Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\steve>ping www.canalplan.org.uk

Pinging www.canalplan.org.uk [212.159.61.36] with 32 bytes of data:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\steve>ping blogs.canalplan.org.uk
Ping request could not find host blogs.canalplan.org.uk. Please check the name and try again.

• A Webserver
• PHP V5.x with CURL enabled
• A MySQL Database.
• A Facebook Account (preferably a developer account unless your friends like being spammed)
• A Facebook Application
• The Facebook Graph PHP-SDK which is available from the GitHub repository.

$db_server = "localhost";
$db_username = "dbuser";
$db_password = "dbpassword";
$db_name = "dbname";

# Lets connect to the Database and set up the table
mysql_connect($db_server,$db_username,$db_password);
mysql_select_db($db_name);
$ct_res = mysql_query("CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `facebook_user` (
   `session_key` VARCHAR( 80 ) NOT NULL ,
   `uid` VARCHAR( 80 ) NOT NULL ,
   `expires` VARCHAR( 80 ) NOT NULL ,
   `secret` VARCHAR( 80 ) NOT NULL ,
   `access_token` VARCHAR( 120 ) NOT NULL ,
   `sig` VARCHAR( 80 ) NOT NULL
   );"
);

# Now lets load the FB GRAPH API
require '../src/facebook.php';

// Create our Application instance.
global $facebook;
$facebook = new Facebook(array(
 'appId'  => '101001010101010101',
 'secret' => 'faafaffdfasdffsafsfsddfasd',
 'cookie' => false,
));

# Lets set up the permissions we need and set the login url in case we need it.
$par['req_perms'] = "publish_stream,
                    offline_access,
                    user_status,
                    read_stream,
                    email,
                    user_groups";
$loginUrl = $facebook->getLoginUrl($par);

function get_check_session(){
  global $facebook;
  # This function basically checks for a stored session and if we have one returns it,
  #If we have no stored session then it gets one and stores it
  # OK lets go to the database and see if we have a session stored
  $sid=mysql_query("Select access_token from facebook_user");
  $session_id=mysql_fetch_row($sid);
  if (is_array($session_id)) {
    # We have a session ID so lets not get a new one
    # Put some session checking in here to make sure its valid
   try {
     $attachment =  array('access_token' => $session_id[0],);
     $ret_code=$facebook->api('/me', 'GET', $attachment);
    }
     catch (Exception $e) {
       # We don't have a good session so
       echo "woops";
      $res = mysql_query('delete from facebook_user where expires=0');
      return;
    }
  return $session_id[0];
 } 

 {
  # Are we coming back from a login with a session set?
  $session = $facebook->getSession();
  if (is_array($session)) {
   # Yes! so lets store it!
   $sql="insert into facebook_user (
               session_key,
               uid,
               expires,
               secret,
               access_token,
               sig)
             VALUES ('".$session['session_key']."','".
                        $session['uid']."','".
                        $session['expires']."','".
                        $session['secret'] ."','".
                        $session['access_token']."','".
                        $session['sig']."');";
   $res = mysql_query($sql);
   return $session['access_token'];
  }
 }
}

$access_token=get_check_session();
# If we've not got an access_token we need to login.
if ( is_null($access_token) ) {
echo '<a href="'. $loginUrl.'"><
img src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zB6N8/hash/4li2k73z.gif" alt="" /> ';
}
else {

# This is where you put your code.
$target=1010101010100110;
$attachment =  array(
 'access_token' => $access_token,
 'message' => 'Did a Test Post :',
 'name' => "Offline posting using stored tokens",
   'link' => "http://blogs.canalplan.org.uk/steve/2010/05/05/using-the-new-facebook-graph-api-off-line/",
  'description' => "This post was made using a stored access token",
  'picture'=>http://blogs.canalplan.org.uk/steve/files/2010/05/Screenshot-5-300x194.png",
			);

$ret_code=$facebook->api('/'.$target.'/feed', 'POST', $attachment);

echo "Returns : ";
var_dump($ret_code);
echo ""; 

$attachment =  array(
'access_token' => $access_token,
 'message' => "and this is a comment I've just made on the post using that same stored token",);

$ret_code=$facebook->api('/'.$ret_code['id'].'/comments', 'POST', $attachment);

echo "Returns : ";
var_dump($ret_code);
echo ""; 

}

On Monday after returning from our weekend away in Kennebunkport I went to my first basketball game. It was a game between the Maine Redclaws and the Springfield Armor at the Augusta Civic Center.

I had no real idea of what to expect. I'd seen some games on TV, including a couple over at Sue and Jeff's but watching top flight pro teams on TV is very different to seing a pretty new team in the D league. Probably like watching Arsenal v Chelsea on TV and then going to watch Cheltenham v Burton Albion.

