessary with Instant Client (if they are set previously).
9. Restart XAMPP (or Start if its not already started).
10. To make sure that connection to oracle database has successfully activated, go to phpinfo. Find string: oci8. If found, then XAMPP can now communicate with Oracle Database.

The steps to do the same in a Linux box are almost similar, except there you will use the Linux versions of the packages and setting PATH variables would be different.

You can ping me back with a comment if you run into any issues, I might be able to help you or I can learn from you.

Reference:

• http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/notes/technote_php_instant.html

Activate Oracle on XAMPP for Windows is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

• Use –exclude when files to be excluded are given as a pattern on the command line.
• Use –exclude-from to introduce the name of a file which contains a list of patterns, one per line; each of these patterns can exclude zero, one, or many files.

When using –exclude=pattern, be sure to quote the pattern parameter, so GNU tar sees wildcard characters like ‘*’.

For example, write:

$ tar -c -f <em>archive.tar</em> --exclude '*.o' <em>directory</em>

tar does not act on a path name explicitly listed on the command line if one of its file name components is excluded. If files that end with ‘*.o’ are excluded when creating an archive, but explicitly name the file ‘dir.o/foo’ after all the options have been listed, ‘dir.o/foo’ will be excluded from the archive.
Only shell syntax, or globbing will work with exclude options in tar. The command might fail if regexp syntax is used to describe files to be excluded in the command.

Reference:

• GNU tar User Guide – problems with exclude

Using the ‘exclude’ option with ‘tar’ is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Solution (I found): VirtualBox can be given higher priority using nice command. Also renice command can be used to change the priority of a running process, which will also be useful.

nice -10 VBoxHeadless

Gives the VBoxHeadless process 1.5 times priority than the normal process, calculated as (20 – -10)/20 = 1.5

nice -20 make

Executes make at maximum priority.

renice +20 2222

Changes the priority of process 2222 to +20 (minimum priority).

renice -10 -p 13013

Changes the priority of a running process by specifying its process ID, where priority can be,

• 1 to 20 : Runs the specified processes slower than the base priority.
• 0 : Sets priority of the specified processes to the base scheduling priority.
• -20 to -1 : Runs the specified processes quicker than the base priority.

References and further reading:

• nice (Unix)
• Linux Command Directory: nice
• Linux Command Directory: renice

Being Nice on a Linux Box – Process priority with ‘nice’ & ‘renice’ is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Solution:
Using grep -C <# of lines to show above and below> <search> <file>

The following prints the matched line, along with the 5 lines surrounding it.

$ grep -C 5 "search" sample_text

Also we can use grep -A or -B to display number of lines above or below the matched line.

The following prints the matched line, along with the 5 lines after it.

$ grep -A 5 "search" sample_text

The following prints the matched line, along with the 5 lines before it.

$ grep -B 5 "search" sample_text

Reference:

• man grep
• Live filter a log file using grep and show x# of lines above and below

Shell – How to get surrounding lines of grep result? is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

renjus blog reports that,

If you are a VLC addict then you will have noticed this change as of Midnight 18 December.It seems as the developers from VLC decided to included this Easter egg on their later version 0.9+.

Image source: jb [Kinnda lazy to take a screenshot ]

VLC Media Player says Merry Christmas is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

While I’m on Linux I really enjoy the text editors such as Kate and gedit , (I’m not a big fan of vi and vim ). But when it comes to Windows I missed them with the default Notepad. Then only I found Notepad++ . A cool feature to Notepad++ that was available not in the Windows Notepad is a spell checker feature. This feature is not automatically installed with the initial installation of Notepad++, but we just have to install GNU Aspell , a pre-compiled dictionary. Once you download and install the latest version of Aspell, and a dictionary from for your language of choice (English in my case), from the GNU ASpell site you are ready to use this is a cool feature, and this helps me a lot for sure.

Notepad++ also has many more plug-ins, which make it more like a full fledged IDE, specially FTP browser, Syntax highlighting, Auto-completion and others will help any developer have a great time coding. Here are some of the features it offers with the default install of Notepad++:

• Syntax highlighting (and brace and indent highlighting)
• Regular expression find and replace
• Split screen editing
• Zooming
• Spell checker (built in but requires Aspell)
• Tabbed document interface
• FTP Browser (plug-in included in standard installation)
• Support for various file formats including Unicode.
• File Status Auto-detection
• Zoom in and zoom out
• Auto-completion (language and file)

Notepad++: Its and IDE is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

“The Matrix Runs on Windows” is a hilarious video that describes some of the “great featues” we get with Windows and other Microsoft products.

The video ends with a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death ) and finally saying “Ubuntu, I’m going to learn Ubuntu“.

Video by: http://www.collegehumor.com/chtv

The Matrix Runs on Windows is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Using zip distribution (without GUI), in Linux

1. Download the Luntbuild zip distribution from Luntbuild Sourceforge site, or from Luntbuid Javaforge site. This file is normally named luntbuild-xxx.zip, where xxx denotes the current version.

2. Extract the zip file into the directory where you want to install Luntbuild, say /opt/luntbuild. Edit the following files with your text editor:
   • Edit file /opt/luntbuild/web/WEB-INF/web.xml:
   • Replace $INSTALL_PATH with your Luntbuild installation path (/opt/luntbuild here).
   • Optinally edit file /opt/luntbuild/web/WEB-INF/users.properties:
   • Replace luntbuild=luntbuild with your desired site administrator password in the format luntbuild=youradminpassword. NOTE, that admin user HAS to be luntbuild
   • If you use LDAP, edit file /opt/luntbuild/web/WEB-INF/ldap.properties and follow Luntbuild documentation to configure LDAP.

