How To http://fxpal.info Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:35:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 How To write a curriculum vitae (CV / resumé) in English http://fxpal.info/?p=379 http://fxpal.info/?p=379#comments Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:27:06 +0000 merci.u http://fxpal.info/?p=379

 The style and layout of a curriculum vitae (CV) in English is often different to in other languages. These steps explain how to write a standard English CV

 

Step 1
make notes

   Make notes on your work experience, both paid, unpaid, full-time and part-time. Write down your responsibilities, job title and company information. Include everything!
     
Step 2
make notes

   Make notes on your education. Include your degree or any certificates, names of major courses, school names and courses relevant to the job you are applying for.
     
Step 3
make notes

   Make notes on other achievements. Include membership of organizations, military service and any other special accomplishments.
     
Step 4
choose relevant skills

   From your notes, choose which skills are relevant (skills that are similar) to the job which you are applying for.
These are the most important points for your CV.
     
Step 5
Personal details

   Begin your CV. Write your full name, address, telephone number, email, date of birth, marital status and nationality at the top of the CV.
     
Step 6
Objective

   Write an objective. The objective is a short sentence describing the job you hope to get. This is common only in an American-style CV (called a resumé).
     
Step 7
Education/Qualifications

   Summarize your education, including important facts (type of degree, specific courses you have studied) that are relevant to the job you are applying for.
     
Step 8
Experience

   List all of your work experience, job by job. Start with the your most recent job and progress backwards in time. Again, focus on skills that are relevant.
Include the company details and your job title and responsibilities there.
     
Step 9
Skills 		  Include other relevant information such as languages spoken, computer skills, etc.
     
Step 10
Interests		   Very briefly include your hobbies and main interests.
     
Step 11
References 		  Finish with the line: References available upon request.
     
More tips

   Ideally your CV in English should not be longer than one page. Two pages are only acceptable if you have had many different jobs and a variety of experience.

Spacing, aligning and layout are very important when you write your CV, in order to create a positive and professional impression.

Use ‘dynamic’ and ‘action’ verbs such as: attained, accomplished, conducted, established, facilitated, founded, managed, etc.

Do not use the personal pronoun ‘I’ in your CV, use tenses in the past, e.g. Established and managed a new sales force for the region.


jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=379 0 Easily learn how to write PHP –PHP HTML Entities http://fxpal.info/?p=376 http://fxpal.info/?p=376#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:56:01 +0000 admin http://fxpal.info/?p=376 What Are HTML Entities?

“A character entity reference is an SGML construct that references a character of the document character set.”

This is just a fancy way of saying that an HTML entitiy is a reproduced set of characters that originally signified a single HTML representation. 

You may already be familiar with some HTML entities and not even know it! If you’ve ever coded HTML before, chances are that you’ve used some of the following HTML entities:

HTML Entity => Description => Representation
  => No break space => ” ”
© => Copyright symbol => “©”
® => Registered trademark symbol => “®”

 

Do some of those HTML entities look familiar to you? If so, you will notice that you use a set of characters to signify a single HTML representation (my definition of an HTML entity).

Because there are so many HTML entities, I’m not going to list them all for you, but I will refer you to this page instead:

List of XML and HTML character entity references

What Do HTML Entities Do?

HTML entities are a representation of regular HTML expressions into a group of characters. By using the htmlentities function, PHP can convert the HTML expressions into their entity automatically.

You might be thinking ‘why do I need to use HTML entities?”. That’s a good question.

When To Use The HTML Entities

Using HTML entities is particularly useful for when you allow users to submit information through a form and you need to protect yourself from allowing your visitors to submit potentially dangerous HTML code which can be harmful to your server or to your visitors. By using the HTML entities function to convert the HTML code into a set of harmless characters, you thereby remove any HTML functionality from the code submitted.

In fact, unless you have some specific need, you should ALWAYS use the HTML entities function when allowing users to submit any data to your server.

HTML Entities Example

This simple example will demonstrate how the HTML entities function works:

<p align=”center”></p>

 

See the above code? I could not display that simple HTML code (or any of my code examples) to you in your browser if I had not used the HTML entities function. Why?

