The Problem Weblog

A message to kerella from OkCupid

2008-01-21T00:14:11Z

I got your message, and answered it, but you seem to be inactive.
Those horribly-annoying OkCupid will not send alerts to me by email for some reason, and they won't even check what it the problem. So I saw your message only now...

So if you happen to see this journal, do answer.

Hugs,
Yaron

A stupid eclipse problem that I solved

2008-01-10T10:43:02Z

Here's a technical post! Have you missed those?

I'm using Eclipse 3.3.0 (codename Europa) with the PHP processing thing (PDT).
And it was running fine until today, where it spewed me an ugly dialog box with this sort of an error message:

!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.jobs 4 2 2008-01-10 11:55:41.345
!MESSAGE An internal error occurred during: "Building workspace".
!STACK 0
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
at org.eclipse.php.internal.core.util.SerializationUtil.deserializeFunctionsParameterArray(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.php.internal.core.util.SerializationUtil.deserializeFunctionData(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.php.internal.core.util.SerializationUtil.deserializeFunctionDataArray(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.php.internal.core.util.SerializationUtil.deserializeClassData(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.php.internal.core.util.SerializationUtil.deserializeClassDataArray(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.php.internal.core.util.SerializationUtil.deserializePHPFileData(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.php.internal.core.util.SerializationUtil.deserializePHPFileDataArray(Unknown Source)

etc etc.
And then Eclipse didn't recognize the PHP language in the project. It didn't show the function list and other annoying stuff.

Erasing the configuration didn't help (I can't erase the project/workspace since it's shared).. and then I saw that other team members got the same error message. So what did I do?

I reviewed the list of all recently changed files (using mc. Gnome file manager and Konqueror just failed bringing me that list), and saw the .cache folder in the project folder. That looks like a thing which is fun to delete, no? So I renamed it, and guess what? Eclipse built it again.. and now it works!

Isn't it lovely?

Isn't it a good enough reason to marry me? Or at least go out with me. Girls, you gotta appreciate it.

Fuck you, Apple! How dare you create a limited phone?!?

2007-07-05T13:30:55Z

Apple really pissed me off!

I waited so much for their iPhone, and hoped it would be the phone which will finally make me happy. A phone which will satisfy all my demands (list of demands coming soon).

And then it came up, and it looks like a stupid, limited thing that fails to do what even my good 'ol Nokia 6131 can do:

No copy & paste. Why be so stupid and forget it?? You really deserve good spanks, dear Apple engineers.
You can't use MP3s (or other audio files) as ringtones. That's the part of my phone I need the most- the ability to choose custom music files, so my phone will be always distinct, and I'll always know it's my phone ringing.
I guess it's in order to force people to buy ringtones, instead of be able to define their own. But even the feature to buy ringtones doesn't exist yet.
No video recording. I admit I rarely record videos in my phone, but still, this feature can be useful sometimes.

So in short, Apple made a gorgeous device, but it's totally useless for me. And I hoped so much I could fantasize on it and maybe buy it one day. But no. Stupid stupid stupid!!!!!!!

I still hope someone would make a phone which is totally customizable. OpenMoko maybe? But I don't think anything like this exists yet.

Who is it?

2007-02-08T17:43:30Z

Someone knocks at my door. Who might it be? I'm not expecting visitors.
"Who is it?", I ask.
"Dreslen, from Jerusalem".
"I don't know any Dreslen from Jerusalem."
"But he'll be pleased to know you".
Should I ignore that person? It might be more secure to do so, but curiosity wins and I open the door. I see an ultra-orthodox sefaradi guy.
"Oh, you're trying to save me from secularity, don't you?".
"No no."
"So what do you want?"
"I want to show you a book"
He shows me a book with a colorful back. I don't even remember its name, but it's insignificant. Probably something about kabala or a similar ritual weirdness.
"I am sorry", I say, "I believe in Elkobim, the god of the dice, and he doesn't allow me to believe in other gods."
I close the door in front of his astonished face.

Moving out

2006-12-03T16:13:45Z

Hi darlings,

I will be moving out (it's about time, for Elkobim's sake) at the 15th of this month. I've found a small one-room appartment in Hadar Yosef, Tel Aviv, for the price of 380$/month, which is pretty cheap for an appartment in the center.

I hope it'd help me in the romantic field.

Now I have to choose which landline phone company should I use: Bezeq or Hot?

