Dim Sum - 12:30 today.

[Leo Lapworth]

Going for Dim Sum, at the New World Gerrard St
for 12:30 for anyone who wants to come along.

Mob: 07711 671 828 if you need it.

Leo

Dim sum - Gerrard PLACE - not Gerrard St - END

[Leo Lapworth]

Sorry for the confusion.

Leo

Re: Tonight

[Leo Lapworth]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 07:07:52AM +0100, Dave Cross wrote:
> OK, so we have a few volunteers for tonight. Here are the talks I'm
> expecting to hear:

[% snip %]

> We'll start at 7pm.

I've heard that before :)

Leo

Re: Dim Sum

[Leo Lapworth]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 12:13:11PM +0100, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
> 
> In case Simon's mail doesn't get through, we're off for Dim Sum at
> about 1 today, usual place. My number: 07768 490620

Arrggg, was about to leave, then get told the company
is taking me out for my fairwell lunch today..

Well, as I Dimsumed yestered I'll let them :)

Leo

New London.pm.org web site live!

[Leo Lapworth]

Well, I think the subject says it all.

http://london.pm.org/

Comments etc to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Also content very welcome, let me know
if you want to add something so we can
work out the easyest yea.

Leo

Re: New London.pm.org web site live!

[Leo Lapworth]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 02:31:14PM -0700, Paul Makepeace wrote:
> /style.css:
> 
> .bold { color: #1e2d39; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;
> font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica }
> 
> (.bold is overkill, IMO,  is a valid XHTML tag... Or perhaps more
> specific structural class names. You can stack the font-family in div,
> td and let it propagate down.)

Probably, but it works and as the guy doing the design did it
for free, and has nothing todo with perl, or even London.pm other
than he's my mate, I'm thankful :)

I'm happy (infact would love it) for others to come and 
change / add stuff, so tell me what your going todo 
and we'll sort it out.

Leo

Past Technical papers / talks / slides required.

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi guys,

Could people send me (attach a tar.gz to an email)
ANY talks they have given to the London.pm group.

Could you make sure of the following:

1) If possible please wrap every page with:

  
London.pm - TITLE

  
  
[% YOUR CONTENT HERE %]
  


- This will put the standard top and bottom bit on,
as you can see on the http://london.pm.org/ site now.

- If you can't put this on every page, please atleast make sure there is
a link to http://london.pm.org/ on them so people can get back.

2) All links are relative (e.g. so I don't have to edit them all
   when I put it in a directory 3 levels in from doc root!)

3) If possible could you put in the email:
- When you gave the talk - year and month.
- The title 
- A short blurb of what it's about.

I'm not going to tidy up everyone's talk, so what you send
me is what will go up. I don't see this as a problem as long
as people can read them and get back to the main site.

Thanks in advance.

Leo

p.s. This includes talks given last night, and any talks
given in the future!

Re: New London.pm.org web site live!

[Leo Lapworth]

Philip,

I'll email you the top and bottom bit and the style sheet
so you can set it up as you think it should be.

Cheers

Leo

On Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 11:30:10AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote:
> No steenking fixed-size fonts, OK? (And no fixed
> font name, either, for that matter!) If I have bad eyesight and want a
> larger font, or if my favourite font is not one of the list and needs a
> bigger size to look nice, I'd prefer if I could have *my* choice. I want my
> fonts back!

Re: Past Technical papers / talks / slides required.

[Leo Lapworth]

On Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 10:53:27AM +0100, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
> Leo, have a look at Apache::Template ;-)

Dave, Some people's talks would bork if wrapped, but
yea, I am aware of such a thing :)

Leo

Re: Past Technical papers / talks / slides required.

[Leo Lapworth]

On Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 12:13:31PM +0100, Richard Clamp wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 10:22:26AM +0100, Leo Lapworth wrote:
> > Hi guys,
> > 
> > Could people send me (attach a tar.gz to an email)
> > ANY talks they have given to the London.pm group.
> 
> What if we just send you links, assuming that people would sooner not
> hand over all their materials to the cause.
> 

Then I'll link them in (already done so with Dave's), just
thought it'd be nice to have a single repository so don't have
to hastle about if people move sites or what ever.

But I'm easy (no comments from the back please) :)

Leo

Re: Cliqueiness

[Leo Lapworth]

On Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 12:23:04PM +0100, Cross David - dcross wrote:
[% snip %]
> And if there's anyone still listening who has left a social meeting early
> because we've ignored you, I can only apologise whole-heartedly and ask you
> to give us another chance at the next meeting on July 5th.

Totally agree.

Hmm, maybe we need a drinking game (doesn't have to be
alchoholic if people don't drink) to help involve
everyone at some point in the evening.

I'm sure someone can come up with something... :)

Leo

Re: london-pm@lists.dircon.co.uk is dead, long live london.pm@london. pm.org

[Leo Lapworth]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 03:07:57PM +0100, Jonathan Stowe wrote: 
> Before I totally remove the list can we have a quick final check that
> everywhere that "The London Perlmongers Mailing-list" is referred to
> refers to *this* list ?

All references on the new site point to the new list,
this will be going live tonight AT THE TECHNICAL MEETING...!!!

Woo.. feel the anticipation...!!!

Ok, well, at least check it out tomorrow or somethimg.

Leo

Re: Windows, PPM, Remote Control and all that jazz.

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Jul 02, 2001 at 05:11:05PM +0100, Mark Fowler wrote:
> I'm not that used to using perl under windows, but I want to use it in
> order to control a number of windows desktop to do a load of tasks.  To do
> this I want to be able to
> 
>  a) run a perl script on a the machine by hand/in startup
>  b) which opens a deamon on a port
>  c) and then does a http request to a webserver to declare it's presence.
> 
> I *was* planning to do something with that RPC::XML stuff to do this, but
> after some thought a couple of issues present themselves, namely is this
> module in ppm format yet (how do I find out if it is?  If it isn't how do
> I make it so it is?) and is there a much better way that the masses can
> suggest?

Mark,

When you install activestate perl is installs a dos util called ppm,
so from prompt type >ppm
then do search MODULE_NAME, I've found that they don't even have
Template Toolkit :( - just checked they don't have RPC::XML. I think
you can check this stuff on the actrivestate website as well.

Now you can us perl -MCPAN -e shell, but you have to have
a 'make' installed - dmake is free on the net, but doesn't
always work (e.g. for TT2). So you have to use nmake, which
though it was available on MS's site, now nolonger is and I haven't
been able to find is _ANYWHERE_ on the net. It is part of
the MS C++ development thingy apparently.

It all feels like too much hastle.. but a different dept here
does have the C++ dev library so I guess I have to give it a go.

Laters

Leo

Re: The august social meet...

[Leo Lapworth]

On Tue, Jul 03, 2001 at 09:22:35AM +0100, Leon Brocard wrote:
> Piers Cawley sent the following bits through the ether:
> 
> > Will be the first evening of YAPC::Europe. If no other pub has yet
> > been recommended, may I commend Inn de Wildeman on Nieuwezijds Kolk to
> > the company?
> 
> Good call. This is a lovely pub indeed.

Ok, someone email me details and I'll put it on the website.

Leo - who is hitting Foxtons with USE SSH not TELNET!!

Re: paging forward/back

[Leo Lapworth]

I got Leon to create it.. not sure if he's got it online 
(it's generic, but works loverly with TT2), if Leon 
doesn't put up a link to it email me (off list) and 
I'll send you a copy.

Leo

On Sun, Jul 08, 2001 at 04:08:47PM +0100, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
> Leo(n),
> Did one of you folk produce a plugin or code fragment for TT for
> paging back/forward through result sets?

Re: london.pm.org NS & MX go go go!

[Leo Lapworth]

On Fri, Oct 19, 2001 at 08:01:54AM +0200, Newton, Philip wrote:
> Paul Makepeace wrote:
> > $ mx london.pm.org. ns1.access.net
> > london.pm.org   MX  42 london.pm.org
> > london.pm.org   MX  69 mailhost.realprogrammers.com
> 
> Did you pick those two numbers out of a hat at random? :)

42 - answer to life the universe and everything

69 - *snigger*

Sheesh, where have you been Philip :)

Leo

JOB: [ Fw: Help! Perl coder required.]

