RFID-enabled credit cards allow wireless pickpocketing

An interesting article from Forbes.com

Working notes January 26

I just came across a block of CSS that I generated a while back using http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor . This is a useful tool.

Useful URLs for today

Today I am working on forms. My goal is to have forms in the current project look cleaner and more modern than default HTML. 

The base I am building from:
http://line25.com/tutorials/create-a-stylish-contact-form-with-html5-css3

How to make form elements float into the same line instead of vertically stacked:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2306117/radio-buttons-and-label-to-display-in-same-line

A good toolset for building HTML5 +CSS + JS forms
www.reformedapp.com/

This appears to be a promising tool for creating tree controls in HTML5+jQuery
http://www.jstree.com

Some tips on styling HTML dropdowns using only CSS:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1895476/how-to-style-select-dropdown-with-css-only-without-javascript

Ultimate Waterfowler's Journal registration codes and instructions

In 2000, I created software called Ultimate Waterfowler's Journal.  I no longer am able to support the software, but I know some people out there are still using it.  Due to the registration system built into UWJ, if you upgrade your computer, UWJ will require reregistration. Without my business website online, that is not possible. 


Since UWJ should work with all versions of Windows including 7, anyone with a UWJ installation disc can keep their journals going by using the information below.  I have heard rumors that whatever version of Windows replaces Win7 will no longer support the architecture that Ultimate Waterfowler's Journal was built on. So, print out your journals while it still works.


STEP 1:
Registration keys:
The 5-character code on the left is what UWJ displays for you to enter into the registration system. The right column contains the key that you need to enter into UWJ to satisfy the registration requirement. So, locate the correct code in the left column below, copy the value out of the right column of the same row, and that will be the key you need:

 

A1JFY	SEG0V7U
A1LOO	4BIPN5I
B5XLR	MJK2BGY
C4JME	QO18QNK
D2QVM	J3TFL2W
D7LTP	2CDID0N
E5YGX	Q5XOGW1
F3KHN	Y5X6LRC
F6NFZ	4HT8VED
F8PTX	CQ49DXQ
G6MRW	HE5GPJW
G9VLM	KFIKE6C
H1EQK	IQ2F5CL
H3AHZ	PHN7V1O
H3VVP	GRZGN19
H6GCB	HG4GJ0M
I4OUO	J5JNLOB
J1MFZ	35XNKVV
J4YDQ	F14YOMY
J9WBY	TB54HQQ
K1LRM	ZP5PCF3
K4MFI	E8CL2WT
L7GJK	PF18DQX
M1DEB	OFM77KX
M2RTP	U2YCC7J
O2YXZ	UZ2ER0I
P3KWP	IWG2EJ0
Q5VCF	JES85CT
R0ODD	BH3IY9K
R1DHK	HU33KVK
R6ZIM	EL5U5LN
R8WKD	RKAEE54
S5OHI	7USBK8U
S6KYQ	P7L8HRW
T1QSA	HZ76KSH
T6MEG	BN7UI9U
T8HSK	LCKI63U
U4FPX	ARYA9C3
X2UJH	QLCO6X8
X7OLS	27YJRUB

STEP 2:


Customer ID:
You can make up your own customer ID. It is just the state abbreviation + first 4 characters of your last name + 4 digits of todays date + a random letter. Example: Joe Smith in Texas on Sept. 1 would be "TXSMIT0901X"

Pet peeve: Wasteful packaging

Why is it so many companies use huge boxes to display and ship tiny products? Such wastefulness has bothered me for a long time. Recently, I received an order that was just so ridiculous I had to share.

I ordered a tiny HDMI adapter from a popular online store.  A few days later, I received a large box. I was confused at first, since I knew I hadn't ordered anything so large.  Then I opened the box:

Crazy, eh?

Work scratchpad for January 17

Today I am continuing my effort to retrieve contents of a Drupal node in an authenticated session. I started by setting up the XMLRPC server in Drupal 7 Services 3.

8:40 a.m. update:
Using the Poster plugin for Firefox, I was able to successfully retrieve a node while logged into Drupal in Firefox by POSTing this to mysite.com/drupal-folder/xmlrpc-endpoint/node/ :

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<methodCall>
 <methodName>node.retrieve</methodName>
 <struct>
  <member>
    <name>nid</name>
    <value><i4>19</i4></value>
   </member>
 </struct>
</methodCall>

And, predictably, when I logged out of Drupal in Firefox, the same POST from Poster was rejected as being from an anonymous user. Good.

