This post should help regardless of what model you are using.

Remove Spotify

You absolutely need to completely remove Spotify from your Android phone. Failing to remove it properly seems to leave a configuration file that messes things up. Some users have actually done a factory reset to fix this. No need, just do  all of the following :-

• Uninstall Spotify from your Android packages menu.
• Connect the phone to your PC via USB
• Manually Delete any spotify directories (usually a spotify or spotify2 directory) via your computer

Note:  For those that keep getting logged out and/or losing the SD Card setting. It seems there is a hidden xml file in the dbdata folder (which we can’t get access to unless your phone has root access) called spotify_preferences.xml

You need to delete this file before the sd card will save the sd card preferences correctly. Besides rooting your phone and deleting this, the easiest method is to completely factory reset your Samsung. :(

Reinstall Spotify

Re-download Spotify from the Android market place.

Select the External SD Location

Startup Spotify but do not login yet.

Before logging in click the menu button, this example shows the menu button on a Samsung Galaxy S. You get the idea. This is truly an odd place to stick a menu but there it is, I can only assume this was due to the architecture of the program, a cache file needs to exist before the user logs in.

Selecting the menu will bring up two options, select the SD Location option.

You will be prompted to enter the path to the SD card.

Enter the External SD Location for your particular phone.

Locations so far:-

If yours is not listed then go to the next step

Samsung Galaxy S : /mnt/sdcard/external_sd

LG P990 2X : /mnt/sdcard/_ExternalSD

Now login and check the Disk Usage option, it should now change to reflect the space on your external SD card.

Finding the External SD Card Location

If you are not sure what the correct path for the SD location is then try the following :-

• Download Astro File Manager from the market place.
• Connect your phone to your computer via USB and copy any random file to your external SD card ( I suggest a text file with an easy to spot name like i_am_here.txt )
• Disconnect the USB
• Open Astro File Manager
• Now try and find the file you uploaded, the directory will be similar to one of the directories shown in the previous step (i.e. /mnt/sdcard/_ExternalSD)
• When you find the file the correct path to your SD card will be shown at the top of the application.

Please post External SD paths for your phone model below to help others. Thanks :)

If like me you were looking for a very simple script for generating MySQL Reports for clients or even for use within a larger system then you’ve found an easy, well documented script to implement. I searched around and couldn’t find any decent scripts out there for this purpose so I wrote this simple framework for generating and emailing MySQL reports such that customers can have easily scheduled reports run from CRON jobs. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about but fairly sure this is just the thing you are after then please do read on. This script is easy to understand and well tested to boot.

Purpose

This script was created for the purposes of….

1. Generating An Automated Report from a MySQL Query
2. Creating A Simple Email Containing The Report
3. Scheduling The Email and Report

Demo

Visit the MySQL PHP Email Reporter mini page to demo the report.

Functionality

The script will let you easily do the following :-

• Use any MySQL Query
• Generate a report table showing the fields of your choice
• Customise the From Email Address
• Customise the  From Name
• Customise the Email Subject (based on report name)
• Customise the Report Name
• Supports ISO-8859-1 Charset
• Send to Multiple Recipients

MySQL Report Generator

The framework is comprised of 3 files….

config.php - Configure MySQL database settings, from address and from name.

sqlreporter.php - No need to touch this, contains all the code required to generate the report and email it.

report.php - Can be renamed and used ‘per report’. This file contains the MySQL query, the report name and the target recipient(s). I recommend renaming the file to represent the name of the report you are running, for example, user_access_report.php.

instructions.pdf - A document explaining how to setup your script and schedule your jobs using CRON.

Basic Usage

With even a rudimentary understanding of PHP you’ll be up and running with this script in no time. The two keyfunctions required are…

generateReport( $reportName,  $query, $fieldArray, $note);

//generateReport create a report based on...
//$reportName - The name of your report
//$query - a SQL query
//$fieldArray - the headers / titles for your report
//$note - your report footer or note

html_email( $recipient, $reportName, $report);

//html_email generates an HTML based email containing
//  your report and sends it to the recipient

That’s it, it really is that simple and full examples are provided. I’m also on hand to help implement or answer any questions you may have about using the script.

