I recently encountered a situation where I needed to remove the last instance of the character ‘|’ in the menu that was being dynamically generated. So I came up with the following code

<?
$menu = 'I AM |NOT| A BAD |BOY|';
$menu = preg_replace('/[|]([^|]*$)/', '$2', $menu);
echo $menu."\n";
?>

The output would be

I AM |NOT| A BAD |BOY

And that removes the last instance of a character (in this case a pipe sign, i.e ‘|’ ). Hope that helps others.

It was the default PC and Mac browser view a few days before and I have been thinking, what if I could make it so there is a clean and fast theme for iPhone which increases usability on iPhone. I am still working on making the YouTube videos work with iPhone 3Gs and above but my blog and portfolio is now available for iPhone.

Now the blog visitors on Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android, Blackberry Storm and Torch, Palm Pre and other touch-based smartphones should be able to see it cutomised for these devices.

Here is a comparison of how my blog used to look like before on iPhone and how clean it looks now

Update: Pictures coming soon. Will also upload pics from iPad 2 viewing experience.

Lately, I have been having problems with my Google Chrome browser; it crashes way often. So I have to switch to Firefox. I was too used to searching through address bar in Chrome and it took me to Google search right away.

When Firefox performs a search from the Address Bar, it queries the search engine string you have setup within Firefox. Sometimes, it uses the search engine which you don’t want. If it’s using Yahoo, you can switch to Google. Don’t like Google? Use Ask. Here’s how to switch which search engine Firefox searches when you use the address bar to search.

1. In Firefox type about:config in the address bar and press ENTER.

2. Locate and double-click the entry for keyword.URL

3. Set the value based on which search provider you would like to use for your address bar searches. Here are a few search strings you can use.

Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=

Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=g

Ask: http://www.ask.com/web?q=

Bing: http://www.bing.com/search?q=

DuckDuckGo: http://duckduckgo.com/?q=

ChaCha: http://www.chacha.com/search/

AOL: http://search.aol.com/aol/search?s_it=searchbox.webhome&v_t=na&q=

HOTBOT: http://www.hotbot.com/?query=

Lycos:http://search.lycos.com/?tab=web&searchForm=true&query=

DMOZ: http://www.dmoz.org/search?q=

GigaBlast: http://www.gigablast.com/search?q=

Sometimes you want to change the way wordpress search works, for example you want it to force to search pages only or just posts. The code for that would be something like this

//Search only pages
function is_type_page() {
global $post;
if ($post->post_type == 'page') {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}}

//Search only posts
function is_type_post() {
global $post;
if ($post->post_type == 'post') {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}}

Then in the search page, i.e search.php just use this code

while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
if (is_type_post()) continue;

Above code will restrict search to the pages only. Similarly you can restrict pages to be excluded from search with the following code

while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
if (is_type_page()) continue;

Hope that helps

Hey everyone, I am over excited to back in my beloved country. Its such an amazing feeling going back home after a few months of moving to a new country for job. I moved to Oman on July 1st this year and since then, so much has changed for me. Its great that I lived with great people like Bilal who was once an internet friend and then a friend who occasionally visited me in Eid Holidays once or twice a year and then a guy whom I shared an apartment with in Muscat, Oman. He has been a great help to me during this this career upgrade. I have moved to a new country where there is no electricity problem. or any issues like bad internet. I end up being a more reliable professional. Thanks to everyone for support.

Long story short, today I am going back to Pakistan for a few days. My plane lands in Lahore at 1330 PKT and I am over excited. I am leaving fro airport now. See you Lahore. I am so excited to meet my Mom.

Its 1010101010 right now. Sunday, October (10th month) 10 (10th day of month), 2010 (10th year of the century) and time is 10:10 PM. In honour of the binary number, which makes 682 after coverting to decomal, I will work 682 hours on open source projects starting today.

Wish me luck.

Prayer is not a “spare wheel” that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a “steering wheel” that directs the right path throughout

Finally I got a Kindle. I waited for it for twenty days and yesterday while I was saying Dhohar prayer in Masjid, the FedEx delivery guy called me and I got embarrassed as my cell was not silent Anyhow I got it shipped yesterday.

Its a neat device. I am loving it. Readibility is great and I recommend you one if you haven’t got one already.

Product Overview
* Electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
* No computer, no cables, no syncing.
* Wireless connectivity – you shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle from anywhere, just like using a cell phone! When you buy a book, it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
* More than 88,000 books available, including 100 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers. Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
* Read top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; read top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes — all auto-delivered wirelessly. Read top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times.
* Read more than 250 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN’s Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post.
* eBook device is lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces and holds over 200 titles.
* Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
* Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones, you never have to locate a hotspot. No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments — Amazon.com takes care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read. Includes free wireless access to the planet’s most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org.
* Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.

Here is what Amazon says about it

Kindle is our #1 bestselling item for two years running. It’s also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any product on Amazon. Now it’s even better.
All-New, High-Contrast E Ink Screen – 50% better contrast
Read in Bright Sunlight – No glare
New and Improved Fonts – New crisper, darker fonts
New Sleek Design – 21% smaller body while keeping the same 6″ size reading area
17% Lighter – Only 8.5 ounces, weighs less than a paperback
Battery Life of Up to One Month – A single charge lasts up to one month with wireless off
Double the Storage – Up to 3,500 Books
Built-In Wi-Fi – Shop and download books in less than 60 seconds
20% Faster Page Turns – Seamless reading
Enhanced PDF Reader – With dictionary lookup, notes, and highlights
New WebKit-Based Browser – Browse the web over Wi-Fi (experimental)

See more details at Amzon.

Looking for a cool Web 2.0 Javascript resource. Filled with great examples and downloadable example code, a great javascript resource thats clean as well as useful.

Without any long description here is the link. http://www.scriptdeck.co.uk/

Script Deck’s interface is blog like with top image scroller highlighting the hot tutorials and tips.

You can use any desktop tool to clean-up and beautify that poorly formated JavaScript you got from a blog or web resource.

I my case I am working on a JavaScript based event calendar that displays a calendar and highlights the current date with the dates which have events associated with them.

I got this great event calendar thats totally based on JavaScript from this link and it was not formatted correctly.  As I had to make a few adjustments to the code as for my needs, I needed it to be correctly formatted so I could work on it.

So here is how I cleaned that minimized code. Its probably the best and fastest way of doing it.  I opened up this website http://jsbeautifier.org/ and pasted my javascript code that needed to be cleaned up for editing and just a click on Beautify  and Voila, my code is clean and beautiful.

Don’t firget visiting back for another JavaScript tip tomorrow. Also if you found this tip useful, you may also find the follwing Tip useful too.

Adding an pure JavaScript event calendar to your site.