7 reasons why Yii framework is better than CodeIgniter

I guess this will not be the first nor the last text comparing those two frameworks, but I got so amazed with Yii that I have to write it.

Let’s be clear, CodeIgniter is just a little bit more of a simple MVC framework. Yii is a complete web-development framework used for rapid web application development. Let’s compare them in detail…

CodeIgniter is great for beginners. If you barely have a clue what MVC stands for, I highly recommend it. It features great tutorials and is super-easy to learn. If you want to learn what MVC is and how to use it, take a look at CodeIgniter video tutorials. CodeIgniter enables you to go into coding really fast and create basic stuff quickly. But, that’s all. It’s great to learn MVC, and it works fine even for large websites. However, you have to do a lot of things by hand. If you’re experienced PHP developer you might even be used to that and you won’t see anything missing in CodeIgniter.

I built a couple of websites using CodeIgniter, most visited on is slagalica.tv with about 30k visits/day.

From 2009 on I was testing Yii, but I only got to use it for the real project last month. Be prepared, if you are not experienced with MVC frameworks, you might find the learning curve really steep. Yii is very powerful, but to harness the power you need to learn all the features and the way stuff is done in yii. Instead of just going in and coding, take some time to read the docs, wiki and create some simple small project to learn it. Whenever you are doing something that seems like too much manual work, look for ready-made yii-way solution.

So, what makes Yii so much better? I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just enumerate:

1. Gii code generator. Gii can create template models, views, controllers and forms. The special case CRUD really makes it stand out. You simply give it the database table name, and it creates model with all the attributes. You just define data type (numeric, etc.) whether field is required, and those rules get applied ALWAYS when you try to save/update the data. In CodeIgniter, you need to validate it on each action. The difference is that CodeIgniter is form-oriented while Yii is data-oriented
2. Form handling. Gii generated forms use “active” fields. This means that when some field is not validated, yii would display the same form to fix the problem with all the data filled in
3. HTML Grid component. Enables to display data in tabular way with automatic sorting, paging, coloring of even and odd rows, etc.
4. jQuery integration. This means that stuff like date-picker or auto-complete input boxes are usually one line of PHP code and Yii spits out all the required Javascript, HTML and CSS code.
5. Translations. Creating multilingual websites in Yii is really easy. With CodeIgniter you would have to create your own way of doing it.
6. Database relations. Yii supports lazy loading. This means that you don’t have to write JOINs each time you need to get a value of related table (for example: name of author of a blog post). If you have a ActiveRecord instance of blog post as $post, you simply refer to author’s name like this: $post->author->name. Yii would execute the needed SQL to get it.
7. Consistency. Yii is much better choice if you have multiple developers working on the project. Yii introduces rules how stuff should be done, and there is no reinventing the whell. This means that all developers create the code that others can pick up easily.

Example of site I’m building using Yii: setlopta.com. There’s a link to English version in top-right corner.

source : http://www.backwardcompatible.net/123-7-reasons-why-yii-framework-is-better-than-codeigniter

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SQL Server - Date Formats

SQL Server Date Formats

One of the most frequently asked questions in SQL Server forums is how to format a datetime value or column into a specific date format.  Here's a summary of the different date formats that come standard in SQL Server as part of the CONVERT function.  Following the standard date formats are some extended date formats that are often asked by SQL Server developers.

It is worth to note that the output of these date formats are of VARCHAR data types already and not of DATETIME data type.  With this in mind, any date comparisons performed after the datetime value has been formatted are using the VARCHAR value of the date and time and not its original DATETIME value.

