Using Apple’s nasm one can compile a working XviD binary using the x86 asm that will run on Core Duo systems. Thanks to Christoph Naegeli and Andrea Gianarro for the following information.

Enter the build/generic directory in the xvid source directory, run bootstrap.sh and (for bash) run:

./configure --enable-macosx_module

Then edit build/generic/platform.inc and ADD the flags shown below:
"-undefined suppress" to SPECIFIC_CFLAGS
"-f macho -DPREFIX" to AFLAGS (so it reads AFLAGS="AFLAGS=-I$(<D)/ -f macho -DPREFIX")
"-read_only_relocs suppress" to SPECIFIC_LDFLAGS

Here’s my platform.inc if you would like to have a look to check you’ve edited it correctly.

Then make and make install as usual.

I also change -O2 to -O3 and add “-march=prescott” to the CFLAGS and configure with –prefix=/usr/local . The CFLAGS enable some GCC optimisations. There is debate as to whether the use of -march with “pentium-m” or “prescott” is better for the Core processors. I haven’t particularly researched it all that much but the Core is supposedly a heavily reworked Pentium 3 that is a bit like a Pentium M, has the same instruction set as the Prescott and behaves more like the NetBurst architecture. As such -march=prescott is supposed to be the most appropriate choice. When I get bored someday I’ll run some benchmarks and test to see which is faster.

OK, so I recently created this code with VBS, but it would work with ASP as well. Basically, you need to place the script in a folder where it can get write permissions to create the XML file. Then you'll connect to the Access database like you would normally. Although to be perfectly honest, you could use this script to create an XML from data in just about any type of database that you can connect to!

'=== declare variables
Dim objConn, strConnect, strSQL, rs, tb, mdbFile, objFSO, xmlFile, objWrite

'=== filename variables
xmlFile = Server.MapPath(""inventory.xml")
mdbFile = Server.MapPath("database.mdb")

'=== tab character for xml file
tb = chr(9)

'=== instantiate objects
set objFSO  = Server.CreateObject( "Scripting.FileSystemObject" )
Set objConn = Server.CreateObject( "ADODB.Connection" )

'=== connect to database
objConn.Open "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" & mdbFile

'=== open/create xml file
If Not objFSO.FileExists( xmlFile ) Then objFSO.CreateTextFile( xmlFile )
set objWrite = objFSO.OpenTextFile( xmlFile, 2 )

'=== open the xml file
objWrite.WriteLine("<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""ISO-8859-1""?>")
objWrite.WriteLine("<data>")

strSQL = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE 1=1"
Set rs = objConn.Execute(StrSQL)

'=== loop through results
Do While not rs.EOF
    objWrite.WriteLine(tb & "<item>")
    objWrite.WriteLine(tb & tb & "<id>" & rs("id") & "</id>")
    objWrite.WriteLine(tb & tb & "<product>" & replace(rs("product"),"&","&amp;") & "</product>")
    objWrite.WriteLine(tb & tb & "<color>" & rs("color") & "</color>")
    objWrite.WriteLine(tb & tb & "<size>" & rs("size") & "</size>")
    objWrite.WriteLine(tb & "</item>")
    rs.MoveNext
Loop

'=== finish xml file
objWrite.WriteLine("</data>")
objWrite.Close()

Tracking a visitor's geographical location (ie. country, region, city, latitude, longitude, ZIP code, ISP and domain name) used to be a cool trick. Now it is an integral part of many websites, enabling them to identify the locations from where they're getting the maximum traffic; and tune your webpages accordingly. It also enables you to modify the site according to location, or send users to specific sections (ie. show prices in CAD for Canadian visitors).

It is relatively easy to use this technology on your website with IP2Location's proprietary IP address lookup database. This database is free for the IP-Country version. Of you need more details like region, city, latitude, longitude, ZIP code, ISP and domain name for the IP address, you need to purchase the full database.

