iPhone users join hands with hackers. What does this mean to us iPhone developers?

Recently it was in the news that ‘Chronic Dev hacker team’ created an app for intercepting error messages sent from iPhone and send it to their team so that they can dig into them to find some bug. This bug can be utilized to create an efficient Jail break for the iPhone. It is reported that the users response had been overwhelming that "In the first couple of days after CDevreporter  is released  they received about twelve million crash reports”. Does this mean a good number of iPhone users are willing to have a Jail break iPhone?

Let us try to dig deeper into this.

CSV and SYLK file.

We used to export data in the form of .csv file that is one of the easiest formats available. A .csv file can be opened in even Notepad and if it is opened in Microsoft Excel, you can perform calculation with the numbers also.
When you open a certain .csv file, Microsoft Excel may show an error that the file is a SYLK file and confirm to open it. Once you confirm it will show error that 'SYLK: File format is not valid'.
If you try to open the same file in Notepad or Wordpad you will not see any issue with the data.
The problem actually lies with Microsoft Excel. If the first two characters of the file are the uppercase letters "I" and "D", then MS Excel will consider the file as SYLK file and if you try to open it with MS Excel it will show error as the file is not actually an SYLK file.

Solution:
Open the file in notepad and change the first two characters of the file to lower case, if they are I and D. So, 'ID' will change to 'id'.

Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3236263

Integrating Open Search to your site

I had created a demo for integrating Open Search to web pages. Here is the link to the working demo for Open Search.
http://www.prasanthkumars.com/demo/searchdemo.asp

Coldfusion - Using ListFind and Split to get empty elements in a list

I am working with a lot of data import modules in ColdFusion and there are a lot of issues to handle while doing the import process. The data uploaded will be of different format, different delimiters, empty or null values etc. etc.
Here, I am describing a problem where the delimiter is tab and the first element is null. I had to check whether the first element is null. I tried using ListGetAt(stringVariable,1,Chr(9)). Now, what this returned was the first non-empty element and not possible to check whether the first element was null.

Chameleon appeared near my office. Not seen before.

***UPDATE***
I was informed by my cousin that it is a native of Kerala, but itz camouflage is too good that it seldom catches our eye.

I happened to see a chameleon that I have seen only in TV, near my office. Didn't know this existed in Kerala.

Automate Tortoise SVN update in Windows

As a developer you will be experienced with SVN for source control in collaborative development environment. One of the popular clients for SVN in Windows is Tortoise SVN. You can right click in the SVN folder and update the contents of the folder from SVN.
But, when you have a number of SVN folder, will it be a good idea to automate the SVN so that your files are in sync always.
You will need to create a batch (.bat) file for this process.
It is very simple.

Create multiple website in IIS 5 using command (adsutil.vbs) in Admin Scripts

I am blogging this for my reference. I had spend almost a day to find this. In newer versions of IIS you do not need the help of this command, you can right-click a website on the IIS and create a new website.
If you are using IIS 5, you will find this command helpful to clone a website.
Steps

JavaScript 'open' function show 'Error: Invalid argument' in Internet Explorer

JavaScript 'open' function can be used to open a webpage from inside another page.
The syntax is :open(url,'name','height','width');

If this function does not work and you get a 'Error: Invalid argument' when using Internet Explorer, check for space in the 'name' argument (eg: 'Prasanth Kumar'). If there is space between the 'name' argument, IE will show this error, but in FireFox it just works fine.

MySQL default value to integer fields with LOAD DATA from CSV file import with dynamic fields

I was confronted with a problem while loading data from file to the MySQL table. The table have some Integer and Varchar fields and the data is loaded from CSV. Normally the data loading process goes well, but in case the data does not exist for a Integer field, the import breaks and show error like : 

Incorrect integer value: '' for column 'ID' at row 1

The fields are dynamic that I can determine the fields in run-time only. 

So, I devised a solution for this.

I have created the query such that for all the fields with Integer type, I add a '0' with it. 

Here are the steps.

Macromedia still in the heart of Adobe ColdFusion

I have been using ColdFusion from version 7 MX. Now, in the ColdFusion 9 also, if you try to browse a cfm page without starting the ColdFusion service, you get this error.

Server Error

---

Either the Macromedia application server(s) are unreachable or none of them has a mapping to process this request.

I am not sure why Adobe have not removed this reference. May be Adobe kept it as such so that others think it is Macromedia's fault, not Adobe's :-)

Adobe is shutting down AIR market place

I received the following mail from Adobe regarding shutting down AIR market place.

Thank you for using Adobe AIR Marketplace. When we established Adobe AIR Marketplace three years ago, there were few distribution opportunities for AIR developers. There are now several app stores on desktops, mobile devices and tablets that service AIR developers including Apple App Store, Android Market, BlackBerry App World, Intel AppUp center, Samsung Apps, and Toshiba App Place.

