It has passed one week since I started my internship at Fraunhofer IPA Stuttgart. It is a great experience! I’m working on Multitouch Gestures, technology and equipment here are cutting edge. Stuttgart is a nice city with a lot of places to visit!

Preparing Your Website/Web App For Scalability

Congratulations, your server is melting.

This is a good problem to have (server heat is proportional to # of users). And it’s not so difficult to deal with if make a few preparations in advance.

After launching a number of web services and viral social media apps, some of which grew to hundreds of concurrent users and zillions of hits within days, I’ve had to learn “on the job” about scaling websites. Here I present to you my thoughts and some simple suggestions on how you can prepare ahead of time.

Preloaded from mrkirkland.com – Read all article here

In the video, Josh Livni, of Google Maps Developer Relations talks about integrating Google Earth using just four lines of code. He walks through a basic Maps API example, adding a 3D view.

There’s a code library for the Google Earth API available here.

Article preloaded from here.

Square

#square {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background: red;
}

Rectangle

#rectangle {
width: 200px;
height: 100px;
background: red;
}

Circle

#circle {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background: red;
-moz-border-radius: 50px;
-webkit-border-radius: 50px;
border-radius: 50px;
}
/* Cleaner, but slightly less support: use “50%” as value */

Oval

#oval {
width: 200px;
height: 100px;
background: red;
-moz-border-radius: 100px / 50px;
-webkit-border-radius: 100px / 50px;
border-radius: 100px / 50px;
}
/* Cleaner, but slightly less support: use “50%” as value */

Triangle Up

#triangle-up {
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-left: 50px solid transparent;
border-right: 50px solid transparent;
border-bottom: 100px solid red;
}

Triangle Down

#triangle-down {
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-left: 50px solid transparent;
border-right: 50px solid transparent;
border-top: 100px solid red;
}

Triangle Left

#triangle-left {
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-top: 50px solid transparent;
border-right: 100px solid red;
border-bottom: 50px solid transparent;
}

Triangle Top Left

#triangle-topleft {
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-top: 100px solid red;
border-right: 100px solid transparent;
}

Triangle Top Right

#triangle-topright {
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-top: 100px solid red;
border-left: 100px solid transparent;
}

Triangle Bottom Left

#triangle-bottomleft {
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-bottom: 100px solid red;
border-right: 100px solid transparent;
}

Triangle Bottom Right

#triangle-bottomright {
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-bottom: 100px solid red;
border-left: 100px solid transparent;
}

Parallelogram

#parallelogram {
width: 150px;
height: 100px;
-webkit-transform: skew(20deg);
-moz-transform: skew(20deg);
-o-transform: skew(20deg);
background: red;
}

Trapezoid

#trapezoid {
border-bottom: 100px solid red;
border-left: 50px solid transparent;
border-right: 50px solid transparent;
height: 0;
width: 100px;
}

Star (6-points)

#star-six {
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-left: 50px solid transparent;
border-right: 50px solid transparent;
border-bottom: 100px solid red;
position: relative;
}
#star-six:after {
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-left: 50px solid transparent;
border-right: 50px solid transparent;
border-top: 100px solid red;
position: absolute;
content: “”;
top: 30px;
left: -50px;
}

Star (5-points)

#star-five {
margin: 50px 0;
position: relative;
display: block;
color: red;
width: 0px;
height: 0px;
border-right: 100px solid transparent;
border-bottom: 70px solid red;
border-left: 100px solid transparent;
-moz-transform: rotate(35deg);
-webkit-transform: rotate(35deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(35deg);
-o-transform: rotate(35deg);
}
#star-five:before {
border-bottom: 80px solid red;
border-left: 30px solid transparent;
border-right: 30px solid transparent;
position: absolute;
height: 0;
width: 0;
top: -45px;
left: -65px;
display: block;
content: ”;
-webkit-transform: rotate(-35deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(-35deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(-35deg);
-o-transform: rotate(-35deg);

}
#star-five:after {
position: absolute;
display: block;
color: red;
top: 3px;
left: -105px;
width: 0px;
height: 0px;
border-right: 100px solid transparent;
border-bottom: 70px solid red;
border-left: 100px solid transparent;
-webkit-transform: rotate(-70deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(-70deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(-70deg);
-o-transform: rotate(-70deg);
content: ”;
}

Pentagon

#pentagon {
position: relative;
width: 54px;
border-width: 50px 18px 0;
border-style: solid;
border-color: red transparent;
}
#pentagon:before {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
height: 0;
width: 0;
top: -85px;
left: -18px;
border-width: 0 45px 35px;
border-style: solid;
border-color: transparent transparent red;
}

