Just come up with some code to calculate how many days + hours since a particular date/time.

            $time = time() - strtotime($created_at); // $created_at is a string of time i.e. Fri Mar 18 17:24:35 PDT 2011

            $days = floor($time/24/60/60);

            if ($days > 0) {

                $days_out = "$days day";

                $days_out .= $days > 1 ? 's' : '' .", ";

            }

            $hours = floor(($time % (24*60*60))/60/60);

            $hours_out = "{$hours} hour";

            $hours_out .= $hours > 1 ? 's' : '' . " ago";

            echo "{$days_out}{$hours_out}";

I was talking to a colleague about how to write a web crawler, and spend an hour to split out this simple piece of code as a proof of concept.

// a simple web crawler example

// v1.1

//



$toplink = "http://edmondhui.homeip.net/blog";

$depth = 2;



walkIt($toplink,1);



function walkIt($link, $level) {

	global $depth;

	if ($level <= $depth) {

		$content = file($link);

		if ($content != false) {

			$content = html_entity_decode(implode($content));

			//

			// IF NEED, PAGE CONTENTS PROCESS AND SAVE TO DB HERE

			//

			preg_match_all("/href=\".*?\"/i", $content, $matches);

			$matches = array_unique($matches[0]);

			foreach ($matches as $idx => $url) {

				$url = substr($url, 6, -1);

				if (strstr($url, "http://") != false) {

					for ($i = 0; $i < $level; $i++) { echo '  '; }

					echo "$url\n";

					walkIt($url, $level+1);

				}

			}

		} else {

			echo "failed to crawle - $link\n";

		}

	}

}

?>

Next exercise, write this in python!

Saw this in PHP manual how to strip all invalid characters in a string:

// Strip all chars that is not: alphanumeric, space, hyphen

$my_string = preg_replace('/[^\w\d_ -]/si', '', $my_string);

I was looking for a way to validate date in javascript the other day.... this is what I came up with. It takes advantage from Date() that returns empty object if an invalidate date is passed to it.

Not sure if there's a better way?

/* var from is a date in string format "10/30/2010 03:44:12" */

var timeFrom = new Date(from);

var fromMonth = from.substring(0,2) - 0;

var fromDay = from.substring(3,5) - 0;  

var fromYear = from.substring(6,10) - 0;  

if (timeFrom.getMonth()+1 != fromMonth || timeFrom.getDate() != fromDay || timeFrom.getFullYear() != fromYear) {

  $("div#error").text('Please enter a valid date range.');

}

I use it often but never seem to remember it, so it'd be good to document here somewhere.

<a class="action doSomething" id="777" onclick="javascript:return false;" href="#">

Once the link click is disabled, a javascript/jQuery script can hook to this tag and do its work. ie A background AJAX call, popup, etc.

Continue the investigation. I fixed the Virtualbox problem, it turns out that PAE kernel is running but i686 Virtualbox kmod is installed. A re-install fixed the problem.

Last but not least, I found the root cause to the x86_64 unstable problem. I was mounting a NFS mount on /tmp, which caused a write error that cascade to GNOME.

[update] The sound device missing problem was fixed after recent kernel update to 2.6.33.5-112

After migrated all data from T60, the new T410s is open for business. I first run an yum update and install software I need. It's trivial work, but time consuming. Sometimes I just wish upgrade work, which I never attempt.

In general, all basic functions like X, mouse, trackpad (w/ scrolling), wireless are working. I tested a few other functions like suspend and webcam, both working. I'm still yet to test ethernet, fingerprint scanner, eSATA, HDMI, and DVD burner.

So far, I noticed sound (missing device) and compiz (crashed after a while) are not working. In addition, some kernel modules are missing with Virtualbox.

On the other hand, the new T410s is quite an improvement over my T60; The CPU is running pretty cool at about 38 degree, and the build is much solid (but there is still some flex).

Downloaded F13 the day it was released and burned it on DVD. I got both the i386 and x86_64 version. I recently bought a Lenovo T410s w/ a Intel Core 5 CPU, so I thought I would give the x86_64 version a spin first.

But to my disappointment, it's very unstable. I'm getting freeze up left and right (but this one might be related to Compiz...), and program crashed when starts. So, I switch back to i386 version.