Denver Colorado Blog

Denver Colorado Blog

created by James Worthen

Toledo, Ohio Neighborhood and Community Trash Problem

Dec 4th, 2006 - Subscribe
Keywords: toledo, ohio, trash, city, community, neighbor, dirty, un-clean, alley, park, bus, stop, cans

Toledo, Ohio Neighborhood and Community Trash Problem
by FrosT

Introduction
A fellow member of Aeonity titled Neighbor Toledo, Ohio Blog as sparked this article entry. After viewing weeks and weeks worth of posts, it seems that no one is listening. Well I am going to help the cause by summarizing everything I have read on their blog and promote the city of Toledo, Ohio to clean up an obvious trash problem.

Toledo, Ohio's Bus Stop Problem
Currently in Toledo, Ohio there are many bus stops without trash cans. In return this causes many people to just throw their trash on the ground next to the bus stops in Toledo, Ohio. What are visitors suppose to think when they are touring the city of Toledo, Ohio and see trash everywhere? A simple trash can at the bus stop would clean up the surrounding bus area dramatically and make the city of Toledo, Ohio more presentable. As stated in the Bus stop trash spot light on these stops this week, Toledo Ohio, " I have written to the Solid Waste Department about most of these sites and it is really frustrating to report them time and time again. Sure, I could just forget about it, but this is where I live…" Obviously they care about the city of Toledo, Ohio where they reside. Why is the city of Toledo, Ohio not taking any actions to help their city become cleaner?

Toledo, Ohio's Alley Way Problems
In Toledo, Ohio Alley way's are becoming filled with people's trash, which just like the bust stop issue, does not help the morale of the city of Toledo, Ohio. Without stricter rules and consequences in place people will continue to be lazy and make the city of Toledo, Ohio look like a trash dump. After reading the Toledo, Ohio Blog titled What is the use of the trash rules, In Toledo Ohio, when they are not enforced? personally I would not want to visit a city, like Toledo, Ohio, that cannot control their own trash problem. When will the city of Toledo, Ohio take the matters away from the concerned citizens and start to clean up their city?

Toledo, Ohio's Park Problems
In the Polonia Park off of Dexter in Toledo, Ohio, as reported by Neighbor of the Toledo, Ohio Blog, the park as seen in the entry titled More spotlight images of trash and alley messes in the Pride Filled City of Toledo, Ohio is obviously very trashy which in return makes members of the community not want to go outside and play with their children at the park for the fear of what they may come across. Why does the city not enforce an Anti-Littering law with a fine attached to anyone caught throwing trash? Why not provide the residents of the community of Toledo, Ohio with trash cans to help prevent such catastrophes from happening?

Ending Notes
As a final note this blog is to help a concerned community member of Toledo, Ohio, who obviously is trying as hard as they can to bring a clean city to the dirty city of Toledo, Ohio. If you are concerned about current status of the city of Toledo, Ohio, help out Neighbor of the Toledo, Ohio Blog, and write an email of concern, linking to this blog if you must, to mayor.toledo@toledo.oh.gov regarding the un-clean status of the city. And ask the Mayor of Toledo, Ohio, why does he not help the community by helping making the city of Toledo, Ohio a clean and enjoyable city?

Resources
mayor.toledo@toledo.oh.gov - Mayor of Toledo, Ohio's Email.
Toledo, Ohio Blog

Reliable Denver Colorado Mortgage Broker

Nov 29th, 2006 - Subscribe
Keywords: reliable, mortgage, broker, colorado, denver, lakewood, rod, shuster, clarion, broker, buying, first, home, honest, trustworthy

Reliable Denver Colorado Mortgage Broker
by FrosT

Introduction
Recently Lyndsey and I bought our first home. In doing this we faced many new faces and talked with many people. Out of everyone that helped us through this process it would not have been nearly as painless if we did not have the help of Rod Shuster from Clarion Mortgage Company.

Finding a Reliable Mortgage Broker in Colorado
When we started with our home buying process I did not know where to even start looking for a reliable and honest mortgage broker. In light I took of by googling many keywords without any success. Finally when I was talking with my Brother-in-law, Leif, he told me of Rod Shuster, which we helped him out by installing his security system. He gave Rod a call and gave me his number. Rod was more than happy to help me out and was always upfront and honest. Lucky for me I received this lucky break through my brother-in-law which meant I did not have to go with a person whom I could not trust to be honest with me.