Looking for an appartment

2006-11-12T20:27:05Z

בחור בן 30, עובד בתכנות (PHP אם זה מעניין אתכם), אחראי, מסודר והגיוני (שימו לב: הגיוני. זה מאוד חשוב כשמפשים דייר, לא?), מחפש דירה נעימה לגור בה באיזור השרון המזרחי (מרמת השרון עד כפר סבא).
הנה ההעדפות:

מקום שהוא לא זעיר (יותר מ-14 מ"ר בבקשה). זאת אומרת שאם מכניסים לחדר מיטה כפולה, אז שישאר מספיק מרווח מחיה.
שלא יהיה חור. שזה לא יהיה מקום מתקלף, מעופש או צבוע בכתום.
שתהיה הפרדה בין המטבחון והחדר שמיועד לשינה.
מצוייד במזגן לימי הקיץ החמים.

ובתמורה תקבלו:
דייר אחראי למדי, ששומר על הסדר ולא שומע מוזיקה חזק בכלל.

אתם מוזמנים לפנות אלי בדוא"ל: zbkcf5w02@sneakemail.com (כן, זאת כתובת זמנית שאני אוכל למחוק אם המודעה הזו כבר לא תהיה אקטואלית).

תודה רבה.

A note to my English speaking friends: Yes, I am looking for an apartment. It's about time, don't you think?

Has anyone emailed me?

2006-08-12T20:30:27Z

I logged on to gmail to check for emails that went into the spam folder, and a moment before I clicked on "delete all" I saw an email titled "stories".. but it was too late. :(

So, if anyone sent it to my address, please re-send and also comment here.

Thanks.

Rejoice! Story blog opened

2006-07-25T16:52:55Z

I decided to make a seperate journal for all my stories. It is here.
People who know the seventh-dot-one blog of mine will not be thrilled because they probably know all those stories. But other people might enjoy it. From now on, my next stories will be published there, unless I write a story which is tied to a certain blog persona.
Feel free to add as a friend.

Problem: Outlook Express ignores request to save draft

2006-07-01T18:17:17Z

Applies to: Outlook Express 6 (XP)

What to do when you compose a message in OE, and when you choose to save draft it just ignores the request (if you try closing the window, it asks you if to save the message. If you say "yes" it does nothing (and doesn't close the window).

This may happen if you didn't configure any mail server settings! Seems that the "save draft" option works only if your "Send / Receive" button is enabled. Smart, eh?

Going to Belgium

2006-06-03T15:41:34Z

Hey people.

Thought you wanted to know I'm visiting a friend from Belgium (who happens to read 2 of my blogs, too). If you got any recommendations on places to visit, please tell! (Although my friends promises me we'll have a lot of places to see).
I'll be there for a week.

I'm also planning to make some order with my web presence, and use this as my public blog - the one that I wouldn't mind that even my family would read, and post here my stories and stuff.

Hugs,
me.

Animal identification request

2006-02-14T19:41:19Z

I found some kind of an unidentified arthropod (it's not an insect as it has 8 legs), and I have no idea whether to release it or eliminate it. Would anyone advise?

I hope you didn't cause you to lose your appetite or anything.

(crossposted: israeli, my journal)

Update: Thanks to the people in israeli, I found it's a pseudoscorpion. I released it in the wild (after it survived almost 2 days without eating anything), although after reading more about it, it appeared I should have just put it on the floor, since it's a useful predator which eats booklice, mites, bed bugs and all other annoying bugs, and doesn't harm humans in any way.

Should I update this blog?

2006-01-28T22:42:27Z

I wanted to post here a translation of a blog entry I wrote titled "A pest from a parallel universe". But the question is: Should I bother? People hardly answer to my LJ entries...

[false alarm] BEWARE when you change the location of "My documents"

2006-01-02T11:01:03Z

update (some hours later)
I seem to have mistaken. Windows didn't erase my folders.. You may safely forget this post.

seems that I've pointed it to the wrong folder. So Windows created new folder in it: "My pictures". When I entered that folder I've found it it's empty and I freaked out. While the original "My pictures" was somewhere else.

Apparantly MS isn't that stupid.

Update ends. Original post follows.

This behaviour is for Windows 2000. Might happen on XP too.

If you right-click on "My Documents" icon, you have the nice option of changing its location.
What you can't know is that windows will ERASE everything in the destination folder if you change it.

After you change the location, windows asks you if you want to move the old data to the new location. If you answer "no", it just erases everything in the new folder without warning!

And it has just erased my only backup of the old documents I had, including emails and stuff.
It's so horrible!