I'm slowly regaining my online life

I have been inactive for a while in the Internet. This was not just because I was busy with work, but because of some ideas that I'm trying to implement and achieve. Hope I will be successful in it.
I am trying to regain my online life and getting support from the community on my new venture.
I will post more details soon.

Create Database Stored Procedures to search fields in any combination (MS SQL)

Consider a table tblStaff as follows

id	name	age	departmentID
1	Prasanth	30	1
2	Martin	25	5
3	Abdul	30	7
4	Kiran	30	1

We can write stored procedues to get the details according to any of the fields or a combination of the fields.

Google chopped off J&K from INDIA !!!

I was really shocked to see that J&K was not included in the map of INDIA that Google show in Analytics. The state is not given to any other country, thank God. Some time before, a part of the state was shown as disputed territory. Now, they have totally cut-off them from INDIA. This is the screen shot of what I saw just now in "http://www.google.com/analytics/" site.
I believe the Government should ask Google to stop showing these type of maps.

Map of INDIA without J&K

MONEY IS YOURS BUT RESOURCES BELONG TO SOCIETY

This is from a mail forward I got from my friend. I'm not sure if this is real, but the idea is not fun. We are living in a world where you mostly judge people by their appearance and their behavior. I have seen many group of people wearing all sorts of modern fashion (let them believe it...) and creating noise in public places. But when you single out a person and ask, he might be from a not-so-high-funda family, but showing all this stuff just to be in the company of one or two of their millionaire friends... In their company they do all sorts of mischief, knowing that it is wrong. They race their cars in public roads, spend money unnecessarily, waste food and like.
But, coming to the point, wasting resources, we also do this, knowingly or un-knowingly at some point. Try to limit your resource utilization, because there are many out there who are not able to get food at least once a day. now read on...


Below is a note written by an Anonymous visitor to Germany.

User types in the wrong address. Your site generates a 404 error, and calls your custom coldfusion 404 handler.

I found an interesting topic in Raymond Camden's blog. This is about "Better handling of missing files with your web application". Here is the link to the page http://bit.ly/ed8NOf.

ICE (In Case of Emergency) numbers in Mobile phone

We all carry our mobile phones with names & numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends. We often store the numbers in nicknames or abbreviated forms, which makes it difficult for a stranger to find the right person in cases of emergencies.

If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn't know who to call. Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency? That is where it is important to store your ICE (In Case of Emergency) numbers.

It is a method of contact during emergency situations. As cell phones are carried by the majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name "ICE" ( In Case Of Emergency).

The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn't know which number to call. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose. In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital Staff would be able to quickly contact the right person by simply dialing the number you have stored as "ICE."

Ø Ensure that you have more than one ICE number so that in case one of the numbers could not be reached, alternative numbers could be tried. For more than one contact name simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. It is advisable to store the primary ICE number of the person who could access you at the quickest like your room mate, colleague (in case you are staying away from home) or your closest family member.

Ø For security purposes many mobile phone owners now lock their mobiles requiring a passcode to be entered in order to access the device. This hinders the ability of first responders to access the ICE phone list entry. In response to this problem many device manufacturers have provided a mechanism to specify some text to be displayed while the mobile is in the locked state. The owner of the phone can specify their "In Case of Emergency" contact and also a "Lost and Found" contact.

Let's spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our Mobile phones today!

Stereogram and how to decode it

Stereogram is one of the interesting stuffs I found in my school days. One of my cousins got a book that has high quality print of different cross-eye stereogram. I took couple of hours trying to find out how to decode it and now I can decode most of them in seconds.
I thought of writing about this as most of my friends had not seen this or are not aware of how to decode it. Today I checked the net and I found a lot of stuff regarding this and even an online Stereogram creator !.

Well, to make it simple, quote from Wikipedia says "A stereogram is an optical illusion of depth created from flat, two-dimensional image or images.". That is you have a image with patterns. If you look at it in a special way, you can see a three-dimensional object that is created using this pattern.

How to view stereogram

To view a stereogram image you need to look beyond the picture! Make sure your head is straight and your eyes are level with the picture. You then need to de-focus your eyes whilst imagining that you are trying to view an image that is twice as far away. ie: look through the picture.

A good way to practice is to hold up one finger in front of a wall. Focus on the wall and you will eventually see two fingers. You may also find it helpful to hold your head close to the stereogram picture and slowly move away.

here is a cross-eye stereogram from Wikipedia that has the image of a shark embedded in it.

Enable JavaScript debug menu in Safari in Mac OS

Apple Safari in Mac does have a hidden Debug menu that is useful for finding out the JS errors in the page. But, this is disabled by default. You can easily enable this using the following command in the terminal when Safari is not running.

Terminal

% defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Now, open Safari and you can see an additional menu on the top.

You can always disable this menu by replacing the 1 at the end of the command with 0 and executing again.