Me on my first computer IBM/AT (1987)

There have been a lot of people asking how they can keep their GSA synced. Here is quick, simple, and easily configurable solution that should help. Set this up as a CRON job and you’re done.

Requires: PHP, cURL

<?php
/**
* @author Chris Williams ctwilliams[at]gmail[dot]com
* @version 0.0.1
* @example php gsa-sync.php
*/

define(‘GSA_PATH’, ‘http://gsa.xyz.com:8000′); // Replace ‘http://…’ with your gsa host and port
define(‘GSA_USERNAME’, ‘user’); // Replace ‘user’ with your username
define(‘GSA_PASSWORD’, ’secret’); // Replace ‘password’ with your password

/** Define DB collections */
$dbSources = array(‘dbcollection1′, ‘dbcollection2′);

/** Go to log in prompt */
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, GSA_PATH . ‘/EnterpriseController’);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, dirname(__FILE__).‘/cookie.txt’);
curl_exec($ch);

/** Authenticate */
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, GSA_PATH . ‘/EnterpriseController’);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,‘actionType=authenticateUser&userName=’ . GSA_USERNAME . ‘&password=’ . GSA_PASSWORD);
curl_exec($ch);

/** Loop through and trigger db sync for each collection in $dbSources */
if(is_array($dbSources)) {
foreach($dbSources as $source) {
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, GSA_PATH . ‘/EnterpriseController?actionType=syncDatabase&entryName=’ . $source);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, false);
curl_exec($ch);
}
}

/** Close cURL connection */
curl_close($ch);

?>
Feedback and suggestions are appreciated… Enjoy!

About The Man:

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university September 18th, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

Watch His Speech:

In mid-November Barack Obama spoke at Google in Mountain View, California. At the conclusion of his speech he responded to a two part Q&A session. He was asked by co-founder Eric Schmidt, “What is the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers?” Obama responded “the bubble sort would be the wrong way to go.”

Fast-Forward to 22:52

Note: Senator Barak Obama just won Virginia!

After Chris and his technical assistant Jitu created a high definition speaker with nothing more than a paper plate, some foil, and a shiny penny, I started looking for other projects they could build. Here’s one I think they can handle…

Here’s how you can build a Blu-Ray player with some stuff you can probably find around the house. Making your own high definition DVD player for your home theater is always a fun project for a rainy day.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 Record Player
1 Laser Pointer
3 shards of glass
A VCR
Some crazy glue
A roll of dental floss

1) Crack open the VCR and remove any parts that look unnecessary. A hammer works best.

2) Remove the needle from the record player and replace it with the laser pointer using the crazy glue.

3) Glue the three shards of glass together and then attach them to the laser pointer lens.

4)Here’s where the magic happens. Glue the ends of three pieces of dental floss to the glass. Then glue the other ends to the video outputs of the VCR. Dental floss is actually a great carrier of high definition video signals.

5) Glue the record player to the top of the VCR and your Blu Ray player is complete! Just plug it in and hook it up to the TV.

Optional: Tape down the button on the laser pointer or you’ll have to hold it while watching movies.

Add this to your paper plate speaker system and you’ll be watching movies like you never have before.

Join us next time when we create a sub-woofer using a trashcan and some rubber bands.

I was checking MySpace.com and noticed that after many many years they have finally given themselves a noticeable facelift. Perhaps they are trying to keep up with Facebook.com.

Over the past few months we have sat back and watched Facebook dominate the social networking arena with intriguing applications, an intuitive iPhone interface, a nearly complete customizable dashboard and advanced privacy settings… (not to say that anything you do on a social networking site isn’t being monitored by big brother).

One key difference I have noticed between updates from the two kings of social networking is that Facebook tends to make smoother site transitions. Where as when MySpace releases a new update it’s no surprise to find bizarre browser compatibility issues or unexpected site behavior throughout the site. Granted MySpace offers far more customizable design elements (e.g., ability to inject JS, HTML, CSS, SWF, etc…). This latest code push by MySpace is no exception.

(Note that there are some CSS design issues on this internal navigation)

Either way it is nice to see MySpace taking some initiative and not relying on the current popularity of the site to maintain users’ interest. Perhaps the number one killer of high traffic and popular sites is a companies or designers failure to keep current.