Create automatic A-Z page marker for the list of names using PHP

Create automatic A-Z page marker for the list of names using PHP

$lastName = ucfirst($row1->LastName);
$firstchar = $lastName{0};
//ucfirst ($firstchar);
if($previous!=$firstchar)
{
     $previous=$firstchar;
     echo "<h4><a name=\"$previous\">$previous</a></h4>";
     echo "<br>";
}  
                              

Update all empty string data in MySQL Database to null

Update all empty string data in MySQL Database to null

update
<table_Name>
set <table_Name>.<field_name>=null
Where
ASCII(<table_Name>.<field_name>) = 0

Now, high speed internet access via balloon

Now, high speed internet access via balloon
Source: IANS. Image Source: IS
London, Oct 20: Scientists have for the first time tested a super fast data downlink provided by a stratospheric balloon floating 24,000 metres above the earth and such a craft could eventually help provide communications in disaster zones.

The 12,000-cubic metre helium balloon sent data to the ground at 1.25 gigabits per second - thousands of time the capacity of a home broadband Internet connection, reports the online edition of the New Scientist journal.

The airship test by a team of researchers led by Britain's University of York was conducted in Sweden. Scientists hope that such airships may eventually help in providing communications in disaster zones or low-cost access in the developing world.

David Grace, one of the scientists in the research team, said stratospheric communications balloons provided wireless alternatives to fixed Internet infrastructure.

"You could rapidly put communications infrastructure where it doesn't exist. In developing countries it could be a cheaper way to roll out, and you could do it incrementally, he said.

A BBC report said balloons hovering in the stratosphere could become an attractive alternative within three to five years as consumers demanding ever higher bandwidth.

Moreover, broadband via telephone lines had speed limitations while satellite was expensive and could support only a limited number of users, the report said.




It said the balloon could be an alternative to wired access in suburban areas where costs of roll out were high. It could also be offered on high-speed trains and in remote areas, the report said quoting an expert.

The cost of the balloon as compared to a satellite was also likely to be attractive, the report said.

"The launch cost of the infrastructure is likely to be one-tenth that of satellite and one airship can support a user density one thousand times that of a satellite," it said.

With each airship being able to support an area of 60 km, there would only need to be "a handful" to offer complete coverage in Britain. The trials of the technology will continue in Japan next year.

Populating the combo box in PHP

Populating the combo box

• Problem may occur when the values for the option tag are populated with values from database and those data have spaces. For Example If you populating names and there are names like “john, mary, alex ron” then

<option value=”**********“> may take values john, mary and alex instead alex ron.

To take care of this it is to be populated as (if using HTML within php script)

echo "<option value= "."'$row->abbrev'".">".$row->abbrev."</option>";  

incorrect method would be
  
echo "<option value= "."$row->abbrev".">".$row->abbrev."</option>";  

PC Pro: News: OpenOffice 2.0 released

The new version of the OpenOffice productivity suite is now officially released. The open-source suite now sports a more professional looking user interface and a brand new database module. It also features the ace-in-the-hole - the Open Document file format based on the open-standard OASIS format for office applications.

OpenOffice 2.0 now features a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a drawing package (Draw), presentation graphics (Impress) and the new database module (Base) as well as Math and Gallery.

Where OpenOffice.org hopes to score with version 2.0 is that it is the first open-source office suite to offer full support for the OpenDocument format. Open Document is an XML file format specification for the full range of office productivity applications including text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents. Already many government and public organisations are looking at OpenDocument compatibility as a way of adding competition to the Microsoft hegemony.

Additionally the OpenDocument format overcomes worries that by using a proprietary format for public sector and government documents, the public at largewill need to pay for a proprietary program to read them. Furthermore, an open format is the best way of ensuring that there will be software available in the future able to read these documents, when proprietary formats may well be obselete.

Written in Java and based on the HSQLDB database engine, the Base database module capable of creating self-contained, portable and cross-platform database applications. The result is claimed to be complete cross-platform compatibility and functionality between GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows and Sun Solaris users that could prove very attractive to organisations with heterogeneous platforms such as academic institutions.

The Calc spreadsheet compatibility has been improved by the extension of the maximum number of rows to 65,536 rows. The extensions will not only please the spreadsheet junkies who like to use vast amounts of data, it also is the same size as Excel that means moving large files between the two is simpler. In addition, there have been a number of improvements to the Pivot table type 'DataPilot' enabling advanced analysis of data from spreadsheets and databases.

Overall, OpenOffice.org looks a very credible competitor to Microsoft Office 2003. However, the window of opportunity might be small as Redmond is planning its own major overhaul with Office 12 due next year.

Open Office version 2.0 is available from OpenOffice.org.

Your Laser Printer is a Spy

Your Laser Printer is a Spy

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a consumer privacy and digital rights organization, has analyzed codes embedded in printouts in color laser printers. The code cracked by the EFF was an invisible bar code that contained the serial number of the printer for tracking users as well as the date and time a page was printed. In Xerox printers the code appears in a pattern of yellow dots visible only with a magnifying glass and a blue light. The codes are supposed to be for government agencies looking out for counterfeit currency printers.
The EFF said it has identified similar coding on pages printed from virtually every major printer manufacturer though it has so far managed to crack the codes for only one Xerox model. Seth David Schoen, staff technologist, EFF, said that the dots are yellow, less than one millimeter in diameter, and are typically repeated over each page of a document. The pattern is visible under blue light with the help of a magnifying glass or a microscope. A complete list of the printers that have the yellow dots is given here. www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php. Though some printers do not produce the yellow dots, some of them leave other watermarks and may have other ways of identifying them.

Did u know

Did u know?

You cannot create a folder named con, com1, com2, lpt1 on any of the Windows OS.
    

Yahoo chief rates Google as No. 4 portal Yahoo Inc chairman Terry Semelm belittled rival Google Inc's recent efforts to expand beyond its leading Internet search engine, describing the diversification as a haphazard attempt to catch up with his company.

[via rediff Business]