Standard Date Formats Date Format Standard SQL Statement Sample Output Mon DD YYYY 1 HH:MIAM (or PM) Default SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), GETDATE(), 100) Jan 1 2005 1:29PM 1 MM/DD/YY USA SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 1) AS [MM/DD/YY] 11/23/98 MM/DD/YYYY USA SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 101) AS [MM/DD/YYYY] 11/23/1998 YY.MM.DD ANSI SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 2) AS [YY.MM.DD] 72.01.01 YYYY.MM.DD ANSI SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 102) AS [YYYY.MM.DD] 1972.01.01 DD/MM/YY British/French SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 3) AS [DD/MM/YY] 19/02/72 DD/MM/YYYY British/French SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 103) AS [DD/MM/YYYY] 19/02/1972 DD.MM.YY German SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 4) AS [DD.MM.YY] 25.12.05 DD.MM.YYYY German SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 104) AS [DD.MM.YYYY] 25.12.2005 DD-MM-YY Italian SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 5) AS [DD-MM-YY] 24-01-98 DD-MM-YYYY Italian SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 105) AS [DD-MM-YYYY] 24-01-1998 DD Mon YY 1 - SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(9), GETDATE(), 6) AS [DD MON YY] 04 Jul 06 1 DD Mon YYYY 1 - SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(11), GETDATE(), 106) AS [DD MON YYYY] 04 Jul 2006 1 Mon DD, YY 1 - SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 7) AS [Mon DD, YY] Jan 24, 98 1 Mon DD, YYYY 1 - SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(12), GETDATE(), 107) AS [Mon DD, YYYY] Jan 24, 1998 1 HH:MM:SS - SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 108) 03:24:53 Mon DD YYYY HH:MI:SS:MMMAM (or PM) 1 Default + milliseconds SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(26), GETDATE(), 109) Apr 28 2006 12:32:29:253PM 1 MM-DD-YY USA SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 10) AS [MM-DD-YY] 01-01-06 MM-DD-YYYY USA SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 110) AS [MM-DD-YYYY] 01-01-2006 YY/MM/DD - SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 11) AS [YY/MM/DD] 98/11/23 YYYY/MM/DD - SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 111) AS [YYYY/MM/DD] 1998/11/23 YYMMDD ISO SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(6), GETDATE(), 12) AS [YYMMDD] 980124 YYYYMMDD ISO SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 112) AS [YYYYMMDD] 19980124 DD Mon YYYY HH:MM:SS:MMM(24h) 1 Europe default + milliseconds SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(24), GETDATE(), 113) 28 Apr 2006 00:34:55:190 1 HH:MI:SS:MMM(24H) - SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(12), GETDATE(), 114) AS [HH:MI:SS:MMM(24H)] 11:34:23:013 YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI:SS(24h) ODBC Canonical SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(19), GETDATE(), 120) 1972-01-01 13:42:24 YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI:SS.MMM(24h) ODBC Canonical (with milliseconds) SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(23), GETDATE(), 121) 1972-02-19 06:35:24.489 YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS:MMM ISO8601 SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(23), GETDATE(), 126) 1998-11-23T11:25:43:250 DD Mon YYYY HH:MI:SS:MMMAM 1 Kuwaiti SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(26), GETDATE(), 130) 28 Apr 2006 12:39:32:429AM 1 DD/MM/YYYY HH:MI:SS:MMMAM Kuwaiti SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(25), GETDATE(), 131) 28/04/2006 12:39:32:429AM