Schedule your MySQL Report Email

This file can then be scheduled to run in almost any hosting package. Most Linux or Windows hosting packages give you an option to setup a CRON job in the control panel. Once the files are uploaded you simply create a CRON job and point the job at the report.php script (or whatever you decide to call it). This allows you to schedule the report to run at whatever time of the day, week, month or year suits.

I found a few expensive, over the top examples for this functionality. I designed this simple framework to provide developers with something robust to work with which can be manipulated to suit your purposes with some easy tweaks if need be.

Anyone encountering any issues using the script please comment below and I’ll respond within 48 hours at the most (usually the same day). I have thoroughly tested the script under PHP5 and MYSQL 5.

Visit the MySQL PHP Email Reporter mini page to try or buy.

LightView by Nick Stakenburg

The first decent lightbox I stumbled upon was Lightview by Nick Stakenburg. You need to purchase a license to use it, but it’s pretty cheap—considering how long it would take to write this myself—and it looks great. I’ve utilised it for displaying both images and youtube videos for a client that wants something slightly different to the crowd.

Example usage…

<a class="lightview" title="" rel="flash" href="http://www.youtube.com/video_id">
<img class="screenshot_thumb" src="images/thumb.jpg"/>
</a>

It’s failing grace however is that it requires prototype and scriptaculous. With JQuery dominating, many people will be put off using this due to the additional overhead. If this doesn’t bother you and you are looking for an extremely flexible lightbox then you can’t go far wrong with this! Check it out via the link below.

The Lightview Website

FancyBox

Now definitely my preferred lightbox and once famously touted by the much over analysed 37 Signals websites. Fancybox is just sleek, it’s perhaps not as flexible as Lightview but then it’s free. It utilises JQuery which is currently my Javascript framework of choice and it’s also very well supported. Everytime I have visited the site in the past there has been a recent update based on the support forums and feedback.

Did I mention it looks great? The box shadow and modern black close icon, the subtle grey default background overlay, I love it.

Check out fancy box at http://fancybox.net

Lightbox 2

Long in the tooth, for a long time this was regarded as the best and only choice for a lightbox. Now it seems sluggish, looks dated and sadly still seems to be used by many sites and blogs. I’ve done it myself but come on everyone, it’s time to move on! Like Lightview, Lightbox 2 requires Prototype and Scriptaculous. A near identical JQuery version is available at http://leandrovieira.com/projects/jquery/lightbox/.

You can download Lightbox 2 at http://www.lokeshdhakar.com/projects/lightbox2/

Finally

There are a few other lightboxes kicking about but from my experience these are the three most popular and widely imitated lightboxes around. For a comprehensive list and feature comparison take a peek at this chart http://planetozh.com/projects/lightbox-clones/

The actions of the corrupt MP Mr Mandelson have horrified me (again, oh and I’m not too happy with Alan Johnson either!) and if you have found this post through Google then you probably already know why and I expect you also already know that he is may be a sock puppet to the music industry. Maybe he really has no firm grasp of why his actions won’t work, despite so many warnings from industry experts such as TalkTalk, but why try and get a grip on such things if your pockets are >possibly< being lined by industry fatcats?

Even MI5 are against this legislation and rightly so, because people such as myself will blog about this sort of issue and how to get around it.

Anyway, accusations aside,  you are terrified that your packets might get sniffed? Well the time has come to get yourself protected.

Avoid Deep Packet Inspection

Dan Klein, media accounts director at Detica stated that “Encryption of the data packet would defeat us, We’re not going to put the processing power into defeating it.” – source

So you know what to do, get encryption! Now simply enabling encryption within your torrent software will not help I’m afraid. You need to get yourself a VPN, essentially an encrypted connection that you set your downloads running through. These are incredibly cheap and there are plenty to pick from, ideally you want one local (in my case Europe) with good reviews and a torrent friendly policy. There are plenty of excellent torrent friendly VPN services out there such as BTGuard (my personal preference).

