Articles - Joel Lipman .Com

Forgotten Super User Password in Joomla 2.5.x - 3.x

: Joel Lipman; Joomla; 06 February 2015; Hits: 7216

What?
A quick article on how to set a password using the database tools for super users.

Why?
It happens to us all, especially me. I like to use different passwords for every site but this came up as a client had lost their super user password.

How?
This method is reliant on having access to the database of your Joomla website.

: Joel Lipman; Google; 31 December 2014; Hits: 3373

I like this video to show to clients regarding why advertising and mobile apps are generating funds {youtube}CjUcq_E4I-s{/youtube}

Android Background Image Resolutions

: Joel Lipman; AndroidOS; 01 December 2014; Hits: 11212

What?
A reference to what size an image background should be set to for various screen sizes.

Why?
A background image I was using was unedited at 1600x2133 (364kb) and was not displaying on smaller devices. Configuring drawables for each layout seemed to be the only solution.

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res/drawable-ldpi      240x320
res/drawable-mdpi      320x480
res/drawable-hdpi      480x800
res/drawable-xhdpi     640x960
res/drawable-xxhdpi    960x1440
res/drawable-xxxhdpi   // for launcher only 640dpi
res/drawable-tvdpi     1.33*mdpi // not needed as mdpi or hdpi is used

res/drawable-ldpi 240x320
res/drawable-mdpi 320x480
res/drawable-hdpi 480x800
res/drawable-xhdpi 640x960
res/drawable-xxhdpi 960x1440
res/drawable-xxxhdpi // for launcher only 640dpi
res/drawable-tvdpi 1.33*mdpi // not needed as mdpi or hdpi is used

Category: AndroidOS :: Article: 598

: Joel Lipman; AndroidOS; 25 November 2014; Hits: 21292

Applies to:

Android Studio (Beta) 0.8.9
Android Google Maps v2

What?
A sequel to my article "Basic Android App using Google Maps and Current Location", this article suggests how to add Map as a sub activity. Note that this article is based on a new blank project which does not include code from the previous example but you can still build this over the previous example (as I did).

Why?
The previous article meant that the Google map was your main activity and any other activity would be a sub-activity; returning to the map activity would restart the app as a menu item, it would need to launch a new intent... I wanted to change my previous example so that the homepage of the app (the starting page) will simply display a button to the map (in case of offline mode or incompatibility with the device).

How?
In this example, I'm going to add the map as a fragment. This is the most rudimentary example (display map, move camera and display marker) and can be run from any other activity:

: Joel Lipman; Excel; 06 November 2014; Hits: 4972

What?
A quick article on how to get the value of 40°4′20″N 116°35′51″E into 40.079857, 116.603112.

How?
Let's pretend all the names are in column A, in Column B I have the coordinates that I want to convert:

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A                                       B
-------------------------------------   ----------------------
Beijing Capital International Airport   40°4′20″N 116°35′51″E
Beijing Shahezhen Air Base              40°8′57″N 116°19′17″E
Beijing Tongxian Air Base               39°48′40″N 116°42′30″E

A B
------------------------------------- ----------------------
Beijing Capital International Airport 40°4′20″N 116°35′51″E
Beijing Shahezhen Air Base 40°8′57″N 116°19′17″E
Beijing Tongxian Air Base 39°48′40″N 116°42′30″E

Note that I tend to copy the coordinates off a website which has strange apostrophes and double-quotes. You can change this but remember to put two double-quotes if you are searching on it, eg:

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FIND(""",B1)   // will NOT work!
FIND("""",B1)  // will work
FIND("″",B1)   // will work

FIND(""",B1) // will NOT work!
FIND("""",B1) // will work
FIND("″",B1) // will work

Category: Excel :: Article: 596

: Joel Lipman; Excel; 06 November 2014; Hits: 2738

What?
A quick article on if you want to extract the link from some text you have copied off the web and into an MS Excel document.

How?

Open up a new workbook.
Get into VBA (Press Alt+F11)
Insert a new module (Insert > Module)
Copy and Paste the Excel user defined function below
copyrawstyler
```
Sub ExtractHL()
Dim HL As Hyperlink
For Each HL In ActiveSheet.Hyperlinks
HL.Range.Offset(0, 1).Value = HL.Address
Next
End Sub
```
1. Sub ExtractHL()
2. Dim HL As Hyperlink
3. For Each HL In ActiveSheet.Hyperlinks
4. HL.Range.Offset(0, 1).Value = HL.Address
5. Next
6. End Sub
Press F5 and click “Run”
Get out of VBA (Press Alt+Q)

Category: Excel :: Article: 595

Android: Function to let user take photo or choose existing

: Joel Lipman; AndroidOS; 04 November 2014; Hits: 6903

What?
A quick article on a function to allow the user to take a photo using their built-in camera or to choose an existing photo from their gallery.

Why?
I wanted both options to be available to the user and for it to replace a displayed image in an ImageView.

How?

: Joel Lipman; AndroidOS; 03 November 2014; Hits: 9022

What?
A quick article on how to replace the return key on a soft keyboard (software based) on a touch-device.

Why?
I have an editText where a user can enter any text value but if they typed a return character, the app would crash because it didn't understand the data. I tried replacing the new lines but just stopping the return key or trying to catch it is an obsolete method.

How?

: Joel Lipman; AndroidOS; 31 October 2014; Hits: 8075

Applies To:

Microsoft Windows 7 Pro
Android Studio v0.8.6 beta
Java Development Kit v1.8.0_20

What?
The article below serves as a checklist to ensure I don't release an app that only displays maps to myself (again).

Why?
This took me a while to figure out so hopefully this will help others.

How?
The gist is that I was using the Test SHA1 when adding allowed Android Keys to the Google APIs console (there's so many) when I should be using the App SHA1 (I have now added both to the console).

: Joel Lipman; AndroidOS; 24 October 2014; Hits: 5415

What?
A quick article on how to remove the first two entries from a RSS feed produced by a bunch of java files collectively known as "SimpleRssReader.

Why?
The original file reads of a feed from PCWorld.com. I adapted this to read a google news rss feed and the first two entries are "<query> - Google News", everytime. This article documents what I did to fix it.

How?
Basic to some but I'm new to the game. I'm trying to remove the first two entries from a news feed from a Google News feed.

: Joel Lipman; MySQL; 22 October 2014; Hits: 4443

What?
A quick article on how to populate a database column from another table using a string comparison.

Why?
I have several database tables which replicate country names and I would rather they all use the ccTLD two letter code. This article was written because it took me so long to work it out.

How?

UPDATE  `table_to_update` a
        INNER JOIN `table_to_read` b
            ON a.`CountryName` COLLATE utf8_general_ci LIKE b.`CountryName` COLLATE utf8_general_ci
SET     a.`ccTLD` = b.`ccTLD`

Two icons created on Android

: Joel Lipman; AndroidOS; 20 October 2014; Hits: 2709

What?
If you're installing an app and it creates two icons:

Why?
I don't think I'll forget this one but I was stumped for a bit until I found it on the a forum: Stack Overflow: Android App Development.

How?
Basically don't have the following declared more than once in the AndroidManifest.xml

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<intent-filter>
     <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
     <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>