Colorado Mortgage Broker
Rod is a mortgage broker located in Colorado. Rod, a Colorado Mortgage Broker, strictly works off of referrals, which also shows me that he would not try to scam anyone like so many other people have been scammed. If he did, than obviously Rod would not be in business for very long. Whether you live in Lakewood, Denver, Littleton or other many cities in Colorado, Rod, a Reliable Colorado Mortgage Broker, can help you through the painstaking process of purchasing a home. Along with being very reliable Rod was more than willing to explain any part of the mortgage that we had questions on and even gave us great tips about buying a house that we would not have known to do otherwise. For example when drafting up the contract Rod suggested that we higher a Real Estate Broker just for the paper work. A very wise suggestion which the seller, Lyndsey and I all agreed that would be better in the long run. In return to providing us with a mortgage he also made sure that Lyndsey and I would not get taken advantage of or end up kicking ourselves in the butt over the contract not being drafted up correctly.

Rod Shuster, Reliable Colorado Mortgage Broker
Rod Shuster, has proven to Lyndsey and I that Rod is a very reliable and trustworthy mortgage broker for the Colorado area. Through his knowledge and his actions we will definitely contact Rod Shuster, a reliable Colorado mortgage broker, for any more our home buying ventures. If you are looking for a great and reliable Colorado Mortgage Broker, I would highly recommend Rodney Shuster. Just give him a call at (303) 660-4210 or shoot him an email rod [-@-] shusterinc [-dot-] com. I guarantee that you will not be disappointed with Rod Shuster, a Reliable Colorado Mortgage Broker.

Ending Notes
While Lyndsey and I were at the closing yesterday signing the paperwork the lady from Security Title and Kevin White, our Real Estate broker, both made a very high statement about Rod Shuster and the way he works. Kevin stated that Rod kept him in the loop every step of the process and he was never in the dark on any part of our mortgage process. The lady from Security Title agreed and said she did not even doubt that the paperwork would be there on time and properly filled out. After all of this Lyndsey and I are very appreciative of Rod Shuster, a Reliable Colorado Mortgage Broker, for being the person he is and being upfront and honest with us every step of the way. Thank you Rod Shuster.

Note:
If you would like to talk with me about Rod Shuster feel free to call me at (720) 984-9780 (Jim Worthen)

Resources
Rodney Shuster
rod [-@-] shusterinc [-dot-] com
(303) 660-4210
Reliable Colorado Mortgage Broker

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Buying Our First Home in Lakewood CO
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Tracking Traffic to a Specific Link

Nov 21st, 2006 - Subscribe
Keywords: tracking, count, counter, traffic, link, script, linkscript, mysql, database, text, file, write, free, code, optimized, click

Tracking Traffic to a Specific Link
by FrosT

Introduction
My very first PHP script was dedicated to logging how many times a specific link has been clicked. The first version of the script the stats were logged to a flat file (text file located on the server) to avoid the need of MySQL. The LinkScript code will not immediately be available, but I will post it here in the future. Let's start with the history of LinkScript.

History of LinkScript
The first LinkScript was developed as a tool to count how many people have clicked on a specific link. The simplicity of this initial script allowed for all the data to be stored in a flat file on the server. This eliminated the need of MySQL for those uses that did not have access to a MySQL database on their server. The initial script would open the file, grab the line that is being accessed parse the data update the counter and than write all the lines back into the file with the newly updated count. This strategy shows a few problems, namely was errors would often be thrown due to write access and sometimes data would be over written.

At this point I had learned MySQL in and out and was able to tie LinkScript into a MySQL database. Although the original version of parsing a text file is still accessible, the flat file is not ideal. Incorporating a MySQL database allowed room for a lot of expansion. The expansions included, anti-hotlink options, extra statistics, including referrers and IP addresses of users clicking the link. The script was fairly simple, whenever there was a link you wanted to track you simply added the link to the database, and than the database would provide you with a URL to use to track the link. On that note let's get into the logistics of LinkScript.

Logistics of LinkScript
Tracking links can prove to be a difficult task, but one well worth it if you want to find out how popular a link is. The steps for the LinkScript would be as follows; add a link to the database, including name, description and the actual link URL. From this information the script would store that data in the database and return you the URL to use to track the link. This URL originally was in the form of linkScript.php?linkID=3. This may be changed for ease of use by adding a track back name so instead of linkID=3 it would be link=tack-back-name. Now when a user clicked on that link they would be re-directed to the file and or link that was requested. If the link indeed was a file, the PHP script knew that and if the anti-hotlink option was on for that link it would check the referrer and verify that the user came from the website. If they did not come from the website, or it looked like headers were modified they would be denied the file.