Here are some more date formats that does not come standard in SQL Server as part of the CONVERT function. Extended Date Formats Date Format SQL Statement Sample Output YY-MM-DD SELECT SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 120), 3, 8) AS [YY-MM-DD] SELECT REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 11), '/', '-') AS [YY-MM-DD] 99-01-24 YYYY-MM-DD SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 120) AS [YYYY-MM-DD] SELECT REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 111), '/', '-') AS [YYYY-MM-DD] 1999-01-24 MM/YY SELECT RIGHT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 3), 5) AS [MM/YY] SELECT SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 3), 4, 5) AS [MM/YY] 08/99 MM/YYYY SELECT RIGHT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 103), 7) AS [MM/YYYY] 12/2005 YY/MM SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(5), GETDATE(), 11) AS [YY/MM] 99/08 YYYY/MM SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(7), GETDATE(), 111) AS [YYYY/MM] 2005/12 Month DD, YYYY 1 SELECT DATENAME(MM, GETDATE()) + RIGHT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(12), GETDATE(), 107), 9) AS [Month DD, YYYY] July 04, 20061 Mon YYYY1 SELECT SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR(11), GETDATE(), 113), 4, 8) AS [Mon YYYY] Apr 2006 1 Month YYYY 1 SELECT DATENAME(MM, GETDATE()) + ' ' + CAST(YEAR(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(4)) AS [Month YYYY] February 2006 1 DD Month1 SELECT CAST(DAY(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(2)) + ' ' + DATENAME(MM, GETDATE()) AS [DD Month] 11 September 1 Month DD1 SELECT DATENAME(MM, GETDATE()) + ' ' + CAST(DAY(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(2)) AS [Month DD] September 11 1 DD Month YY 1 SELECT CAST(DAY(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(2)) + ' ' + DATENAME(MM, GETDATE()) + ' ' + RIGHT(CAST(YEAR(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(4)), 2) AS [DD Month YY] 19 February 72 1 DD Month YYYY 1 SELECT CAST(DAY(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(2)) + ' ' + DATENAME(MM, GETDATE()) + ' ' + CAST(YEAR(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(4)) AS [DD Month YYYY] 11 September 2002 1 MM-YY SELECT RIGHT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 5), 5) AS [MM-YY] SELECT SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 5), 4, 5) AS [MM-YY] 12/92 MM-YYYY SELECT RIGHT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 105), 7) AS [MM-YYYY] 05-2006 YY-MM SELECT RIGHT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(7), GETDATE(), 120), 5) AS [YY-MM] SELECT SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 120), 3, 5) AS [YY-MM] 92/12 YYYY-MM SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(7), GETDATE(), 120) AS [YYYY-MM] 2006-05 MMDDYY SELECT REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 1), '/', '') AS [MMDDYY] 122506 MMDDYYYY SELECT REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 101), '/', '') AS [MMDDYYYY] 12252006 DDMMYY SELECT REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 3), '/', '') AS [DDMMYY] 240702 DDMMYYYY SELECT REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 103), '/', '') AS [DDMMYYYY] 24072002 Mon-YY 1 SELECT REPLACE(RIGHT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(9), GETDATE(), 6), 6), ' ', '-') AS [Mon-YY] Sep-02 1 Mon-YYYY1 SELECT REPLACE(RIGHT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(11), GETDATE(), 106), 8), ' ', '-') AS [Mon-YYYY] Sep-2002 1 DD-Mon-YY 1 SELECT REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(9), GETDATE(), 6), ' ', '-') AS [DD-Mon-YY] 25-Dec-05 1 DD-Mon-YYYY 1 SELECT REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(11), GETDATE(), 106), ' ', '-') AS [DD-Mon-YYYY] 25-Dec-20051 1 To make the month name in upper case, simply use the UPPER string function.

source: http://www.sql-server-helper.com/tips/date-formats.aspx

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Displays a list of files and subdirectories in a directory

Example : DIR  /C /O:N > filename.txt
->get list of files with file size and put into text file

enjoy IT.

DIR [drive:][path][filename] [/A[[:]attributes]] [/B] [/C] [/D] [/L] [/N]
  [/O[[:]sortorder]] [/P] [/Q] [/R] [/S] [/T[[:]timefield]] [/W] [/X] [/4]

  [drive:][path][filename]
              Specifies drive, directory, and/or files to list.

  /A          Displays files with specified attributes.
  attributes   D  Directories                R  Read-only files
               H  Hidden files               A  Files ready for archiving
               S  System files               I  Not content indexed files
               L  Reparse Points             -  Prefix meaning not
  /B          Uses bare format (no heading information or summary).
  /C          Display the thousand separator in file sizes.  This is the
              default.  Use /-C to disable display of separator.
  /D          Same as wide but files are list sorted by column.
  /L          Uses lowercase.
  /N          New long list format where filenames are on the far right.
  /O          List by files in sorted order.
  sortorder    N  By name (alphabetic)       S  By size (smallest first)
               E  By extension (alphabetic)  D  By date/time (oldest first)
               G  Group directories first    -  Prefix to reverse order
  /P          Pauses after each screenful of information.
  /Q          Display the owner of the file.
  /R          Display alternate data streams of the file.
  /S          Displays files in specified directory and all subdirectories.
  /T          Controls which time field displayed or used for sorting
  timefield   C  Creation
              A  Last Access
              W  Last Written
  /W          Uses wide list format.
  /X          This displays the short names generated for non-8dot3 file
              names.  The format is that of /N with the short name inserted
              before the long name. If no short name is present, blanks are
              displayed in its place.
  /4          Displays four-digit years

Switches may be preset in the DIRCMD environment variable.  Override
preset switches by prefixing any switch with - (hyphen)--for example, /-W.

