Brain Dump v1.0

Storing And Querying Information with PERL-MySQL

Gowtham — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:01:27 +0000

During the Christmas break of 2005-06 (while I was a graduate student in Michigan Technological University), I thought it would be nice to have a tool to store details pertaining to our research group publications in a MySQL database (instead of a flat HTML file). Some underlying motives were as follows:

List all publications in a year - helps when generating annual progress reports
List all publications by any given author(s)
A combination of the above two possibilities

The server which served our research group website used Sun OS 5.6 and for security-related reasons, it did not have PHP. As such, it became necessary (a good thing!) that this utility had to be written using PERL CGI (Common Gateway Interface). List of required features (implemented over a period of time) included:

User Side
1. Display all publications when no query is submitted (default display) - include a search form
2. Searchable by year of publication
3. Searchable by two authors
4. Searchable by a combination of #2 and #3
5. When displaying queried results, include Abstract
Admin Side:
1. Adding a new publication to the database, with PDF upload option (GUI)
2. Updating details for an entry that already exists in a database (GUI)
3. Deleting an entry from the database (GUI)
4. Restricted access

Starting with MySQL database/table structure, these requirements are described one by one in following subsections.

#0. Preliminary Settings

Let us assume that:

The web documents are stored under /var/www/html and will henceforth be referred to as $DocumentRoot (if you are trying to implement this in your research group in a university/academic institution, please check with your systems administrator for the appropriate value of $DocumentRoot).
The page (with search form) which users will interact is called publications.cgi and is stored under $DocumentRoot.
The folder that contains PDF version of publications is called pdf and is located under $DocumentRoot. Make sure this folder has 777 permission.
The folder that contains administrative CGI scripts is called admin and is located under $DocumentRoot. This folder must have restricted access.

#1. MySQL Database

Create a database. If einstein is userid of the group’s principal investigator, then einstein_research would be just fine a name for the database.
Create a dummy user (within MySQL), einstein_webuser, with at least INSERT, UPDATE, SELECT and DELETE previliges on einstein_research database.
Set a (strong enough) password for this dummy user.

Create a table within einstein_research database, publications, with following structure:

CREATE TABLE `publications` (
  `PubID`    int( 11 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
  `BibID`    varchar( 15 ) DEFAULT NULL , 
  `Title`    varchar( 255 ) NOT NULL,
  `Authors`  varchar( 150 ) NOT NULL,
  `JName`    varchar( 30 ) NOT NULL,
  `JVolume`  int( 8 ) NOT NULL,
  `JYear`    year( 4 ) NOT NULL,
  `JPage`    int( 11 ) NOT NULL,
  `Abstract` text,
  UNIQUE KEY `BibID` ( `BibID` ) ,
  KEY `PubID` ( `PubID` )
) ENGINE = MYISAM DEFAULT CHARSET = latin1;

It is generally a good idea to back up these databases on a regular basis - to save oneself from the pain of re-entering everything if something were to go wrong. You may refer to one of my previous posts that discusses backing up and restoring MySQL databases in detail.

#2. User Side: publications.cgi

Following one of the requirements as mentioned before, this page must display all publications when no query is submitted (default view) and display only those publications (with abstract) when a query is submitted. The part below is the code for default view.

#! /usr/bin/perl
 
# publications.cgi (PART #1)
# CGI script to search the database
 
# Modules being used
use DBI;
use CGI;
 
# Make a CGI object and retrieve information from the form
$inputform = new CGI;
print $inputform->header;
 
# Get values from the form
$year    = $inputform->param("year");
$title   = $inputform->param("title");
$author1 = $inputform->param("author1");
$author2 = $inputform->param("author2");
$bo1     = $inputform->param("BO1");
$bo2     = $inputform->param("BO2");
$bo3     = $inputform->param("BO3");
$ffill   = $inputform->param("ffill");
 