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi - this bounced from your london.pm.org address.

- Original Message -
From: "Nick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: 19 October 2001 11:41
Subject: Help! Perl coder required.


> Hi Leo
>
> I hope this isn't out of order. Got your email from http://london.pm.org/.
> If you think it's inappropriate I promise not to do it again.
>
> But... we've got a vacancy for a Perl coder, which I thought you and your
> comrades in arms might be interested in. Full spec can be found here:
> http://www.clickmusic.co.uk/Clickmusic_Web_Guide/Jobs/
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Regards,
>
> Nick
>
> Nick Evans
> Editorial Producer
> www.clickmusic.com
> www.clickmusicbiz.com
> www.sonicadvertising.com
> e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> p: 020 7727 7500
> f: 020 7727 7200
> a: The New Boathouse, 136-142 Bramley Rd, W10 6SR
>
> You were born. And so you're free. So happy birthday.
>

Re: Rant: Working in a vacuum

[Leo Lapworth]

> Lately I've been wondering more and more why I keep writing and
> releasing modules, as no one ever seems to use them or even notice
> - there's zero feedback.

Marcel,

CPAN authors like your self is the reason that I work with Perl
and well, basically can earn a living!

Ok, hands up, I haven't used any of your modlues, but I just
haven't had the need. Though I must admit that I haven't
thanked authors of CPAN modules unless I've met them personally
and even then you feel a little shy to.

So THANKS!!! - and thats to everyone. I wow people at work
with the speed at which I develope  - Friday being an example, where
I was given a spec at 4 and by 6 (to go live at 7) I had finished
the system which was needed. Without Template Tooliit, DBI and
Net::FTP it would have taken me days if not longer!

I have gone to a new company and introduced just a few modules
that the team did not know about (also told them about CPAN!!)
as a result the current project is 2 weeks AHEAD (yes, not behind!)
schedual (well technically, content and design are weeks behind
but thats someone elses problem).

CPAN authors are invaluable to Perl and the community as a whole.
I don't know how to thank you guys enough, but lets make some
way of doing it. - reviews.cpan.org - rating system with comments
where people can give feedback ?

Module Name:
Rating: X posative Y negative
Hours saved: - people enter how many hours the module has saved them.

Comments:
Name, Rating, Comment

I'm sure there will be lots of political reasons against this,
but what ever happens I intend to start emailing authors if
I use a new module or even if an old module helps me do something
major.

To sum up, please don't get dishartend, you are all helping
make Perl what it is! - and I love it :)

Leo

Re: Rant: Working in a vacuum - solved ?

[Leo Lapworth]

I had put together a proposal for a system
to do something about this (people not feeling
appreciated or getting _ANY_ feedback - good or bad)

But looking at it http://rt.cpan.org/ seems to
take care of a lot of it.

I guess you wouldn't get 'That was very useful'
maybe we could ask for a 'comments' feature to
be added to the severity level ?

Anyway, just thought I'd see if this sparks off
some more comments / ideas.

Leo

XML::LibXML - character encoding - help

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi folks,

Well, to start with may I say XML::LibXML
is VERY cool, and fast to boot (well fast
for XML).

I have an xml feed someone has provided me,
they have encoded the content as XHTML, by copying
Table 23-5: The HTML Special Characters Entity Set
from the XML in a Nutshell book and regexing
(or what ever it is they do in VB) the content.

They are using the XHTML column but I've inclded 
all the results below.

I thought 'no problem' just pass it though and
it'll be converted (thought it doesn't matter if it's
not as it'll all end up on a web browser).

But I seem to get the wrong results!

- am I doing something silly, I'm not too familiar with
UTF8 encoding and stuff so not quite sure what
I should do.. any help is appreciated.

Cheers

Example script (just replicates the problem, not actual code!):
-- snip ---:


#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

use XML::LibXML;

my $parser = XML::LibXML->new();

# Page 428 of XML in a Nutshell
# character | meaning | XHTML | Hex Ref | Decimal Ref
# ' | Right single quotation mark | ’ | ’ | ’

my @vals = ( '’','’','’' );

foreach my $convert (@vals) {

my $content = "

 $convert 

";


my $xp = $parser->parse_string( $content );

my $nodes = $xp->XML::LibXML::Node::find('//string');

my $val = $xp->findvalue('//string/test',$nodes);
print "V: $val \n";

}

## RESULTS:
# V:  â
# V:  â
# Entity: line 3: error: Entity 'rsquo' not defined
# ’ 
#  ^
#  at t.pl line 24


# I'm expecting a Right single quote not an 'a' with a hat!
# My feed has ’ (not the other values) how can I
# get it to just pass through or convert it - thanks

Re: London, Tube, Perl, and maths.

[Leo Lapworth]

On Fri, Nov 23, 2001 at 03:07:16PM -, Moulas, Lionel wrote:
> Is there any perl path-finder module ( I can`t find one)
> or scripts you recommend to have a look on, 
> to devise a quick and easy application ( or slow and dirty one) , for me to
> use when I want to find a quick way between station A and station B, in
> london ??

Have a look at: http://www.tubeplanner.com/
- Robert price did that, and it's all in Perl AFAIK.
- I'm sure you could contact him and see if he
  wants to Open source it.

Leo

LPM history - web site [ Was: Re: Next social meet ...]

[Leo Lapworth]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 10:52:14PM +, Nicholas Clark wrote:
> Although it seems the "what we have done" was banished with the old site.

I beg to differ:

http://london.pm.org/about/history.html

from

http://london.pm.org/about/

Ok, it's not exactly a detailed list but some of the
highlights, email me the copy and I'll add more in.

Leo

LOTR (was Re: a request)

[Leo Lapworth]

Ok, ok, no spoilers but I would just say GO SEE IT!

I loved it.. 

Hmm, this is very  short with no spoilers.

Umm..

Ahh..

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Leo

Re: Amsterdam

[Leo Lapworth]

On Fri, Jan 18, 2002 at 10:25:17AM +, Andy Wardley wrote:
> Rafiq Ismail (ADMIN) wrote:
> > If anyone's awake, then I'd be quite keen to hear about your experiences?
> 
> I had some fantastic experiences in Amsterdam.  
> 
> Once my short term memory recovers, I'm hoping I'll remember some of 
> them :-)

There was that incident with Betty I seem to remember.

But I don't want to start any rumors about you.. so probably
good that I can't remember the details :)

Leo

Re: Website, was RE: Of meetings technical and social

[Leo Lapworth]

On Fri, Jan 18, 2002 at 07:24:08PM +, Paul Mison wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2002 at 05:14:58PM +, Leon Brocard wrote:
> > Mark Fowler sent the following bits through the ether:
> > 
> > > (er, in other words do you want a hand with anything)
> > 
> > Leo is on holiday. I think our glorious leader Paul was going to
> > update the website. After he finishes playing with lego.
> 
> There's an awful lot of Lego to finish, so I did it anyway. Next time
> I'll put in implicit instructions to the website minion (sorry, that
> should read 'henchman') to fix it.

Soz folks, was trying to break my neck over the weekend, just
ended up with some bruses and stiff joints and snow burns
(actually was a wonderful weekend), but wasn't following email.

Maybe someone could 'second' me, so if paul emails us
both with anything that should go up. 

The the other person can check a day later and
a) check my spelling and 
b) do it if I haven't been arround or something.

Anyway, I guess if your interested email Paul and
me off list and we can work out the details.

Cheers

Leo

Re: the latest booking list

[Leo Lapworth]

On Thu, Feb 07, 2002 at 11:29:55PM +, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> p.s. once we get our hotel slots, i'm no longer anything to do with
> this endeavour, looking down that list i have more sense than to look
> like anyone responsible for you lot - i count 19 trouble makers out of
> 22, and no i didn't count myself ;-)

If you are going to make statments like that (which are probably
quite true) you should at least give us a hint which 3 you don't 
think are trouble makers. :)

Leo

resolving DNS on Pendral (was Re: Test - ignore - end)

[Leo Lapworth]

On Tue, Feb 12, 2002 at 04:01:45PM +, Leo Lapworth wrote:
> Just seeing if I can make mail on pendral
> work quicker, just altered the /etc/resolv.conf
> tell me if it blows anything up

Well, after much fussing, moving of /etc/resolv.conf
files, adding new entries, flushing exim mailqs and
the like, I've put it all back to how it was as I can't
get the bugger working!

