If you are looking to execute an external PHP script, and still have access to the functionality of the platform and your site, you can do something like this in order to load the platform.

<?phpdefine('_JEXEC', 1);
define('DS', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR);
 
if (file_exists(dirname(__FILE__) . '/defines.php')) {
    include_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/defines.php';
}
 
if (!defined('_JDEFINES')) {
    define('JPATH_BASE', dirname(__FILE__));
    require_once JPATH_BASE.'/includes/defines.php';
}
 
require_once JPATH_BASE.'/includes/framework.php';
 
/* Your code here */

If we take a closer look at the code, the first if construct will check if there exists a defines.php file in the directory of your external PHP script, and use if in case it does. If that file is not found, it will look in the includes subdirectory for defines.php. After the defines are included, the platform is loaded. There is really not much more to it, now you will be able to use the Joomla! platform like you would inside Jooml!. For example by instantiating JDatabase through $database = JFactory::getDBO(); or accessing the request through JRequest.

So, your shiny new frontend component is all written and works flawlessly without any kind of bugs whatsoever and now you would like to remove the component menu item in the administrator Components menu. Why you say ? Of course because your shiny new component is a frontend-only component and you do not want to implement a dummy backend interface just because it is cool.

So here is how you do it, if you need to know how to create an installer script for your component, please refer to the official Joomla! MVC Component tutorial.

class Com_HelloworldInstallerScript {
    function postflight($type, $parent){
        if ($type == 'install' || $type == 'update') {
            $db = JFactory::getDBO();
            $query = $db->getQuery(true);
            $query->delete('#__menu');
            $id = JComponentHelper::getComponent('com_helloworld')->id;
            $query->where('component_id = '.$id);
            $query->where('client_id = 1');
            $db->setQuery($query);
            $db->query();
        }   
    }   
}

Note that during uninstall of a component which has had its menu entry removing in this manner, there will be a warning/error in versions 1.7.0 and older. The component will still uninstall like it should so do not worry if you see this error.

The Intel® 64 and IA-32 architecture guarantees atomicity if one of the following conditions are met

• Reading or writing a byte
• Reading or writing a word aligned on a 16-bit boundary
• Reading or writing a double word aligned on a 32-bit boundary

       asm ( assembler template 
           : output operands
           : input operands
           : list of clobbered registers
           );

#define LOCKED   = 1
#define UNLOCKED = 0
 
static int test_and_set(int *address)
{
	int value = LOCKED;
	asm volatile ("xchg (%%eax), %%ebx"
		      :"=b" (value)
		      :"0"(value), "a"(address));
	return value;
}

So we went to visit Fort l’Ecluse which was at the time hosting an exhibition from CERN featuring a lot of nice pictures from the various detectors and also some very nice holographic imagery that I managed to get a couple of good shots of.

There is also a very nice via ferrata climbing route there which I hope to be able to do in the near future.

After spending the day walking around in the old castle (yes, plenty of stairs…) we went for a nice climbing trip at Leaz, which is a small village at the foot of the Jura mountains.

I went walkabout here the other day with my camera, and this is what came out in the other end

Once upon a time we did a OpenGL implementation of the Solar System in C#, I thought i’d put it here

Playing around on my thinkpad, I discovered that the HDAPS system can be used to do more than just protect your hard drive in case of a fall.

The following application displays a 3D model of a cube representing the monitored laptop, a server running on that laptop is sending real-time updates using information it gets from the IBM Hard Drive Active Protection System (HDAPS). This allows a remote client to monitor the movement of the laptop. The application itself is not very impressive, but I included a screenshot anyway.

Just for kicks, I thought i’d do a ncurses implementation of Conway’s Game of Life.

Gospergun

                             #
                           ####
                  ##     #### ##         ##
                #  #   #   ## ###        ##
       ##      #       #   ## ##
       ##      #      #   #####
               #       ###   #
                #  #
                  ##

                               #
                                ##
                               ##

Making raw input data available to Java3D through the use of JNI. The device is a 3dConnexion Space Navigator, it registers itself as an event device through the input subsystem.

Our Java class

class ReadFile {
    native static int[] readEvent();
 
    //Load the library
    static {
        System.loadLibrary("nativelib");
    }
 
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        while(true){
            int event[] = new ReadEvents().readEvent();
            System.out.print("Event: ("+event.length+" bytes): ");
            for(int b: event)
                System.out.print(new Integer(b) + " ");
                System.out.println();
        }
    }
}

The Makefile used to build the shared library

CC=gcc
JC=javac
JH=javah
 
CFLAGS= -shared -Wall
INCLUDEPATH= \
     -I/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.16/include/ \
     -I/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.16/include/linux
 
all:
$(JC) ReadEvents.java
$(JH) ReadEvents
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o libnativelib.so $(INCLUDEPATH) events.c

This is really all the C code we need to pass the axes array

#define EVENTNODE "/dev/input/event6"
 
int axes[6] = {0,0,0,0,0,0};
int btns[2] = {0,0};
int fd = 0;
 
JNIEXPORT jintArray JNICALL Java_ReadEvents_readEvent(
    JNIEnv* env, jclass cl)
{
        if(fd == 0){
                fd = open(EVENTNODE , O_RDONLY);
        }
        struct input_event ev;
        read(fd, &ev, sizeof(struct input_event));
 
        switch (ev.type){
                        case EV_KEY:
                                btns[ev.code] = ev.value;
                                break;
                        case EV_REL:
                                axes[ev.code] = ev.value;
                                break;
        }
        jintArray jb;
        jb = (*env)->NewIntArray(env, 6);
        (*env)->SetIntArrayRegion(env, jb, 0, 6, (jint *)axes);
        return (jb);
}