I thought, no big deal. There should have been lots of converters available, and [...]]]> In our latest project at PROGmaatic, we needed a converter to convert lots of information written in Bangla. Unfortunately  everything was in Bijoy (SutonnyMJ) font. But our requirement was Unicode formatted data and language preference was PHP.

I thought, no big deal. There should have been lots of converters available, and most of them might be in PHP. After hours of searching (Yes I don’t like coding when I can find something free ).

Well, I haven’t found a single script which would do what I needed. Two of the following did help me to understand how to develop the converter:

• www.repulsivecoder.com/2009/06/04/bijoy-to-unicode-converter/ [Oops! javascript only]
• mynul.com/bangla/ [Mr. Mynul was kind enough to send me the source code. Unfortunately it didn't work for me when I included it in my project. Probably because of encoding dependency. Also I didn't like the mapping. But it encouraged me!]

So finally I end up coding one myself. Fork it from my Github account.

In the coding process I have learnt two valuable lessons

1. javascript string method ‘substring‘ is not equivalent to PHP’s string function ‘substr‘ [I spent only 5 hours for this mistake!!!]

2. Nothing is better than step-by-step Debugging!

Future modifications:

1. Make mbstring independent. (I actually figured out the way, but right now I don’t need it since I have mbstring support )

2. Make memory efficient.

Check the code and let me know if you find a better way, find a bug or need some modification. I will be happy to make the changes and give you the credit

this and super both are object. this() [...]]]> Well the topic is a basic in OOP, when I first learned my first OO language (C++ back in 2004), I have learned the basic. Few days ago some one asked the question, suddenly I become confused, so I made a quick research, and decided to post

this and super both are object. this() and super() both are constructors.

this is the object of current class.

this() is the constructor of current class.

super is the object of parent class.

super() is the constructor of parent class.

Example (in java) please check out this nice example provided in this link

I hope this will save someone’s day

I couldn’t find a complete list. Then I found this site, Aneki [...]]]> For one of my projects, I need the geographical location (latitude, longitude, altitude) of all main cities of the world. It was a adobe air project to determine worldwide salat timetable automatically.

I couldn’t find a complete list. Then I found this site, Aneki World Cities. Then I designed a scrapper using PHP, and scrapped all the countries first, then their respective cities list, then respective geographical location. Then end result was a table in the database with all countries, respective cities and locations

As I have only compiled the database, the information aren’t mine, so I have decided to make the table publicly available. You can download the zip file here: World Cities Locations (The zip file contains 4 types of file for same content. SQL, CSV, CSV for MS EXCEL, MS EXCEL 2000. All of them are exported from MySQL using phpMyAdmin)

The sql file contains the schema to reproduce the location table in your designated database (assuming you are using mysql database engine. If you aren’t, you can easily convert the sql schema ).

The table has in 10,567 rows (means 10,567 unique cities, their locations and 170 countries).

The table has 5 fields, id, country, city, latitude, longitude, altitude. From their name, I hope you can understand their significance.

The table can be used in different ways:

• Getting all countries of the world (170 countries): SELECT DISTINCT(country) FROM location
• Getting all cities of a country: SELECT city FROM location WHERE country = 'YOUR_COUNTRY_NAME_HERE'
• Getting the location of a specific city of a specific country:
  SELECT latitude,longitude,altitude FROM location WHERE country='COUNTRY_NAME' AND city = 'CITY_NAME'

I hope this small contribution to the open world helps all. You can use the content in location based applications, finding a city easily in map services etc.

Do you need to write your first thesis paper or do you want your publication published in a famous journal?

So LaTeX is for you. LaTeX is a document preparation system for high-quality typesetting based on Donald E. [...]]]> Must read notice: Geekish Post….Only for geeks

Do you need to write your first thesis paper or do you want your publication published in a famous journal?

So LaTeX is for you. LaTeX is a document preparation system for high-quality typesetting based on Donald E. Knuth’s TeX typesetting language or certain extensions. It is most often used for medium-to-large technical or scientific documents but it can be used for almost any form of publishing.