Hexagon

#hexagon {
width: 100px;
height: 55px;
background: red;
position: relative;
}
#hexagon:before {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
top: -25px;
left: 0;
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-left: 50px solid transparent;
border-right: 50px solid transparent;
border-bottom: 25px solid red;
}
#hexagon:after {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
bottom: -25px;
left: 0;
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-left: 50px solid transparent;
border-right: 50px solid transparent;
border-top: 25px solid red;
}

Octagon

#octagon {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
background: red;
position: relative;
}

#octagon:before {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
border-bottom: 29px solid red;
border-left: 29px solid #fff;
border-right: 29px solid #fff;
width: 42px;
height: 0;
}

#octagon:after {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
bottom: 0;
left: 0;
border-top: 29px solid red;
border-left: 29px solid #fff;
border-right: 29px solid #fff;
width: 42px;
height: 0;
}

Heart

#heart {
position: relative;
width: 100px;
height: 90px;
}
#heart:before,
#heart:after {
position: absolute;
content: “”;
left: 50px;
top: 0;
width: 50px;
height: 80px;
background: red;
-moz-border-radius: 50px 50px 0 0;
border-radius: 50px 50px 0 0;
-webkit-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-o-transform: rotate(-45deg);
transform: rotate(-45deg);
-webkit-transform-origin: 0 100%;
-moz-transform-origin: 0 100%;
-ms-transform-origin: 0 100%;
-o-transform-origin: 0 100%;
transform-origin: 0 100%;
}
#heart:after {
left: 0;
-webkit-transform: rotate(45deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(45deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(45deg);
-o-transform: rotate(45deg);
transform: rotate(45deg);
-webkit-transform-origin: 100% 100%;
-moz-transform-origin: 100% 100%;
-ms-transform-origin: 100% 100%;
-o-transform-origin: 100% 100%;
transform-origin :100% 100%;
}

Infinity

#infinity {
position: relative;
width: 212px;
height: 100px;
}

#infinity:before,
#infinity:after {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
width: 60px;
height: 60px;
border: 20px solid red;
-moz-border-radius: 50px 50px 0 50px;
border-radius: 50px 50px 0 50px;
-webkit-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-o-transform: rotate(-45deg);
transform: rotate(-45deg);
}

#infinity:after {
left: auto;
right: 0;
-moz-border-radius: 50px 50px 50px 0;
border-radius: 50px 50px 50px 0;
-webkit-transform: rotate(45deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(45deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(45deg);
-o-transform: rotate(45deg);
transform: rotate(45deg);
}

Diamond

#diamond {
width: 80px;
height: 80px;
background: red;
margin: 25px 0 15px 35px;
-webkit-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(-45deg);
-o-transform: rotate(-45deg);
transform: rotate(-45deg);
-webkit-transform-origin: 0 100%;
-moz-transform-origin: 0 100%;
-ms-transform-origin: 0 100%;
-o-transform-origin: 0 100%;
transform-origin: 0 100%;
}

Egg

#egg {
display:block;
width: 126px;
height: 180px;
background-color: red;
-webkit-border-radius: 63px 63px 63px 63px / 108px 108px 72px 72px;
border-radius: 50% 50% 50% 50% / 60% 60% 40% 40%;
}

Pac Man

#pacman {
width: 0px;
height: 0px;
border-right: 60px solid transparent;
border-top: 60px solid red;
border-left: 60px solid red;
border-bottom: 60px solid red;
border-top-left-radius: 60px;
border-top-right-radius: 60px;
border-bottom-left-radius: 60px;
border-bottom-right-radius: 60px;
}

Talk Bubble

#talkbubble {
width: 120px;
height: 80px;
background: red;
position: relative;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
border-radius: 10px;
}
#talkbubble:before {
content:”";
position: absolute;
right: 100%;
top: 26px;
width: 0;
height: 0;
border-top: 13px solid transparent;
border-right: 26px solid red;
border-bottom: 13px solid transparent;
}

Yin Yang

#yin-yang {
width: 96px;
height: 48px;
background: #fff;
border-color: red;
border-style: solid;
border-width: 2px 2px 50px 2px;
border-radius: 100%;
position: relative;
}

#yin-yang:before {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 0;
background: #eee;
border: 18px solid red;
border-radius: 100%;
width: 12px;
height: 12px;
}

#yin-yang:after {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 50%;
background: red;
border: 18px solid #eee;
border-radius:100%;
width: 12px;
height: 12px;
}

Article preloaded from here

]]> http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/929/feed/ 0 http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/the-ultimate-list-of-freely-available-programming-books/ http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/the-ultimate-list-of-freely-available-programming-books/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:40:10 +0000 paulmestereaga http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/?p=926 Meta-List