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Get Latitude and Longitude values from Google Maps

Google Maps do not display latitude and longitude values, but there is an easy trick to get these numbers. This technique will provide the latitude and longitude coordinates of the center of the map displayed by Google Maps.

Looking up an address in Google Maps will center the map on that address if it was found. Because this trick provides the latitude and longitude of the center of the map, moving the map around manually after that will change the center position and this technique will not work accurately.

When the location you want is in the center of the map, copy and paste this code into the location bar of your browser and press enter:

javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));

A little dialog box will pop up displaying the coordinates which can be copied and pasted for use elsewhere. This code can be bookmarked and then used in the future by selecting the bookmark.

If you don’t like using javascript, you can use the easy way to find latitude and longitude

source

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Create a selection theme and "reverse selection theme."

Product: MapXtreme Java
Version: 4.5
Platform: Not Platform Related
Category: Code Samples

Summary:
Create a selection theme and "reverse selection theme."

Question:
This code sample creates a selection theme on the selected feature, and a second selection theme on all other features in the layer.

Answer:

// Assumptions
// selectedLayer is type Layer & represents the layer the selections are being created on
// mapj is type MapJ
// columnName is type String & represents a column name of the layer data

selectedLayer.setSelectable(true);
selectedLayer.getThemeList().removeAll();

// define a selection obj & selection theme rendition for the NON-SELECTED features
Selection sel1 = new Selection();
SelectionTheme nonselectedTheme = new SelectionTheme("non-selected features");
Rendition nonselThemeRend = new RenditionImpl();
nonselThemeRend.setValue(Rendition.FILL, Color.blue);
nonselectedTheme.setRendition(nonselThemeRend);
nonselectedTheme.setSelection(sel1);

// define a selection obj and selection theme rendition for the SELECTED features
Selection sel2 = new Selection();
SelectionTheme selectedTheme = new SelectionTheme("selected feature");
Rendition selThemeRend = new RenditionImpl();
selThemeRend.setValue(Rendition.FILL, Color.yellow);
selectedTheme.setRendition(selThemeRend);
selectedTheme.setSelection(sel2);

// get all the features from this layer and add them to the selection object
// add the theme to the theme list
// dispose of the feature set then get the feature the user clicked on...
// ... and remove it from the selection
FeatureSet fsAll = null;
FeatureSet fsAtPoint = null;
RewindableFeatureSet rwFs = null;
ArrayList colNames = new ArrayList();
colNames.add(columnName);
try
{
fsAll = selectedLayer.searchAll(colNames, null);
sel1.add(fsAll);
selectedLayer.getThemeList().add(nonselectedTheme);
selectedLayer.getThemeList().add(selectedTheme);
fsAll.dispose();

fsAtPoint = selectedLayer.searchAtPoint(colNames, dp,null);
rwFs = new RewindableFeatureSet(fsAtPoint);
Feature ft = rwFs.getNextFeature();
rwFs.rewind();
sel1.remove(ft);
sel2.add(rwFs);
}
catch(Exception e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}

SOURCE

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Merge two or more Shapefiles or TAB files

GeoMerge is a geoprocessing utility that allows you to merge two or more shapefiles or TAB files into a single shapefile.

Select two or more shapefiles or TAB files that are to be merged, and click the 'Merge Files' button. The files will be validated for a common schema. If all of the files selected have exactly the same column definitions in the .dbf file the records and shapes from each individual file will be concatenated into a new shapefile.

Features

GeoMerge currently supports the following formats without conversion:

• ESRI Shapefile
• MapInfo TAB

GeoMerge is FREE for Internet Download! Just download and run the GeoMerge.exe file to start the installation procedure, then follow the instructions displayed on your screen.

Download

File:

GeoMerge.exe

Version: 1.0.1

Size: 580 KB

http://www.vdstech.com/geomerge.htm

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Oracle Buys Sun, approximately $7.4 billion

Hmm .. apa yang akan terjadi selanjutnya ?
MySQL yang udah dibeli Sun bakal jadi dikubur ?
Atau akan ada MyOracle dengan lisensi Bebas (free), hehe ...


Redwood Shores, CA - April 20, 2009

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt. “We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle’s earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,” said Oracle President Safra Catz.

“The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system – applications to disk – where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”

readmore on http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/018363

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