Altering the resolv.conf did not affect doing an
nslookup (yes, I know dig exists) and no one else
could think why this would be.

So, what seems to happen is that exim chugs away
slowly, getting unresolved entries for 2/3 of the 
memebers on the list. Then suddenly everyone
resolvs and we get a flood of email, then is stop again
until the next flood (sorry if anyone is really having
water problems!).

If you know anything about this, please let me or paul
know and either give  me some instructions or we'll
get a login sorted out somehow.

It'd be nice to get email before the contents is
out of date!

Cheers

Leo

Test - ignore - end

[Leo Lapworth]

Just seeing if I can make mail on pendral
work quicker, just altered the /etc/resolv.conf
tell me if it blows anything up

Leo

Re: The Hotel Fiasco

[Leo Lapworth]

On Thu, Feb 14, 2002 at 10:41:26AM +, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> The following prices assume staying for the 17,18,19,20,21. Please
> double check the prices, I worked them out quickly.
> 
> MMA Double Sharing [* rooms] (4*173.00 + 1 * 206.00)/2 = 449.00 
> MMA Single [5 rooms] 4*133.00 + 1 * 160.00 = 692.00
> MMA Single(better) [* rooms] 4*147.00 + 1 * 176.00 = 764.00

I would prefer to stay at the MMA, sharing if possible,
Single (cheaper) if not, at a push just anything :)

Cheers

Leo

Buffy... Wow

[Leo Lapworth]

Sky Buffy... don't scroll if you didn't see
it last night.


spoiler...































Wow, cool, and amazing, I didn't think it would work.

I actually think it was one of the best episodes I've
seen in a long time, not saying that the singing was
great or that they are usually bad or anything, but it
just seemed to work for me.

And Spike! - that's just twisted...

Well, just had to express my enjoyment of it.

Laters

Leo

Re: Lightweight template module?

[Leo Lapworth]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2002 at 01:00:37PM -0800, Paul Makepeace wrote:
> Can anyone suggest a small, easy to install (i.e. minimal CPAN
> dependency) module to do simple template filling-out type work?
> Something that'll allow interpolation of variables and perhaps some
> simple conditional constructs like, [if $status then "status"
> else " "]

Personally I think Template Toolkit is easy to install and there
is only one other module that you need before it will installl
(andy's AppConfig). Ok, it's not small, but then if you ever
do want to do more complex stuff it's available.

As with any tool it can be used in the wrong way, but it feels
more flexable than HTML::Template.

I wrote a comparision of the two.. slightly biast (I like TT)
http://admin.cuckoo.org/perl/template_systems.shtml

Not sure if it's any use.. but have fun...

Leo

Search Engine listings - getting them up!

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi Folks,

I've been asked to get a company in to help improve
our search engine ranking (which no one has even
considered in recent years). Does anyone have
any recomendations ?

Yea, I know the basics, meta tags, robots, links
I even get the concept of mini sites to feed traffic
but I really need someone to come in and cover the
lot - we can do the implementation but I haven't got
time to submit to search engines and work out the
best keywords etc. There are 3 sites, many keywords and worst
of all the main site uses frames (yea, I told 'em
not to!).

The budget isn't limited at the moment, I fully
expect to pay for search engine rankings (ala Google)
for a couple of months to help things along.

Anyway, if anyone could suggest a company or two
(there seems to be hundreds and I don't know how to tell
if they are good or not) then there would be a pint 
(or fav drink) in it.

Thanks

Leo

Re: Search Engine listings - getting them up!

[Leo Lapworth]

> Perhaps that tells you something about heavily "designed" sites.  I didn't
> make any special effort to make my sites search-engine-friendly, they just
> turned out that way because they weren't built by some overpaid crack
> monkey with three-quarter-length khaki trousers and an amusing T-shirt.

Personally I think that the site we have is the best estate agent site
for London (notice I said best not prefect). I alway get very dissapointed 
looking at other sites (as I'm trying to move atm). So getting people
to visit it isn't a con if they are after that sort of thing.

Yes, the site was designed badly in terms of search engines 
(well, they wernt' considered  by the design company to be honest) but 
I don't see online 'Marketing' and trying to improve search engine 
ratings relevant to estate agents as a bad thing.

The idea of the mini site was to create area specific data and
wrap that as a site, again the information should be relevant,
I'm not trying to 'trick' users into visiting, just need to
improve the site's visability on search engines.

It's always a mine field of where to draw the line.

I'd just like to thank everyone that has responded both
on and off list, the information has been very useful.

I'll do a little report back in a few months once we've
actually done something.

Cheers

Leo

Re: Search Engine listings - getting them up!

[Leo Lapworth]

On Thu, Mar 21, 2002 at 04:03:08PM +, David Cantrell wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 20, 2002 at 02:33:09PM +0000, Leo Lapworth wrote:
> > Personally I think that the site we have is the best estate agent site
> > for London (notice I said best not prefect).
> 
> That may be the case.  However, as a user, I'm not in the slightest bit
> interested in which agent a property is listed with, I'm interested in:
>   where the property is;
>   the asking price;
>   the condition

The reason I like Foxtons site better than the others is that
you get floor plans, 360 degree views (ok, to me this is more
of a gimic than useful but sometimes it is good to see),
mutlipul photos, maps (both street and aerial) and to top that
off you can download all the information in a PDF which also
adds a room by room description. I agree it would be nice to
goto one site and get all this information but very few other
Estate Angets go to the trouble of showing this much info
about a property. 

My biggest gripe with agrigators is by their nature they
have to settle with the lowest common denominator
which is usually a description, one photo and a map
(though the quality isn't always great). 

I don't want to spend hours going to properties which SOUND
great and from a certain angle look ok only to find
when I get there the rooms are too small or the bathroom
is on the ground floor (a personal pet peeve).

Anyway, I don't have a choise as Foxtons doesn't have
anything in my price range that suite my needs, so I
have to use someone else.. such is life :)

Leo

Re: Shopping carts

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Apr 29, 2002 at 04:42:07PM +0100, Mark Fowler wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Apr 2002, Newton, Philip wrote:
> 
> > Shevek wrote:
> > > What is the standard shopping cart solution for mod_perl?
> 
> A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, didn't Leo roll something like 
> this.  I don't remember if it ever hit the CPAN.

http://london.pm.org/~leo/ - it's off there

Not that I'd touch it with a long pointy stick but you're
welcome to it, I was never happy with it, hence it didn't
get onto CPAN, though I might have a look at it again.

It's probably ok for mod_perl but wasn't ever used, well
for anything as the site I was writting it for folded!

I might have another look at it, but then again I might
not :)

Leo

OT (yea right) - taking Credit card payment.

[Leo Lapworth]

Well the new money spinner has just been thought up 
and it involves charging people about £5 to
get access to some information.

So, I play round, come up with a simple script that does:

print "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"something.pdf\"\r\n";
print "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\r\n";
print "Content-type: application/pdf\r\n";

and then spews the file at them.

(note the Content-Disposition means that they are offered the
chance to save or open rather than it just opening and it
also means I can define the file name to save as, in IE.)

Anyway, now I've got this far I need a company to take the
money from the customer and do all that security stuff.

Does any one have recomendations of who I should use ?

Haven't a clue of quantity, of course it's going to make
millions as far as the MD is concerned but I'm not sure
about it at all, so wouldn't want to make any garentees.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

Leo

Re: OT (yea right) - taking Credit card payment.

[Leo Lapworth]

Thanks for all the feedback folks.

I'm erring towards worldpay because:

1) I don't have to host the https server and worry about
   the security aspect. I can also customise the pages
   through a web interface.

and

2) I don't have to have a Merchant ID which frankly just
   seems a pain.

Datacash do look cheaper, but that doesn't include the
Bank percentage, the https server + sysadmin, or the
development (how ever easy) at my end.

I'll try worldpay and see what happens, if we get even
half what the MD thinks we will (some how I doubt it)
I'll do some more shopping around at a later stage as
the annual fee is just 150 quid (which includes
3 currencies) so we wouldn't be too tied in.