# If the variable 'ffill' is empty, then display the form
if ((!($ffill)))
{
print << "EOF";


 


 


 


Your Research Group, Your Academic Institution

 

 


 

YOUR GROUP NAME
 
Publications
 



 

 

 

 

 

Year    

  


  

Title

      


  


Author

  


  

Author

  


 



  
  
  




** All fields are optional



EOF
 
# Connect to the database and perform the SQL query
$dbh      = DBI->connect('dbi:mysql:einstein_research:localhost','einstein_web','PASSWORD') or die "Error";
$sql1     = "SELECT * FROM publications ORDER BY JYear DESC, ";
$sql      = $sql1 . "JName ASC, JVolume DESC, JPage DESC, Title";
 
$query    = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$query->execute;
$nresults = $query->rows;
 
# Display the results
if ( $nresults > 0 ) {
print << "EOF";

EOF
 
$id=1;while(($PubID,$BibID,$Title,$Authors,$JName,$JVolume,$JYear,$JPage,$Abstract)=$query->fetchrow()){print<< "EOF";
  
EOF$id++;}
 
print<< "EOF";


#
BibID / Title / Authors / Citation 
	(Last-to-first, with Journals alphabetically sorted)

   
 
  
  $id
  
  
  $BibID | 
  PDF

  $Title

  $Authors

  $JName, $JVolume, $JPage ($JYear)
  
  
  
 
EOF
} else {
 
print "Search Results
\n";
print "Sorry, no records were found!";
}
 
print << "EOF";


 


EOF
exit;
}

The part below contains the code that takes care of search-results part.

# publications.cgi (PART #2)
 
# If the variable 'ffill' is not empty, then query the database
# and display results
print << "EOF";


 


 


 


Your Research Group, Your Academic Institution

 

 


 

YOUR GROUP NAME
 
Publications
 



 

 

 

 

 

Year    

  


  

Title

      


  


Author

  


  

Author

  


 



  
  
  




** All fields are optional



EOF
 
# If the variable 'ffill' is not empty, display the search results
# Connect to the database and perform the SQL query
$dbh      = DBI->connect('dbi:mysql:einstein_research:localhost','einstein_web','PASSWORD') or die "Error";
$sql1     = "SELECT * FROM publications WHERE JYear LIKE \"$year\" $bo1 ";
$sql2     = $sql1 . "Title LIKE \"%$title%\" $bo2 Authors LIKE \"%$author1%\" $bo3 ";
$sql3     = $sql2 . "Authors LIKE \"%$author2%\" ORDER BY JYear DESC, JName ASC, ";
$sql      = $sql3 . "JVolume DESC, JPage DESC, Title";
 
$query    = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$query->execute;
$nresults = $query->rows;
 
# Display the results
if ( $nresults > 0 ) {
print << "EOF";
Search Results
Your query matched $nresults result(s)



EOF
 
$id=1;while(($PubID,$BibID,$Title,$Authors,$JName,$JVolume,$JYear,$JPage,$Abstract)=$query->fetchrow()){print<< "EOF";
  
EOF$id++;}
 
print<< "EOF";


#
BibID / Title / Authors / Citation / Abstract 
	(Last-to-first, with Journals alphabetically sorted)

   
 
  
  $id
  
  
  $BibID |
  PDF

  $Title

  $Authors

  $JName, $JVolume, $JPage ($JYear)
  


  
  $Abstract
  
  


  
  
  
 
EOF
} else {
 
print "Search Results
\n";
print "Sorry, no records were found!";
}
 
print << "EOF";


 


EOF
 
# Close database connection
$dbh->disconnect;

#3. Admin Side: pub_entry.cgi

Guidelines for using this are as follows:

BibID
1. Cannot be empty
2. Maximum of 15 characters
3. Must be UNIQUE
4. Cannot be changed later
5. Good way to compose this is by using first letters of authors’ last names along with year
  (i.e., if R. J. Smith, A. S. Young and B. L. Spring published an article in 2006, BibID would be SYS2006.
  