• How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Computing and Programming
• 25 Free Computer Science Ebooks
• Free Tech Books
• MindView Inc (List of Free Books)
• Wikibooks: Programming
• Cheat Sheets (Free)
• CodePlex List of Free E-Books
• Book Training – On Video!
• Sofware Program Managers Network – Free EBooks
• EBook Share @ linbai.info
• FreeBooksClub.Net
• Theassayer.org (Free Online books)
• O’Reilly’s Open Books Project
• TechBooksForFree.com
• Galileo Computing (Free Downloadable German Books)

Graphics Programming

• Nvidia GPU Gems 1
• Nvidia GPU Gems 2
• Nvidia GPU Gems 3
• Graphics Programming Black Book

Language Agnostic:

• Foundations of Programming by Karl Seguin
• Computer Musings (Lectures by Donald Knuth)
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar (Introduction to Open Source Software)
• Patterns and Practices: Application Architecture Guide 2.0
• Security Engineering
• Digital Signal Processing For Engineers and Scientists
• Getting Real (Courtesy 37 Signals)
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
• Domain Driven Design Quickly
• OO Design
• Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review
• NASA Software Measurement Handbook
• NASA Manager Handbook for Software Development
• Introduction to Functional Programming – Class Lectures and Slides
• How to Design Programs – MIT Press
• Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge – IEEE Computer Society Press
• Online Course Materials – MIT
• Algorithms (Draft Copy)
• Data Structures and Algorithms
• Essential Skills for Agile Development
• Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation
• Learn to Program
• Patterns of Software: Tales from the Software Community
• How to write Unmaintainable Code
• The Art of Unix Programming
• The Definitive Guide to Building Code Quality
• How to Think Like a Computer Scientist
• Planning Algorithms
• The Little Book of Semaphores
• Mathematical Logic – an Introduction
• An Introduction to the Theory of Computation
• Developers Developers Developers Developers
• Linkers and loaders
• Beej’s Guide to Network Programming
• Domain Driven Design Quickly
• Let’s Build a Compiler
• Producing Open Source Software
• How to Write Parallel Programs
• Don’t Just Roll the Dice
• 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know

ASP.NET MVC:

• NerdDinner Walkthrough

Assembly Language:

• ProgrammingGroundUp
• Paul Carter’s Tutorial on x86 Assembly
• Software optimization resources by Agner Fog

Bash

• Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide

C/C++

• The new C standard – an annotated reference
• The C book
• Thinking in C++, Second Edition
• C++ Annotations
• Software optimization resources by Agner Fog
• Introduction to Design Patterns in C++ with Qt 4 (Open Publication License) (PDF)

C#

• See .NET below

Django

• Djangobook.com

Emacs

• The Emacs manual Thanks Emacser (October 17, 2010)

F#

• See .NET below

Forth

• Starting Forth
• Thinking Forth

Git

• Pro Git
• The Git Community Book

Haskell

• Learn You a Haskell
• Real World Haskell

HTML

• Dive Into HTML5

Java

• Sun’s Java Tutorials
• Thinking in Java
• How to Think Like a Computer Scientist
• Java Thin-Client Programming
• OSGi in Practice (CreativeCommons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike License)
• Introduction to Programming Using Java Thanks drew (October 15, 2010)

JavaScript

• Eloquent JavaScript
• Crockford’s JavaScript
• jQuery Fundamentals (starts with JS basics)

Linux

• Advanced Linux Programming

Lisp

• Practical Common Lisp
• On Lisp
• ANSI Common Lisp NOT FREE (October 15, 2010)
• Common Lisp the Language, 2nd Edition
• Successful Lisp
• Let Over Lamda – 50 Years of Lisp

Lua

• Programming In Lua (for v5 but still largely relevant)

Maven

• Better Builds with Maven
• Maven by Example
• Maven: The Definitive Guide

Mercurial

• Mercurial: The Definitive Guide
• HGInit – Mercurial Tutorial by Joel Spolsky

.NET (C#)

• Free C# Book Covers C#1.0 and 2.0 (Courtesy of Programmers Heaven)
• Visual Studio Tips and Tricks
• Entity Framework (514 pages)
• Charles Petzold’s .Net Book 0
• Threading in C#
• C# Yellow Book (Intro to programming)
• C# Programming – Wikibook
• C# Essentials
• Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in C#
• Illustrated C# 2008 (Download) (.ZIP) [dead link]
• O’Reilly’s C# Pocket Reference Manual (Free Ebook courtesy of Red Gate Software) [DEAD LINK]
• Threading in C#

F# survival guide

• F# survival guide Thanks Steve Goguen (October 17, 2010)

NoSQL

• CouchDB: The Definitive Guide

Objective-C

• The Objective-C Programming Language

Parrot / Perl 6

• Perl 6 (Work in progress)

Perl

• Higher-Order Perl
• Perl The Hard Way
• Extreme Perl
• Perl Free Online EBooks Meta-List
• The Mason Book
• Practical mod_perl
• Beginning Perl
• Embedding Perl in HTML with Mason (Open Publication License)
• Perl & LWP
• Perl for the Web
• Web Client Programming with Perl
• Modern Perl 5 (Work in progress)

