SharePoint cost calculator

So far we have been working on SharePoint customization for clients in abroad only. So, we never faced the question of SharePoint price, since clients bought it for us. As we have started SharePoint customization in our company for local market, we needed to know the price and the exact price calculation is little complicated. I found a helpful link here which I wanted to share with others (and as always, store for me in a convenient location which I can find anytime – here) http://community.bamboosolutions.com/blogs/sharepoint-2010-price-calculator/default.aspx

Thanks to Bamboosolutions for creating the easy calculator.

My search for book reader ends now!

I have been using iPad for quite some time now … have been using iBooks but wasn’t quite satisfied. I mean, it’s user friendly and all, but, with physical books I can mark something, draw something, highlight, add stickies etc. There were some softwares but wasn’t quite happy.

Finally I found the best one and my search ends, I found pdf-notes … I got so excited once I explored all the possibilities, I was just amazed. All the features I thought and others which I didn’t think but would add a lot of value – all are there. This was too much!!! And it is free … I can’t ask for more!! Satisfied?? I’m over satisfied.

Alas, they don’t have a android version, I wish they had. There are other apps in android for the same but … not even near pdf-notes. Big kudos for the team of pdf-notes.

PHP Vulnerability

One of my sites were being hacked. I wanted to check why this was happening and how. So, I added a logger to see who is posting what to hack the site. There I came across a interesting thing, somebody is posting

 [php]eval(base64_decode(\'ZWNobyAidj...==\'));die();[/php]

If I use some $_POST to create a string or anything, this will be executed. Here is a interesting article to solve this problem

http://php-security.org/2010/05/19/mops-2010-035-e107-bbcode-remote-php-code-execution-vulnerability/index.html

Now, problem is, I’m not going to check it in every $_POST by that, it’s a old project and I don’t have a budget to do something like that. So, I’m planning to do a check in the common include file for all the $_POST for existence of ‘base64_decode(‘ and ‘eval(‘ – if found, stop it there, notify me about the attack. If for that I lose some authentic post, I guess that would be fine.

Reading PDF in iPad easily for free

Recently we started development for iPhone and iPad applications. Today I got the iPad. Before day end, the most important thing that comes into mind is – how can I read my laptop’s pdfs in iPad. After searching a little bit, I found there are many pdf readers, but most gives the option to download pdfs from online, but getting pdfs from my own pc seems little bit difficult. There is an app called MyPDF but it’s paid. While it seems cool, not having iTunes in Bangladesh I can’t get it anyway. So, I must use free app. Finally after downloading and trying couple of them, I found Easy PDF and Bookman gives me the facility to directly use PCs pdfs for free. Now I can read my pdfs in iPad. Cool! Happy reading

Best icons site and Xmarks story

Today I got two beautiful sites

http://www.iconarchive.com/

http://www.iconfinder.net/

I needed a “PDF Download” icon, so I was googling, icon download. I noticed a small icon, “#2 in icons”. What is that – I thought. Clicking on it, I was taken to Xmarks.com. I found the heaven there, the list of all the icons sites and there I found the above two sites which I liked best.

I have been using FoxMarks, later turning into Xmarks from the very beginning. I liked the way they turned their simple thing to such a beautiful and powerful product. Now – this numbering of most popular things, I believe, will take them a lot of steps ahead. Cheers for XMarks!!

MVC ASP.net application server deployment checklist

Recently I was deploying an application in server and faced some problems. Everytime I go to do that, I face some problems and google around. I thought it would be nice to keep them handy here as a checklist format so I don’t waste time. Might help some of you as well.

1. Enable Web Service extension
Normally in own pc, you don’t need to enable anything like this but in server this is a requirement. Generally ASP is enabled, once you have installed .net, you will have to enable Web Service Extension of ASP.net. This is right under website of IIS Manager.

2. Folder permission
Remember to give appropriate permission to your folder. IIS_WPG, IWAM etc.

3. Checking error log
If any problem, please check here for error log
All programs>Administrative Tools>Event Viewer
I often forget it

4. Adding wildcard mapping or similar things
You already know what that is since you are using MVC.

5. Most important – Search google
Copy the error log, search google with the copied text

This process is also applicable to non-MVC application. And, it’s not for advanced people, for only beginner to medium. It doesn’t provide all the details either, just guideline.

HJSplit – for joining and splitting .001 files

I often use my blog as my personal diary to remember something, and if it comes to help for somebody else as well.

Today downloaded a file which was split with 001 extension. So was googling and found that CNet Download has a free software “001 File Joiner and Splitter”. But after installing I found it’s too bad, its a trial version and that also – buggy. The second was HJSplit and then I remembered this is the one I used first time and was good. So that I don’t forget again, I thought writing it down

Flash dynamic text with reflection and transparency

At BrainStation-23, we were making an animation which will be auto generated by XML provided images and texts. There we needed a beautiful black background white text with reflection on the floor, from white to transparent. I was watching Iffat dewelling with it and Hasib was helping. I was in the mood and jumped in. It has been a long time since I last coded in Flash. After doing some tricks it was working and I found – though things came back, it was a tricky thing to do and I have almost forgot it. So, I thought I should write it down.

Step 1: Make a dynamic text layer. It will be the mask. Make it a movie clip. Remember to embed font in the dynamic text, otherwise it won’t work.

Step 2: Make a transparent blending layer, whatever sort you want. Make it another movie clip.

Step 3: In the action, write, blendingMovie.setMask(textMovie);

Step 4: That’s all basically. Now you can set text of the text movie.

The things that I forgot was, 1. Embed fonts, you must embed font to make the dynamic text work with mask. 2. Dynamic mask. If I just make the text layer a mask layer and blending layer the child, it won’t work. It has to be done by actionscript. Hasib reminded me them. We are so happy to have him as our Actionscripter.

404 Error page designs

Template monster gave some beautiful free 404 Error pages, checkout http://blog.templatemonster.com/2009/10/22/404-error-page-dont-get-the-page-itself-to-be-even-a-bigger-error/#404freebies

Cronjobs in new cpanel

The new cpanel has made cronjobs very easy … you can pick time when the job will run, all you have to do is write the command to do the job. Now, that is little confusing, and when you search the web you are going to find a lot of things, more confusing. So, here I’m writing the most simple one

wget http://www.example.com/mailstock.php

It will just execute the php file and mail you the output of that php file.

I love sitepoint.com for their so clear articles, checkout for details about this in their article http://www.sitepoint.com/article/introducing-cron/