To determine the user's location by their IP address, you need to perform these three steps:

1. Retrieve the visitors' IP address
Here are the functions to get the IP address using ASP, PHP, an .Net (C# & VB.Net).

2. Convert the visitor's IP address to an IP Number
Here are the functions to convert an IP address to an IP number using ASP, PHP, an .Net (C# & VB.Net).

3. Locate the IP Number in the IP-Country database
Example: the IP Address 202.186.13.4 converts to IP Number 3401190660. It is between the beginning and the ending of the following IP numbers:
"3401056256","3401400319","MY","MALAYSIA"

From the IP-Country recordset, the Country_Name with this IP number range is Malaysia, the Country_Code is MY.

So once you have the IP Number, here's the SQL Query to locate the matching recordset:

SELECT country_name FROM ip_to_country WHERE
[your IP number] BETWEEN ip_start AND ip_end

Of course, you need to download the IP2Country database.

Every visitor to your site or web application has an IP address. It is quite handy to be able to get that address. It can be used for security logging, or perhaps tracing. It can also be used to determine where they are in the world, or at least where their ISP is.

The difficulty is when they're behind a proxy of some sort, you only see the IP address of the proxy server. So, here are the code snippets in PHP, ASP and .Net that first check for an IP addresses that's forwarded from behind a proxy, and if there's none then just get the IP address.

Here it is in PHP

<?
    if (getenv(HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR)) {
        $ip_address = getenv(HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR);
    } else {
        $ip_address = getenv(REMOTE_ADDR);
    }
?>

And here's how to get the IP address in ASP

<%
    ip_address = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR")
    if ip_address = "" then
        ip_address = Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR")
    end if
%>

And here's the IP retriever with proxy detection in .Net (C#)

public string IpAddress()
{
    string strIpAddress;
    strIpAddress = Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"];
    if (strIpAddress == null)
    {
       strIpAddress = Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"];
    }
    return strIpAddress;
}

And here's the same IP retriever with proxy detection in .Net, but in VB.Net

Public Function IpAddress()
    Dim strIpAddress As String
    strIpAddress = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR")
    If strIpAddress = "" Then
       strIpAddress = Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR")
    End If
    IpAddress = strIpAddress
End Function

I used to work on a web application that tracked hardware inventory. I was requested to build a feature into the report page to be able to export to Excel (.xls) format.

Initially I looked into the code to instantiate a new spreadsheet object, and build the rows and cells one by one programatically. But I found a much simpler solution.

1. Create your report in HTML table format the same as you would your report page.
2. Strip out any header/footer info from the page, everything except the table.
3. Insert this line of code in the ASP header:

<% response.ContentType ="application/x-excel" %>

The table will be produced in HTML by the ASP server the same as it would on the report page. However, the returned content type is marked as .xls, so it will open in Excel as a spreadsheet!

When running events and event registrations on a website, it's very beneficial for users to be able to add the even details to their calendars without having to manually enter them. To do this, you need to generate a .vcs file or output to send to the user. You can either generate this and return it in .vcs encoding, but in this code example I'll show you how to actually create a .vcs file, and store it on the server.

This code assume that you've already got the event details, and loaded them into the descriptive variables in the code below:

sub generateCalendarFile( intEvent )   
        dim strDtStart, strTmStart, strDtEnd, strTmEnd, strTitle, strDesc, strAddress, strCity
        dim strProvince, strRegURL, strCECid, strCal, strLinktoReg
       
        strAddress = strAddress & "=0D=0A" & strCity & ", " & strProvince
        strDesc = strDesc & "=0D=0A=0D=0A" & strAddress
        strDesc = cleanString( strDesc ) 'function further down
       
        if isEmpty( strRegURL ) or trim( strRegURL ) = "" then
                strLinktoReg = "default registration URL"
         else
                strLinktoReg = strRegURL
        end if
        strDesc = strDesc & "=0D=0A=0D=0ADon't forget to register!=0D=0A" & replace( strLinkToReg, "=", "=3D" )
       
