Backing up your boot drive on Fedora with dd

This is especially useful for people whose installation have a boot partition and software raid partition on the same drive.
Example Installation:
/dev/sda1 /boot
/dev/sda2 swap
/dev/sda3 raid member

/dev/sdb1 raid member

/dev/md0 / devices=/dev/sda3,/dev/sdb1

If your boot drive fails, your computer will be unable to boot. Here, I will explain
how to backup the boot drive so you can get it up and running very quickly again.

--------------------------
BACKUP PROCEDURE
--------------------------
1] Use dd to save the first 512 bytes of data which contain the drive's MBR (master boot record) and partition info.
# dd if=/dev/sda of=/backup/dd/sda-mbr.img bs=512 count=1

2] Use dd to image the partition containing the boot files(#fdisk says /dev/sda1 contains /boot in my case) as well.
# dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/backup/dd/sda1.img bs=64K

--------------------------
RESTORE PROCEDURE
--------------------------
1] Boot with fedora rescue CD

2] First we have to restore our RAID device.
#echo DEVICE partitions > /etc/mdadm.conf
#mdadm --examine --scan >> /etc/mdadm.conf
#mdadm --assemble --scan /dev/md0

3] Now we have to mount it somewhere
#mkdir /mnt/sysimage
#mount /dev/md0 /mnt/sysimage

4] Restore the MBR and partition info to /dev/sda first.
# dd if=/mnt/sysimage/backup/dd/sda-mbr.img of=/dev/sda
Confirm partitions were restored
# fdisk -l

5] Restore the partition containing the boot files.
# dd if=/mnt/sysimage/backup/dd/sda1.img of=/dev/sda1
Confirm boot files were restored
#mkdir /boot
#mount /dev/sda1 /boot
#ls /boot

6] The boot drive should be good now, it's time to see if it works.
#reboot

7] If your OS boots, it's time to re-add the raid member to the array.
#mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --add /dev/sda3

PureMVC vs Cairngorm framework comparison

Reasons to use PureMVC over Cairngorm.

#1 IMO if your gonna use Cairngorm your better off just going ahead and skipping every framework concept and just making classes with static (global) variables. That's what it feels like to me anyway lol.

#2 Makes it too easy for you to be sloppy. Accessing your model locator everywhere in your app can get ugly fast. PureMVC has a very structured but flexible way to code. Once you get comfortable with PureMVC, you will be able to get up to speed in other projects coded with PureMVC much quicker than Cairngorm coded projects.

#3 If your just starting to try to learn Cairngorm and find it confusing, it's cause you can't make sense of something that doesn't make sense!

#4 It's difficult to make a modular program in Cairngorm. Since the controller/models are singletons only one instance can exist (thus only one instance of the application). There are ways to get it to work, but you're gonna have to think outside the box for that..
PureMVC Multicore provides a framework for creating modular applications right out of the box.

#5 PureMVC utilities. The PureMVC community has added more capabilities on top of the PureMVC framework such as Undo/Redo (works great BTW), Pipes, etc.

#6 Scalability. It just gets way too messy trying to make a complex Cairngorm application. It can especially happen if you're just beginning at it or have been coding lazily. Because coding in PureMVC is much more structured, you won't be held back in the late game.

#7 PureMVC is fun to program in. Cairngorm is a nightmare :P

#8 Views can actually be reused in PureMVC. It's hard to do this in Cairngorm with all the views accessing directly to the global variables in the models. The reason PureMVC can decouple the view from the model is it has something called Mediators which take care of displaying and interaction in the views.

#9 Cairngorm is Adobe's official framework, and Adobe has been pissing me off lately with all the bugs I keep running into :P

p.s. Sorry for the long rant :P

HSlider as scrubber bar showing percent downloaded

If you are making a simple video component with VideoDisplay and want
to use the HSlider as the scrubber bar, you might run into the problem
of trying to display the % of the video that has been downloaded.

We can use HSlider's showHighlightTrack property for that. But
first we have to figure out how we can set it programmatically.