Ask me after September and I'll give you feedback
how easy / hard it was to actually impliment.

Cheers

Leo

Re: Report on the Glasshouse Stores

[Leo Lapworth]

On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 05:55:20PM +0100, Simon Wistow wrote:
> On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 05:45:06PM +0100, Natalie S. Ford said:
> > Just a pity the food is so awful - i can always eat in transit to the pub
> > though...
> 
> And the beer.
> 
> Disregarding handpulled or not was it a deliberate move to use another
> Sam Smith's pub or just a coinckydinks? 

coinckydinks, I suggested it because:

- it was cheap (1.60 a pint), cheaper than CoY

- central London

- did food that was more than just chips and dips. 
I'd had the chicken and chips there which was fine so didn't 
know that the rest of the food was a bit naff, though we didn't
try the snacky foods and 'traditional' pub grub.

- had a big enough cellar, that didn't echo when people talked.

I'm not a beer expert, in fact didn't even notice that it wasn't
hand pulled (I appologies to the beer gurus out there). 

It wasn't perfect by any means, though personally I prefer
it to the CoY. As has been mentioned it'd be nice to have
a place with out side for the summer months.

Leo

Re: Book reviews

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi Alex,

I'm afraid my partner has not been well recently and hasn't
had a chance to even start looking at the book (Quark Express 5).

Would you like me to give it back at the Social next week or
hang on to it (I'm not sure when she will be able to review it
though she is still interested in reading it).

Anyway, let me know.

Cheers

Leo

[JOB] [davefarr19@hotmail.com: ]

[Leo Lapworth]

--- Begin Message ---

Leo.

May be a bit of a long shot, but Im a UNIX recruiter and I have just taken a 
look at your web-site. london.pm.org

Im currently looking for somebody with a good understand of LinuxClusters 
. seems like you guys are few and far between to find Based over in 
Crawley and will pay the money for the right person.

Dont suppose you can help me out at all. Goes without saying that I will 
return teh favour (£???)

Let me know.
Thanks!
Dave Farr.
020 7638 5777 (Work #) Guardian IT

_
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: 
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx



--- End Message ---

Re: advocacy

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Jun 24, 2002 at 02:47:36PM +0100, Andy Wardley wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 24, 2002 at 02:44:50PM +0100, Simon Wistow wrote:
> > I know this has been tried before but this is for a cunning plan.
> 
> A plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel?

I would like to object at this juncture...

Or rather raise a query...

What about a fox with a tail stuck on it ? I'm sure that would be
far more cunning!

L(eo)

Re: Tech meet, finalised.

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Jul 01, 2002 at 11:09:12AM +0100, Dave Cross wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2002 at 08:01:28PM +0100, Chris Ball ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > We appear to have a tech meet on our hands. 
> 
> Any chance we can get this info up on the web site. I'd like to invite some
> people who aren't on the mailing list.

I present my posterior for a good spanking.

Meeting page now updated.

Sorry, I've not got round to updating a few things on
the site recently, I'll catch up over the weekend.

Cheers

Leo

webmasterworld - conference

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi,

This guy wondered if I would be interested in going
to this "Conference" in the CoY!! - They borrowed
our directions (they were kind enough to actually
ask!) and have put a link back to us.

I said I'd forward this on as I won't be able to
make it but an afternoon or two in a pub talking
web tech (though it sounds sort of general) might
take some people's fancy. It's £45, they say that's
just covering costs so I don't know what it entails.

Anyway,

Laters

Leo

On Wed, Jul 03, 2002 at 11:09:28AM -0500, Brett Tabke wrote:
> PubConference 2 Internet Webmaster and Marketing Conference.  Hosted
> by members of WebmasterWorld.

> Saturday Oct 12, 2002, 1pm to whenever.
> Cittie of Yorke Pub in downtown London England.
> Open bar.  Round tables on various webmaster topics (mostly
> marketing and search engine promotion).

> We expect 200+ total from all over the world.  About a dozen medium
> to hardcore Perl pros will be there (come and recruit).

> 45 pounds to cover our expenses (it's a not-for-profit thing).

> Guests: Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch, Per Koch of Pandia Post.
> Sponsors:  6 of the major search engines will be there with reps and
> tech folk.

> http://www.webmasterworld.com/conference/

Orange website...

[Leo Lapworth]

I'm sorry (or happy) to announce the London.pm website
(http://london.pm.org/) has now changed colour.

WE HAVE NOT BEEN HACKED!

For those of you who did not hear... 

The colour of the website was put up for auction at
this years YAPC::Europe. This will last for 1 year.

Leon, Red, Gellyfish and my self spent 450 EUR to change
the colour of the website to Orange, with all money going
to YAPC::Europe (and then excess to YAS).

I would like to take this chance to say sorry... :)

Once again, I stress.. this is intentional.. it is
not a bug...

Thanks

Leo

[APACHE - OT] RewriteRule

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi Guys,

Sorry about this...

I'm trying to do a (very simple!) RewriteRule but 
it's not having any of it...

The Example in the docs shows:
 RewriteRule ^/somepath(.*) /otherpath$1 [R]
for GET /somepath/pathinfo

In my VirtualHost I have:

RewriteRule ^/mag/(.*) /foxtons/magazines/cover_story/$1 [R]
for GET /mag/jul02

(I'll add the .html to the RewriteRule when I get it working)

I've got me RewriteEngine on, and it does redirect me to
/foxtons/magazines/cover_story/, but doesn't put the $1 in.

I mostly use [P] for proxying to mod perl server which works
fine, but this just doesn't seem to be having any of it.

Apache/1.3.22 (Unix) - mod_rewrite is compiled in, yes I should
upgrade but that's shouldn't be the problem.

Have I missed something fundimental ?

Any help much apreciated.

Cheers

Leo

Re: [APACHE - OT] RewriteRule

[Leo Lapworth]

On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 01:06:41PM +0100, Paul Makepeace wrote:
> Try ,
> 
> RewriteLog /var/log/apache/rewrite.log
> RewriteLogLevel 1
> 
> And see if you can figure it out, perhaps with a higher LogLevel.
> Generally I tend to use [PT] (pass-through) especially if there are
> content handlers around.

Should have mentioned that I'd done that... Level 3

added in the .html and [PT,L] instead of [R] I get:

172.16.0.55 - - [08/Oct/2002:13:43:29 +] 
[newdev.www.foxtons.co.uk/sid#80e721c][rid#80ec88c/initial] (2) init rewrite engine 
with requested uri /mag/sept02
172.16.0.55 - - [08/Oct/2002:13:43:29 +] 
[newdev.www.foxtons.co.uk/sid#80e721c][rid#80ec88c/initial] (3) applying pattern 
'^/mag/(.*)' to uri '/mag/sept02'
172.16.0.55 - - [08/Oct/2002:13:43:29 +] 
[newdev.www.foxtons.co.uk/sid#80e721c][rid#80ec88c/initial] (2) rewrite /mag/sept02 -> 
/foxtons/magazines/cover_story/.html
172.16.0.55 - - [08/Oct/2002:13:43:29 +] 
[newdev.www.foxtons.co.uk/sid#80e721c][rid#80ec88c/initial] (2) forcing 
'/foxtons/magazines/cover_story/.html' to get passed through to next API 
URI-to-filename handler

This is a standard Apache server (no mod_perl).

Everything is applied correctly, but the regex just doesn't seem to work!

Cheers

Leo

Re: [APACHE - OT] RewriteRule - FIXED

[Leo Lapworth]

Well, even though the documentation says:

RewriteRule
Compatibility: Apache 1.2 (partially), Apache 1.3

An upgrade from 1.3.22 to 1.3.26 fixed the problem.

Now to go and install it on 4 other machines, this
time I think I'll use a debian package rather than
the source.. so that upgrading will be easier
(main reason I'd put it of so far).

Thanks for the feedback though..

Leo

Re: (no subject)

[Leo Lapworth]

On Fri, Nov 08, 2002 at 05:27:57PM -, Kevin Gurney wrote:
> Anyone able to shed some light on how i can compare 2 arrays.
> 
> I've tried ==, and this don't seem to work.