I don't like cats

2005-10-14T21:24:40Z

Story moved to here.

Tuta (part 2)

2005-05-13T12:13:56Z

And now, the much anticipated sequel for Tuta part 1!

Original story by novartza. (Original version is here, no direct link - you have to scroll down or search for the text "הטוט" (since it's visual Hebrew).
Translated by: me again.

I have met Nahum in the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network. I favored him because of his innocence and honesty. Also his beard and those hairs on the sides of his chicks did it to me. I have never had a profound acquaintance with an ultra-orthodox Jew before.

People were often banning me from the chat. It's because I like messing with people's minds and giving provocative remarks, and also because they are jealous at me for being prettier and more intelligent than them. I'm 23 year old and studying archeology and ancient languages in the university.
After that I'd nag Nahum in private messages and he'd fix that, until the next time.

I asked Nahum if he would want to marry me. He said I'll have to convert to Judaism for that. I didn't know what it means, so I looked up for details about that on the internet.
Apparently it involves serious changes in my way of life. For example, avoiding using the computer, TV etc in Saturday, avoiding pizza with pepperoni and shrimps, and various other silly things. That's really far away from me. I can't understand how an intelligent person like Nahum can believe in things like that.

"Hello?"
"Marie-Christine?"
"Who is this?"
"It's Nahum. I'm in Hilton Checkers, downtown LA."
"Nahum?! What are you doing in the USA?"
"I won a lot of money and decided to come and visit you. How is it going with you? Are you free tonight?"

I was walking in the lobby entrance and looking for him, when a clean-shaved stranger approached me. "Tuta?"
"What? It's you?!" I was shocked. He didn't even look like the guy I remembered from the picture he sent me that time.
"Yes. I took off the beard and the yarmulke. I'm a secular person now," he said.
We sat near a table and talked. Apparently he decided to leave his funny religion and his boring life he had in Israel and to move to the USA, now that he has enough money for doing so.

"Wow, I don't believe it," I told him. "So what do you want to do now?"
"…Marry you, maybe. I don't know. We'll see." He smiled in embarrassment.
"Hehehehe.." I chuckled. "You are almost at the same age as my father… but never mind. You are cute." He did look cute, with his bashfulness. I kissed him. "Do you want to come to my place now?"

He was very gentle in bed, even too gentle. I like it rougher.
The next day he woke up early and kissed on me on the lips, gently. He dressed up quietly and left.
When I woke up, I found a note.

Tuta,
I feel that it's not it. It won't work.
It never had a chance in the first place.
It's also because of the age differences and the cultural gaps…
Thank you for a night of love and fun.
I'm probably moving to another city in the USA, and I'll try to find my luck there.

- Nahum

"Frankly, my dear Nahum…" I muttered in a paraphrase of Rhett Butler's immortal words, and wondered what to do with the note. Eventually I shoved it into one of the drawers. I played Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" while choosing what should I wear for the new day.

Translator's notes:
The real Tuta isn't much close to the Tuta we see here. And I would like to thank Novartza, the IRC channel #israel @ efnet and the Hebrew-English dictionary of MS-Word for the great help in translating the two stories. Live, love, learn!

Tuta (part 1)

2005-05-12T14:37:42Z

Original story by novartza.
Starring: tuta et el.
Translated by: Yours truly.
Please note: I am not a professional translator. Feel free to comment me about any translation errors.

"What are you doing, uncle Nahum?"
"Filling a form"
"What form?" It was Esty, my 10 year old niece. She dragged a chair from the room corner, climbed on it and looked over my shoulder. The time was 2:00 on a Thursday afternoon.

I was living that time in my sister's apartment, in Ashdod.

The reason for it was my brother in law, who took advantage of my father's innocence in order to write my father's apartment in Jerusalem, where I was living too, under his name. "It's only in order to get a mortgage", he said.

Two years after my father passed away, my sister and my brother in law engaged their elder daughter. They needed an apartment for the young couple.
"B.. but.. the apartment is mine! I inherited it from my father!", I stuttered.
"Whose name is it written on in the land registry office?" asked my brother-in-law, smiling.
"And where will I live?" I asked in embarrassment.
"You can rent yourself a room somewhere", he answered. "We will help you with one third of the rent. Actually, you can live in our apartment, for free. We will vacate the maid's room for you."