Because if I had typed the code exactly as you see it above without using HTML entities, your browser would have interpreted the code to display a center aligned paragraph to you.

Using HTML entities, the above code is changed to:

&lt;p align=”center”&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

 

&lt; being the HTML entity for the < symbol and &gt; being the HTML entity for the > symbol.

Again, for a list of HTML entities, visit:

List of XML and HTML character entity references

Quote Styles

Before discussing how to implement the HTML entities function using PHP, let me explain the three different quote styles.

When using the HTML entities function, you can choose how you want the code to interpret single (‘) and double (“) quotes.

There are three different quote styles, and these are:

ENT_COMPAT This converts double quotes while leaving single quotes alone.
ENT_QUOTES This converts both double and single quotes.
ENT_NOQUOTES This will not convert either single or double quotes.

How To Implement Html Entities Using PHP

Now that you have learned what HTML entities are and the three different quote styles to choose from when using the PHP HTML entities function, we can begin to implement this function into our code.

$name = “My ‘name’ is <b>John</b>”;  echo htmlentities($name);

 The above code would display the following:

My ‘name’ is &lt;b&gt;John&lt;/b&gt;

Now, we stick with the same example, only we use the ENT_QUOTES quote style:

$name = “My ‘name’ is <b>John</b>”;  echo htmlentities($name, ENT_QUOTES);

 

This time, the code will display:

My &amp#039;name&amp#039; is &lt;b&gt;John&lt;/b&gt;

Notice how when we used ENT_QUOTES, the single quotes around the word “name” were replaced.

Now, no matter what potentially harmful HTML code a visitor to your site may submit through a form on your site, it will all be automatically converted to a bunch of harmless characters!

jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=376 1 Easily learn how to write PHP –PHP Get http://fxpal.info/?p=374 http://fxpal.info/?p=374#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:48:22 +0000 admin http://fxpal.info/?p=374

$_GET is a variable used to gather values from a form.

You may also wish to read the lesson on the $_POST variable

The $_GET variable is sent from the form, with a maximum allowable size of 100 characters.  

Let’s create a simple form, which will send the information using the PHP $_GET variable:

<form action=”form.php” method=”get”>
Color: <input type=”text” name=”color” />
Gallons: <input type=”text” name=”gallons” />
<input type=”submit” name=”submit” value=”Send!”>
</form>

 Using the above HTML, we would have created a form with two text boxes and a submit button. In the first text box, the user would enter the color of paint they desire. In the second box, they enter the number of gallons they would like.

The last part of the form we have a submit button, which when clicked, will send the data to the file “form.php” to be processed using PHP $_GET.

When the “Send!” button is clicked, the data will be sent to “form.php”, and the URL could look like:

http://www.example.com/form.php?color=Black&gallons=8

Notice that the elements entered in the form become part of the URL. This is why you would never use this method when submitting sensitive data such as a password or credit card number. However, when you want to create a dynamic page that a visitor can bookmark, using $_GET can be very useful. For example, if you have an online store and a user searches for size large shirts, the URL may look like:

http://www.example.com/search.php?item=shirt&size=large

The visitor would have the ability to bookmark this page, and easily revisit your site straight from a page that only displays large shirts.

An array will automatically be made based on the information submitted:

$_GET["color"];
$_GET["gallons"];

 

Thus, we can use these arrays to code something like:

The color paint you want is: <?php echo $_GET["color"]; ?>.<br />
You wish to order <?php echo $_GET["gallons"]; ?> gallons.

 

This bit of code would display:

The color paint you want is: Black.
You wish to order 8 gallons.

You may also wish to read the lesson on the $_POST variable

jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=374 1 Easily learn how to write PHP –PHP Functions http://fxpal.info/?p=372 http://fxpal.info/?p=372#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:43:48 +0000 admin http://fxpal.info/?p=372

A function is simply a bit of code that we keep on-hand ready to use when needed.

  

Each function has its own unique name, and will always begin with the word “function”. Makes sense, huh?