Heres how:


package com.flexas3.components
{
import mx.controls.HSlider;
import mx.core.Container;
import mx.core.IFlexDisplayObject;
import mx.core.mx_internal;
import mx.styles.ISimpleStyleClient;

use namespace mx_internal;
public class HSliderProgress extends HSlider
{
[Bindable]
private var _progress:Number = 0;
public function get progress():Number {
return _progress;
}
// 0-1
public function set progress(o:Number):void {
if (o < 0) o = 0;
if (o > 1) o = 1;
_progress = o;
}


/**
* @private
*/
override mx_internal function drawTrackHighlight():void
{
var track:IFlexDisplayObject = innerSlider.getChildAt(0) as IFlexDisplayObject;
var highlightTrack:IFlexDisplayObject = innerSlider.getChildAt(1) as IFlexDisplayObject;

if (track && highlightTrack)
{
var xPos:Number;
var tWidth:Number;

xPos = track.x;
// minus xPos is the right side offset
tWidth = track.width*progress;
//trace('track.width', track.width, 'tWidth', tWidth);
highlightTrack.move(xPos, track.y + 1);
highlightTrack.setActualSize(tWidth > 0 ? tWidth : 0, highlightTrack.height);
}
}

}
}


When you instantiate the HSliderProgress make sure to set
showHighlightTrack="true".

Also, as you get your video net_status updated just bind the
bytesLoaded/bytesTotal to the progress property.

Also one nice thing is that you can style it the way you'd normally style HSlider with Flex skinning.

Getting Zend Debugger to work with XAMPP Leopard with Zend Studio

1] Copy the Zend Debugger PHP Extension from Zend Studio to your webserver's PHP extension dir.


#cp '/Applications/Zend/Zend Studio for Eclipse - 6.1.0/plugins/org.zend.php.debug.debugger.macosx_5.2.14.v20080602/resources/php5/ZendDebugger.so' /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/lib/php/php5/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/ZendDebugger.so


2] edit XAMPP's php.ini to include the extension (#sudo mate /Applications/xampp/etc/php.ini)


;extension=ZendDebugger.so
zend_extension=/Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/lib/php/php5/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/ZendDebugger.so
zend_debugger.allow_hosts=127.0.0.1
zend_debugger.expose_remotely=always


Getting started with Unit Testing in your Zend Framework application Leopard

Hello, this guide is for someone who has no idea how to get started writing unit tests inside the Zend Framework application. I don't claim this to be the right way to do it, but its a step in the right direction for me.

Step 1] Install pear and PHPUnit

Here are the steps I used in Leopard.

First install PEAR:


#cd /tmp
#curl http://pear.php.net/go-pear > go-pear.php

#sudo php -q go-pear.php

press enter, choose option 1 the prefix directory as "/usr/local" this will install the pear executable to /usr/local/bin/ and the PEAR files to /usr/local/PEAR

After the install finishes try typing:

#pear


If it doesn't work, the install failed or the $PATH variable doesn't include the /usr/local/bin dir.


Next, install PHPUnit using pear:


#sudo pear channel-discover pear.phpunit.de
#sudo pear install phpunit/PHPUnit

If it gives you any warnings about folder permissions you might have to do something like #sudo chmod 777 the temp dir or wherever its complaining about.


Once pear installs PHPUnit try running it in the commandline

#phpunit


It should run ok. If you get any warnings you will have to look at your php config file.


If your php.ini isnt located in /etc/php.ini you'll have to create a symbolic link as such. For example, I develop using XAMPP so my php config is in /Applications/xampp/etc/php.ini.


#ln -s /Applications/xampp/etc/php.ini /etc/php.ini


Next edit /etc/php.ini to make sure the include_path to PHPUnit is correct


#sudo mate /etc/php.ini


Mine looks something like this.
include_path = ".:/php/includes:/usr/local/PEAR:/usr/local/PEAR/PHPUnit"


Try running PHPUnit again in the command line.

#phpunit


If it doesn't give any warnings, move on to step 2.

Step 2] Create the /tests and /tests/myapp folders.

Your Zend project structure should look something like this:


/myapp/
/myapp/application/
/myapp/application/controllers/
/myapp/application/models/
/myapp/application/views/
/myapp/application/views/scripts/
/myapp/library/
/myapp/library/Zend/
/myapp/tests/
/myapp/tests/myapp/


Step 3] Create the /myapp/application/controllers/IndexControllerTest.php file

This file is to test the IndexController.



class MyApp_public_IndexControllerTest extends Zend_Test_PHPUnit_ControllerTestCase
{

public function setUp()
{
$this->bootstrap = APPLICATION_PATH . '/bootstrap.php';
parent::setUp();
}

/**
* Tests FooController->barAction()
*/
public function testIndexAction()
{
// TODO Auto-generated FooControllerTest->testBarAction()

