Creating MP3 files is quite simple, plenty of ways of doing it. Here's one that works for me, on Windows platforms. It may look daunting thanks to all the detail on this page but it's really quite simple. Should take no more than 10 minutes to get it working.

Getting "FreeRip"

I use the free MP3 ripper called, quite aptly, FreeRip: Get it free from here. When the dialog box appears to "Open" or "Save" it (the wording may be different depending on your browser) it's fine to just Open and execute it. We don't need the installation file.

Installing "FreeRip"

1. Click on through the first few screens that show you license and all the usual stuff.
2. The first screen to pay attention to is the one that allows you to create "Desktop Icon", "Quick Launch" icon, etc. On this screen, disable whatever you don't need, but MAKE SURE you disable the "Install the My Global Search Toolbar".
3. Click on through to the end. On the last screen, you may also want to uncheck "Explore FreeRip community" although leaving this on is not a major mistake.
4. That's it, it's done.

One-time customization of FreeRip

FreeRip is quite easy to use, but it's nice to customize some settings the first time you use it.

Start FreeRip from your START menu, or from the desktop icon if you allowed that to be installed. It should look something like this:
Now, on to customizing. Click on the first menu item called "CD" and then on "Options".

1. General: Here, uncheck "Show 'please register' reminders". Make sure default format is 1-MP3.
2. Output Path: Make sure you change the "Base Path" to the location where you would like your MP3 files stored. I've selected the typical "My Music" inside "My Documents". As follows:
3. Device: No change.
4. Encoding: Change "Min Bitrate" to 192. This is usually CD quality, 256 only creates a huge file. If you want to rip music mainly to share, 128 MB is fine too.
5. Internet: No change, but make sure "3-Offline Mode" is selected.
6. Extensions: Uncheck "Search bar". You don't need it.
7. Freedb: Uncheck "Automatically check freedb when online", unless you know what you're doing and would like the feature.
8. That's it. We're done. Click on OK.

Using FreeRip

This is all you'll do from now on. Everytime you want to rip MP3 files from a CD, simply insert the CD and click on CD –> REFRESH. FreeRip will automatically list all the files. You can click on these "tracks" and change their names to whatever the song name is on the CD. Also make sure you enter the Artist and Album name, this will go into the folder that is created for this CD. Next, click on the green tick icon to select all tracks for ripping. Finally, click on the CD icon to start ripping. When done, check your MY MUSIC folder in MY DOCUMENTS, that's where the new folder should have been created.

So you want to use Grisoft's AVG Free as your antivirus, but had Norton antivirus installed before, which is now proving more persistent than a flatulent release in a bath, with Symantec's whole convoluted shebang only compounding your woes? Well below is a simple sureshot way to get rid of Norton for good.

1. First, from Start –> Cpanel –> Add/Remove programs, remove every trace of Norton and its associated programs, which means scan through the list of installed programs for any item that says "Norton" or "Symantec" or "LiveUpdate" — for example "Symantec LiveUpdate" or "Norton AntiVirus 2003".
2. When you are absolutely sure that these vermins are gone, it is VITAL that you reboot the computer. When you are back into XP, delete the following folders manually — if they don't exist that's fine:

   	c:\Program Files\Symantec AntiVirus
   	c:\Program Files\Norton
   	c:\Program Files\Symantec
   	c:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared
   	

   Do a SHIFT DELETE if possible, the folders don't go into your Recycle Bin in that case, so they are gone from your computer for sure.

3. After the above, I usually clean the Windows Registry for any entries that are lying around stray. Get a Registry Cleaner like HoverDesk's RegSeeker (zipped download) and use the "Clean the Registry" option.
4. Once that is done and you have SELECTED ALL and deleted the stray items, reboot again. To be sure.
5. Norton should be gone when your machine is back up. If not, Symantec has a brute force utility called RNAV2003 — get it here, which ought to do the rest of the scavenging, but it shouldn't come to that.

Suddenly getting *.pif attachments in your emails or a bunch of very personal and realistic sounding mails from people you don't even know? That's because the Netsky family has gone primetime and spawned a million and one variants: I-Worm.Netsky.A, I-Worm.Netsky.B, I-Worm.Netsky.C, I-Worm.Netsky.D, and now even I-Worm.Netsky.E. Many people have tried updating their anti virus definitions for their respective tools, but Netsky is clever (it stores info in the Windows registry, and deletes some vital keys as well!)

I use Grisoft's wonderful AVG tool, which is great if you had it BEFORE the Netsky virus (but then I also use a combination of Spam Assassin and Clamav)

Now that you know how to disable and enable System Restore, let's get cracking.