You might try:

Array::Compare

http://search.cpan.org/author/DAVECROSS/Array-Compare-1.03/

Hope that helps.

Leo

[ST] Java & SVG.. book ?

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi,

[ST] = Some Topic as who know's whats OT these days
anyway, sorry to polute this list with a Java related
question but you people are just the best I know!
(does that say something about the company I keep.. anyway..)

We're doing a project here which involves SVG will be a
standalone Java app. Does anyone know of any good resources
for this, we've found all the classes and stuff, it's
more the implementation and pits falls that we're after.

We've found (but not bought yet):
- SVG Unleashed - Chris Lilley & Andrew Watt
- Developing SVG-based Web Applications Lorien House (not released until feb)

Either it's not released or they only seem to have a chapter
about these sorts of issues.

Any help / pointers etc would be much appeciated.

Thanks

Leo

p.s. It's not me doing the Java but one of my team so I'm
at a bit of a loss when it comes to the details I'm just trying
to give her as much support as possible.

[JOB] - Contract - Java, SVG, Perl - London

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi all,

I've got a project which will be a standalone 
Java App (unless I can be persuaded to do it in something else)
that will run on bog standard WinDoz laptops.

I'm still getting a spec together in some more detail
(should have it by the end of the week).

The app will allow a user to draw some (fairly detailed) stuff, 
using standard eliments, and out put a very tightly formatted SVG file
which we will then mung (probably with perl) and produce several
versions of, including a PNG.

Indepth understanding of SVG / stylesheets / external defs etc is a must.

So.. is anyone interested ?

I see this as being a 2 month project, though will be looking to do
it as fixed cost - starting ASAP. If you are interested please 
drop me an email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with CV / big note and
I'll email the spec when it's finished. 

I'm going to be at the social tonight so feel free to talk to me
there and I can give you more details.

Please feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested.

Thanks

Leo

Address book / notes system

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi All,

A friend of mine has asked that I create him a system
for storing addresses and notes online.

Some specs (general):
- searchable
- categories
- multiuser with public / private records

Address:
- input / output vcards
- web form input

Notes:
- Title / Body / Category / Date

Possible extentions once base works:
- Different stores / access methods (DBI, CSV, LDAP, WAP etc)
- Allow storing / searching of URIs

So, questions:

1) Does this exist already ?
   - I've had a look on CPAN but nothing quite seems to fit

2) What modules are useful for this ?
   - TT, DBI
   - Meta::Info::Vcard or XML::SAXDriver::vCard (which looks better) ?
   - Are there any others ?
   - Is there something already that encapuslates (simply) data storage 
 formats (DBI vs CSV vs LDAP etc) so I don't have to write a module
 for each one ?

3) What name space should I use ?
   - Address:: doesn't seem right (and is a bit messy already)
   - Data::Jotter or Data::Scratchpad maybe ?

4) Any other comments about standards I should be trying to adhear to ?

Thanks all

Leo

Re: SOAP::Lite IP Address Validation

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Jan 20, 2003 at 12:46:53PM -, Andy Williams (IMAP HILLWAY) wrote:
> I have a SOAP server (using SOAP::Lite) that I only want to access from
> certain IP addresses.
> 
> Is this possible? If so, how do I do it?

Put a firewall in between the SOAP server and then limit access
to what ever port the SOAP is running on to the access machine only.

Ok, non-perl but might work :)

Leo

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Tech Meet Thurs 23rd Jan @ Yahoo! (+ tonight, social meeting)

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi all,

Thanks for a fantastic meeting, very informative and entertaining.

Was sorry I couldn't make the pub after.

I would how ever like to take issue with the directions...

>   "As you stand Ebury Bridge Road will be to your left and there will be a
>   Police Station in the bottom right hand corner. In the top right hand
>   corner will be Yahoo! complete with prominent logo."

WHAT prominent logo!!!

Cheers

Leo

[JOB] - MS stuff!!

[Leo Lapworth]

Sorry to taint the list but I thought some one out
there might be interested.

Foxtons has two perm technical roles available:

1) Technical Architect
--
http://leo.cuckoo.org/tmp/tech_arch.htm
(I've got it in word format for anyone who wants it!)

This role is basically my equivelant but running
internal CRM system and team, rather than the web.
- VB/COM/ASP / SQL Server 7/2000

2) Database Administrator (SQL Server 7/2000) 
-
http://leo.cuckoo.org/tmp/dba.htm
(again in word for those who want it)


Happy to answer questions off list if anyone wants
further info.

Both will be based in Chiswick - Gunnersbury Tube station.

If anyone is interested (please feel free to pass this
on to other people) drop me an email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
and I'll pass your CV on. 

Leo

p.s. I'll fess up - there is a prize draw for refering
people - hence wanting the cv's to come via me, I'll donate
some money to YAS if I win.

p.p.s I think the salaries are going to be fairly good
(I know they want the right people for these roles) but
I don't know the exact figures.

Re: how do I identify a reference to an array?

[Leo Lapworth]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 02:12:43PM +, Martin Bower wrote:
> This works fine, except some keys return a reference to an array.
> Any ideas on how I can indentify a reference to an array so I can deal with 
> it accordingly ?


You want the ref() function.

e.g

foreach my $key (keys %hash_name) {
if(ref($hash_name{$key}) eq 'ARRAY') {
print "It's an array ref";
} else {
..
}
}

Hope that helps.

Leo

Re: technical meeting date

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 08:39:02AM -, HellyerP wrote:
> The next technical meeting is scheduled for a most unlikely date: 
> Thursday 17th March 2003 at Yahoo for a 7.15 pm start 

Ok, I put my hand up - my bad - sorry, now fixed on the website

It was posted to the announce list (which you are subscribed to if
you are part of the main list).

> Announcing the March 2003 Technical Meeting.  This meeting is happening at
> 7pm on the 13th of March,

Sorry for the confusion.

Leo

Anyone have a spare Sun Keyboard ?

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi,

Does anyone have a spare Sun Keyboard I can
borrow for a month (I'd like to pick it up at
the tech meet and give it back the social after).

Yes, it has been said I should use serial console
instead but as I'm doing a complete reinstall
I'd rather use a keyboard.

Oh, it's for an Enterprise 420R if that makes
a difference. I think our keyboard was nicked from 
the co-lo where it used to live.

Cheers

leo

Perl, COM and ADO's - where do I start ?

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi Folks,

To cut a long story short I will be getting access
to a COM interface which will return me ADO RecordSet
objects for some information I need to put
into another (mySQL) database.

I've never used COM, or ADO (Active Data Object) so
I'm looking for some documentation on where to start
or a statment of "It can't be done get them to write
a different interface" (needs to be avoided if possible
for cost reasons).

I've been googleing and CPANing, but nothing seems to 
relate to this situation (actually I might have seen
something but not recognised it!).

Ideals:
---
I would prefer to do this all on a Linux Box, but
a Windoz server could be organised as the processing
bit, then piped out to mySQL on a Linux Box.

This needs to be reasonably fast as it's updating
a constant reporting process - something like
a query every 5 seconds.

Any pointers are much appeciated.

Thanks

Leo

Re: HTML! - JS (like BS but different)

[Leo Lapworth]

>  onChange="javascript:document.forms.form[0].submit"> roughly, IIRC. for
> the first form on the page, of course.

Another way (this is off the top of my head) would be:




...




Leo

Help! - Text::vCard, Mandrake & Unicode ?

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi All,

I'm wondering if someone could give me a hand, I'm
trying to support my Text::vCard module and have someone
with a problem that I don't understand.

I've got it down so I now have a test case,
if I run it on Debian perl 5.8 it works fine.

Test and data file at:
http://leo.cuckoo.org/tmp/Text_vCard_test/

Using Text::vFile 0.5 and Text::vCard 0.8 (latest CPAN)

How ever this person runs it on Mandrake (perl 5.8,
installed via the RPM) they get:

1..3
ok 1 - use Text::vCard;
Unrecognized character \xA0 at test.pl line 14.
# Looks like you planned 3 tests but only ran 1.

Can anyone else replicate this problem ?

Is this some unicode thingy ? From my googleing I've
found that \xA0 is a new line (\n).