3. If you plan to run Luntbuild in standalone mode (without servlet container), just start Luntbuild as described in standalone section. Else copy all the contents under /opt/luntbuild/web directory, and deploy it as a web application to your application server, or servlet container. For example, if you are using Tomcat servlet container:
   • Make sure Tomcat has been stopped
   • Change to Tomcat install dir: > cd <tomcat install dir>/webapps
   • Make luntbuild directory: > mkdir luntbuild
   • Copy luntbuild/web to webapps: > cp -r /opt/luntbuild/web/* <tomcat install dir>/webapps/luntbuild
   • Start Tomcat

Note: Do not create luntbuild.war file, just copy the contents under /opt/luntbuild/web directory to the luntbuild directory in the appropriate web application directory of your application server, or servlet container.

4. To launch Luntbuild in standalone mode run the following lines, where ‘localhost’ is the target host and 8080 is the port we need to run the Luntbuild service. (Instead of ‘localhost’ we can also use something like 172.16.7.107)

   cd /opt/luntbuild-1.5.2/./luntbuild-standalone.jar localhost 8080

5. Now the Luntbuild server is up and running.
6. But if we need to access the server from outside, we need to open the service port which is 8080, on the host. To open a port in Redhat we can use the command lokkit.
7. The current installation of Luntbuild server can be accessed via http://localhost:8080/luntbuild/luntbuild-login.html

Using Luntbuild installer (with GUI), in Linux

1. Make sure you have JDK installed.
2. Get the ‘luntbuild-xxx-installer.jar’ installer file.
3. Make it executable by running the following command while you are in the directory it is in.

   chmod +x luntbuild-xxx-installer.jar

4. Run the installer by running the following line.

   ./luntbuild-xxx-installer.jar

5. While installing I went on with the default parameters, except the installation path. I selected the install path as ‘/opt/luntbuild-1.5.2/’
6. To launch Luntbuild in standalone mode run the following lines, where ‘localhost’ is the target host and 8080 is the port we need to run the Luntbuild service. (Instead of ‘localhost’ we can also use something like 172.16.7.107)

   cd /opt/luntbuild-1.5.2/./luntbuild-standalone.jar localhost 8080

7. Now the Luntbuild server is up and running.
8. But if we need to access the server from outside, we need to open the service port which is 8080, on the host. To open a port in Redhat we can use the command lokkit.
9. The current installation of Luntbuild server can be accessed via http://localhost:8080/luntbuild/luntbuild-login.html

Using Luntbuild installer (with GUI), in Windows

1. Have jdk1.4 or jdk1.5 installed, and add the directory which contains the java and jar executable into your system path

2. Make sure you get one of Luntbuild supported servlet containers or application servers installed (Servlet2.3 and JSP1.2 support are required), and make sure it has been stopped. Alternatively you can run Luntbuild in standalone mode.

3. Download Luntbuild installer from Luntbuild Sourceforge site, or from Luntbuid Javaforge site. This file is normally named as luntbuild-xxx-installer.jar, where xxx denotes current version.

4. Run command java -jar luntbuild-xxx-installer.jar. A GUI will display to guide you through the installation, and Luntbuild will install into the selected directory, let’s say /opt/luntbuild.

5. Deploy luntbuild.war (located in /opt/luntbuild directory) into your servlet container or application server. Note, that if you selected the deployment directory of your servlet container or application server during installation, the installer will deploy luntbuild.war for you. If you plan to run Luntbuild in standalone mode (without servlet container), just start Luntbuild as described in standalone section.

Access the Luntbuild web application through http://localhost:8080/luntbuild/luntbuild-login.html (Username/Password by default is luntbuild/luntbuild)
For more detailed installation steps, just refer to the original doc.

• Ref : http://luntbuild.javaforge.com/doc/installguide/installguide.html

Luntbuild : Installation is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Introduction

Luntbuild is a powerful build automation and management tool. Continuous Integration or nightly builds can be easily set using a clean web interface. Executed builds are well managed using functions such as search, categorization, promotion, patching, deletion, etc. It also acts as a central build artifacts repository and download area for your whole team.

Why Luntbuild?

You may ask why Luntbuild, while there are already many good build automation tools such as Cruise Control, Anthill, and others. Our answer is:

• Luntbuild aims at not only being build automation, but also build management system. Executed builds can be categorized, promoted, searched, patched, deleted, etc. This is very important for a nightly builds or Continuous Integration builds, which generate many builds over time.
• Luntbuild utilizes the project/schedule concept to easily provide build support for parallel development.
• No configuration files, all jobs are done using web interface. You can set your Luntbuild system in less than thirty minutes.

Luntbuild makes advantage of quite a few open source libraries and frameworks listed here.

Luntbuild homepage http://luntbuild.javaforge.com/

What Luntbuild does?

Basic unit of work in Luntbuild is a build. Build execution is triggered either by a schedule or it can be started manually. A build in Luntbuild performs following steps:

1. Checks out source code from the Version Control System(s) (VCS).
2. Labels the current source code based on the current build version.
3. Runs an Ant/Maven/Command/Rake build script in the source tree.
4. Runs an Ant/Maven/Command/Rake post build script in the source tree.
5. Publishes the build log and other build artifacts.

Build configuration, monitoring, and access to the build artifacts are all done using an intuitive web interface. Development and testing teams will have a central area to access the build information.

We shall see basic installation steps in the next post.

Luntbuild : Introduction is a post from: Nimal's Weblog

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.