Lately I have been searching  this post on the net about graphics.h in dev c++ and found few resources about it .  So I decided to write how to use graphics.h in dev-c++.  I am expecting that you have already installed bloodshed dev-cpp on your machine.  Graphics.h is a header file found in borlan c but because of its late development devcpp is now the mostly used IDE and compiler in programming c++.

Below are the steps on how to get graphics.h running on your machine,

1. download graphics.h and save it to the include folder where you installed dev-cpp (C:\Dev-Cpp\include)
2. Download libbgi.a and save it in the lib folder where you installed dev-cpp (C:\Dev-Cpp\lib)
3. So when you have to create a program that needs the use of graphics.h  you must instruct the linker to link in certain libraries by going to projects > project options > parameters tab > linker column copy the lines below and paste it on that column.

-lbgi
-lgdi32
-lcomdlg32
-luuid
-loleaut32
-lole32

By then you should be able to use graphics.h. As a sample I created this bubble sort algorithm as an example on how to use graphics.h in c++.

The program will have scattered points on the screen and will form a line as the loop iterates and at the end it will display how many loops are needed to sort the randomly generated numbers.

If you have problems using the functions you can refer to this link.  I hope this helps in solving your problem about dev c++ graphics.h with the bubble sort algorithm.

Adobe Photoshop is one of the most advance tools in digital image editing and for developments as well such as icons and some other stuff.  Photoshop now is on CS5 which handles several new features and one is Content-Aware Fill where you can magically fill in spaces on digital images matching the tones, lightning and noise of the images making it as if it existed on the image.  You can find more of the new features on their site.

Photoshop has indeed grown to be a powerful tool but one thing I noticed without it is saving a .ico file out of the images that we developing.  This made me search for plugins and happy to say that I found one and I want to share it to everyone because it is GNU licensed and free to share and download.  All you need to do is download the file and extract the files inside the zipped file, then copy the ICOFormat.8bi file and paste it on the file formats folder found inside your photoshop folder(C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Plug-Ins\File Formats).  You can now then save .ico files with your photoshop.

In the past months I was able to handle a LAMP server, this is my second time to handle a UNIX based web server but this time its a lot different because I will will be the one to install and configure the web server.  Our System administrator was the one who installed the latest version of slackware which is 13.1 on the machine, so all I need to do is have the web server up and running.

Our system administrator did include the x packages when he installed slackware and this caused me a problem in running PHP because it gave me several errors in GD support.  The error I get was,

I was able to solve the problem with the following steps taken and was based from a linux forum I really loved.
Download the packages by entering the following commands,

After downloading the files I installed them using pkgtool and select install packages from current directory and by there it will display the packages downloaded. Here is a sample of how to install it using pkgtool,

After installing the packages restart your apache and PHP GD support should be working. To check type this command,

Knowing the right MySQL statement is the most important part in having thousands of data in your database, one false move and you can’t undo things.    If you want to change a string or character in your database and doing it manually in thousands or millions of entries then that should consume all of your time.

One example scenario is when you want to change all the entries containing a character ‘_’ to this character ‘-’ .  All you need to do is have a backup first on that specific table or database so that whatever false move you  will be doing, you can still have the data back.  After having the backup here is the SQL syntax that you should enter:

Where in my scenario:

There within less than a minute I was able to change all the data containing ‘_’.  It saved me a lot of time and I can continue coding some other stuff rather than editing the data manually.  Hope this helps and happy coding!

I have successfully exported Thunderbird email files on ms outlook 2007 on a Windows XP platform which can also be done in windows vista and windows 7 platform.  There are several steps on how to do it.

1.  First, you need to download and install this software:  IMAPSize
2. Locate your Thunderbird emails, usually it is located in this directory C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Thunderbird  or  you can copy paste the directory and change the user to your account name.  When you are in the application data folder of Thunderbird navigate to the mail folder of the email account you want to convert.  Make sure you make full backup on the mail folder before doing the conversion.
3.  Open IMAPSize software and go to the tools menu and select mbox2eml.
4.  Select the files you want to convert, one example is the inbox.  The inbox file that contains all you emails is the one without the .msf extension.  And this also applies for drafts, sent items and templates. Attachment will be automatically converted and goes with the .eml file

5.  After conversion, open Outlook Express on Vista or Win7 platform you can user Windows Live Mail.  Setup your email account on Outlook express.
6.  Highlight all the emails that was converted by IMAPSize which is in .eml format.  This should should store all the emails in your outlook express account.