Spotted a major error in my docs as well, but that's
a different problem :)

Any help much appreciated.

Cheer

Leo

Re: Help! - Text::vCard, Mandrake & Unicode ?

[Leo Lapworth]

On Sun, Jun 08, 2003 at 12:04:29PM +0100, Anthony Newman wrote:
> > Is this some unicode thingy ? From my googleing I've
> > found that \xA0 is a new line (\n).
> >
> 
> New line ("\n") is \x0A == ASCII 10. Typo?

Umm.. "Unrecognized character \xA0" is what I was told, my
googleing may have matched some typos I guess :)

Leo

Re: assimilating CPAN

[Leo Lapworth]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 11:09:56AM -0500, Elaine -HFB- Ashton wrote:
> Actually, I was quite disappointed to find that Acme::Pr0n wasn't done by
> the Londom.pm. 

I did Acme-Test-Pr0n - does that count :) ?

Leo

p.s. it's a very crap module, mostly to anoy Acme who was giving
about about all the modules in the Acme:: name space so we kept
adding them during last years YAPC :)

[JOB] Web desginer..

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi All,

I'm looking for another web designer to work here at
Foxtons in Gunnersbury, relativly junior possition
but lots of variety.. I'll get a couple of hundred
quid thrown at YAS if we hire through a referal from
here... feel free to pass this on to anyone you think
might be suitable...

Cheers

Leo

The rought spec:

Must have skills:
HTML (version 4, css, DHTML, JavaScript  etc)
Photoshop
Flash
XML

Good to have skills:
SVG / WML
Search engine optimisation.
Understanding of Cross Browser compatibility issues

Foxtons web team are looking for an enthusiastic, motivated and 
talented web designer to work with the existing team on providing 
excellence to the company. Projects vary from web sites and 
intranets to XML driven presentations, plasma screen information 
systems and live video feeds. The web team tries to push the 
boundaries of what can be done with web technology.

You will be someone with experience in developing significant 
web projects and have a good understanding of user interfaces as 
well as a keen interest in web technology and learning in general. 
You will work closely with our senior web designer as well as the 
rest of the team. 

[JOB] Perl developer

[Leo Lapworth]

--- Begin Message ---
Here is the copy of the job spec:

Posted: June 16, 2003

Job title: Perl/Unix/WWW programmer/Startup/London

Company name: Q1Online Ltd.

Location: United Kingdom, London

Pay rate: Negotiable

Terms of employment: Salaried employee

Hours: Full time

Onsite: yes

Description:
Small startup based in London is looking for a perl/unix/www programmer to
protype new projects. Work is original and challenging. Only programmers
with the highest apptitude need apply.
Required skills:
perl/unix/www, knowledge of mail systems and protocols.
URL for more information: http://www.q1online.com/

Contact information: Farrukh Khan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
We are based in North London. I appreciate the help and if I am successful 
in recruiting someone I will be more than happy to make a return the good 
jesture.

Regards

Farrukh

At 08:20 17/06/2003 +0100, you wrote:
Hi,

The best place to put your job add is: http://jobs.perl.org/

If you email me a copy of the spec I will also forward it to
the mailing list.
If either of these is sucessful for you, then a donation to
http://yetanother.org/ or sponsoring http://yapc.mongueurs.net/
would be a very good jesture (how ever large or small).
Cheers

Leo

On Tue, Jun 17, 2003 at 01:49:08AM +0100, Farrukh Khan wrote:
>
>
> Regards
>
>
> Farrukh Khan
> Managing Director
>
> Farrukh Systems Ltd, founded 10th May 1988
> Celebrating 15 years in business.
>
> US: +1 800 601 6907
> Tel: +44 20 8207 4249
> Fax: +44 20 8207 5992
> http://www.farrukh.co.uk
>
>
Regards

Farrukh Khan
Managing Director
Farrukh Systems Ltd, founded 10th May 1988
Celebrating 15 years in business.
US: +1 800 601 6907
Tel: +44 20 8207 4249
Fax: +44 20 8207 5992
http://www.farrukh.co.uk

--- End Message ---

Re: Problem Connecting to IRC?

[Leo Lapworth]

I have been told that irc.perl.org should now be used
instead of anything else, the LPM website has been updated
accordingly.

Cheers

Leo

Re: Orange

[Leo Lapworth]

On Sun, Jul 13, 2003 at 11:50:41AM +0100, Mark Fowler wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Jul 2003, Dave Cross wrote:
> 
> > On a similar note, I assume that Leon only won control of our web site
> > for one year.
>
> As I stated when I took over leadership, I'm not going to fiddle with 
> minor things, so it's up to the webmaster (Leo.)

Well, what with it being YAPC::EU in a couple of weeks, and Mr Greggy
will be running the auction I personally feel that it should be
reauctioned - I'm quite happy to impliment more than just a colour
change - Hmm.. little sheep (http://www.cuckoo.org/features/sheep/)
all over the site - I'd put some cash forward for that...

So I suggest that a few ideas be posted here (people not going can
then join in and give cash to someone who is).

Leo

ADSL modem..

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi folks,

I'm after a bit of advice and yea, I've been off 
and read the ADSLguide etc..

I just want to check I'm not missing something
fundamental as this is for my dad.

He's just got BT Broadband, and they sent him a
USB ADSL modem, but I've already set him up with
an airport base station so the two just don't work together.

What I want to check is; if I get him to buy the
Netgear DM602 Ethernet/USB ADSL NAT Modem 
He should be able to plug that into the ADSL line (RJ-11) and the
airport base station (RJ-45), and with a little config that
should just work ?

That all sound ok ? - I'm sure I'm worrying for nothing,
but you probably know what it's like, tech support over
the phone for your family can be stressful :)

Oh, if anyone knows the config settings I'll need for BT
Broadband, it'd be much appreciated - spent an hour on the
phone to BT last night 6 different numbers and 6 different
dimwits!

Cheers

Leo

Re: iCal meetings?

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 11:30:03AM +0100, Steve Purkis wrote:
> >http://husk.org/misc/irc/london.pm.ics
> 
> oooh, shiny. :)
> 
> Still, would be handy to have an official, auto-generated one on 
> london.pm.org.  Maybe another template?  or a bot that subscribes to 
> the list to do proper updates.. get all the emergency socials, and all 
> that.

Steve - very nice of you to offer to maintain it / write the code :)

Just email me the file(s) (and updates) and I'll put it on the site.

Cheers

Leo

Re: iCal meetings?

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 02:39:13PM +0100, Mark Fowler wrote:
> I'm quite happy to actually maintain the ics file myself, it's the parsing
> and turning it into something else that I need someone else to do.

I know someone working on Text::vCal which should parse ics - I think,
he's the author of Text::vFile - which will be great - once it actually
works :)

Leo

SVG::Graph..

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi Folks,

Quick question.. we've developed a very nice Template Toolkit
template for generating SVG graphs (just line at the moment).

I've had a look some CPAN and seen SVGGraph and SVGGraph::Pie,
neither of which is as configurable as ours

Long term I see us creating
SVG::Graph  - general base module
SVG::Graph::Bar - specific template
SVG::Graph::Line - Got working now - specific template
SVG::Graph::Pie - specific template

So what's the question - well am I stepping on anyone's toes,
are we reinventing the wheel - is there anything anything
else I should check before starting :) ?

Cheers

Leo

Re: SVG::Graph..

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 11:43:31AM +0100, Clayton, Nik [IT] wrote:
> Perhaps you could append ::TT or similar to the end, to allow for the
> possiblity of other modules that do the same thing, but using a different
> ("Burn the heretic!  Burn the heretic!") templating system?
> 
> Then SVG::Graph and friends could just be factories that return objects
> of the appropriate type.

I see what your saying, but it'd be a lot of effort to use a different
templating system just for the sheer hell of it, SVG::Graph just sets up
an object to hold the config and data, the cleaver stuff is actually in 
the TT. I did think that someone might want to do this nativly with
the SVG.pm module... hmm.. so..

SVG::Graph  - Gather data
SVG::Graph::TT  - Burner
SVG::Graph::TT::Line - Template

Then is someone wants they can do..
SVG::Graph::XX - Burner
SVG::Graph::XX::Line - Template or some such.

