Code Collections

More time

Chris Fontes — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:33:15 +0000

I wish there was more time in the day

Gotta Love AT&T Online Support

Chris Fontes — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:58:38 +0000

AT&T product specialists are happy to assist you with your questions. Click below to begin your live text chat. Chat representatives will not have access to your personal account. This service is provided to you under AT&Ts Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Welcome to AT&T. My name is Nerissa. How may I help you today?
Nerissa: I will be happy to answer your questions regarding AT&T services. I specialize in setting up new phone accounts and High Speed Internet service. To start, could you please tell me what city and state you are located in?
you: #######,##
Nerissa: Thank you for choosing AT&T.
Nerissa: How may I assist you>
Nerissa: *?
you: I was trying to order phone and internet online
you: just after selecting an install datre
you: *date
you: I received an error
Nerissa: I will be more than happy to assit you.
you: Due to technical problems, we are unable to process your order online at this time. Please contact us at 1-800-ATT-2020 Monday through Friday, 7 am to 9 pm and on Saturday 8 am to 5 pm.
Nerissa: *assist
Nerissa: To better assist you, was there an error code number on the page?
you: nope
you: just copied and pasted the whole message
Nerissa: Allow me to send you a restart link.
Nerissa: What would you like on the home phone?
you: so I have to restart from scratch?
Nerissa: https://swot.sbc.com/swot/resetSession.do?toURL=https://swot.sbc.com/swot/qualifyingController.do
you: the $21 plan
Nerissa: Great. Please use the link above to begin.
you: grrr
Nerissa: I do apologize.
you: ok, I could have done that myself, but thanks anyway
you: ok, so if it lets me add DSL, then I can get it right?
Nerissa: That is correct.
you: ok, becuase if I JUST try to get DSL, it says it is not available
you: but if I add it while getting phone service
you: it lets me
Nerissa: Allow me to check.
Nerissa: Can I please have your address?
you: XXXXX ####### Rd
Nerissa: Thanks, One moment.
Nerissa: Our system indicates that our DSL service, AT&T High Speed Internet, is not available at your location.
you: well, it just let me order it
you: so how does that work?
Nerissa: With a phone line, the results would be the same.
you: well, it just let me do it, and said my high speed internet will be available to be installed on 8/12
you: AND you are shipping me a modem
you: so, I hope it works
Nerissa: Great! Please proceed.
you: ok
you: all done
you: order ###############
Nerissa: Congratulations! Your order is now complete. Thank you for choosing AT&T. Please take a moment to fill out the survey following this chat. Be sure to exit by using the close button inside your window.
you: says my internet will be ready to hook up on 8/12, and you are mailing me the kit
you: k
you: so for sure I get internet then?
you: since it just let me sign up?
Nerissa: Yes, more than likely.
you: hmmm
you: more than likely doesn’t like a for sure to me
you: ok, I guess I will just have to wait and see then
Nerissa: I do apologize, but I checked the system and got the message internet as not at the address, but if you ordered I would recommend waiting to see the outcome.
Thank you for chatting with AT&T today. Have a great day.

PHP DOM method gotcha!

Chris Fontes — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:53:19 +0000

Ok, so here is a “gotcha” with PHP’s DOM… if you use the method createTextNode(), and the string you pass happens to have HTML chars, the method will AUTOMATICALLY convert to html special chars. Guess they should call the method createTEXTnode instead!

MySQL and a NULL index walk into a bar….

Chris Fontes — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:20:53 +0000

Did you know that in MySQL, if you have a NULL field in your “unique” index, you can have multiple duplicates of that row and MySQL will turn a blind eye? Oh yes, that is a pain. Example: If you have a unique index that consists of 2 fields (ID and secondID), you “could” end up with (1, NULL), (1, NULL), (1,NULL). Sure, it looks to be identical, but all 2 identical rows can exists in perfect harmony. This is particularly problematic when realying on a unique key and using INSERT ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE queries.

Trust me. 3 days of frustration to learn this. MySQL does NOT classify this as a bug, but the community has made it clear that it acts like one. Hopefully they will fix this in an upcomnig release.

Following your own advice

Chris Fontes — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:16:10 +0000

Well I have been pulling my hair out trying to debug a Javascript issue, and it turns out that not only do I know the solution, but I JUST blogged about it! You see, in Javascript, an empty string will return false in an if statement, so:

val=”";

if (val){ …

will return false. Although it shouldn’t, because it IS technically a value (the value of nothing). SO, using a !== fixes this, as earlier in the code I explicitly set it to false, then change it to a value if I need. Long story short,

if (val !== false){ …..

is what I should have done in the first place!

New Testament Prophecy

Chris Fontes — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:24:01 +0000

So, I was in a healthy debate with my brother on this. He feels that modern day prohecy is simply speaking the Word of God (the Bible), and not containing any prediction, as there is no new revelation.

I, on the other hand, feel that prophecy, being a gift of the Holy Spirit, is something more. While I will agree that there will be no new revalation, God may give you a word to pass on to another, just like in the old testament. If prophecy was just professing the word of God, how is that a gift? Can’t anyone (saved or not) read the words aloud and be a “prophet”? Maybe I am just splitting hairs. I am pressed for time, so I have no scripture to back up my point at the moment, but please feel free to comment and leave scripture to back it up.

Purchasing a home makes my eye twitch

Chris Fontes — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:20:20 +0000

So, we are in the process of buying our first home! Yeah! While I am excited about reaching the next stage in life, the entire process makes me stress out. If you know me, that is a big deal… I am usually calm, relaxed and full of fun (and food). But for some reason, buying a house literally makes my eye twitch. It has been twitching for almost two months now, and I am ready to poke it out with a pen.

On the brighter side, I can’t wait to have a home that my kids can grow up in and remember as their own. Praise God for the opporunity He has given us!

PHP functions that return Boolean

Chris Fontes — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:17:23 +0000

OK, so there are several function in PHP that return Boolena true or false. So, if you want to test against them, us coders get in the habit of doing something like this:

if (!isarray($myArray)){ …..

Problem. What is that function returns an interger, OR boolen, such as strpos? You will see tons of people doing this:

if (!strpos($haystack, $needle)){ ……

Bad bad bad. This will cause all kinds of problems. What if the “needle” is found at position Zero? Zero is also interpereted as False, although in this case what you want is a True… SOOO… be good boys and girls and use the mysterious triple equals.

if (stripos($needle, $haystack) === false){ ….

if (stripos($needle, $haystack) !== false){ ….

You can also use a greater than -1, but I see this as sloppy. Is it actaully sloppy? Maybe not, just my feelings on the matter. I feel that if you should be as specific as you can get in your logical expression testing.
Hope that helps ya!

PHP array key’s and the period (dot) character

Chris Fontes — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:56:12 +0000

I found today that you cannot have a period in your string key. For example, this is invalid:

$array['my.name'] = “some name”;

This is most important to note when you are posting (or getting for that matter) into a script. I found this out while attempting to Post data from an AJAX call to my server. PHP automatically turns periods (dots) into underscores. Check out the reference below, it took me FOREVER to find supporting material to this theory…

http://php.net/manual/en/language.variables.external.php#language.variables.external.dot-in-names

Happy coding

LOL and ROFL

Chris Fontes — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:22:12 +0000

So, when you type lol or rotfl are you actually? You should be. Otherwise you are a liar. That is all, continue your lying, IM liar.