Although learning and understanding functions may seem like a daunting task, by taking it one step at a time you will have no problem catching on.

When To Use PHP Functions

There are many instances you will come across where it would be proper for you to use functions. For example, if you will be displaying the tagline of your website over and over again, you can create a function for it, so that it will “be on-hand ready to use when needed”.

Creating A PHP Function

Now that we have a basic understanding of what a function is and when we could use it, we can create a function which will display our website’s tagline whenever we need to:

function tagline(){
echo “Where Fortunes Are Made”;
}

 

The above function is simple enough: we first named the function “tagline”, then defined what bit of code that function contains, which is “Where Fortunes Are Made”.

Take note that when naming a function, the name can not begin with a number.

Using A PHP Function

Now that the function has been created, we can use it:

echo “Welcome to JWRmedia.com<br />”;
tagline();

 This bit of code would display:

Welcome to JWRmedia.com
Where Fortunes Are Made

Notice how much easier it is to use “tagline();” rather than typing the entire echo over and over again. This is especially true when your function holds quite a much larger amount of code than our example!

Functions, of course do not end with holding a small line of text. Functions can incorporate many lines of code.

Function Parameters

The above example is obviously very basic. To make our function more dynamic, we can add a function parameter.

Let’s say that we have three people which have access to a certain page: Larry, Moe and Curly. Using a PHP function, we can customize our tagline based on their name.

function tagline($name){
echo “Where “. $name . ” Makes A Fortune<br />”;
}  name(“Larry”);
name(“Moe”);
name(“Curly”);

 This bit of code would display:

Where Larry Makes A Fortune
Where Moe Makes A Fortune
Where Curly Makes A Fortune

jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=372 1 Easily learn how to write PHP –PHP Forms http://fxpal.info/?p=368 http://fxpal.info/?p=368#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:37:20 +0000 admin http://fxpal.info/?p=368

If you ever need to gather information inputted from the end user, a form must be created. We can do this by using the PHP $_GET and $_POST variables.

 

We use the $_GET variable to gather the information, then the $_POST variable to process that same data.

First, we will create a very simple example form using HTML

<form action=”form.php” method=”post”>
Color: <input type=”text” name=”color” />
Gallons: <input type=”text” name=”gallons” />
<input type=”submit” name=”submit” value=”Send!”>
</form>

 

Using the above HTML, we would have created a form with two text boxes and a submit button. In the first text box, the user would enter the color of paint they desire. In the second box, they enter the number of gallons they would like.

The last part of the form we have a submit button, which when clicked, will send the data to the file “form.php” to be processed.

Our form.php file can look like this:

The color paint you want is: <?php echo $_POST["color"]; ?>.<br />
You wish to order <?php echo $_POST["gallons"]; ?> gallons.

 Once the user submits the form, the end result could look like this:

The color paint you want is: Black.
You wish to order 8 gallons.

Sending Form Results By Email

You can take this one step further by having the data submitted in the form sent to you by email. We will be using a bare bones example of how this can be done.

Again, we start with our HTML form:

<form action=”form.php” method=”post”>
<table><tr>
<td>Name:</td>
<td><input type=”text” name=”name”></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>Subject:</td>
<td><input type=”text” name=”subject”></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>Message:</td>
<td><textarea name=”message”></textarea></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td><input type=”submit” name=”submit” value=”Send!”></td></tr>
</table></form>

 

With this simple form, we have two text boxes: One for the user to enter their name, and another to enter the subject.

We then have a text area for the user to enter the actual contents of the message, followed by a submit button which will send the data to “form.php” using the POST method.

Our form.php file can look like this:

$sendto = ‘yourname@example.com’;  $subject = $_POST['subject'];
$from = stripslashes($_POST['name']);
$body = “Message from: $from\n\n”.stripslashes($_POST['message']);
mail($sendto, $subject, $body);

 As you can see, we defined the string $sendto with your email address (the email address which the data will be sent to).

We then took the name to define who the message was from and the message which was entered in the text area to define the body of the email.