OPTION 1: THE MCAFEE WAY (STINGER)

McAfee has made a very nifty tool called Stinger available which automatically scans your computer for 39 viruses and deletes them. It's pretty simple to use, just download and execute.

• Download Stinger.
• Disable System Restore as described above. This will take your system into a reboot.
• When the computer is back again, wun Stinger from your desktop by double-clicking it. Wait, get some coffee, etc etc. This takes time.
• Reboot.
• Optional but recommended if the first run above found some virii: Run Stinger again to make sure your PC is clean.
• Reboot.
• Re-enable System Restore from the Control Panel > System > System Restore (checkbox).

On my machine with 120GB hard disk, 57% used, 1 GB RAM, this tool took about an hour to scan through all files. Which is probably a worthy price to pay
for the convenience of automation. Worth a shot for sure.

If and only if this doesn't work, try the next and somewhat more convoluted tool from Symantec.

OPTION 2: THE SYMANTEC WAY

Roll up your sleeves as this is can get a bit involving for people who don't know MS-DOS prompts or some Windows system functionality (although there are screenshots to boot below whenever possible)

• Download the FxNetsky.exe file. Save the file to a convenient location, e.g.,

  c:\netsky_remove

• Download the file chktrust.exe. IMPORTANT: Save this file as the same location as above:

  c:\netsky_remove

• Now close all programs, including the browser from which you downloaded the above applications. Then, START –> RUN, and type

  cmd

  This will start the MS DOS PROMPT. Here, type:

  cd c:/netsky_remove
  chktrust -i FxNetsky.exe

  Press Enter after typing each command. If the digital signature is valid, you will see the following:

  "Do you want to install and run "FxNetsky.exe"
  signed on 3/1/2004 10:33 PM and distributed by:
  Symantec Corporation?"

• If you are on a network or if you have a full-time connection to the Internet, disconnect the computer from the network and the Internet.
• Disable System Restore.
• Double-click the FxNetsky.exe in your c:\netsky_remove folder to start the removal tool.
• Click Start to begin the process, and then allow the tool to run. Sit back and enjoy the ride. This takes time.
• When the tool has finished running, you will see a message indicating whether W32.Netsky@mm infected the computer. In the case of a removal of the worm, the program displays the following results:

  Total number of scanned files
  Number of deleted files
  Number of repaired files
  Number of terminated viral processes
  Number of fixed registry entries

• Reboot the computer.
• If virii were found, then run the removal tool again to ensure that the system is clean.
• If you had disabled System Restore, then re-enable it.

Let me know if this doesn't work as desired!

Don't you just adore the simplicity of PHP! It is a cake walk to create thumbnails in PHP, without any plugins like imagemagick or NetPBM, and it is super fast too. Here's the simple code.

The following code takes a "source image" from a "source path" and makes a thumbnail out of it, placing the thumbnailed image into a "thumb path." It is fairly straightforward so I won't waste time explaining stuff. Post a comment below if you have any questions or problems.

- Elements that you'll probably have to edit are highlighted in red
– Comments are in green

Make sure the path for thumbnails is writeable, the imagejpeg function takes care of writing by itself, you don't need to fwrite etc.

This above example is for JPEG format. Replace all occurences of "jpeg" in the above code with "gif" and you're good to go for GIF files! Similarly, you can edit the "jpeg" to "png" and you're good to go. For instance, replace "imagejpeg" with "imagegif" or "imagepng".

Eventually, you can also cobble together some code to figure out the file type of a $sourceImage dynamically (from a directory on the server for instance) and apply the appropriate functions. This is just an example to give you an idea!

Just FYI, my setup on the server is as follows:

1. Root HTTP folder: /home/domain/public_html/
2. Images folder: /home/domain/public_html/images/
   This becomes our $sourcePath because this is where the original image comes from.
3. Thumbs folder: /home/domain/public_html/images/thumbs/ (this folder is CHMODed 744, and is our $thumbPath)

It is possible to catch key presses in a browser using Javascript. Click below for a cross-browser script to catch keyboard events. Clicking in the first text area and press any keys on your keyboard (as if to enter text). The second textarea serves as a real-time log and shows you info about what key you pressed.

For a simpler example, also see http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/11802

You have two dates (either in your code or in your database columns). How do you calculate the difference between them — in years,
months, weeks etc?

This is one of the most common questions on FAQ sites, and the logic in general is quite simple. Most programming languages give you the ability to get "epoch times" (number of seconds/millioseconds from Jan 1, 1970) from a date. Once you have these for both the dates, you get the difference in number of seconds. Then you can simply divide this number by the number of seconds in each day (60*60*24) to get the number of days between the two dates, and so on.