Future Revision to LinkScript
I have been working on future revisions for the LinkScript which include optimizing the database and the code and incorporate Object Oriented Programming into the script. Also a factor that may be looked into is making the actual links SEO friendly and figuring out if writing that would be worth the effort. In essence the URL would from linkScript.php?linkID=3 to /link-script/file-track-back-name.ext I am not sure if that would prove to be worth the effort but is definitely something to look into for the next revision.

Ending Notes
As of right now the code is not available as I have not worked on this script in a few years. I am currently looking into that code and doing many revisions and some optimization of the script and once that has been completed expect to see the script available under the resources section.

Resources
PHP.net

Add Free Movie Listing and Reviews for your Website

Nov 2nd, 2006 - Subscribe
Keywords: emovies, movies, listings, reviews, free, add, website, emocium, free listings, free reviews

Add Free Movie Listing and Reviews for your Website
by FrosT

Introduction
Emocium and Aeonity bring you code that was just released as Open Source. EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews v3 has been in the making for 3 years and was once sold for a price of $150. We are giving you this code for free. Since I am the author of the code I can release EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews v3 to the public. Read on for some insight into EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews and how it all works. Remember PHP and Apache is required for EMovies to run.

Webfetch Scripting
What is a webfetch you ask? A webfetch is a script that reads a webpage of another site off your server and grabs that content for manipulation by a certain script. EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews is simply a webfetch script that uses the Yahoo Movie Listings page to pull its results. Due to this fact the more popular the script gets on your server the higher risk of Yahoo blocking your IP. At a later time I may cook up a scheme to cache results. If someone else feels prompted to create a cache for this script, which would be awesome. If the results were cached and re-cached about every day or maybe even every Tuesday this would significantly reduce the requests to Yahoo which decreases the risk of your IP address getting blocked by Yahoo's Servers.

Does Yahoo Know?
As far as I know Yahoo does not know. I alerted them once before I started selling the script and had an Email stating we had the authority to sell it. Since than I lost that email and because of that selling the script is no longer a viable option due to legal reasons. I will not take any responsibility for actions taken against you from Yahoo. Use at your own risk.

EMovies Revision Histrory
When EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews first started out it was running a template system I created. This template system was not powerful enough and very hard to code. The code for EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews was also straight parse code, no functions or classes anywhere. Later on after I learned Object Oriented Programming, I implemented EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews to run off OOP. This significantly increased the speed and efficiency of EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews. At the same time OOP was incorporated into EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews I created a Search Engine Friendly script for Search Engine Optimization.

Currently the script provided is the SEO version of the script. This SEO version is not the same version that was deployed on Emocium.com due to a few reasons. After 1 month of the SEO script being implemented we ranked #1 on Google.com and Yahoo.com for any time of movie listing search. A person could find "Denver Movie Listings" and we would pull up #1 over any other results. We were averaging 15,000 hits a day. Well about a week after we hit this high volume of users Yahoo blocked our IP for a month. After that I figured it was not worth the risk to be banned permanently from Yahoo.com. Thus I trashed the original SEO script.

Note the current script is optimized, just not as hardcore as the older version. Once that happened I chose to revamp the script again using a new template system. The Easy Template System (ETS), in hope to provide an easier means of modifying the EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews templates. Remember if you need help with a template search Google.com for the Easy Template System. After the new template engine was released a few copies were sold and than EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews was left un-maintained. This was about a year ago. Since than I fixed the script to work and decided to release it to the general public.

What is Asked of Me for Using EMovies Script?
All I will ever ask of anyone who uses my EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews is to link back to Emocium.com on the site that uses EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews, or leave the Powered By information intact.

Ending Notes
The EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews script has worked for a long time. Anyone who knows how to code should be able to fix any problem arises. If not please contact me at frost [-at-] aeonity [-dot-] com and I can look into the issue. Please do not mis-use my EMovies Movie Listings and Reviews and remember to be courteous and link back to Emocium.com. That is all I ask for a script that cost many people $150 a year and a half ago. I do accept donations, if you would like to donate please use the button below under resources. Thank you.