Finally, we took the data and sent it to the specified email address.

jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=368 1 Easily learn how to write PHP –PHP Foreach http://fxpal.info/?p=366 http://fxpal.info/?p=366#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:32:49 +0000 admin http://fxpal.info/?p=366

Whereas a while loop will end should it stumble upon an invalid condition, the foreach loop will process each item in the array using the same operations until it has cycled through each item in the array.

 

For more PHP loop examples, see:

PHP For Loop
PHP Do While Loop
PHP While Loop

Foreach Syntax

The basic syntax when using a foreach loop is as follows:

foreach (array_expression as $value) statement

The array_expression is the array whose elements we want to process.

The value is the variable we want to assign the element to during each loop.

The statement are the instructions we want to perform during each cycle of the loop.

The foreach loop can be used with an associative array as follows:

foreach (array_expression as $key => $value) statement

All we have done here is add a $key, which is the key assigned to the associative element in the array.

Foreach And An Associative Array

We can use the following example of how to use a foreach loop with an associative array.

Using the same example we had in our array lesson, we have the following:

$color["Black"] = 5;
$color["White"] = 8;
$color["Yellow"] = 2;
$color["Blue"] = 10;
$color["Red"] = 16;

 

This associative array which specifies how many gallons of paint we have for each color.

Using a foreach loop, we can process each item in the array as follows:

foreach( $color as $key => $value){
echo “Color: $key, Gallons: $value <br />”;
}

 The above example would display:

Color: Black, Gallons: 5
Color: White, Gallons: 8
Color: Yellow, Gallons: 2
Color: Blue, Gallons: 10
Color: Red, Gallons: 16

For more PHP loop examples, see:

PHP Do While Loop
PHP While Loop

jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=366 1 Easily learn how to write PHP – PHP For http://fxpal.info/?p=362 http://fxpal.info/?p=362#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:27:26 +0000 admin http://fxpal.info/?p=362

The for loop is used when you need to execute the same code a predetermined number of times.

For more PHP loop examples, see:

PHP Foreach Loop
PHP Do While Loop
PHP While Loop

For Loop Syntax

for ( expression 1, expression 2, expression 3){
do this;
}

  The for loop will first execute “expression 1″. Once it has done that “expression 2″ will be evaluated, and if it is TRUE, then “do this” is executed. The real loop begins now as “expression 3″ is then executed, “expression 2″ is evaluated, “do this” is executed…

The cycle of [expression 3, expression 2, do this] will continue until “expression 2″ is no longer TRUE.

For Loop Example

Let me show you a very simple example, then I will explain it in detail:

for ($i = 0; $i <= 3; $i++)
{
echo “Count: ” . $i . “<br />”;
}

 

The above code would display:

Count: 0
Count: 1
Count: 2
Count: 3

Again, the for loop continues until “expression 2″ is no longer true. Let’s break this down:

In the above code, we used $i as an integer beginning with 0. Our “expression 2″ specified that as long as the integer ($i) was less than or equal to three, echo “Count: $i” where $i is the current integer. Lastly, “expression 3″ told us to +1 to whatever number we currently have.

If you’re a little lost, just follow our loop syntax as described above.

The for loop will continue to cycle, starting with the number 0 and repeating, each time adding 1, until the number was equal or greater than 3, then it would stop because our “expression 2″ would then be false.

For more PHP loop examples, see:

PHP Foreach Loop
PHP Do While Loop
PHP While Loop

jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=362 1 Easily learn how to write PHP – PHP Filter http://fxpal.info/?p=360 http://fxpal.info/?p=360#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:24:45 +0000 admin http://fxpal.info/?p=360

A filter, rightly named, does exactly that- it filters data, usually received from the end user.

 

For example, if you have a form that requires a user to input their email address, a filter can accept an email address while not accepting anything that does not look like an email address.

Filters are extremely important when it comes to the security of your server and the proper execution of your code, so you should always use them when possible.