        strCal = "BEGIN:VCALENDAR" & vbCrLf & _
                         "BEGIN:VEVENT" & vbCrLf & _
                         "SUMMARY;CHARSET=ISO-8859-1;ENCODING=quoted-printable:" & strTitle & vbCrLf & _
                         "DESCRIPTION;CHARSET=ISO-8859-1;ENCODING=quoted-printable:" & strDesc & vbCrLf & _
                         "DTSTART:" & vCalDate( strDtStart, strTmStart ) & vbCrLf & _
                         "DTEND:" & vCalDate( strDtEnd, strTmEnd ) & vbCrLf & _
                         "END:VEVENT" & vbCrLf & _
                         "END:VCALENDAR"
       
        dim vCalPath, vCalFile, strFTPcmd, objFSP, objWrite
        vCalPath = Request.ServerVariables("APPL_PHYSICAL_PATH") & "downloadsevents"
        set objFSO = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
        if Not objFSO.FolderExists( vCalPath ) then call errorMessage( vCalPath & " is an invalid path!" )
       
        vCalFile = intEvent & "_" & intLanguage & ".vcs"
       
        set objWrite = objFSO.OpenTextFile( vCalPath & "" & vCalFile, 2, true )
                objWrite.Write(strCal)
                objWrite.Close()
        set objWrite = nothing
        set objFSO = nothing
       
end sub

For the .vcs file format, the date and time need to be converted to a rather strange format. So here's the function to take the date and time, convert them to and return them in .vcs format:

function vCalDate( strDate, strTime )
        dim arDate
        arDate = split( strDate, "-" )
        strDate = ""
        for j = 0 to 2
                if len( arDate( j ) ) = 1 then arDate( j ) = "0" & arDate( j )
                strDate = strDate & arDate( j )
        next
       
        strTime = replace( strTime, ":", "" )
        strTime = cLng( strTime ) + 40000
        if strTime > 240000 then
                strDate = cStr( cLng( strDate ) + 1     )
                strTime = strTime – 240000
        end if
        strTime = cStr( strTime )
        if len( strTime ) < 6 then
                do until len( strTime ) = 6
                        strTime = "0" & strTime
                loop
        end if
        vCalDate = strDate & "T" & strTime & "Z"
end function

One other thing: if you have any URLs or HTML enchoded characters (like &reg;, etc), they don't play well in the .vcs files. So you need to remove the URLs, and re-encode the symbols in UNICDE format. Here's the function to do that

function cleanString( strToConvert )
'=== remove URLS
'=== takes out HTML friendly chars, and converts to UNICODE equivalent
        dim objRegExp, matches, strChar
        set objRegExp     = New RegExp
        objRegExp.Pattern        = "<a.*?</a>"
        objRegExp.Global         = true
        strToConvert         = objRegExp.Replace( strToConvert, "" )
        set objRegExp      = nothing
       
        set objRegExp     = New RegExp
        objRegExp.Pattern        = "&#.*?;"
        objRegExp.Global         = true
        set matches          = objRegExp.Execute( strToConvert )
       
        for each j in matches
                strChar = j.value
                strChar = cInt( replace( replace( strChar, "&#", "" ), ";", "" ) )
                strChar = chr( strChar )
                strToConvert = replace( strToConvert, j.value, strChar )
        next
       
        set objRegExp      = nothing
        set matches          = nothing
        cleanString         = strToConvert

end function

I previously posted this code in PHP, and I thought it would be handy to have the ASP alternative, in case you need to block visitors or known spammers based on their IP address.

Function IsBlockedIP()
        Dim UserIP
        Dim BlockedIParray(2)  ' you can create the array larger of course
        'put each blocked IP address in the array
        BlockedIParray(0) = "60.0.201.209"
        BlockedIParray(1) = "218.11.15.212"
        'retrieve the visitors IP address from the server variables
        UserIP = Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR")
 
        'loop through the Blocked IPs
        For i = 0 to UBound(BlockedIParray)
                If UserIP = BlockedIParray(i) Then
                        Response.Redirect "blocked.asp"
                End If
        Next
End Function

It is very easy within ASP to track and display the total number of visitors to your web application. Using the global.asa file, which is automatically included and processed in each webapp, we can create some simple session variables to track visitors.