6.  For the last part of the process, you can import your outlook express account on MS Outlook 2007.  On the file menu select Import and Export and click next, Select Import form another program or file and click next.  Select Outlook Express 4.x, 5.x, 6.x or windows mail.  This will automatically detect you windows outlook express email accounts and download all the mails.

Do you want to extract the main domain of a URL?  Here is a function that works well and can be modified easily.  I found this function while searching for a good Regular Expression to fulfill such result.

<?php
function get_base_domain($url)  {
$debug = 0;
$base_domain = '';
$G_TLD = array(
'biz','com','edu','gov','info','int','mil','name','net','org','aero','asia','cat','coop','jobs','mobi','museum',
'pro','tel','travel','arpa','root','berlin','bzh','cym','gal','geo','kid','kids','lat','mail','nyc','post','sco','web','xxx',
'nato','example','invalid','localhost','test','bitnet','csnet','ip','local','onion','uucp',
'co' );
// country tlds (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_code_top-level_domain)
$C_TLD = array(
'ac','ad','ae','af','ag','ai','al','am','an','ao','aq','ar','as','at','au','aw','ax','az',
'ba','bb','bd','be','bf','bg','bh','bi','bj','bm','bn','bo','br','bs','bt','bw','by','bz',
'ca','cc','cd','cf','cg','ch','ci','ck','cl','cm','cn','co','cr','cu','cv','cx','cy','cz',
'de','dj','dk','dm','do','dz','ec','ee','eg','er','es','et','eu','fi','fj','fk','fm','fo',
'fr','ga','gd','ge','gf','gg','gh','gi','gl','gm','gn','gp','gq','gr','gs','gt','gu','gw',
'gy','hk','hm','hn','hr','ht','hu','id','ie','il','im','in','io','iq','ir','is','it','je',
'jm','jo','jp','ke','kg','kh','ki','km','kn','kr','kw','ky','kz','la','lb','lc','li','lk',
'lr','ls','lt','lu','lv','ly','ma','mc','md','mg','mh','mk','ml','mm','mn','mo','mp','mq',
'mr','ms','mt','mu','mv','mw','mx','my','mz','na','nc','ne','nf','ng','ni','nl','no','np',
'nr','nu','nz','om','pa','pe','pf','pg','ph','pk','pl','pn','pr','ps','pt','pw','py','qa',
're','ro','ru','rw','sa','sb','sc','sd','se','sg','sh','si','sk','sl','sm','sn','sr','st',
'sv','sy','sz','tc','td','tf','tg','th','tj','tk','tl','tm','tn','to','tr','tt','tv','tw',
'tz','ua','ug','uk','us','uy','uz','va','vc','ve','vg','vi','vn','vu','wf','ws','ye','yu',
'za','zm','zw','eh','kp','me','rs','um','bv','gb','pm','sj','so','yt','su','tp','bu','cs','dd','zr'
);
// get domain
>if ( !$full_domain = get_url_domain($url) ) {

return $base_domain;
}
// now the fun
// break up domain, reverse
$DOMAIN = explode('.', $full_domain);

if ( $debug ) print_r($DOMAIN);
$DOMAIN = array_reverse($DOMAIN);

if ( $debug ) print_r($DOMAIN);
// first check for ip address
>if ( count($DOMAIN) == 4 &amp;&amp; is_numeric($DOMAIN[0]) &amp;&amp; is_numeric($DOMAIN[3]) ) {

return $full_domain;
}
// if only 2 domain parts, that must be our domain
>if ( count($DOMAIN) <= 2 ) return $full_domain;

if ( in_array($DOMAIN[0], $C_TLD) &amp;&amp; in_array($DOMAIN[1], $G_TLD) &amp;&amp; $DOMAIN[2] != 'www' ) {
$full_domain = $DOMAIN[2] . '.' . $DOMAIN[1] . '.' . $DOMAIN[0];
}

else {
$full_domain = $DOMAIN[1] . '.' . $DOMAIN[0];;
}
// did we succeed?
>return $full_domain;
}
function get_url_domain($url)  {
$domain = '';
$_URL = parse_url($url);
// sanity check
>if ( empty($_URL) || empty($_URL['host']) )  {
$domain = '';
}

else {
$domain = $_URL['host'];
}

return $domain;
}
?>

To test the code we can use the function,

$url  = 'http://www.icpep.org';
echo get_base_domain($url) ; // icpep.org

Click here to download.