Is there anything wrong with having SVG::Graph::TT::Line contain
the template under __DATA__ ? - or is there some other way that
templates used by modules should be done ?

Cheers for the help.

Leo

Re: IRC Server/Channel

[Leo Lapworth]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 01:14:50PM +0100, Andy Ford wrote:
> Which is the best perl IRC Server/Channel to use!?

http://london.pm.org/join/

"Join the IRC channel 

irc.perl.org:6667 #London.pm - you'll need an irc client, a piece of
string and one of those washing up liquid bottles. "

Leo

SVG::Graph - online first draft

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi again all...

I'm still going for the SVG::Graph name space, unless
someone can convince me otherwise (I'm quite happy to
change it, but to me it does seem to fit). There seemed 
to be a bit of confusion over what the module was so I've
thrown together the first version and put it up for
your perusal:

http://leo.cuckoo.org/projects/SVG-Graph/

With some example results at:

http://leo.cuckoo.org/projects/SVG-Graph/examples/

This still needs some work, there is very little
validation at the moment but most things work fine.

This shows the line graph, we're just working on the
Bar graph now and Pie chart after that.

This module creates high quality, hightly configurable
SVG Graphs (many many options, and can choose to use
an external style sheet rather than the default one). 

Any feedback would be much appreciated (more on the
overall concept - the code is just a first draft).

Cheers

Leo

Re: SVG::Graph - online first draft

[Leo Lapworth]

On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 12:18:22PM +0200, Robin Berjon wrote:
> >http://leo.cuckoo.org/projects/SVG-Graph/examples/
> 
> Very nice :) I am right now working on a long series of benchmarks, which 
> need to be presented in SVG and PNG. You are saving me from having to write 
> this module ;)

Great :)

I've found that batik (http://xml.apache.org/batik/) converts SVG to 
 PNG very well, all the Perl (ImageMagick for example) conversions
don't give you anything like the quality (loose a lot of the style
sheet info) of the origional.

Bar graphs will be ready sometime later today or tomorrow.

I'll post to the list when they are done.

I've got to double check with da' management about putting the
module on CPAN (don't think it'll be a problem) and want to give others 
more time for feedback about the name space, but I'll keep the version on 
my site up to date.

Cheers

Leo

Re: SVG::Graph..

[Leo Lapworth]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone.

I'm going to rename the module SVG::TT::Graph so we'll have:

SVG::TT::Graph
SVG::TT::Graph::Line
SVG::TT::Graph::Pie
etc..

I don't see any point keeping the burner seperate now (the base
object really doesn't do much, it's all in the template, if someone
really wants to use another template language they can always
overload the burn method).

Most kudos to Stephen Morgan the guy who actually created the
templates.

Thanks again.

Leo

p.s. will post when we have a new version up.

SVG::TT::Graph - now with Bar Graphs.

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi All,

Ok, we've got first versions of bar graphs as requested,
Pie charts on the way.

Examples: 

http://leo.cuckoo.org/projects/SVG-TT-Graph/examples/

Code:

http://leo.cuckoo.org/projects/SVG-TT-Graph/

The API isn't likely to change much, but I won't
promise anything at this stage.

Still more validation to do, tests and a bit more
documentation.

Got a few ideas, such as being able to clear the data
so you can reuse the object to create multipul graphs etc,
but these will get added once we've got the Pie
graph done.

Cheers

Leo

Now Married!

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi All,

Well the deed is done - I'm now a married man :)

Photos (first hundred - got about 1000 in total!)
http://leo.cuckoo.org/cgi-bin/yapi/yapi.cgi/Wedding

Leo

SVG::TT::Graph - now with Pie.

[Leo Lapworth]

SVG::TT::Graph hit CPAN this morning.

Version 0.2 has line, bar and pie charts.

Thanks to everyone for their input.

Leo

Re: Database setup

[Leo Lapworth]

I did something ages ago to convert an XML formatted file
into the relevant SQL (was for postgress and I got it working
for MySQL once as well). The nice thing was it also spat
out the HTML documentation for the table as well.

http://leo.cuckoo.org/projects/xml_db_schema/

It's very rough and I wouldn't use it today.

Ken Clark contacted me - he does SQL Translator

http://search.cpan.org/author/KCLARK/SQL-Translator-0.02/

It's not quite what your after but he said he'll get it doing
XML input sometime.

Hmm, so this might not be of use, but I thought I'd
mention it.

Leo

Re: [job advert] looking for a perl person to write a web control panel

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi Martin,

Thank you for using Perl - and thank you for offering people the chance to
work on your project. I hope you are successful in finding someone.

Leo

Re: Apple service providers

[Leo Lapworth]

2008/10/7 Simon Wilcox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> So my macbook died[1] and I need to get it fixed under applecare.


If it wasn't under applecare I'd suggest: http://www.thebookyard.com/

Don't know any Auth guys though I'm afraid.

Leo

Re: perl script with iptables, problem

[Leo Lapworth]

2008/10/14 Davut Topcan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Hi folks,
>
> I downloaded a perl script, but I can't run... because I got an error
> message , the message is below;
>
> linux-oo0m:/media/DAVUT/Projects/Odakk/QUEUE/countertrace-1.0 #
> ./example-startup-script.sh
> *Can't locate IPTables/IPv4/IPQueue.pm *in @INC (@INC contains:
> /usr/lib/perl5/5.10.0/x86_64-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/5.10.0
> /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/x86_64-linux-thread-multi
> /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0
> /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0/x86_64-linux-thread-multi
> /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl .) at
> ./countertrace line 16.
> BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ./countertrace line 16.

http://search.cpan.org/~jmorris/perlipq-1.25/IPQueue.pm

Have you installed that from CPAN?

Leo

LPW: Slides... DBIC and new recommendations!

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi,

I've put the slides from my talk (the 20 min version) online:

http://www.slideshare.net/ranguard/dbixclass-beginners-presentation/

After a discussion with Matt Trout in the pub I am not as convinced about my
tip of putting an 's' at the end of a table name (there's now a comment in
the slides to this effect), but I need to do some testing before I work out
what I would actually recommend, at the moment I'd suggest consistency is
the best approach and adding the 's' does still make the relationships
clearer when your learning, even if as Matt points out it makes the Result::
package name a bit odd (Result::Authors, being for a single author).

Matt's going to review the talk so I may put up a second version at some
stage.

Anyway thanks to everyone that made is such a great day.

Enjoy!

Leo

Re: Sharding, and all that

[Leo Lapworth]

2008/12/18 Mark Fowler 

> It's nearly the new year and the time for new projects.  On my project
> radar for next year is "consider (better) sharding our MySQL database."


I came across this and noted it for future reference:

http://spockproxy.sourceforge.net/ - doh, just read the rest of your email -
you've already found it

http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/ - seems to know their stuff so you
might find something in here.

Leo

Re: Reminder: the Perl Reddit

[Leo Lapworth]

2008/12/19 Andy Wardley 

> Can I take this opportunity to remind people about the Perl Reddit.
>  


It's also worth checking out:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/perl

There are already several people making sure Perl questions are answered,
but the more the merrier! - I've also found it a useful place to look up
answers.

Leo

Re: Today's MySQL Suckage

[Leo Lapworth]

2009/1/23 Andy Wardley 

> I have a file which defines a MySQL database schema.  It looks a bit
> like this:
>
>   /*
>   This table defines users of the
>   system who are Buffy fans.
>   */
>
>   CREATE TABLE buffy_fans (
>   ..etc...
>   );
>
> I feed it in thusly:
>
>   $ mysql < my_db_schema.sql


Does:

$ cat my_db_schema.sql | mysql

Work any better?

Leo

Tickets to Traces... tonight...

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi All,

Due to a general condition of being Ill I've got 3 tickets to:

http://www.sadlerswells.com/show/Traces

TONIGHT at 7:30

I can have them left at the ticket office in some ones name, obviously
you don't have to use
them all.

Face value of 108 quid, so I'd like something for them, but they'll
goto waste otherwise.

Please email me off list if your interested, first person with a
reasonable offer will get them.