So that's how I moved to Ashdod. I moved there the computer I inherited from dad, the one which could still run DOS programs I needed for my job. I gave the other computer, the more enhanced one, I gave to the guy who lived in my former apartment for rent that covered the mortgage expenses, as a goodbye gift. [I didn't understand that paragraph myself]

"It's a Toto (sports betting) form", I explained my niece. "There are 10 tables, in each one of them there are 15 rows and 3 columns: 2, 1 and X. You need to fill in each row one of the columns".

She looked silently on me why I was filling the 8th table. When I got to the end of the 9th one she asked: "Let me fill one table". I let her. What harm could it do?

In Saturday I didn't do anything besides of sleeping, eating, praying and reading a bit in holy books. My sister and her husband are religious. I am too, actually, or not. Meaning - when I'm with them I keep the Shabbat and pray carefully, so they won't know I'm not as believing as them. Inside me I stopped believing, especially after what my brother in law did to me with the apartment. If god exists, I though, how come he let me do me such a thing?

After the "Havdalah" I went to my room, turned on the computer, opened my work hours report file and filled in a date and a time. I started working.

I worked in diacritization of holy books. My boss wanted to publish chumash with a few medieval commentators. There were already several of these in the market, each one with more commentators than the other, but they lacked diacritics. My boss purchased the files with the non-diacritized texts and passed them to me, to diacritize. Not manually, heaven forbid. I worked with an old word processing program which had an automatic diacritizer.

I turned on the radio: "Songs and goals" [A famous sports program] Beitar Jerusalem against Bnei Sachnin. It was the 14th minute and the result was 1:0 for Beitar, from a goal of Avi Nimni five minutes before that.
I finished diacritizing chapter 27 in the Chumash of Deuteronomy when I heard a knock in my door. I turned off the radio and said: "Yes?"
It was Esty, the niece. "Could you help me please, uncle Nahum?"
"In what?"
"In the Chumash."
I sighed silently, saved the file, marked the hour in my hours file and went with her to the living room. I don't consider sixth grade homework as a challenge.

15 minutes later I was back in my room. I turned on the radio and got back to work. The Ochana guys where still trying to increase the score, but the Sachnin goalkeeper, Mirmavadoro, did his job well, along with their defense team, and the score remained the same until the end of the half.

"Telkar with the ball, trying pass to Nimni, but the ball gets blocked in a fabulous blocking by Hussein Salame, the great middlefield player of Sachnin. Salame dribbles, bypasses Telkar. A pass to Edri. Edri advances towards the goalpost. Kornfein blocks him, a bit too aggressively. Salame on the grass. The referee gives a red ticket. Kornfein leaves the field angrily." Beitar with 10 players and without Kornfein - A tough situation, I thought to myself. I hope to hell that sachnin won't score another goal.

I closed the file I was working on and marked the time in the hours files I worked for a total of an hour and a half. I connected to the internet.

"Nahum? Where have you been?"
It was Tuta. Her real name was Christine, an Armenian Christian of Lebanese origin who lives in Los Angeles. Full of life happiness. Likes to annoy. I'm desperately in love with her.
"I've been working, sweetie", I answered. "I need money for financing the internet connection and talking with you, you know", I added smilingly.
"Yalla. Really. As if an internet connection costs so much in Israel. You don't even have broadband."
"I was just laughing. It's just that the boss is pressuring me to finish this task so he can pass it on to proofreading."
"Can you help me with something?"
"Ofcourse. What's the deal?"
"How do say 'catnip' in Hebrew?"
I placed my mouse cursor on the word and clicked the middle button.
"Nefit HaKhatulim" (I spelled that for her with latin letters. All the conversation has been in English, of course). "But I doubt anyone uses this word besides of the Hebrew Academy. Anyway, I don't think this plant exists here."
"Thanks, Nahum. Je ta'dor". She typed a colon and a star, as a kiss sign. "Bye honey", I wrote her.

Akh, I though. If only I had some million dollars. I'd move to Los Angeles and Marry her, and damn my boss and the nice brother in law, and all the others who make money on my expense.

I returned my attention to the radio.
"Ganaim with the ball, passes to Miary. Two minutes forty seconds to the end. Miary advances, passes to Edri. Telkar tries to block him. Edri returns to Miary. Kicks.. Goal! Guy Salomon had no chance of stopping that kick. 2:1 to Sachnin!!!"