  In case of single author, use Smith2006)
6. If you expect to have more than one publication in a year by the same set of authors,
  use SYS2006_0, SYS2006_1, and so on OR Smith2006_0, Smith2006_1, etc.
7. Required to delete/update an entry, if such a need arises
Title
1. Cannot be empty
2. Maximum of 255 characters
3. Can contain some HTML tags (, , ^{, _{, etc)}}

Authors

Cannot be empty

Maximum of 150 characters

Separate authors by using ‘,’ (comma)

Do not use ‘and’

Journal :: Name

Cannot be empty

Maximum of 30 characters

Can contain some HTML tags (^{, _{, etc)}}

Journal :: Volume

Cannot be empty

Must be an integer

Journal :: Year

Cannot be empty

Must be an integer

Use all four digits to specify (like ‘2006′ instead of ‘06′)

Journal :: Starting Page

Cannot be empty

Must be an integer

Abstract

Can be empty

Maximum of 255 characters

Can contain some HTML tags
(, , ^{, _{, etc)}}

Use backslash ( \ ) to escape single-quotes ( ‘ )

Journal :: PDF Version

Cannot be empty

PDF document MUST have the SAME name as BibID

MUST be PDF (not just the filename extension)

Process DOES NOT check to make sure it is PDF

The code is split into two parts - default view is to just display a form. When properly submitted, it makes an entry into the database. Code for default view is below:

#! /usr/bin/perl # pub_entry.cgi (PART #1) # CGI script to make an entry into publication # Modules being used use DBI; use CGI; use CGI::Carp qw ( fatalsToBrowser ); use File::Basename; # Make a CGI object and retrieve information from the form $inputform = new CGI; print $inputform->header; # Assign form-values to local variables $bibid = $inputform->param("bibid"); $title = $inputform->param("title"); $authors = $inputform->param("authors"); $jname = $inputform->param("jname"); $jvolume = $inputform->param("jvolume"); $jyear = $inputform->param("jyear"); $jpage = $inputform->param("jpage"); $abstract = $inputform->param("abstract"); $jpdfdoc = $inputform->param("jpdfdoc"); $efill = $inputform->param("efill"); # If variable 'efill' is empty, then display the form if (!($efill)) { print << "EOF"; Your Research Group, Your Academic Institution
YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Entry

BibID
Title
Authors
Journal :: Name
Journal :: Volume
Journal :: Year
Journal :: Starting Page
Journal :: Abstract
Journal :: PDF Version

EOF exit; }

The details regarding uploading a document via PERL & CGI are contained in one of my previous posts. Code for entering the above information into the database follows below:

# pub_entry.cgi (PART #2) # If variable 'efill' is not empty, then insert the data # into the database print << "EOF"; Your Research Group, Your Academic Institution
YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Entry

EOF # Connect to the database and perform the SQL query $db = DBI->connect('dbi:mysql:einstein_research:localhost','einstein_web','PASSWORD') or die "Error"; $sql1 = "INSERT INTO publications VALUES ('', '$bibid', '$title', "; $sql2 = $sql1 . "'$authors', '$jname', '$jvolume', '$jyear', '$jpage', "; $sql = $sql2 . "'$abstract')"; $query = $db->prepare($sql); $query->execute; # PDF upload part # 5MB limit on the size of the document $CGI::POST_MAX = 1024 * 1024 * 5; # Characters that are allowed to be part of the filename my $safe_characters = "a-zA-Z0-9_.-"; # Update location my $upload_location = "/var/www/html/pdf"; my $filename = $inputform->param("jpdfdoc"); if ( !$filename ) { print $inputform->header ( ); print << "EOF";
There was a problem uploading the PDF
EOF exit; } # Clean up the filename - remove any 'path' and split the filename into # basename and extension my ( $name, $path, $extension ) = fileparse ( $filename, '\..*' ); $filename = $name . $extension; # Replace blank space in filename with 'underscore' $filename =~ tr/ /_/; # Remove any 'not safe' characters $filename =~ s/[^$safe_characters]//g; # Untaint the filename if ( $filename =~ /^([$safe_characters]+)$/ ) { $filename = $1; } else { die "Filename contains invalid characters"; } my $upload_filehandle = $inputform->upload("jpdfdoc"); open ( UPLOADFILE, ">$upload_location/$filename" ) or die "$!"; binmode UPLOADFILE; while ( <$upload_filehandle> ) { print UPLOADFILE; } close UPLOADFILE; print << "EOF";
Data was successfully entered into the database. Click here to make another entry.
EOF # Close Database Connection $db->disconnect;