Wait There’s More

Now it’s worth noting that ISPs are not the only body that will be collecting data on your downloads, there are many organisations that gather information on illegal file sharers and I would heartily recommend you taking a look at Peer Block, the successor to Peer Guardian. It’s an amazing project, the application is easy to use and updates itself based on the latest compiled lists of corporate spys, it should stop these 99.99% of these organisations from getting your IP address, win.

Further Action

If you are in the UK and are concerned about this sort of thing then perhaps you should consider getting involved with or supporting the UK Pirate Party.

I leave you with this delightful video from Dan Bull, nicely put Dan.

For whatever reason, many people are finding themselves unable to upgrade to a 64bit operating system, whether it be Windows 7 or Vista, while others find themselves considering downgrading just so they can connect remotely to work. Well, there is a pretty obvious and easy solution—use a Virtual PC!

This solution is tailored to Windows 7 64bit, but can be equally applied to Vista installs, and it is completely free and easy!

First, grab both these files (for the relevent version of windows 7).

Install them in the correct order!

Start up Windows 7 Virtual PC XP (if you installed them correctly they should now be in Start Menu).

Install your VPN-1 Secure Client.

From your virtual PC tool menu:

• Click Tools-> Settings
• Click Network
• Change your adaptor to use your actual hardware adaptor, not Shared Networking.
• Reboot your virtual PC completely

You should now be able to start VPN Secure client and log in from your PC.

If I just saved you from commercial deathrow or perhaps saved you a bit of headache then please consider buying me a beer by clicking the icon to the right, thanks! :)

It’s early days, but the basic site is up and really needs someone to give it some nice graphics (not my strongest point, I admit).

Integration Possibilities

There are some great opportunities thanks to Shopify’s atom feed although they require a little coding to maintain some aesthetic appeal.

• Promote items within your blog
• List particular Shopify categories / items / promotions in your sidebar or frontpage
• Place random items / promotions in areas around your blog
• Automatically link items from the blog to the shop

If you would like to hire me for some simple help with WordPress / Shopify integration then please get in touch and let me know what you are trying to achieve.

The combination of Shopify and WordPress has created something remarkably easy to maintain (WordPress is easy and Shopify is hosted), such that he does not need to invest money to update every bit of html. I disabled all comments in WordPress (as they’re not really needed for a shop front), and so far it looks not too shabby—if I do say so myself.

At first, Shopify had me wondering: Would it be flexible enough; How easy would liquid be just to make some basic changes. Well the answer was ‘easy’—you can even create atom feeds of product ‘collections’, and feed them to WordPress, which is something I plan to do later on.

The final site I developed used local keywords for targeting electrical repairs in Edinburgh, such as console repair based ones… Wii Repair Edinburgh, PS3 repair Edinburgh and XBOX repair Edinburgh. The real bread and butter of his business was better served by focusing on ‘TV repair Edinburgh‘ using Google Maps. Try doing a Google search for any of those keywords and see how well Sound and Vision Technical Services does :)

If you’d like to hire me to help you SEO your own site, blog or shop then get in touch.

So there you have it, a quick and cheap solution for an e-commerce shop and front end that’s easy for the client to maintain.

Shopify
WordPress

By the way, if you want anything electrical repaired and you’re in or around Edinburgh, then I would highly recommend Sound and Vision Technical Services—Chris and the gang really know what they are doing! Let them know I sent you :)

Update Dec 2010: The shop never panned out, not due to any fault with shopify but the amount of time and resources required to run an ecommerce operation. Hopefully we’ll see it return in the future. These two packages remain an excellent entry solution into ecommerce. Sign up for spotify and try the free trial at the very least!

My Largest issue with coding this was the following message….

As the meeting organizer, you do not need to respond to the meeting

Lies! This was caused by the actual headers and encoding of the email rather than the content of my iCal information. Anyway, after 2 days (and evenings) of trying to get this working I finally broke through at 3pm today!