Cheers

Leo

Re: Action address in HTML forms

[Leo Lapworth]

2009/3/3 Zbigniew Lukasiak 

> When there are some invalid values sent from a form - then the usual
> custom is to redisplay the same form with the appriopriate error
> messages.  Thus the form needs to be redisplayed at it's own 'action'
> address.   Is it then a reasonable rule when writing a 'high level web
> library/framework' to restrict the forms to always submit to their own
> address?


Not sure this really scratches your itch.. but... are you using something
like:

http://search.cpan.org/~nwiger/CGI-FormBuilder-3.0501/

http://search.cpan.org/~tjmather/HTML-FillInForm-2.00/

There are Catalyst plugins for both of  these, if your really after a
framework :)

Leo

Re: Empty Hash Values

[Leo Lapworth]

2009/4/12 Nigel Peck 

>
> When I create a hash like this:
>
> my $hash = {
>element_1 => 'example',
>element_2 => $var,
>element_3 => $var2
> };
>
> If $var is undefined, then the value of 'element_2' becomes 'element_3'.
> Not what I want.


I can not replicate this... code below?

I'm on perl v5.8.8


use strict;
use warnings;

my $var;
my $var2 = 'bla';

my $hash = {
 element_1 => 'example',
 element_2 => $var,
 element_3 => $var2,
};

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper($hash);

> perl test.pl
$VAR1 = {
  'element_3' => 'bla',
  'element_2' => undef,
  'element_1' => 'example'
};

Re: Best practice for releasing Perl modules to staging and live

[Leo Lapworth]

2009/5/18 ian :
> How best to ensure different environments have the same versions of Perl
> modules?

If you can use debian (or other packaged based OS) then build
everything as packages and run a package server that all machines
install off.

http://code.google.com/p/cpan-debian-package-builder/ - is a mess, but
with a bit or poking works very well (for our environment).

We package into a dev package server, then rsync to live package
server when deploying.

Hope that helps.

Leo

Re: Managed hosting suppliers?

[Leo Lapworth]

Depends what 'managed' means...

You could look at Gandi (have a web interface for installing stuff if you
don't want to get your hands dirty) or Amazon EC2, but both of those are
more manage hardware as it's all virtual machines.

I'm using both so drop me a line if you have any specific questions.

Leo

Re: Genius plan for the website!

[Leo Lapworth]

2009/7/3 Dave Hodgkinson 

>
> On 3 Jul 2009, at 12:32, Edmund von der Burg wrote:
>
>>
>>  3) tiny, simple, bulletproof script to take templates and generate html
>> pages
>>
>
> Apache::Template FTW! Then cache on the front.
>

/me passed Edmund the can of worms and points to the JFDI mistake

Leo

Re: London.pm Technical Meeting 30th July 2009

[Leo Lapworth]

2009/7/28 Dirk Koopman 

> Dave Cross wrote:
>
>> On 27/07/2009 21:14, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 27 Jul 2009, at 19:23, Dave Cross wrote:
>>>

 The Old Town Hall is opposite the Gumtree offices on Whittaker Avenue.
>>>
>>>
http://www.richmond.gov.uk/home/community_and_living/local_maps/car_parks_map.htm

I use "Paradise Road, Richmond, TW9 1SQ" (number 18) quite a bit (note the
one way!) and it's always seemed reasonable prices, I think there is a
discount for after 6:30.

Leo

DBIx::Class beginners - slides

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi,

Thanks all for the talks last night... my slides are here:

http://www.slideshare.net/ranguard/dbixclass-beginners-presentation

Sorry I didn't make it to the pub, but if anyone has more questions drop me
an email, or catch me in Lisbon.

Leo

New LPM website (ish)!

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi,

Guilted into it over 7 years (when I first rewrote the LPM site) I've
rewritten it again:

The main reason for the rewrite was that it was so hard to even add new
meeting dates (the last 3 meeting dates did not make it on to the website)!

No longer is it a mess of XML and scripts and weird loops and dependencies
(ok, so it uses Catalyst so that last one isn't exactly true).

Other than that the bigger changes (all to make it simpler to manager and
maintain) are:

1) Meeting Calendar is now in Google calendar, and it automatically updates
the site (through the use of widgets, this is the modern era - if you don't
have JavaScript - subscribe to the announce maiing list or feeds instead),
and the old ICS/Atom feeds redirect to the google URLs.

2) Who (list of people) was out of date and hard to maintain, *we now use
Google FriendConnect (so please go add yourself if you like).
*
3) Old photos have gone (if someone wants to take on uploading them to
flickr I'll link to that, I have a copy of them - for now)

4) The *old svn server has been turned off* (that was on the same box) and
we now use google code (see link on site).

5) No you can not change the colour scheme

http://london.pm.org/

So, hopefully the site will now stay up-to-date and be a little more useful
because of it.

Enjoy

Leo

ps. we live in a dictatorship so please don't even consider starting a
debate over any of the merits / problems with any of this - thanks :)

Re: Looking for a secondhand Datahand Pro II

[Leo Lapworth]

2009/10/21 Paul Makepeace 

> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 12:37 AM, gbjk  wrote:
> > I've been looking for a datahand pro II.
> > http://www.datahand.com/products/proii.htm
>
> I don't have one of those but I do have a Kinesis Advantage,
> http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage.htm
>

I have one of these at work, the keys mapped to your thumb alone (esc as I'm
a vim user from time to time, but also delete and return) is worth it.

Took about a week of feeling like I couldn't type at all, then a week at
half speed, then back to full speed after that, and I can happily switch to
'normal' keyboards and back again as the layout is mostly the same. If you
do get one make sure to follow the manual to help with muscle memory, that
made a bigger difference than I thought it would.

Leo

Re: Books to get rid of

[Leo Lapworth]

If your giving stuff away have you come across:

http://www.uk.freecycle.org/ ?

Leo

2009/11/8 Dave Hodgkinson 

>
> I have two archive boxes of books to get rid of:
>
> http://homepage.mac.com/davehodg/deliciouslibrary/
>
> Some techie/web ones and quite a few skeptic/brain ones.
>
> I'd like money for some, but many I'll let go for nowt. Or take to
> a charidee shop. Depends on what Delicious library says.
>
> Anyone?
>
> --
> Dave HodgkinsonMSN: daveh...@hotmail.com
> Site: http://www.davehodgkinson.com  UK: +44 7768 490620
> Blog: http://www.davehodgkinson.com/blog
> Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davehodg
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: New www.perl.org site

[Leo Lapworth]

2009/11/13 Chris Devers 

> On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 5:29 AM, Simon Wilcox  wrote:
> >
> > For those who've not seen it elsewhere, congratulations to our very own
> Leo
> > Lapworth and the guys at Foxtons for the shiny redesign of www.perl.org.
> >
> > Nice work Leo. Thank you !
>
> Not to be contrarian, but is there any particular reason why random
> bits of text in the main banner need to be Flash assets rather than an
> open format like PNG or -- gosh -- text+CSS?
>
> Here's how the page looks with ClickToFlash installed on a Mac:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdevers/4100134153/
>
> The page goes back to normal after clicking through the CTF filter:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdevers/4100890522/
>

We wanted to

1) be able to easily change the message on the home page (it rotates between
two at the moment, but we can add more later and use for other sites, e.g.
dbi.perl.org)
2) use a non-web font
3) work with non-flash browers

The site uses  sIFR. If you didn't have flash installed then you would see
HTML+CSS. sIFR take the HTML and renders it in the font of choice.

So we do degrade nicely if you don't have Flash or are a search engine.

Cheers

Leo

Re: New www.perl.org site

[Leo Lapworth]

2009/11/15 Simon Elliott 

>  >> I wasn't aware of iSFR. Now I am.
> >>
>
> typeface.js (http://typeface.neocracy.org/) is generally considered a
> better solution these days.
>

Woo - that looks interesting - will have a play thanks.

Leo

Re: Old website tech_talks content

[Leo Lapworth]

2010/1/10 Nigel Metheringham 

> The http://london.pm.org/tech_talks/ content went AWOL in the website
> makeover.
>
> Is it available anywhere else?
>

http://web.archive.org/web/2007020059/http://london.pm.org/tech_talks/

There are some copies of the files on the LPM server, but not in an easy
state to sort.

Leo