#4. Admin Side: pub_update.cgi and pub_updated.cgi

Often times, it becomes necessary to update an entry (author names, citation, abstract, etc.) and to do so, the appropriate entry must be retrieved from the database. Code for pub_update.cgi follows:

#! /usr/bin/perl # pub_update.cgi # CGI script to retrieve a publication from the database # for update # Modules being used use DBI; use CGI; # Make a CGI object and retrieve information from the form $inputform = new CGI; print $inputform->header; # Assign form-values to local variables $bibid = $inputform->param("bibid"); $rfill = $inputform->param("rfill"); # If variable 'rfill' is empty, then display the form if (!($rfill)) { print << "EOF"; Your Research Group, Your Academic Institution
YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Retrieve

BibID

EOF exit; } # If variable 'rfill' is not empty, retrieve data from the database print << "EOF"; Your Research Group, Your Academic Institution
YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Retrieve

EOF # Connect to the database and perform the SQL query $db = DBI->connect('dbi:mysql:einstein_research:localhost','einstein_web','PASSWORD') or die "Error"; $sql = "SELECT * FROM publications WHERE BibID='$bibid' LIMIT 1"; $query = $db->prepare($sql) or die "Error"; $query->execute; while(($PubID,$BibID,$Title,$Authors,$JName,$JVolume,$JYear,$JPage,$Abstract)=$query->fetchrow()) { print << "EOF";

BibID $BibID
Title
Authors
Journal :: Name
Journal :: Volume
Journal :: Year
Journal :: Starting Page
Journal :: Abstract
$Abstract
Type in new abstract OR copy the existing one from above

EOF } print << "EOF"; EOF # Close Database Connection $db->disconnect;

pub_update.cgi takes all the information and passes it over to pub_updated.cgi, which updates the record. Code for pub_updated.cgi follows below:

#! /usr/bin/perl # pub_updated.cgi # CGI script to update an entry in the database # Modules being used use DBI; use CGI; # Make a CGI object and retrieve information from the form $inputform = new CGI; print $inputform->header; # Assign form-values to local variables $bibid = $inputform->param("bibid"); $title = $inputform->param("title"); $authors = $inputform->param("authors"); $jname = $inputform->param("jname"); $jvolume = $inputform->param("jvolume"); $jyear = $inputform->param("jyear"); $jpage = $inputform->param("jpage"); $abstract = $inputform->param("abstract"); print << "EOF"; Your Research Group, Your Academic Institution
YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Retrieve

EOF # Connect to the database and perform the SQL query $db = DBI->connect('dbi:mysql:einstein_research:localhost','einstein_web','PASSWORD') or die "Error"; $sql1 = "UPDATE publications SET Title='$title',Authors='$authors',"; $sql2 = $sql1 . "JName='$jname',JVolume='$jvolume',JYear='$jyear',"; $sql = $sql2 . "JPage='$jpage',Abstract='$abstract' WHERE BibID='$bibid' "; $query = $db->prepare($sql); $query->execute; print << "EOF";
Data was successfully updated in the database. Click here to update another entry.
EOF # Close Database Connection $db->disconnect;