<script language="vbscript" runat="server">
 
Sub Application_OnStart
       'Set the active users to zero at the time of starting or resetting the application
       Application("ActiveUsers") = 0
End Sub
 
Sub Session_OnStart
       ' a new person is visiting, so start a new session
       Session.Timeout = 20
       Session("Start") = Now
       Application.Lock
 
       'Add one to the active users when the person first visits
       Application("ActiveUsers") = Application("ActiveUsers") + 1
 
       Application.unlock
End Sub
 
Sub Session_OnEnd
       ' the user's session has timed out, so they most likely left
       Application.Lock
 
       'Subtract one from the number os users
       Application("ActiveUsers") = Application("ActiveUsers") – 1
     
       Application.unlock
End Sub
 
</SCRIPT>

To display the current total of users on the site, include the following code any where on your ASP pages.

There are currently <% = Application("ActiveUsers") %> users online!

Here's a really quick way to list the files & folders in a directory with ASP. This code uses the FileSystemObject to list the files.

Obviously, you need to replace "directoryname" with your directory name. Or better yet, if you know the physical path you can replace the virtual reference via Server.MapPath("/directoryname") with the actual path like this: "C:Inetpubwwwroothomesitedirectoryname"

Just make sure the directory has "read" permissions from the anonymous account or the IUSER_machinename account, or you will get a permission denied error.

<%
Set MyDirectory=Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set MyFiles=MyDirectory.GetFolder(Server.MapPath("/directoryname"))
For each filefound in MyFiles.files
%>

<% =filefound.Name & "<br>" %>

<% Next %>

A good idea would be to make this your default.asp page for each directory, then you could create custom links to files, instead of the default directory indexing page in IIS.

Parsing text in ASP is not the easiest task. If you only want to extract text from the right or left side of a string, it's no problem. But if you need to extract from the middle of the string – or parse HTML or XML tags or attributes – it can be quite difficult if you don't know the exact location. So I built this function to take a string, and two other strings as the left and right markers to parse between.

The function has two additional capabilities besides just parsing between two strings.
1. If you specify "1" as the strLft parameter, all text from the beginning of the string to the instance of the right string will be parsed. Basically this means "give me everything before ___ text"
2. If you use empty quotes for the left parameter ("”), then everything after the right marker will be parsed. This is handy if you have repeating tags, and you want to parse them one at a time. You parse the first one, then remove it by parsing everything to the right of it, parse the next, and so on.

'=== extractor function
'=== strSrc: the text to pull from
'=== strLft: left marker to start at
'=== strRgt: right marker to end at
function parser(strSrc, strLft, strRgt)
        dim strParsed
        strLft = cStr(strLft)
       
        if strLft = "1" then '=== start from beginning
                if inStr(strSrc, strRgt) > 0 then strParsed = left( strSrc, inStr(strSrc, strRgt) – 1)   
        elseif strLft = "" then '=== start from right marker (trim out last result)
                if inStr(strSrc, strRgt) > 0 then strParsed = right( strSrc, len(strSrc) – (inStr(strSrc, strRgt) + len(strRgt) – 1))
        else
                if inStr(strSrc, strLft) > 0 then
                        strParsed = right( strSrc, len(strSrc) – (inStr(strSrc, strLft) + len(strLft) – 1))
                        if inStr(strSrc, strRgt) > 0 then strParsed = left( strParsed, inStr(strParsed, strRgt) – 1)
                end if
        end if
       
        strParsed = trim(strParsed)
       
        do until left(strParsed, 1) <> chr(10) and right(strParsed, 1) <> chr(10)
                if left(strParsed, 1) = chr(10) then strParsed = right(strParsed, len(strParsed) – 1)
                if right(strParsed, 1) = chr(10) then strParsed = left(strParsed, len(strParsed) – 1)
        loop
       
        strParsed = replace( strParsed, "%20", " ")
        strParsed = trim(strParsed)
       
        parser = strParsed
end function