Rock your everyday

I have used a nice, simple script to export the rrd values into excel using PHP 5. You can find the script here:

http://code.google.com/p/php-excel/

Here is my code for the rrd export (here you'll find two functions - calculate_rrd() and format_bits(), these are described in my previous blog):

/*
Author: Md.Monjurul Hasan

Description
- RRD data exporter - output values into excel file
*/
/***************included files*******/

#include the export-xls.class.php file
require('export-xls.class.php');

$filename = 'rrd_export'.rand(0,10000).'.xls'; // a random filename chosen
#create an instance of the class
$xls = new ExportXLS($filename);

//read config file and get variables
$rrd_array = array ('rra/test1.rrd', 'rra/test2.rrd');
//export to excel
$header = " RRD Export"; // single first col text
$xls->addHeader($header);

#add blank line
$header = null;
$xls->addHeader($header);

#add 2nd header as an array of 3 columns
$header[] = "RRD Name";
$header[] = "Cur In";
$header[] = "";
$header[] = "Cur Out";
$header[] = "";
$header[] = "Avg In";
$header[] = "";
$header[] = "Avg Out";
$header[] = "";
$header[] = "Max In";
$header[] = "";
$header[] = "Max Out";
$header[] = "";
$header[] = "95% In";
$header[] = "";
$header[] = "95% Out";
$header[] = "";

$xls->addHeader($header);

$count = 0;
for ($c = 0; $c < count($rrd_array); $c++) {
$ret = calculate_rrd($rrd_array[$c], $graph_type); // graph type is daily/weekly/yearly and monthly
$row = array();
$row[] = $rrd_array[$c];
$result = format_bits($ret['current_in']);
$row[] = $result[0];
$row[] = $result[1];
$result = format_bits($ret['current_out']);
$row[] = $result[0];
$row[] = $result[1];
$result = format_bits($ret['average_in']);
$row[] = $result[0];
$row[] = $result[1];
$result = format_bits($ret['average_in']);
$row[] = $result[0];
$row[] = $result[1];
$result = format_bits($ret['max_in']);
$row[] = $result[0];
$row[] = $result[1];
$result = format_bits($ret['max_out']);
$row[] = $result[0];
$row[] = $result[1];
$result = format_bits($ret['percentile_in']);
$row[] = $result[0];
$row[] = $result[1];
$result = format_bits($ret['percentile_out']);
$row[] = $result[0];
$row[] = $result[1];
$xls->addRow($row);
}
//output the excel file
$xls->sendFile();

?>

I was in need of a photo gallery - ofcourse open source, and I got two choices - Plogger and Gallery. Gallery2 will give you many features while plogger is really simple and worth for my small requirements. It has easy admin panel and also gives the basic features including slideshow - so I decided to rely on Plogger. I have modified the default theme and it worked fine.
First I removed the footer-text ('Powered by Plogger') from page (for that I commented out this line - print plogger_link_back(); in ploggerdir/themes/default/footer.php)
and
modified the css to decrease the search box width (added this line

#jump-search-container input[type=text] {
       width: 120px;
}

in ploggerdir/themes/default/gallery.css ).

Still working on it.

Email facility is required for almost every application. Hence these tips are helpful.

1. For datetime in proper format,

$headers["Date"] = date("r");

2. For both HTML and text mail,

 $headers["Content-Type"] = "multipart/alternative";

3. For sending mail with SMTP Authentication,

$mail = Mail::factory(
                "smtp",
                array ('host' => $host,
                'auth' => 'true',
                'username' => $username,
                'password' => $password)
                );

A quick helpful tutorial: http://email.about.com/od/emailprogrammingtips/qt/et073006.htm