#5. Admin Side: pub_delete.cgi

Seldom it becomes necessary to delete an entry from the database (a reference article entered in by mistake as a publication, etc.) and the code for pub_delete.cgi follows:

#! /usr/bin/perl # pub_delete.cgi # CGI script to delete an entry from the database # Modules being used use DBI; use CGI; # Make a CGI object and retrieve information from the form $inputform = new CGI; print $inputform->header; # Assign form-values to local variables $bibid = $inputform->param("bibid"); $dfill = $inputform->param("dfill"); # If variable 'dfill' is empty, then display the form if (!($dfill)) { print << "EOF"; Your Research Group, Your Academic Institution
YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Delete

BibID

EOF exit; } # If variable 'dfill' is not empty, then delete an entry # from the database print << "EOF"; Your Research Group, Your Academic Institution
YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Delete

EOF # Connect to the database and perform the SQL query $db = DBI->connect('dbi:mysql:einstein_research:localhost','einstein_web','PASSWORD') or die "Error"; $sql = "DELETE FROM publications WHERE BibID='$bibid' LIMIT 1"; $query = $db->prepare($sql) or die "Error"; $query->execute; print << "EOF";
Entry was successfully deleted from the database. Click here to delete another entry.
EOF # Close Database Connection $db->disconnect;

#6. Admin Side: Restricting Access To Admin Interface

There are some ways of achieving this - to prevent unauthorized personnel from messing with databases and files.

Password protect the admin folder - allow only a certain user from any machine

IP address/Hostname based restriction - allow any user (preferably a group member) to access the admin interface from certain machine(s).

Combination of #1 & #2 - allow only certain users from certain machines.

A simple Google!ing for password protection .htaccess .htpasswd should result in a good number of decent documents. But do check/discuss your approach with your systems administrator(s) - to make sure that it can be applied, is feasible and less mis-usable under existing circumstances.

Screenshots

The screenshots below were generated after incorporating the style sheets (CSS) that are in-line with Michigan Tech theme. The code in the above sections, however, results in very plain, bare-bone HTML pages. With a basic, working knowledge of CSS, it should not be too difficult to spice up the appearance:

Publications - Default View

Publications - When a query is performed

Making a new entry

Deleting an entry

Retrieval for update

Updating an entry

Demonstration

Live demo of this code, only the publications.cgi, is here. Others, as can be expected, are hidden in a secure folder.

Disclaimer

The aforementioned instructions/steps worked for me and it may very well work for you on Sun OS / linux distributions. Please note that if you decide to use these instructions on your machine (either for this particular application and/or for other kind of information), you are doing so entirely at your very own discretion and that neither this site, sgowtham.net, nor its author is responsible for any/all damage - intellectual or otherwise.

File Uploads Via PERL And CGI

Gowtham — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:18:36 +0000

A while ago, I wrote about uploading files to a web server via PHP and this post follows along similar lines - only accomplishing the same task using PERL. There are numerous articles on the web and in the books, but what follows here is what worked for me - it is expected to serve as a Note2Self but if you find it useful, please feel free to do so.

A Form To Select The File

Let us suppose that the HTML file that displays this form is called NewFile.html and the PERL file that does the actual uploading work (and some more) is called Uploader.cgi.

enctype="multipart/form-data" action="Uploader.cgi" method="POST"> align="left" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" border="0" width="100%"> align="left" valign="top"> Select A File align="left" valign="top"> name="uploaded_file" type="file"> align="left" valign="top"> align="left" valign="top"> type="submit" value="Upload This File">

Uploader.cgi

Suppose that the end-user selected a file to upload and hit the Upload This File button. Now, the file, Uploader.cgi takes over and does a few things. The source code, adopted from a Site Point article, follows:

#! /usr/bin/perl -wT # -w switch to make Perl warn us of any potential dangers in our code. # -T switch turns on taint checking. This ensures that any untrusted # input to the script, such as the uploaded file's filename, is marked as tainted. use strict; use CGI; use CGI::Carp qw ( fatalsToBrowser ); use File::Basename; # Tto prevent the server being overloaded by huge file uploads, # the allowable size of an uploaded file can be limited to 2MB. # # 1024 bytes in 1 kB; 1024 kB in 1 MB (1048576 bytes in 1 MB) $CGI::POST_MAX = 1024 * 1024 * 2; # Some characters, such as slashes (/), are dangerous in filenames, # as they might allow file uploads to any directory. Alphabets, # numerics, underscores, hyphens and periods may be considered safe. my $safe_characters = "a-zA-Z0-9_.-"; # In Red Hat (like) distribtutions, the DocumentRoot variable in Apache # is set by default to '/var/www/html'. Suppose that all uploaded files # will be put into a folder called 'uploads' under DocumentRoot. # 'uploads' folder must have 777 permission. my $upload_location = "/var/www/html/uploads"; # The next step is to create a CGI object (assigned to $query below). # This allows one to access methods in the CGI.pm library. One can then # read in the filename of uploaded file. my $query = new CGI; # If there was a problem uploading the file -- for example, the # file was bigger than the $CGI::POST_MAX setting -- $filename # will be empty. The following bit tests for such problems. # # Value within param() is the same as the reference used in the form my $filename = $query->param("uploaded_file"); if ( !$filename ) { print $query->header ( ); print "There was a problem uploading the file. May be it is too big?."; exit; } # The first thing to do with filename is use the 'fileparse' routine in # File::Basename module to split the filename into its leading path # (if any), the filename itself, and the file extension. One can then # safely ignore the leading path. Not only does this help prevent # attempts to save the file anywhere on the web server, but # some browsers send the whole path to the file on the user's hard drive. my ( $name, $path, $extension ) = fileparse ( $filename, '\..*' ); $filename = $name . $extension; # Convert any spaces in the filename to underscores $filename =~ tr/ /_/; # Remove any characters that are not in safe character list $filename =~ s/[^$safe_characters]//g; # Untaint the $filename variable. # This variable is tainted because it contains potentially unsafe # data passed by the browser. The only way to untaint a tainted # variable is to use regular expression matching to extract the # safe characters: if ( $filename =~ /^([$safe_characters]+)$/ ) { $filename = $1; } else { die "Filename contains invalid characters"; } # The upload method can be used to grab the file handle of the # uploaded file (which points to a temporary file created by CGI.pm). my $upload_filehandle = $query->upload("uploaded_file"); # One can now read the contents of the handle, its contents can be read # and saved to a new file under 'uploads' folder. One can retain the # uploaded file's name as the name of the new file. open ( UPLOADFILE, ">$upload_location/$filename" ) or die "$!"; binmode UPLOADFILE; while ( <$upload_filehandle> ) { print UPLOADFILE; } close UPLOADFILE;

Specific MIME Type

The purpose of this code is to be facilitate uploading journal publications to our research group website. Since most journals do provide PDF version of published material and PDF is as platform-independent a document format as one can get, it wouldn’t make much sense to upload anything but PDF files.

Disclaimer

The aforementioned instructions/steps worked for me and it may very well work for you. Please note that if you decide to use these instructions on your machine, you are doing so entirely at your very own discretion and that neither this site, sgowtham.net, nor its author is responsible for any/all damage - intellectual or otherwise.

Copyrighting Images With Images Using Adobe Photoshop

Gowtham — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:00:21 +0000

Most of us take photographs and many of us post them in this vast, nearly infinite internet. Inherent to this process is a desire to put our name on the pictures - either to protect them from plagiarism or to feed our ego or whatever other reason. There are many software and multiple ways to get this done. Although I don’t use this method all the frequently, I have tested it on CS2 and CS3 editions of Adobe Photoshop and you might find it useful. In one of my previous posts, I had discussed this process and what follows here is a series of steps to use another (smaller) image instead of text to copyright (or just overlay) the main image.

