Coding

How to receive HTTP post data and a file from a C# program using PHP

Some time ago, I wrote a post on how to send some data and a file from C#, via HTTP post, to a PHP script. I called that script GetPostRequest.php.

This post contains the internals of the script in handling the data received from the C# program.

How I create a page in my WordPress blog that lists all my posts and groups them by month and year

I realised that there was something missing in my WordPress blog; a page that lists all the posts that I had written so far. This post documents what I had explored to give my blog a page that lists all my posts, starting from the most recent post down to the oldest post, and groups them by month and year.

How to read values from a properties file located within a Java jar file

A good programming practice will be to code applications to read from a text file for values which are expected to change often. Java Swing applications are often packed in a single jar file and it can make deployment easier if our Java Swing applications can read from text files embedded within the same jar file that they reside in.

There came a time where I need to code a Java applet to read i18n labels from some properties files. This post documents my proof of concept before I embark in coding that Java applet.

How to send message from Java applet to web page via jQuery

In an attempt to save development time on reworking the RIAs from a old system, a business decision was made to reuse the Java applets on a newer system.

The newer system utilizes jQuery at the front end to fulfill modern user interactivity requirements.

This post documents a proof of concept that I did for the powerful Java applets to communicate with the front-end of the newer system.

Getting documents from MongoDB collections with PHP

We have a MongoDB server running as a windows service on the same machine as our web server. Over time, this MongoDB server had been listening on port 33333 to help us remember information that we had collected about our friends.

As time passes, our memory can hardly rival that of our MongoDB server, which was designed to help us recollect information efficiently. This post documents some proof of concept that I did for querying documents from MongoDB collection via the PHP driver.

Inserting a document into a collection in MongoDB with PHP

Assume that we have a MongoDB server installed as a windows service on the same machine as our web server. The server listens on port 33333.

We met a new friend, and we want to save some details about her. That night, before bidding farewell, she said: “Remember me, I am Mary Jane. You can write to me at mary.jane@gmail.com“.

Although that’s all we have about her, this is sufficient for us to insert a document about Mary into our MongoDB database.

Inserting documents into collections in MongoDB with PHP consists of the following steps:

• Derive an instance of the MongoCollection class that represents the MongoDB collection to insert documents.
• Define the document to insert.
• Define additional options for the insert.
• Execute the insert function of the MongoCollection instance.

Connecting to and disconnecting from a MongoDB server in PHP

The first step to manipulate data in the MongoDB ecosystem is to connect to a MongoDB server. In php, we can use the Mongo class to help us connect to one or more MongoDB servers.

For the purpose of this demonstration, let’s assume that we had installed a MongoDB server instance as a windows service which listens on port 12345. In addition, our PHP web server runs on the same machine as the MongoDB instance.

Displaying post author information in your WordPress theme

Every blog post has an author behind it. As web masters, we have the authority to decide whether to display some information about the author.

Although I am the sole author of my blog, I feel that including some information about myself right after my posts can give my readers some form of assurance that they are reading something from a human.

Make your PHP webpage loads faster by aggregating external CSS scripts

In most cases, the speed of which a browser completes the rendering a of webpage is very much dependent on the network connection which connects it to a web server. While some browsers have the luxury of fibre connections, there could be others that are rendering your webpages via a mobile network.

Because each HTTP response consists of the header portion in addition to the actual content, we could reduce the number of bytes that our browsers need to read from our servers by aggregating external CSS and JS scripts.