I found this valuable comment on StackOverflow:

If you're using Drupal 7 you must be using Services 3 which doesn't have a node.get method (or node.save as it happens). They've been replaced with node.retrieve and node.create & node.update respectively.

Update 9:10

I was able to get a successful XMLRPC login response and user object from Drupal by POSTing this from Firefox Poster:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<methodCall>
<methodName>user.login</methodName>
<params>
 <param>

  <value>
   <string>example.user</string>
  </value>
 </param>
 <param>
  <value>
   <string>password</string>
  </value>

 </param>
</params> 

</methodCall>

Next step, to capture session auth data and learn how to send it back for the node request.

Update 12:15

So, it turns out that our webhost doesn't support the php_xmlrpc extension on our server. They do provide the PEAR XML_RPC package. Unfortunately, the encoding results are very different and the PEAR-produced object does not seem to be compatible with what Drupal wants. I posted a question about this difference on StackOverflow. Now, back to digging...

Update 13:40

I got a helpful response to my StackOverflow question from mario. He suggested:

To get the XML marshalled output you first construct a message instead, and then use 

the ->serialize()  method:

$msg = new XML_RPC_Message("function", array(new XML_RPC_Value(123, "int")));

print $msg->serialize(); 

I tested that code, and the print result was:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><methodCall><methodName>function</methodName><params><param><value><int>123</int></value></param></params></methodCall>

...exactly what I needed. Now I'll modify the example code into the actual parameters and see what I get.

Update 15:00

I spent lots of time installing PEAR XML_RPC and XML_RPC2 packages and trying to locate and repair their dependencies. No success on version 2, which was the recommended solution.

Using the old XML_RPC package, I can talk to the Drupal server and get my user authenticated. However, I have been unable to parse the server's response. I can see the raw XML it returns if I do a PHP var_dump, but attempts to use the XML_RPC methods fail.  The var_dump shows it is a proper XML_RPC object, but trying to use the ->value() method as used in the example at http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.webservices.xml-rpc.examples.php results in fatal errors.

Example code from above reference:

if (!$resp->faultCode()) {
$val = $resp->value();
$data = XML_RPC_decode($val);
echo $data[0]['name'] . ' is at version ' . $data[0]['version'];
} else {
/*
* Display problems that have been gracefully cought and
* reported by the xmlrpc.php script
*/
echo 'Fault Code: ' . $resp->faultCode() . "\n";
echo 'Fault Reason: ' . $resp->faultString() . "\n";
}

I get this:

Fatal error: Call to a member function kindOf() on a non-object in /mypath/php/XML/RPC.php on line 1948

 even though the var_dump of $resp shows as:

object(XML_RPC_Response)#4

 Frustrated. I'm going to try another method.

Drupal frustrations continue

Remember those old cartoons where the characters would open a door, only to discover another door behind it, then another, and another?  I have used that visual to illustrate the frustrations of software development to non-technical people. There is just no end of bugs to find and fix.Once one is repaired, another pops up.

I have been tracking my current problem down for more than three days now. All I want to do is retrieve a node from Drupal as XML so I can manipulate it in my own PHP coding. It should be simple, and it would be if the Drupal site I was trying to retrieve from was public.

There seems to be a bug or undiscovered setting that is preventing me from retrieving node content from my Drupal installation, which disallows anonymous users entirely.

As I posted earlier, I found an excellent sample of code posted by MichaelCole, and have been using it as my primary reference. Unfortunately, it seems that when trying to do an HTTP GET, passing the session auth data back to Drupal fails. I have tried countless combinations of methods to send the authentication strings, but none work.

These include PHP CURL options such as:
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION, false); 

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "cookiefile.txt");

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPGET, true);

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-type: application/json')); (along with JSON-encoding the session cookie)

Multiple methods of sending the data, including:

$request_data = array(
    $sessData[0] => $sessData[1],
    "method" => "node.get",
    "nid" => 18
    );

$request_data = http_build_query($request_data, '', '&'); // Format post data as application/x-www-form-urlencoded

$service_url.="?$request_data"; //append the data as a GET qstring

According to the REST entry on Wikipedia , GET must be used to retrieve a resource, so utilizing POST as is done in the login procedure seems to not be an option.

I will keep digging at this and post up if when I find a solution (think positive).