I moved my attention to the chat, while listening with a half ear to the radio. Maybe a miracle will happen and Beitar will equalize. Some idiot started flooding the channel with "Fuck Israelians" and "Palestine forever" so I kicked him. "Nimni in a bursting attack. Telkar tries to block him, with no success. Trying to move past Amslaem. Amsalem trips him! The Beitar audience curses Amsalem vigorously. The judge whistles for a penalty kick. 25 seconds to the end."
The chat had nothing that required my attention so I got back to the game. "Nimni on the line. Will he succeed in equalizing? Kicks.. the ball is out!
The game ends. 2:1 to Sachnin. The rabid fans of Beitar burst to the field and try to attack the referee. The cops take control of them." I switched the radio station angrily to the Galgalatz top ten chart.

In Thursday evening I finally finished the work on this commentator. The hour was 11 at the morning. I zipped the files and emailed them to my boss. I included the hour reports with the payment request. 216 hours, 35 nis an hour. Total 7650 NIS gross. Reasonable.
I wore the black "uniform" and the brimmed hat and went for a walk. I took a bus to the forum, went into the kosher pizzeria and had a pizza and cola. I continued strolling around.
I got into the Toto station and handed my Toto form, out of habit.
"Well? Any win?"
"Brother", said the seller, "you hit the jackpot! 15 correct guesses!"
"You got to be kidding. How come 15? Didn't Sachnin win Beitar?"
"Sure they did," he answered.
"But.. how could it be? I know I marked 1 or X in all the columns!"
The seller pointed the relevant line in the last table. The one that my niece filled. There was a 2 there.
"Ehh.. where do I get the money?"

Stay tuned for the translation of the second and last part, which is written from Tuta's point of view!
Update (the next day) - the sequel is here.

Delphi: How to apply XP visual styles

2004-12-22T10:29:24Z

Missed me?
I'm not a student anymore, so I encounter new problems, so it's a reason to update the blog. Does that make you happy? I'm sure it does. :)

So.. if you noticed that Delphi doesn't show the visual styles of XP by default (it keeps the win95 look), but if you want to enable visual styles, there is a componenet called XPManifest, in the Win32 palette (at least in Delphi 7). Just drop it on your form.

For some reason it has no help so I ignored it at the beginning.. but it's the one which will change the look of your program. And it could have helped me a lot if I knew its meaning.. because at first I tried to emulate the XP look on my program, which was very silly.

Things to know if you want to install an old ISA modem on a pentium+ motherboard

2004-02-17T18:53:46Z

So, you don't feel like buying a new modem and you found an old ISA modem (the one that creates a real COM port) stuck in an old computer. Here are some tips on how to install that old modem in your modern machine (it's easier actually to install on a pentium rather than a 486 or less, assuming you still have that ISA slot).

My BIOS displays the COM port addresses during boot. Probably yours too. So it's a good idea to disable the onboard COM ports, and that way, if you boot up and you still see a COM port address, it means that your modem is recognized - at least by the BIOS! If not, it means you have to continue playing with its IRQ and range configuration (whether the configuration is changed using a program or using some good old jumpers).

After your port is recognized and all (you might need to tell windows to add new COM port through the hardware wizard too!), If it's an old modem it might not get recognized by windows, but you can still add it manually. The next step is to try to use the modem through that HyperTerminal thing of windows (try a direct connection to the port)

Now, don't use the fastest possible speed. Seems that it's too fast for some modems and they just won't respond. Instead try values like 19200 first and see how far you can increase it.

And one final tip: If there's a storm outside, disconnect the modem and the computer from the power and the phone line! The poor modem, that I worked hours on figuring how to use, died because of that lightning bolt (along with 3 other appliances). It almost made me cry.

No more invite codes?

2003-12-13T17:23:43Z

Once LiveJournal was kinda exclusive, and people who wanted a journal needed either to pay for it or to ask for an invite code from a friend, and those invite codes were kinda limited.

And I liked it this way. It seemed like a good way for them to stay in business, since it looked like a good way to make money and also a good way to limit abusers.

But they decided that invite codes are no longer needed. It doesn't make much sense.. since LJ has no other way to make money but its revenues from the users (they don't have ads). And now.. if you ban someone, he could just create a new account amd continue annoying you (not that I'm going to do that.. it's way too lifeless for me)

Personally, nobody ever annoyed me by writing in my journal (except the one who wrote my journal is a lousy idea!!!! ;) but what about.... all the other people? Those who have a huge community might get in trouble now. They might have to start screening comments.

Oh well. That's not my problem. I just liked that way.. and thought that other sites should implement invite codes as well.. and now my role model doesn't act this way anymore. (Heh. I also guess it's the end of deadjournal. Who is going to pay them now?).

Date?