UPDATE
V3.2 - Fixed movie times not displaying properly and added a new feature in config.php that will allow a user to set a specific zipcode to always display. If this variable is set to false it allows the user to choose the zipcode. Files update: emovfunc.php, process.php and config.php

Resources


EMovies - Movie Listings and Reviews v3.1 Download
EMovies - Movie Listings and Reviews v3.2 Download
PHPClasses.org
Emocium.com

Examples
InsideHighlandsRanch.com

Cache Basics Using PHP and Apache

Oct 30th, 2006 - Subscribe
Keywords: cache, gzip, zip, php, apache, programming, program, basics, howto, code, file, class, speed, efficiency, server, decrease, load, increase

Cache Basics Using PHP and Apache
by FrosT

Introduction
Working on a new project I found a need to use caching. After searching the internet and asking a few questions on different forums I was able to get a handle on how to properly cache a document using PHP and Apache. Not only will I provide you with document information but the code to a Cache class that I created. Onto the explanation!

Why Cache Files with PHP and Apache?
As most people know caching is not always the best option. You have to ask yourself this questions first, "How dynamic is my content?" If your answer is extremely dynamic, chances are Caching is not for you, at least not in its entirety. Certain pages or files you may not want cached at all, that is perfectly fine. Other files it may make perfect sense to cache them. For example if you have a header and a footer inside PHP files and your header and footer files never change, those can easily be cached without caching the main part of the document. What will caching the header and footer do for you? This would mean less load time for the main page for the user. The only content that has to be generated is the main content. As appose to if the header and footer are not cached every time a call is made for that particular page the header and footer is re-created. This will increase the load time and decrease the pull on your server.

Why Not Cache Files using PHP and Apache?
As stated before some people caching is not a viable option. Meaning their content that is generated is small enough that it would not matter. Or the amount of incoming traffic to their website is not enough to make a difference. A lot of times people will say that it would take too much effort to cache their current site without much of a benefit. This may be true and if that is the case I would say caching is not for you. However if you even think that caching files would help, there is no harm is trying.

The Caching Process with PHP and Apache
The caching process using PHP and Apache is extremely easy. For some people there is a lot of confusion, which hopefully will be avoided using the class I provided. PHP uses a few functions include ob_start() which is designed to capture output before it is displayed on the users screen. The ob functions are very handy when attempting to cache file because you can have any page, whether it be your site or off site captured and cached. Basically what happens is you get all the data you need to display the page, than you call the ob_start() function. As this is happening you print out the entire page just like if you were displaying that page. Once that is completed you call the ob_get_contents() and than ob_end_clean() function which will say "Ok do not capture any more data being output." From here you have the entire page in a string from the ob_get_contents(). Now that we have the whole page in a string we can choose to start that in a text file or in a database.

If you prefer to have all your cached files in a text file than you just use the fopen() and fwrite() functions to do so. If you are like
me and hate having to manage text files etc another viable option is to store the cache in a database. I prefer the database as appose to a text file because a database is much easier to manipulate for me. That is just my preference. Once you have that file cached and stored the process is over, unless you want to take this a step further (which I know you do).

Caching with gZip, PHP and Apache
Since we are already caching the page, let's also make it smaller for storage. This is done using a remarkable function called gZip. gZip basically takes a file and reduces the size. For example at a compression level of 3 (1-9 9 being highest compression) a 48KB file is reduced to 18KB. That is a significant amount of spaced saved. I stated the compression of 3 because using that level gives you plenty of compressions without the heavy load to the server. A level 9 compression uses a lot of system resources to complete. For most people's use a level 3 compression will be sufficient. Lucky for you I included in my Cache class the gZip compression. This will automatically compress any page you cache to gZip format. When retrieving the page for displaying purposes, if the user's browser does not support the gZip format it will unzip the content and display it normally, no functionality will be lost.

Why use gZip as a part of Caching?
After a page is cached the time to load that page is significantly reduced. If you take this process a step further and gZip that page before sending it to the browser the time is again significantly reduced to view that file. As long as the user's browser supports the gZip compression there is no reason to be sending them a 100KB file when it can be 25KB. This will reduce the bandwidth that your site is putting out and increase the speed on the end-user's side. gZip is a major plus no matter how you look at it. With the only issue being if the user's browser does not support gZip all you have to do is code for that. As I stated before I have done this for you already. Using the class I created you will not have to worry about that logic and how to get working correctly.

Ending Notes
Caching with PHP and Apache is an excellent idea for almost any web developer. This will provide you with amazing speeds, lower server strain and less bandwidth used. With the use of gZip everything stated before is increased. The gZip functionality is one that is widely available but not used due to lack of information to developers. That is what I hope to change. The advantages of using gZip are clear cut without any disadvantages. I hope this guide helps you.

Resources:
http://www.emocium.com/files/clCache.phps


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