From the URL you’ve got take extract the image name (2177060015_258bcfaff9_m.jpg) and split it on the underscore. The first part is the photoID, the second part is the hash/salt and (if there) the third part the size (Full format: photoId_hash_size.jpg).

Now append that photoId to http://flickr.com/photo.gne?id= and *MAGIC* there you have it, the Original Flickr Photo URL (and the user) The example above would be transformed to http://flickr.com/photo.gne?id=2177060015

Cheers!

B!

UPDATE 2008.01.18 – In related matter these might be of interest too: Flickr Hack – All sizes for all pics & My most interesting (best viewed) Flickr pics (replace that ID with your own Flickr ID to watch yours )

UPDATE 2010.11.07 – Bram.us visitor Robin Senior created a handy bookmarklet which does the job automagically. Drag this link to your bookmarks toolbar and click it whenever you have a static Flickr image URL open: Flickr Photo Page

The high ranking is simple: 098f6bcd4621d373cade4e832627b4f6 is pretty unique. The fast part: lucky of just catching an update cycle or not? Discuss away! (edit: this post also made it onto Google within half an hour)

Prerequisites

$zipcodes = array(
	'9800' => 'Deinze',
	'8460' => 'Ettelgem',
	'9000' => 'Gent',
	'8400' => 'Oostende'
);

function createDropdown($ddName, $arValues) {
	$toReturn = "<select name=\"$ddName\" id=\"$ddName\">\n";
	foreach ($arValues as $key => $value) {
		$toReturn .= "\t<option value=\"$key\">$value</option>\n";
	}
	$toReturn .= "</select>";
	return $toReturn;
}

<!-- output of echo createDropdown("test", $zipcodes); -->
<select name="test" id="test">
	<option value="9800">Deinze</option>
	<option value="8460">Ettelgem</option>
	<option value="9000">Gent</option>
	<option value="8400">Oostende</option>
</select>

The problem

array_unshift($zipcodes, "Please Choose a City");

Array
(
    [0] => Please Choose a City
    [1] => Deinze
    [2] => Ettelgem
    [3] => Gent
    [4] => Oostende
)

The solution

$zipcodes = array("0" => "Please Choose a City") + $zipcodes;

Array
(
    [0] => Please Choose a City
    [9800] => Deinze
    [8460] => Ettelgem
    [9000] => Gent
    [8400] => Oostende
)

<select name="test" id="test">
	<option value="0">Please Choose a City</option>
	<option value="9800">Deinze</option>
	<option value="8460">Ettelgem</option>
	<option value="9000">Gent</option>
	<option value="8400">Oostende</option>
</select>

Wrapping up

Yesterday I stumbled upon TwitBin, a Firefox Extension which adds a Twitter sidebar to Firefox, and I must say that ”it just works”: No timeouts, no errors, no nothing that goes wrong See update below for new info. Only feature I’d like to see added is to detach the sidebar to a new window (as FireBug can do) and to have inline alerts (cfr. when a download completes). Other than that this client is perfect!

The TwitBin Firefox Sidebar

I can hear you thinking that you have to have Firefox open all the time. True, but for me that’s no problem since Firefox is always open whenever I’m working on the PC

Already noticed Dextro and Don Ardonio using TwitBin … who’s next?

Happy tweeting! TwitBin ftw!

B!

Update!

Twitbin seemed great, but after a few days (when it started getting popular?) I noticed that the darn thing gave timeouts, didn’t remember the credentials, froze up, didn’t load (FYI: Twitbin (the extension) merely loads the twitbin.com/beta/ URL into your sidebar). Then, Dextro came on with TwitterFox. Been using TwitterFox for quite a while now (3 weeks?) and must say that I like it and above all just works (if the Twitter API ain’t down, but that’s not TwitterFox’ fault).

The scenario

The scenario goes like this: you have a Windows 2003 server (with AD services) and have made some shares on it. You – evidently – have created some users with access to those shares. When you try to access the files from your Mac you open Finder, hit CMD+K, enter smb://ip-op-your-server and hit connect.

You then get a screen asking for login credentials, you enter them, hit OK and then … you get a “The alias could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found.” error message.

And now? Google!

After having found myself lost (pun intended) on Google and having read lots of crappy solutions a problem description and solution was found over at Drew McLellan‘s site.

The Problem

In a nutshell, the cause of the problem is the default security policy on Windows 2003 Server being set to always encrypt network connections under all circumstances. Whilst this is fine for most clients (especially Windows clients, understandably), the version of SMB that Panther uses doesn’t support encrypted connections. Apparently this support exists in Samba 3, but not on the version OS X uses. The solution is to change the security policy to use encryption when it’s available and not otherwise.

The fix/solution

• From Administrative Tools, open Domain Controller Security Settings.
• Go to Local Policies then Security Options.
• Scroll down to find the entry Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always). Set this to Disabled.
• The only thing left to do is to reload the security policy, as changes don’t otherwise take effect for some time. Open up a command window and type: gpupdate

Hope this one helps you out as much as it helped me out

The differences between querying a MySQL and MS SQL Server are not that hard, if you know them: There is no mysql_last_insert_id alike function for MS SQL, you have to work with identity columns and fire an extra query at the server to get the last inserted id; Instead of adding a LIMIT 0, 10 to a query one has to select the TOP 10; etc.

Back to the empty string checking … in MS SQL one cannot use the <> '' on text, ntext and varchar data types. Instead of selecting (in human lanugage) where the value differs from an empty string one has to select (again, human language) where the string is like a sequence of characters

SELECT * FROM myTable WHERE myField LIKE '_%'

Yep, that’s right, the logic is a straight 180° (a U-turn) that the logic used in MySQL … or am I still an MS SQL n00b and overlooking something?

After a little investigation I found that the data got chopped at 4096 characters, which is a bit too familiar as it’s the outcome of 2ˆ12. Digging a bit deeper it turns out that the problem lies within php.ini as it defaults to only returning 4096 characters. The settings controlling these are mssql.textlimit and mssql.textsize.

Since 4096 is way too little, I’ve changed it to 1048576 (which is 2ˆ20) which should be more than enough.

; Valid range 0 - 2147483647.  Default = 4096.
mssql.textlimit = 1048576
; Valid range 0 - 2147483647.  Default = 4096.
mssql.textsize = 1048576

Hope this saves you some research and hassle

From action to SQL statement

MySQL.Manual.to.the.rescue!

Query Syntax

Back to the webapp

INSERT INTO users (u_id, g_id, u_name, u_email) VALUES
SELECT u_id, '6' AS g_id, u_name, u_email FROM USERS WHERE g_id = 5

To come think of it: why hadn’t I discovered this functionality before? I mean, this is like one of the most basic actions one can perform next to insert, delete and update.

Hope you’ve learned something.

B!

And yes, I know Ryan Campbell of Particletree wrote a likewise article just today, however mine was in draft for a week