Function Filters

There are a number of different filter functions you can use:

filter_var() – Filters one variable with one filter
filter_input – Gathers one variable, then filters it
filter_var_array() – Filters multiple variables with a single or multiple filters
filter_input_array – Gathers multiple variables, then filters them with a single or multiple filters

Filter_var() Example

We can use the filter_var() filter function to check the validity of an email address:

$email = “yourname@example.com”;  if(filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) === FALSE)
{
echo “$email is invalid”;
}
else {
echo “$email is valid”;
}

 

In the above example, we used the filter_var() function to check that the $email string value equaled “yourname@example.com”.

Filter_input Example

We can take the above example a step further. What if you want to check that an input contains any valid email address, rather than specifying just one set address, we can use the filter_input function to do so:

if(!filter_has_var(INPUT_GET, “email”))
{
echo(“Email does not exist”);
}
else {
if (!filter_input(INPUT_GET, “email”, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL))
{
echo “Email is invalid”;
}
else {
echo “Email is valid”;
}}

 

In the above example, we have an input named “email”, which we received by using GET.

First we checked to see if email contained a variable. If not, we received the message “Email does not exist”.

If email did contain a variable, we used the filter_input function to check whether or not the email address was valid. If not, we received the message “Email is invalid”. If, after passing through our filter, the email was valid, we received the message “Email is valid”.

We can also use the filter_input function to validate that a number value is within a certain range:

if(filter_input(INPUT_GET, ‘num’, FILTER_VALIDATE_INT, array(“options” => array(“min_range”=>1, “max_range”=>100))) != FALSE)
{
echo $_GET['num'].’ is valid’;
}
else {
echo $_GET['num'].’ is invalid’;
}

 

In the above example, we used the filter_input function to check that a number was in the range of 1-100. If the number was within range, a “…is valid” message was echoed. If the number was not within range, a “…is invalid” message was echoed.

Sanitizing Data

At times, it may be necessary for us to clean up, or “sanitize” the data after it has been validated. This is especially true if we intend to use it in our script.

Sanitize A URL

We can use FILTER_SANITIZE_URL to remove any invalid characters that we may receive within a URL.

Along with letters and numbers, the following characters are also not removed from the URL:
$ – _ . + ! * ‘ ( ) , { } | \ \ ^ ~ [ ] ` > < # % ” ; / ? : @ & = .

Here’s an example:

if(!filter_has_var(INPUT_POST, “url”)) {
echo(“URL does not exist”);
}
else {
$url = filter_input(INPUT_POST,
“url”, FILTER_SANITIZE_URL);
}

 

To reiterate, the above example will remove invalid characters from the given URL by using the filter_input function.

jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=360 1 Easily learn how to write PHP – PHP File Write http://fxpal.info/?p=358 http://fxpal.info/?p=358#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:20:32 +0000 admin http://fxpal.info/?p=358

Using the fopen() function, we are able to open a file, assigning ourselves certain permissions to that file. However, we use the fwrite() function to properly write data to any given file.

 

As with any other file manipulation function, we must first open the file before we can write to it. (For more information, see fopen)

$file=fopen(“myfile.txt”,”w”) or die(“myfile.txt does not exist!”);

 

Notice that we are opening the file using the (w) write only mode.

Taking the information we learned from fopen, we understand that the write only mode will open and clear the contents of our file, or it will create a new file if it doesn’t already exist.

Now that the file is open, we can write some data to it:

$data = “My file now has some data.”;
fwrite($file, $data);

 

What we just did was assign the string “My file now has some data.” with the variable name of $data.

We then used the fwrite function to write the contents of the $data variable to the file ($file) as was already specified, being “myfile.txt”.

We can use the same procedure to write more than one line of data to the same file:

$data = “My file now has some data.\n”;
fwrite($file, $data);
$data = “Now it has even more.\n”;
fwrite($file, $data);

 We just did the same thing as before, only we repeated it twice and added a carriaged return (\n), which is the same as pressing the “Enter” key on your keyboard, to the end of each line. (For more information, see PHP syntax.

Our end result would be a file named “myfile.txt” with the following contents:

My file now has some data.
Now it has even more.