2003-12-08T21:37:35Z

As if in order to compensate for the mishap mentioned in the previous journal, a real girl from the university answered my email today and gave me her phone number! And we're going to meet in the Social Sciences porch (a lovely place with a view to the most loaded road of Well7)

She told me that it won't be a romantic date because it might not lead anywhere - starting a relationship as just friends might be healthier, so she believes. I was a bit disappointed from that, but.. oh well.. a female friend might be a lovely thing as well.

So, wish me luck!

Banned!

2003-12-08T07:13:34Z

Some girl banned me from her journal because I was joking about going out with her. Some people just don't have a sense of humor..

MS-Access: New projects (or linked tables) are readonly

2003-10-17T19:39:45Z

What can you do when you create a new project file with MS-Access and it shows you the tables alright, but it won't let you modify them? Read on!

"Project" in MS-access is a way to access MS-SQL server while using the nicer MS-Access interface. This way you can use all the forms of MS-Access while the data is stored on the server.

But what, if you try to connect to a database and it won't let you modify anything in the table, it means that the table misses a unique index, so you should create one (either through MS-Access or thorugh the MSSQL admin).

The same problem will happen if you try link to Ms-Access a table which doesn't have a unique index.

Also notice that if you want to export a database correctly through the SQL server, you need to tell the DTS "wizard" to copy tables and objects, and not only tables, because in the latter way it won't copy the indexes defintions and again, you won't be able to modify that database through MS-Access (among other problems).

_{Keywords: MSAccess, MSSQL, project, read-only}

JavaScript: Adding an input form variable

2003-10-15T18:39:12Z

So what can you do if you want to add elements to your lovely page, like for example adding values to your form programmatically, without using document.write? Read more to find out how to do that:

Let's say your form is named muki and you want to add the value "dog=cute" to it. Use the following JavaScript code:

var inp = document.createElement("input"); inp.type = "hidden"; inp.name = "dog"; inp.value = "cute"; document.muki.appendChild(inp);

It's useful with use with misbehaving JavaScript componenets which won't express with FORM variables what the user selected (like the BlueShoes HTML tree). You can use this way (createElement and appendChild) to add more paragraphs to a DIV and stuff like that.

Isn't JavaScript frustrating? I wish there was a nicer language instead of it.. and I'm not talking about VBscript.

PS: I'm still waiting for Google to index my blog.. it won't be much useful otherwise.

_{More keywords: Adding form variables programmatically using JavaScript; adding HTML elements with JavaScript}

Offtopic: New user picture!

2003-09-28T16:32:16Z

Although offttopic, but I wanted to brag that I managed to draw a user picture. I did it with Painter - and it's really fun.

First I drew the outlines, and after that I created a new layer, placed it below the outlines layer and drew the colors on it. That way, the program takes care that I don't draw out of line or draw on the line.

It's similar to how animation cells are done (or used to be done) - first the animator drew the outlines on the transparent celluloid, and then he flipped the cel to the other side of it and colorized it.

Following are the frames from Love Hina that I used for inspiration:

_{Disclaimer: I don't love much Love Hina. But I do love the characters a lot}

PHP: Installing GD (or other extensions) in Windows

2003-09-26T16:28:15Z

If you installed PHP using the EXE installer, you'll find that it misses several extensions, such as the GD graphics functions, Multi-byte (including unicode) functions and more stuff like that. So where are they?

I thought I'll have to compile them in windows, but they don't point out that all those extensions (in the form of DLL files) can be found in the ZIP package in the PHP download page. So you just download that ZIP file, copy the required DLL files to C:\PHP (or any other directory where PHP is installed) and uncomment the lines in PHP.INI which mention the DLL files you copied. Later you can check with phpinfo() if those libraries are installed.

Information taken from this page.

Note that in PHP 4.3.3 (and maybe other versions), if PHP fails to load an extension, it'll display a blocking MsgBox on the server computer in the current logged on account. This will confuse people who access the server remotely using terminal services, because PHP will just appear stuck. They will have to physically go to that computer or use PcAnywhere in order to press OK on that MsgBox.

Another thing I've noticed is that in order to render Hebrew text (or other international text) in GD using a TTF file, you'll have to do 2 things to the text first:
1. Reverse it to visual Hebrew (using hebrev())
2. Convert it to unicode. For Hebrew, use the output of mb_convert_encoding($your_string, "UTF-8", "ISO-8859-8")

_{Keywords: php extensions windows win32, installing GD in windows, how to install gd in windows}