PHP

• Practical PHP Programming (Wiki that contains O’Reilly’s PHP In a Nutshell)
• Zend Framework: Survive the Deep End

PowerShell

• Mastering PowerShell

Prolog

• Building Expert Systems in Prolog
• Adventure in Prolog
• Prolog Programming A First Course
• Logic, Programming and Prolog (2ed)
• Introduction to Prolog for Mathematicians
• Learn Prolog Now!
• Natural Language Processing Techniques in Prolog

PostgreSQL

• Practical PostgreSQL

Python

• Dive Into Python
• Dive Into Python 3
• Byte of Python
• Building Skills in Python Version 2.5
• Python Free Online Ebooks Meta-List
• Python Bibliotheca
• Think Python
• Data Structures and Algorithms in Python
• How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python
• Python for Fun
• Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
• Learn Python The Hard Way
• Thinking in Python
• The Django Book
• Snake Wrangling For Kids
• Python Start Page Thanks Sakti Dwi Cahyono (October 15, 2010)
• Natural Language Processing with Python Thanks Andreas Schlapsi (October 18, 2010)

REBOL

• Learn REBOL Thanks Nick (October 19, 2010)

Ruby

• Programming Ruby
• Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (Mirror via Scribd)
• Mr. Neighborly’s Humble Little Ruby Book
• Ruby Best Practices
• MacRuby: The Definitive Guide
• Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Rails By Example

Scala

• A Scala Tutorial for Java programmers
• Scala By Example
• Programming Scala
• Xtrace (Github)
• List (Github)
• Pro Scala: Monadic Design Patterns for the Web
• Exploring Lift (published earlier as “The Definitive Guide to Lift”, pdf)

Scheme

• The Scheme Programming Language (Edition 4)

Smalltalk

• Smalltalk Free Ebooks Courtesy of Stéphane Ducasse
• Squeak By Example (Smalltalk IDE)

Subversion

• Subversion Version Control: Using the Subversion Version Control System in Development Projects
• Version Control with Subversion

SQL (Implementation agnostic)

• Developing Time-Oriented Database Applications in SQL,Richard T. Snodgrass
• Use The Index, Luke! – A guide to SQL database performance for developers

Symfony

• A Gentle Introduction to symfony Thanks j0k3r (October 15, 2010)
• More with symfony Thanks j0k3r (October 15, 2010)
• Practical symfony Thanks j0k3r (October 15, 2010)
• The symfony Reference Book Thanks j0k3r (October 15, 2010)

Vim

• A Byte of Vim

Original source here.

]]> http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/the-ultimate-list-of-freely-available-programming-books/feed/ 0 http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/creating-subdomain-using-cpanel-api/ http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/creating-subdomain-using-cpanel-api/#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:00:38 +0000 paulmestereaga http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/?p=921 Here is a short PHP code that automatic creates a subdomain via CPanel XML API.

require_once(‘xmlapi.php.inc’);
$xmlapi = new xmlapi(’127.0.0.1′);
$xmlapi->password_auth(‘root’,’password’);
$xmlapi->set_debug(1);
print $xmlapi -> api1_query(‘accountname’ , ‘SubDomain’ , ‘addsubdomain’ , array(‘sub’ , ‘domain.com’ , 0 , 0, ’/public_html/folder’));

API website: http://docs.cpanel.net/

]]> http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/creating-subdomain-using-cpanel-api/feed/ 0 http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/creating-an-api-centric-application/ http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/creating-an-api-centric-application/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:39:56 +0000 paulmestereaga http://blog.paulmestereaga.com/?p=896 API?

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, API is short for Application Programming Interface.

According to Wikipedia:

“An application programming interface (API) is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other. An API may include specifications for routines, data structures, object classes, and variables.”

API Visualization - Image courtesy of http://blog.zoho.com

In simpler terms, an API refers to a set of functions built into an application, which can be used by other applications (or by itself, as we’ll see later), to interact with the application. An API is a great way to expose an application’s functionality to external applications safely and securely, since all functionality that these external applications can do is limited with what functionality is exposed in the API.

What’s an “API-Centric” Web Application?

An API-Centric Web Application is a web application that basically executes most, if not, all its functionality through API calls.

Continue to read the tutorial here.

Along with HTML5 Boilerplate’s rock solid commitment to cross-browser consistency, H5BP brings you delicious documentation, a site optimizing build script, and a custom boilerplate builder. In addition to this, we now support lighttpd, Google App Engine, and NodeJS with optimized server configurations (along with Apache, Nginx, and IIS) and we’ve reduced the overall size of the published boilerplate by 50%.

by Paul Mestereaga