Always remember to use the fclose function to close the file once you’re done writing to it:

fclose($file);

 

End Result

Let’s put it all together now leaving out all the comments I’ve left above:

$file=fopen(“myfile.txt”,”w”) or die(“myfile.txt does not exist!”);  $data = “My file now has some data.\n”;
fwrite($file, $data);
$data = “Now it has even more.\n”;
fwrite($file, $data);

fclose($file);

 

Reopening The File

As we learn using the fopen function, if we open the file again using the “w” (write only) mode, we will erase all of the contents of myfile.txt and overwrite them with any new contents we insert.

We can control whether to save the previous data and add our new data to the file (see File Append), or to open it as demonstrated in this lesson and erase all its contents.

For a complete list of the different modes you can use when opening a file, see fopen().

jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=358 2 Easily learn how to write PHP – PHP File Upload http://fxpal.info/?p=356 http://fxpal.info/?p=356#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:14:24 +0000 admin http://fxpal.info/?p=356

So many people want to learn how to allow users to upload files to their server- well now’s your chance!

 

First off, let me say that before you blindly allow everyone to upload any type of file to your server, think twice. Potentially damaging files can be uploaded reeking havoc on your server!

As stated before, you should already be familiar with HTML before attempting to tackle PHP, and that is because HTML is often needed to display or gather certain objects from your site visitors- and uploading files using PHP is one good example.

Creating The Form

First off, you need to create a form which will allow your visitor to select which file they wish to upload and submit it for processing. Here is the simplest type of such a form:

<form action=”upload.php” method=”post” enctype=”multipart/form-data”>
Select a file for uploading: <input type=”file” name=”newfile” /><br />
<input type=”submit” value=”Submit” />
</form>

 

Before continuing, you should fully understand the form we’re using.

First, we are assigning an action to the form, which is to send the contents of the form to “upload.php” when submitted. Also, we have specified that the enctype be “multipart/form-data”. This is a required attribute in order for our upload.php file to process the form.

Then we have an input type of “file”. This will give the user the famous “Browse” button in the form where they can click and select a file on their local computer.

Lastly, we have the submit button which will send the inputted data to your upload.php file.

Creating The File

Now that we’ve created the HTML form used to gather the information, we now need to create the PHP page that will process the form.

We will use $_FILES array to store certain information on the uploaded file. For the purposes of this tutorial, we’re going to keep things simple and use the following arrays:

$_FILES['newfile']['name'] – This is the name and local path of the original file.
$_FILES['newfile']['tmp_name'] – This is the name of a temporary file that is created while the form is being processed.

Notice that on our HTML form, we assigned the input file field the name “newfile”, which is why we’re using it here.

The data we’re going to save is the original name of the file and the temporary name assigned to the file while it’s being processed.

Saving Uploads

To save uploaded files, we need to do a few things. One is to specify where the file should be saved on the server. We can do this using the following code:

$target_path = “uploads/”;

 

Next, we actually perform the upload:

$target_path = $target_path . basename( $_FILES['newfile']['name']);  

if(move_uploaded_file($_FILES['uploadedfile']['tmp_name'], $target_path)) {
echo “The file “. basename( $_FILES['newfile']['name']). ” has been uploaded!”;
} else{
echo “We never received your file!”;
}

 

To recap, we set the target path as “uploads/”. In other words, you need to have a directory named “uploads” for all the uploaded files to be stored. Of course, this can be changed to any name you wish.

Next, we upload the file to the target path, saving it with the original filename. (Note the explanation of $_FILES['newfile']['name'] above).

Then, we take the temporary file (what we’re working with thus far), and turn it into a permanent file in the target path.

Using if/else, we specify that if the permanent file has been uploaded to the target path successfully, we echo “The file [filename] has been uploaded!”.

Or else we echo “We never received your file!”.

Again, this is a bare bones upload file. It can be expanded in far too many ways to explain in one tutorial, but this simple upload form and PHP file will get the job done.

jg

]]> http://fxpal.info/?feed=rss2&p=356 0