Well, definitely *NIX systems have built-in latex support, but in windows you need to set it up for yourself. As few monthes ago I have started writting my first thesis paper using latex and for some reason I have used windows system, I need to setup latex environment in windows. Definitely a annoying, time consuming task, So I have decided to share it

I am going to describe it step by step, please follow these steps as described, its important. I am assuming you have Windows XP or later versions and you have administrative privilege.

Step 1:: Setting Up Environment

• Right-click on the “My computer” icon and choose Properties. Select the “Advanced” tab.Then click on “Environment Variables”.
• Create a “user variable” called “DICTDIR” with value “c:\usr\local\lib“. [ To create a new user variable, just hit "New" under "User variables for <System User Name> or to edit an existing one just hit Edit ]
• Create a “user variable” called “HOME” with value “c:\“
• Create a “System variable” under “System variables” called “Path” with the value c:\program files\emacs\bin;c:\program files\MiKTeX 2.7\miktex\bin;c:\program files\ghostgum\ghostview\gsview\;c:\usr\local\bin;c:\program files\ghostgum\gs\gs8.51\lib;c:\program files\ghostgum\gs\gs8.51\bin [There is a huge possibility that this variable is already there. In that case, just append the value]
• A restart of your system may be required.
• Run command prompt and type “set” to check if all these variables with their required values are set.

Step 2:: Required Software

• Download latest version of Emacsfrom here. Direct link: emacs-22.3-bin-i386.zip
• Download latest version of MikTeXfrom here. Direct link: basic-miktex-2.7.3164.exe
• Download latest version of Ghostscript from here. Direct link: gs863w32.exe
• Download latest version of GSview from here. Direct link: gsv49w32.exe
• Download latest version of AUCTeX from here. Direct link: auctex-11.85-e22.3-msw.zip
• Download .emacs from here

Step 3::Installation

• Put the .emacs file [you will get it after unzipping emacs.zip file] in C: [or your predefined HOME]
• As Local TexMF Tree, create a directory named “Local TeX Files” in C: [or your predefined HOME]
• Unzip emacs-22.3-bin-i386.zip to c:\program files\ . Rename the c:\program files\emacs-22.3 directory to c:\program files\emac. Run the file c:\program files\emacs\bin\addpm.exe.
• Unzip auctex-11.85-e22.3-msw.zip to c:\program files\emacs\site-lisp.  Rename c:\program files\emacs\site-lisp\auctex-11.85-e22 to c:\program files\emacs\site-lisp\auctex.
• Run gs863w32.exe. Choose c:\program files\ghostgum\gs as installation directory. Accept everything else.
• Run gsv49w32.exe. Choose c:\program files\ghostgum\ghostview as installation directory. Accept everything else.
• Run basic-miktex-2.7.3164.exe. When prompted for “Path to installation folder”, choose c:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.7. When prompted for “Create local TEXMF tree”, choose c:\Local TeX Files as “Path to root folder”. Accept everything else.

Step 4:: Opening Emacs in Latex Mode

• Type M-x latex-mode. As soon as you hit “Enter” after writing the command, you will notice “Command” and “LaTeX” menus.

Step 5:: Compiling Latex Files in Emacs

• Press C-c C-c <Return> to run latex.
• Press C-c C-l to view results of the compilation
• Press C-c C-c <Return> to run latex again
• Press C-c C-c <Return> to run latex again, again
• Press C-c C-c <Return> to run View. It will take a while to create fonts etc. the first time.
• Press C-c C-c FILE <Return> <Return> to run dvips (Note that the command is FILE and not Dvips as one might expect)
• Press C-c C-c Print <Return> <Return> to run GSview (Also somewhat misleading name)
• If you want to print the document, do it from GSview.

A million dollar secret, when you asked to do the following, use your brain

• C-c C-c = Hold CTRL while pressing c twice
• C-c C-l = Hold CTRL while pressing c, release c, While holding CTRL, press l (“ell”), release both
• M-x = Hold ALT while pressing x

And last but not the least, download Basic Latex Commands. This pdf file will help you to learn basic latex commands.

So start writting your thesis

Read the full list of features here. Download it from FTP or here. Download it from FTP or HTTP mirror, or directly from here.