This code really helped me a lot.  There are a lot of Regular expressions out there but this simple approach can break all those head breaking expressions.  Btw, this function is free of use and is under GNU licensing.   Hope this functions is of big help to you also, happy coding!

Today, a friend and a colleague of mine called me and questioned me why she can’t send emails using her mail client which is Incredimail which is one cool mail client because of the effects and animation.  It really bothered me a lot because I can’t solve the problem without being there in the situation and it is hard to explain things using a phone. So I went over to her place and to find out that PLDT changed their SMTP port to 587 which is not the usual port of SMTP.  But this is not only the solution, outgoing mail server should also be changed to smtpdsl4.pldtdsl.net instead of using your own outgoing mail server(mail.icpep.org).

This has become an issue but still PLDT has no action for this.  This is really one problem especially to those people who are not that techie.  Hope PLDT will change it back to the usual port and find other ways on how to solve the spamming issues.

To summarize it, you can configure your mail clients using the following information:

Outgoing mail server SMTP: smtpdsl4.pldtdsl.net
UNCHECK – My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication
USE Port: 587

Hope this helps in solving your problem.

If you want to boost the signal of your wireless linksys router all you need is configure the router.  You can type on the browser 192.168.1.1 which is the default IP address assigned on the router.   After logging in you can go to wireless then click advance settings. Most configuration in this area is based on default configuration, change the following value.

• Beacon Interval – 50
• Fragmentation Threshold – 2304
• RTS Threshold – 2304

After setting the values you can save the configuration and turn off the router for several seconds.  Turn it on again to use the changes made on your router.

Knowing a Linux distro is one asset of a network administrator, since then I seemed to be a die hard fan of knowing Linux.  The first linux distro I used was Red Hat and from the first time I saw it I was so amazed and at the same time surprised that such operating system exist.  By then I was a great fan of linux but sad to say I seldomly use the operating system because most of the tools used in school and work is windows based, though it can be ran through wine but running it in windows is different.

Lately, my friends and colleagues installed a transparent proxy used for filtering sites accessed within the network.  They explained to me how the proxy functions and it was a very big interest to me especially that linux was involved.

This was also a coincidence that in the previous week I was able to download the latest version of Slackware Linux v13.O.  I tried to install it but facing it in text based is something new to me because the previous flavors of linux I used comes with a graphical user interface making it easy for me to install and configure stuff. 

So the first step I made was finding an ebook for slackware and I got lucky that surfing deeper in the net I found version 2 of Slackware.  Since the resources is so scarce I decided to upload the ebook here and have an easy download for it to help also others and have them a reference.  So if this is also your first time to start with Linux Slackware, let us journey together in finding the power of Linux Slackware in Network administration.  Hoping that we can share ideas on how to improve communication a lot safer and a lot faster.  Below is the link where you can download the ebook.

Download Slacware Ebook V2.O

Filezilla is an FTP Client used for transferring files from one host to the other or is used to exchange and manipulate files over a TCP/IP based network.  It is a free software downloadable on their official website filezilla-project.org.  Filezilla is one secure FTP client and so far the best FTP Client I have used.  I already have tried several software before like SmartFTP.  SmartFTP is easy to use but it is not a free software, you need to buy it so you can use it.

Filezilla has a simple user interface and for the first time I used it,  it feels like I have been using the software for a while.

You can store and manage your Websites using Filezilla with their site manager.  When we have a lot of sites to manage and forget the password we tend to search our mails again and look for the password because as what they say that you can not view your password in filezilla.   We’ll you’re wrong, passwords in filezilla can be viewed. If you have saved the login information on the site manager the here are some simple steps on how to view them .  First open filezilla and on the file menu Click Export and you will be prompted with 3 options, you can click the 3 options if you needed them.  But for now you can check the option Export Site Manager Entries.  Go to the directory where you saved the file FileZilla.xml.  Open the file using notepad or wordpad and there you can view your saved passwords.

I hope I saved your day and always remember not to let anyone access your private files, Stay Secured!