Disclaimer

Below given instructions are what I used to copyright my images on my Apple MacBook Pro running OS X v10.5.x and these may very well work for you. However, please note that you are using these instructions at your very own risk and this website, sgowtham.net, is not responsible for any/all damage caused to your property, intellectual or otherwise.

Get The Images Ready

Backup the original picture(s). Using Photoshop (or otherwise), resize your original picture to a reasonable size. 800×600 px is the approximate dimension of my resized picture.

Start The Process

Open the resized image in Photoshop and the screen should look something like:

We could continue this process assuming that there is only one picture to copyright but it is seldom the case. Let us assume that there is a folder full of images that need similar work and since doing all these steps one at a time for each picture can be laborious task, let us take the Photoshop Action approach. To this effect, pick a New Action from the Actions palette and give it a suitable name:

Click on Record and You should see the Red circular button in the Actions palette, indicating the recording is ON.

File → Open and select the image which will be used instead of (or in addition to) the copyright note.

Click on the small image and press the following key combination: cmd + A followed by cmd + C (ctrl + A followed by ctrl + C in Windows).

Click on the larger image (image to be copyrighted) and press the following key combination: cmd + V (ctrl + V in Windows).

Once the smaller image appears as on overlay on top of the larger image, smaller image needs to be properly aligned. To keep track, one may rename the layer that contains smaller image.

After the last four steps (assuming that you picked Bottom & Right Edges), the result should look something as follows. As one can note, the overlayed image is too close to the edges. To make it easily readable, select the Move tool and nudge the small image layer - both in upward and left directions - by a few keystrokes using the arrow keys.

Once that’s done, press the Blue square button in the Actions palette to STOP recording.

That’s it. Now this sequence of steps can be called as and when needed and the best part is that it can be used with other built-in features of Photoshop to work on folder full of images. Let us assume the following directory structure:

Pictures/Processing/Originals: contains a copy of the original, resized images.
Pictures/Processing/Copyrighted: will contain copyrighted images.

Pick the appropriate Quality. To add smaller image on all the resized images, check Run Action under Preferences and select Copyright_Images. Press Run and wait for the process to complete.

As one particular location of smaller image may not serve well for all images, it may be useful to create more Photoshop Actions - TopLeft, TopRight, BottomLeft and BottomRight - so on and use them as appropriate. It is quite important to retain the location of smaller image - otherwise the process might complain about not being able to find it.

Comments and/or suggestions, technical or otherwise, about this would be appreciated by myself as well as fellow readers.

A Tour Of Two Mines - Sterling Hill and Franklin

Gowtham — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:30:28 +0000

March 29, 2008 - a warm, yet pleasant Saturday afternoon - I was driving back from my first visit to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area when I saw the signs to mineral museum - not one, but two!! I should have carried The Picking Table (Journal of The Franklin-Ogdensburg Mineralogical Society) that Dr. Jaszczak had given me a while ago. Not knowing which of the two mines he had mentioned, I followed signs to the Franklin Mineral Museum in Franklin, NJ. A few minutes of chit-chat with friendly personnel and filling out the membership form, I headed towards the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, NJ. It didn’t take too long to hear the voice - that Dr. Jaszczak had mentioned about and it didn’t take too long to realize why people listen when the man behind this voice spoke. Though all mine tours were done for the day, Mr. Hauck was kind enough to take me along during his closing the doors routine.

Fast forward about 100 days - Marg introduced me to Doug Schmidt, an avid mineral collector (or A Rock Hound, as they like to call in Franklin Mineral Museum). After a short talk over phone, we decided to head up to these mines/mineral museums. Personally, meeting new cooler, nicer people who have similar interests is such a wonderful experience and this was no exception - our drive-along (along the scenic routes) discussions covered a variety of topics, mostly related to science, history and teaching.