The Code

The following code has been genericised to an extent, if you have any problems getting it working please let me know. It does not generate a reponse when buttons are pressed as it was designed for use from a noreply email address; in order to get a response you would need to update the iCal code. You may prefer to download this with the example rather than copying and pasting, the iCal code is very sensitive to extra characters, tabs, etc.

//Written Using PHP4, it will probably work fine in PHP5. I tested using Outlook 2003/ 2007, Exchange Server 2003, Googlemail, Hotmail and Google Calendar.
//$firstname is the first name of target
//$lastname is the last name of target
//$email is the targets email address
//$meeting_date is straight from a DATETIME mysql field and assumes UTC.
//$meeting_name is the name of your meeting
//$meeting_duration is the duration of your meeting in seconds (3600 = 1 hour)

function sendIcalEmail ($firstname, $lastname, $email, $meeting_date, $meeting_name, $meeting_duration)  {

	$from_name = “My Name”;
	$from_address = “myname@mydomain.com”;
	$subject = “Meeting Booking”; //Doubles as email subject and meeting subject in calendar
	$meeting_description = “Here is a brief description of my meeting\n\n”;
	$meeting_location = “My Office”; //Where will your meeting take place

	//Convert MYSQL datetime and construct iCal start, end and issue dates
	$meetingstamp = strtotime($meeting_date . ” UTC”);
	$dtstart= gmdate(”Ymd\THis\Z”,$meetingstamp);
	$dtend= gmdate(”Ymd\THis\Z”,$meetingstamp+$meeting_duration);
	$todaystamp = gmdate(”Ymd\THis\Z”);

	//Create unique identifier
	$cal_uid = date(’Ymd’).’T’.date(’His’).”-”.rand().”@mydomain.com”;

	//Create Mime Boundry
	$mime_boundary = “—-Meeting Booking—-”.md5(time());

	//Create Email Headers
	$headers = “From: “.$from_name.” <”.$from_address.”>\n”;
	$headers .= “Reply-To: “.$from_name.” <”.$from_address.”>\n”;

	$headers .= “MIME-Version: 1.0\n”;
	$headers .= “Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=\”$mime_boundary\”\n”;
	$headers .= “Content-class: urn:content-classes:calendarmessage\n”;

	//Create Email Body (HTML)
	$message .= “–$mime_boundary\n”;
	$message .= “Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8\n”;
	$message .= “Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n\n”;

	$message .= “<html>\n”;
	$message .= “<body>\n”;
	$message .= ‘<p>Dear ‘.$firstname.’ ‘.$lastname.’,</p>’;
	$message .= ‘<p>Here is my HTML Email / Used for Meeting Description</p>’;
	$message .= “</body>\n”;
	$message .= “</html>\n”;
	$message .= “–$mime_boundary\n”;

	//Create ICAL Content (Google rfc 2445 for details and examples of usage, beware of adding tabs)
	$ical =    ‘BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Microsoft Corporation//Outlook 11.0 MIMEDIR//EN
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
ORGANIZER:MAILTO:’.$from_address.’
DTSTART:’.$dtstart.’
DTEND:’.$dtend.’
LOCATION:’.$meeting_location.’
TRANSP:OPAQUE
SEQUENCE:0
UID:’.$cal_uid.’
DTSTAMP:’.$todaystamp.’
DESCRIPTION:’.$meeting_description.’
SUMMARY:’.$subject.’
PRIORITY:5
CLASS:PUBLIC
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR’;

	$message .= 'Content-Type: text/calendar;name="meeting.ics";method=REQUEST;charset=utf-8\n';
	$message .= 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n\n';
	$message .= $ical;

	//SEND MAIL
	$mail_sent = @mail( $email, $subject, $message, $headers );

	if($mail_sent)     {
		return true;
	} else {
		return false;
	}

}

Download Full Source and Example

Finally

Hopefully I will have saved you some time and this will be enough to get you kickstarted and developing some lovely ICAL PHP code. If you found this useful then please consider using paypal to buy me a beer by clicking the icon on the right! Thanks :)