Please note however that as a rule of thumb, if you intend to perform these calculations on values from database columns, you should consider calculating within the database itself as that may be the fastest and most efficient way of doing it. Below are some examples (or pointers) for popular databases and PHP. The PHP logic should be applicable to many programming languages unless they already provide handy in-built functions.

Enter latitude and longitude of two places, and find out the distance between them. Click here to see the working code and to download it.

Code for dynamic thumbnails using PHP

<?php

// Specify your file details
$current_file = 'image.jpg';
$max_width = '150';

// Get the current info on the file
$current_size = getimagesize($current_file);
$current_img_width = $current_size[0];
$current_img_height = $current_size[1];
$image_base = explode('.', $current_file);

// This part gets the new thumbnail name
$image_basename = $image_base[0];
$image_ext = $image_base[1];
$thumb_name = $image_basename.'-th.'.$image_ext;

// Determine if the image actually needs to be resized
// and if it does, get the new height for it
if ($current_img_width > $max_width)
{
  $too_big_diff_ratio = $current_img_width/$max_width;
  $new_img_width = $max_width;
  $new_img_height = round($current_img_height/$too_big_diff_ratio);
  // Convert the file
  $make_magick = system("convert -geometry $new_img_width x $new_img_height $current_file $thumb_name", $retval);
  // Did it work?
  if (!($retval)) {
    echo 'Thumbnail created: <img src="' .$thumb_name .'">';
  }
  else {
    echo 'Error: Please try again.';
  }
}
else
{
  echo 'No need to resize.';
}

?>

Following is some simple code that has worked for me:

if(!extension_loaded('imagick')) { dl('imagick.so'); }
$handle = imagick_create();
imagick_set_attribute($handle,array("quality"=>1,"magick"=>"png"));
imagick_set_attribute($handle,"size","98x20");
imagick_read($handle,"xc:#cccccc");
imagick_annotate($handle,array(
"primitive"     =>  "text 10,14 hello",
"pointsize"     =>  16,
"antialias"     =>  1,
"stroke"        =>  "#000000",
"font"          =>  "arial.ttf"
));
$handle = imagick_copy_rotate ($handle, 270);
header("Content-type: image/png");
imagick_dump($handle,"png");

It is actually quite simple to get it working, but not adequately documented on the PHP website. Get straightforward, bullet point instructions here (installs PHP as a module which is in fact faster than running it as CGI).

1. Get the latest PHP package from http://qa.php.net/ and unzip it. It will automatically create a folder named PHP_version. (P.S. Novice users may want to skip this entirely and download PHP, MYSQL etc bundled as
   XAMPP from Apachefriends.org.)
2. Please follow the instructions in the README to install
   Apache as a module (faster than running as CGI). This should include –
   1. Copying the latest PHP files into your C:\PHP or wherever you have your PHP installed,
   2. Putting your PHP.INI file in the right place, mine is in C:\WINDOWS (you must have only one valid INI file),
   3. Copying the php4ts.dll file from your downloaded PHP_version folder into C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
3. Copy all the *.dll files from your downloaded
   PHP_version\DLL folder into the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32.
   This will include the latest expat.dll and the
   sablot.dll.
4. Copy the php_xslt.dll from your downloaded PHP_version\EXTENSIONS folder into the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32.
5. Now, open your PHP.INI and uncomment the
   php_xslt.dll extension.
   1. 
      # Remove the semi-colon ";" at the beginning
      # of the line to uncomment the PHP_XSLT extension
      OLD LINE –> ;extension=php_xslt.dll
      
      NEW LINE –> extension=php_xslt.dll
6. Just for reference, my HTTPD.CONF file for Apache
   has the PHP module working as follows:
   1. # P.S. The LoadModule should be php4apache2.dll
      if you use Apache 2
      ScriptAlias /php/ "c:/php/"
      LoadModule php4_module c:/php/sapi/php4apache.dll
      
      AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
7. Restart Apache, and hopefully time to say Bingo! If you have problems, please let
   me know.

Testing your PHP XSLT installation:

Following is a zip file containing some examples for you to
test out your XSLT installation. Unzip it into your htdocs
folder, it will create a subfolder called xsltest.
Please read the README.TXT file inside this ZIP file for more.

  Download zipped code samples

Important notes to make sure XSLT works with PHP module of Apache:

1. If running PHP as a module gives you problems, make sure you copy the
   php4ts.dll file from your downloaded PHP_version
   folder into C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32. This is
   most often the cause of errors.
2. Make sure you don't have many copies of the same DLLs lurking around
   in various folders. This is often the problem. Specifically, for instance,
   the same DLLs should not exist in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM and the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
   folders.
3. If you are using really ancient versions of PHP (i.e., version less
   than 4.1.xx) then this page
   may be useful to you as well.