I opened up the the tetherxp.inf file and save a few of the usb identifiers for installing the device. You will see a line like this.

[AndroidDevices]
; Google Nexus One without adb
%AndroidDevice%    = RNDIS, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4E13

I then opened Device Manager in Windows XP by right-clicking on My Computer->Properties, click on Hardware tab, and then Device Manger button. There was the unrecognized USB device with the yellow question mark icon. I right-clicked on the item and chose Properties. Then click on the Details tab at the top. Here I could see the USB device ID. I copied those values into my tetherxp.inf file to see what would happen. My section of tetherxp.inf now looks like:

[AndroidDevices]
;Samsung Fascinate i500
%AndroidDevice%    = RNDIS, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4E24
 
[AndroidDevices.NT.5.1]
; Samsung Fascinate i500 with adb
%AndroidDevice%    = RNDIS.NT.5.1, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4E24

Saved the file. Back on the Details tab, I clicked on the Driver tab for the device, and clicked Update Driver button. Choose the tetherxp.inf you have saved. Windows XP will propmpt to accept to install and unsigned driver. Click Continue Anyway. It will proceed to install the device and will be named Android USB/RNDIS Ethernet. Your computer should then be able to connect now being tethered via the USB cable.

Zen-Cart

This module will help the relevancy of the products returned on your zencart advanced search results. The stock search runs a LIKE query for each word in the query. There is no regard to the relevancy of the word for the product associated with it.  When a user searches using a adjective like a color red, any product with “red” will be returned.  Now make the search “red shoes”, and you will receive any product with red or shoes. You may get red shirts, black shoes,  white shoes, or any other variation. As long as one of the words is in the name, model, description, or keywords it will be shown. Obvisously red shirts and white shoes are nothing like the users original query.  This zencart advanced search module uses a natural language search function in MySQL which will return more accurate results for multi keyword search phrases. Each keyword searched, is scored for its relevancy for each product, and the results are ordered by this relevancy score. It will also try to pluralize words to expand the search.  The module will create a configuration group in your admin panel for setting the weights for the product columns that are searched. The default values seem to be returning accurate results.

Only one original file is overwritten in /includes/modules/pages/advanced_search_result/header_php.php. Only a few lines where changed to modify the query being ran for the results. Installation is simple as uploading the zip file to your zencart installation. Login to your admin panel, and you will be prompted with a link to install the module. The installation link will install the proper database queries, and take you to the configuration page under Admin->Configuration->Reloaded Search.

An additional feature, is when only one product is returned in the search results, the product is displayed rather than the search result page.

Download Zencart Reloaded Search

"You have to install PECL ZipArchive or `unzip` to install this spark."

I kept checking in my php.ini file that php_zip.dll was enabled.  Hmmm…..

So, I decided to create a test script to test the code that was creating this error message. Running the PHP script in the browser ran ZipArchive() successfully. Next, I ran this test PHP script from the command line (CLI). I got a “Fatal Error:  Class ZipArchive not found in …” error. I couldn’t quite figure out why PHP was throwing an error on the CLI and not when run in the browser. A little digging found that PHP run from the command line uses relative paths including php.ini. This the part where WAMP comes into play. For those using WAMP, your php.ini file that is used is located in C:\wamp\bin\apache\Apache2.2.11\bin not where PHP is being executed from. Ah ha! So I went and opened C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.2.9-2 and scrolled down to find:

;extension=php_zip.dll

So I changed this to:

extension=php_zip.dll

php tools\spark install -v1.2.0 curl

Enabling php_zip.dll in the PHP folder of WAMP, and ran the Sparks command again. Success! The spark was downloaded, unzipped, and installed with no more error.

Zen-Cart

This is another shipping module for Zencart. I have been working on the UPS XML module for awhile now. I have ported over the more advanced packing algorithm from the UPS module, to allow packing support in the USPS shipping module. This module allows Zencart to calculate shipping for multiple boxes for a freight quote. The default behavior for Zencart is to place all items in one box with a total weight to send for quote. With this updated USPS shipping module, items will be packed into boxes you enter, or you may set items to always be packaged separately. The module then returns the aggregate shipping cost for your packages. This should provide much more accurate shipping quotes.You can download the module from bitbucket.org. In the upper right hand corner highlight over “get source”, and click on zip to download the files. Found a bug? Or what to update the code, please fork my project, or send me your revisions.

It seemed the only option was to buy some 3rd party software USP authorizes to connect to the database. Digging through the internet, I found a nice little utility call Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express that allows you to access the USP database instance. Once you install the software open the program.

Fill in the Server Name box (usually Servername\UPSWSDBSERVER), and click connect. In the left hand window, double click on the Security folder. You will see a list of logins. You now need to create a new user.

Right click on the right pane, and choose New Login. Type in your Login Name in the top, and now select the SQL Server Login radio box. Type in your password.

At the bottom for Default Database select “master” from the drop down box. In the left pane of the window, there is a link for Server Roles. Click on Server Roles, and check all boxes in the right pane to add all rights to your login. Hey you are into the database, you might as well give yourself full access right?

Save your login, and it’s time to setup an ODBC connection for Codeigniter to use. Open the Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Data Sources (ODBC).

Click on the System DSN tab, and then the Add button. Under Name type in a with no spaces. I used UPS_WS_12 for mine. In the description you can enter anything. In the server box click on the dropdown and select your UPS server databse instance. It should be something like ServerName\UPSWSDBSERVER. Click on the Next button.

Now fill out the options as shown below. Fill in the login credentials as entered in the UPS database. Then, click on the Next button.

Select upswsdb from the dropdown box as shown. Then, click on the Next button.

The options show will probably be set by default. Click on Finish button. Your connection should now be created. You may click on Test Data Source button, and you should connect successfully.