$this->dispatch ( '/index/index' );
$this->assertController ( 'index' );
$this->assertAction ( 'index' );
}
}


Step 4] Create the /myapp/tests/myapp/AllTests.php file




define('APPLICATION_PATH', realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../../application/'));

set_include_path(
APPLICATION_PATH.'/../library'
. PATH_SEPARATOR . get_include_path()
);


if (!defined('PHPUnit_MAIN_METHOD')) {
define('PHPUnit_MAIN_METHOD', 'MyApp_AllTests::main');
}

require_once('Zend/Test/PHPUnit/ControllerTestCase.php');

require_once APPLICATION_PATH . 'controllers/IndexControllerTest.php';

class MyApp_AllTests
{
public static function main()
{
PHPUnit_TextUI_TestRunner::run(self::suite());
}

public static function suite()
{
$suite = new PHPUnit_Framework_TestSuite('All Tests - MyApp');


$suite->addTestSuite('MyApp_public_IndexControllerTest');

return $suite;
}
}

if (PHPUnit_MAIN_METHOD == 'MyApp_AllTests::main')
{
MyApp_AllTests::main();
}


Step 5] Run AllTests.php

Open the terminal and navigate to the folder where you created AllTests.php


#cd XYZ/myapp/tests/myapp/
#phpunit AllTests.php

PHPUnit 3.3.10 by Sebastian Bergmann.

.

Time: 0 seconds

OK (1 test, 2 assertions)



Hope this started you off okay. Goodluck!


P.S.

Leopard's included PHP does not have PDO_Mysql included by default.
In your Zend_Config_Ini you can use mysqli instead.

Example /application/config/app.ini

[production]
webhost = www.awebsite.com
database.adapter = pdo_mysql
database.params.host = localhost
database.params.username = auser
database.params.password = apassword
database.params.dbname = adatabase

[development : production]

[testing : production]
database.params.dbname = adatabase
#leopard's compiled php doesn't have PDO_MYSQL
database.adapter = mysqli


Setting up Trac with Plesk

If your running a Plesk server and want to get trac running with mod_python, heres what I did to get them running nicely.

This tutorial assumes you have already installed Subversion, Trac, and that running your Trac daemon was successful.

Setup the trac subdomain in plesk:
1] Create a subdomain 'trac'
2] important: make sure python is unchecked->DISABLED (wierd i know!)

Creating a new project:
#trac-admin /disk1/trac/mynewproject initenv
#mkdir /disk1/trac/mynewproject/.egg-cache
#chmod 777 /disk1/trac/mynewproject/.egg-cache
#chmod -R 777 /disk1/trac/mynewproject/db
#chmod -R 777 /disk1/trac/mynewproject/attachments



Adding a new user:
#htpasswd /disk1/trac/.htpasswd mynewusername


Editing user permissions:
http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracPermissions
If there are no trac admins yet, you must create one in the shell
an example:

#trac-admin /disk1/trac/myproject permission remove anonymous BROWSER_VIEW
#trac-admin /disk1/trac/myproject permission add auser TRAC_ADMIN


Editing trac vhost file:
Please note the PythonPath, your may be different. try typing #find -name trac to find the folder thats similar to mine.

#emacs /var/www/vhosts/yourdomain.com/subdomains/trac/conf/vhost.conf for the new location
example:

<location "/mynewproject">
#        SetHandler mod_python
   SetHandler python-program
#        PythonDebug on
   PythonPath "['/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/'] + sys.path"
   PythonInterpreter main_interpreter
   PythonHandler trac.web.modpython_frontend
   PythonOption TracEnv /disk1/trac/mynewproject
   PythonOption TracUriRoot /mynewproject
</location>
<location "/mynewproject/login">
   AuthType Basic
   AuthName "WillInteractive Trac Server"
   AuthUserFile /disk1/trac/.htpasswd
   Require valid-user
</location>


Restart your apache server
#service httpd restart

Next try to access it in your browser at:
http://yourdomain.com/mynewproject

Improving performance in your Flex Applications

Do you understand a day in the life of a Flex component (creation, initialization, invalidation/validation)? Have you heard of how Flex components have to run around this "elastic racetrack" (code execute/render) and how Flex components are structured to run optimally around this racetrack?

When extending a Flex component you need to know these things in order for your component to achieve the best performance possible.

Check out this Adobe Max presentation titled "Creating New Components in Flex 3" by Deepa Subramaniam (you wont be disappointed :P):
http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f15384v1002