Given that about 380 different minerals (out of about 3800 known to mankind) are found in this area - aptly known as the Fluorescence Capital of the World, tour of the two mines was very impressive. Rather ordinary looking and unattractive mineral specimen look divine (yeah divine, sexy is an understatment) under Ultra Violet radiation. The experience only gets better with very knowledgeable tour guides who explain things in an easily understandable manner, even for kids and first-timers. On a hot day when temperatures hovered around 90+° F, walking about 150 feet deep beneath the surface in Sterling Hill Mine - where the temperature was ~50° F - was certainly a blessing, considering all the new, cool things/facts I learnt.

These and other pictures, if you are interested, are here. All in all, it was certainly a very enriching day - in more ways than one and reminded a lot about the Seaman Museum, and the Quincy Mine (a full tour of which I am yet to take). I am most certain to back to these places and spend some quality time learning more about the minerals, history … and probably taking more pictures. If you are in that area and like minerals and know how to enjoy them, you should too

iPhone 2.0 - Apps I Like

Gowtham — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:42:05 +0000

It has been a couple days since most of the mankind, including myself, went through the pains of updating to the latest and greatest iPhone software yet, and I have had some time to play around with some of its new features and try out some of the free cool apps. What follows below are screenshots of some of these features and free apps-in-action (thanks to dear friend Amy for showing me how snap these screenshots):

My Home Screens

AIM Chat

Saying Yellow To The Future

SportsTap

AOL Radio and Radio 105

New York Times & WeatherBug

CheckPlease and EasyTask

Zip Code

Dial Zero and Facebook

Remote - controls iTunes on a Mac (PC too?) from iPhone

Google & Color Coded Calendar

There are a plethora of other applications - some free and some not so free. I must say I haven’t used them all and I am sure I have missed out on some cooler apps - if you know of any that I might like, drop the information as a comment and I will try it out.

If only some one, either Apple or an enthusiastic iPhone developer, would make the Terminal app - it would make my life so much more easier and geekier

Year			Title
Author			Author

** All fields are optional

Year			Title
Author			Author

** All fields are optional

#	BibID / Title / Authors / Citation (Last-to-first, with Journals alphabetically sorted)
$id	$BibID \| PDF $Title $Authors $JName, $JVolume, $JPage ($JYear)

#	BibID / Title / Authors / Citation / Abstract (Last-to-first, with Journals alphabetically sorted)
$id	$BibID \| PDF $Title $Authors $JName, $JVolume, $JPage ($JYear) $Abstract

BibID
Title
Authors
Journal :: Name
Journal :: Volume
Journal :: Year
Journal :: Starting Page
Journal :: Abstract
Journal :: PDF Version

BibID	$BibID
Title
Authors
Journal :: Name
Journal :: Volume
Journal :: Year
Journal :: Starting Page
Journal :: Abstract	$Abstract Type in new abstract OR copy the existing one from above

Brain Dump v1.0

Storing And Querying Information with PERL-MySQL

#0. Preliminary Settings

#1. MySQL Database

#2. User Side: publications.cgi

YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications

Search Results

YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications

Search Results

Search Results

#3. Admin Side: pub_entry.cgi

YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Entry

YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Entry

#4. Admin Side: pub_update.cgi and pub_updated.cgi

YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Retrieve

YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Retrieve

YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Retrieve

#5. Admin Side: pub_delete.cgi

YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Delete

YOUR GROUP NAME

Publications :: Database Management :: Delete

#6. Admin Side: Restricting Access To Admin Interface

Screenshots

Demonstration

Disclaimer

File Uploads Via PERL And CGI

A Form To Select The File

Uploader.cgi

Specific MIME Type

Disclaimer

Copyrighting Images With Images Using Adobe Photoshop

Disclaimer

Get The Images Ready

Start The Process

A Tour Of Two Mines - Sterling Hill and Franklin

iPhone 2.0 - Apps I Like