Close your the ODBC screen, and open up your codeigniter application folder. Here are the connections settings you will need to use for application/config/database.php

$active_group = "default";
 
$db['default']['hostname'] = "UPS_WS_12"; //System DSN name you created
$db['default']['username'] = "username"; //Username as entered in ODBC connection
$db['default']['password'] = "password"; //Password as entered in ODBC connection
$db['default']['database'] = "";
$db['default']['dbdriver'] = "odbc";
$db['default']['dbprefix'] = "";
$db['default']['pconnect'] = FALSE;
$db['default']['db_debug'] = TRUE;
$db['default']['cache_on'] = FALSE;

If you are interested in a SQL query to view completed shipments with all the shipping details for you shipping log try out this query:

$query = $this->db->query("SELECT * FROM upswsdb.dbo.calPkgAgent a 
   JOIN upswsdb.dbo.calShipment s ON a.m_primaryKey=s.m_foreignKey00 
   JOIN upswsdb.dbo.calPackage p ON s.m_primaryKey=p.m_foreignKey 
   WHERE s.m_shipDataSet='eod' AND s.m_isVoid='0' 
   ORDER BY s.m_shipDateTime DESC");

To view pending shipments that have not been processed by End of Day, change s.m_shipDataSet=’eod’ to s.m_shipDataSet != ‘eod’. I use this simple little codeigniter application to view all of my UPS Worldship data. This makes it very easy to paginate the results, and provide real time access to tracking data. Much easier than trying to open UPS Worldship on a workstation that does not have it open or security rights to view the shipping log.

Chargify will send a json array back a POST var to your site. The docs for Chargify don’t state what variable they are submitted as. This is what I came up with.

function post_back(){
 
        $body = file_get_contents("php://input");
 
        $replace = array('[', ']');
        $replacements = array('', '');
 
        $body = explode(',', str_replace($replace, $replacements, $body));
 
       //$body now contains array of subscription ID's
       //Iterate through returned subscription IDs
       foreach($body as $subscription_id){
            $subscription = $this->chargify->get_subscription($subscription_id);
            //Do something here with $subscription details
      }
}

Zen-Cart

Many websites offer free shipping in the USA. The default shipping module for zencart does not allow a store owner to easily handle it. In the configuration of the shipping module, you set the desired country (USA) to display free shipping to, and any of the other options that are available in the standard freeshipper module included with zencart. The zip file contains just 2 files, the shipping total, and a english language define. Install instructions are included in the download. Very easy and fast to install.

You may download the module form bitbucket.org, or even help contribute to it.

1. Mecurial 1.5.4
2. Python 2.6.5
3. Libiconv 1.13.1
4. Gettext 0.18

Download each of the files to your desktop, and login into your FreeNAS webGUI. Then navigate to System->Packages. Click on the “Add” icon to install a new package. On the next screen you will see a browse button and install button.

Click to Enlarge

You will need to install the packages in the correct order to satisfy their dependencies. Click on the “Browse” button, then “Install” button for each in this order:

1. libiconv-1.13.1_1.tbz
2. gettext-0.18_1.tbz
3. python26-2.6.5.tbz
4. mercurial-1.5.4.tbz

Congratulations you now have mercurial installed on your FreeNAS box. You starting hosting your own repositories. I create a folder in my FreeNAS drive and issued a:

$hg init

I copied a few files in the folder from my laptop using Windows Explorer and then typed:

$hg add
$hg commit -m "Import new files into repo"

Now I clone the repo to my laptop using

$hg clone ssh://user:pass@freenas/path/to/repo local-folder

If you omit the user and pass from the url, your will be prompted for them. This seemed like it would be a little more difficult to do as there is very little documentation on the FreeNAS website about packages. I was unable to find any other posts about this setup, so I hope someone else will find it useful.

Update 6-30-2010:

I recently updated the class to enable caching the xml response from the Petfinder server. This should provide a nice little speed boost even though it was already pretty fast . Caching is enabled by default, and caches expires in 3 minutes. The folder “cache_files” in zip folder must have write permissions. As shown in the instructions, you can change the paths of cache files.

This class will parse the returned xml as a data array. This libary requires just 4 easy steps to get data:

1. Add api-password to class
2. Add api-key to class
3. Pass configuration values as an array
4. Call the method in the class

Here is an example of how to use the php class

include_once('class.petfinder.php'); //include class
$pet = new Petfinder(); //create Petfinder object
$pet->setKey('12345'); //your api-key
$pet->setPass('abcdef'); //your api-secret
$pet->set(array('cache_expire' => 360)); //(optional) Time in secs to expire  default shown
$pet->set(array('cache_path' => 'full_path_to_cache_folder')) //(optional) Set cache path 
$pet->set(array('cache_enable' => FALSE)); //(optional) Disable cache feature 
 
$config = array('location '=> '44805', 'animal' => 'dog'); //associative array of values to pass to class. array keys must match arguments from API
$pet->initialize($config) //pass values to the class
$data = $pet->petFind(); //call API method which are accessed by camel casing them (pet.find=petFind)

The xml data is returned as an associative array. The array has been mapped to the xml layout returned by PetFinder. Echo out the variable and you will see the returned status code, the array of returned values, and the xml response data from PetFinder.

Download

If you would like to donate, you may do so by using Paypal.

As shown in the readme docs, the class is easy to use. Example:

$info = array('lastname' => 'Smith', 'firstname' => 'John');
$data['xml'] = $this->whitepages_lib->find_person($info);

This will search using the find_person method of the API for the name “John Smith”. You can pass any of the fields shown in the documentation in your associative array.

Download CodeIgniter Whitepages.com API Library