Archive for February, 2008

Storing mySQL database settings for php and perl in one file

I have a situation where there’s two scripts.

  1. The main core of the code which is PHP based.
  2. A perl script which is called by the mail server for parsing incoming mail.

Both of these scripts require database access to the same database.

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Rip and decode mp3s via myspace music player

I’m always looking for new ways to get my hands on mp3s, this is yet another way, thanks to myspace.

I figured out that there must be a way we can get our hands on the actual mp3 files found on the myspace music player.

All we had to do was decode their site so we are able to grab their mp3s.

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Word separators in URLs

In the world of web development and search engine optimisation you find this topic is frequently discussed, yet often without any reasoning or conclusion. Therefore the purpose of this article is to investigate why.

So, let’s start at the very beginning, and find out what “word separators” actually are, and why we need them in URLs.

Traditionally a word separator is a space, yes, an every day space you create with your space-bar key.

The problem with using spaces in URLs is that when the URL is utilised in a browser (for example), the URL is encoded using percent encoding which causes spaces to appear as the encoded “%20”, resulting in an ugly URL formation which is humanly difficult to read.

ie: http://www.example.com/percent%20encoding

How do we overcome the problem? Over the years a workaround has developed…

…the dash, no the hyphen, no in fact it’s the minus sign (yes, I mean this “-” symbol)…

ie: http://www.example.com/not-percent-encoding

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