I think what struck me most was how disjointed the whole thing felt. There were mad bursts of action with players running back and forth along the full length of the court and then there were whole periods of nothing going on with timeouts and penalty shots, and sometimes those penalty shots seemed to take forever to be taken. Of course with all the timeouts and everything else it's surprising how long 48 minutes of play can be stretched out to, and having a ref who seeemed to love the sound of his own whistle and his own voice probably didn't help, and the crowd of just over 3000 people didn't think he was doing a very good job.

Today was of course, Thanksgiving, so that meant a lot of good food and family time with Kathy's family, and everyone ate too much, and that was before we started on the various pies for dessert.

Now everyone is just sitting round relaxing and trying not to fall asleep, and talking about plans for Black Friday, and working on wedding programs for this weekend.

• You need to de-activate the old plug in first.
• Then DELETE the wordbook folder from wp-content/plugins and then upload the new version. DONT just copy the new files up.
• Re-activate the plugin
• Go to the Options page for the plugin and you can set all the new wizzy options. If you want to pull comments from your Facebook account you'll need to grant the plugin permission to read from your stream. If you don't grant this permission then you can't pull comments, and I've no idea what my code will do if it tries to do that because I didn't test it! So you have been warned!

• A PID field (so that people can't just "fake" the sender email address).
• Ability to support posting to different blogs (rather than just primary).
• Ability to support posting from more than one email account.

• SQL - since summer 2008 the main database for CanalPlanAC, the users, the information about photographs, some of the program flow control and state information during a session have been stored in SQL databases. I'm using SQLite - this is small and can be directly integrated into the interpreter making setup very easy.
• XML - until then XML was used for the master data file, and quick-read varieties in a sort of unstructured text file were generated. The unstructured files are also obsolete (although some support may still exist in route.c until I rip it out) but XML is still used although much more round the edges these days. In particular, it's used for:
  • Sending data to some Javascript utilities.
  • Storing the configuration file /cgi-bin/config.xml which tells the program where all the data should be stored and similar things
  • To store the default user options in a file, and the user options (in a blob) in the user SQL database
  • To define options for gazetteer plugins (to be described some other time!)
• JSON - not used statically, but used for a number of inter process and code communications (particularly those involving Javascript)
• HTML - static pages are written in HTML
• CST - ClearSilver Templates. Since summer 2007 pages are generated from template files. This is an extended form of HTML with ClearSilver directives built into it - see the website for more.
• HDF - this is the configuration file language for ClearSilver. I didn't have to use this, I've integrated ClearSilver so tightly I can easily pass it any format I like, but it seemed sensible. The most important HDF file is /templates/default/config.hdf which controls all the menus and buttons on all the pages.

• C - the Interpreter that underlies CanalPlanAC is written in C.  This can remain unchanged for months, until I discover a bug or find the need to add a feature right into the language.  What tends to happen is that I write something in the scripting langauge but find it too slow or too cumbersome, so add it as a language feature instead.    There is - as yet - no modular extensibility to the C: there are about 35 thousand lines of C in 87 source files that I've written,and a chunk more in various pieces of "foreign" code that are linked in.
• CanalPlanAC scripting language.  I have no name for this language, which can be invoked interactively by /cgi-bin/canal/ or to execute a file as /cgi-bin/canal file.can.  This is a basic like language that deserves another dozen items on the syntax.  It was vaguely inspired by Superbasic which could give you a few pointers to some of the syntax.  Key things about it are:
  • An intermediate typing system where all values are one of a number of types, and get coerced from one to the other when assigned.
  • Support for associative arrays (called "lookup" tables) and lists
  • Inline operators: this is a mixed blessing - a line like «if a contains "hello" then ...» is easy to read, but precedence sometimes goes wrong.  (So «print 'this is me and you' after 'me' contains 'you'» produces the whole string (because it parses as evalutate «'me' contains 'you'» which is 0, then returns the original string after character 0.
  • Built-in comprehension of a waterways network with the ability to plan routes aroung it and travel along them.
  • Built-in read/write of SQL, JSON and XML
• There are a few small bash scripts, mainly to kick off CanalPlan programs.
• There is the whole automake/autoconf nest of snakes in /source/ but that shouldn't need touching.
• Many web pages use Javascript (both home written and some appropriately licensed utilities) to do place name lookup, display maps etc.

• Hopefully they should last longer than ply
• They would be cheaper as ply, or no more expensive
• Its easier to cut one plank to the odd taper than a sheet of ply and it if goes wrong then you've only wasted one plank.
• A solid cut edge will be less permeable to water than the cut edge of the ply
• Easier to repair, if a plank gets damaged we can simply replace it.