Gil's Blog

When a flight attendant tells you that you can’t have a pillow on your lap, or must remain seated an hour before landing (Yahoo News), it is time to question the competence of security agencies. Those new rules imply that an explosive device could well be already in the plane, and obviously, it has just happened. Instead of acknowledging their failure by adding new measures that consider all passengers as threats, wouldn’t it be better to ensure that no explosive gets aboard? As Bruce Schneier notes in his security blog, “Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.” They are certainly more willing to do so after September 11. I believe that flight-crew training is the best thing TSA could invest in.

We all want to fly safely, but at what price? It is bad enough that we must all go through patting, puffing-sniffing machines, x-rays, shoe removal and dubious looks and questions, it should ensure that once on the plane, we are treated as paying customers again. TSA could lean a few things from El-Al security measures, including racial profiling. Instead, they ask grandmothers to remove their shoes, and ban children from flights because their name match a suspected terrorist. If I had to choose between a fountain pen and a nail file for a weapon, I’ll take the pen any day. Not that bringing explosives on-board or weapons is difficult.. Political correctness should go overboard before safety and privacy.

Airlines should feel the economic pressure of ineffective security policies. They would then lobby for better measures and training, not more of the same nonsense. The only way we can do this is simply take the car, or train when possible for short trips. I wish the United States had not lost it’s railroad industry. You can zip all around Europe at 200mph in total comfort, are we so far behind technologically? It is the responsibility of taxpayers to see that their money is used in a reasonably responsible and effective manner. Keeping me from going to the bathroom at the end of a flight or not giving me a pillow is not going to make a flight safer. If that device on the Northwest/Delta flight had been well made, the plane would have gone down, pillow or not. It only takes a fraction of a second to press a button.

I just discovered the Pretty Link Wordpress plugin, and I think it will help getting more returning visitors to my site, especially using the Pretty Bar feature. Problem is, I have 11,000 posts, with almost as many links. So, I wrote a Python Script to convert all your old post links to Pretty Links. You need to insert your database login on lines 23,24,25,26. Replace ‘planenews’ on line 49 by your site name, without the .com. Replace my domain by yours on line 58. If you leave line 69 as it, the script will set your Pretty Links to show with the Pretty Bar, standard parameter forwarding, group 1, traking on. If it works for you, you better send me a few bucks to buy a Cigar or a Cointreau, because this will save you a lot of time! (Click on the Donate button below), Scroll down to get the code…

Update: You may have to run it a few times until the script returns no result.. No time to figure out why.. Make sure you backup your database before playing with this!

#!/usr/local/bin/python import MySQLdb import sys import re from random import * import string ##### Functions. chars = string.ascii_letters images=['jpg','jpeg','png','gif'] def makeslug(): return “”.join(choice(chars) for x in range(randint(4,4))) def isimage(s): s = s.lower() return s[s.rfind(".")+1:] in images ##### Connect to MySQL. try: conn = MySQLdb.connect (host = “”, user = “”, passwd = “”, db = “”) cursor = conn.cursor() except MySQLdb.Error, e: print “Error %d: %s” % (e.args[0], e.args[1]) sys.exit url=re.compile(‘(?#Protocol)(?:(?:ht|f)tp(?:s?)\:\/\/|~\/|\/)?(?#Username:Password)(?:\w+:\w+@)?(?#Subdomains)(?:(?:[-\w]+\.)+(?#TopLevel Domains)(?:com|org|net|gov|mil|biz|info|mobi|name|aero|jobs|museum|travel|[a-z]{2}))(?#Port)(?::[\d]{1,5})?(?#Directories)(?:(?:(?:\/(?:[-\w~!$+|.,=]|%[a-f\d]{2})+)+|\/)+|\?|#)?(?#Query)(?:(?:\?(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:]|%[a-f\d{2}])+=?(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:=]|%[a-f\d]{2})*)(?:&(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:]|%[a-f\d{2}])+=?(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:=]|%[a-f\d]{2})*)*)*(?#Anchor)(?:#(?:[-\w~!$+|.,*:=]|%[a-f\d]{2})*)?’) ##### Get already used slugs slugs={} query=”SELECT slug,url FROM wp_prli_links” cursor.execute(query) for line in cursor.fetchall(): slugs[line[1]]=line[0] ##### Get all links in post_content query=”SELECT ID,post_date,post_title,post_content FROM wp_posts WHERE post_status=’publish’ ORDER BY ID DESC” cursor.execute(query) count=0 for line in cursor.fetchall(): found=url.findall(line[3]) for link in found: try: if ‘planenews’ not in link and not isimage(link): if link not in slugs: # Generate slug slug=makeslug() slug=slug.lower() while slug in slugs: slug=makeslug() slug=slug.lower() slugs[link]=slug newlink=’http://planenews.com/’+slug print “%d : %s | %s” % (line[0],newlink,link) # Replace link in content newcontent=line[3].replace(link,newlink,10) # Clean-up for mySQL newcontent=MySQLdb.escape_string(newcontent) title=MySQLdb.escape_string(line[2]) # Save new content qq=”UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content=’%s’ WHERE ID=%d” % (newcontent,line[0]) cursor.execute(qq) # Save Pretty Link to database. qry=”INSERT INTO wp_prli_links (name,url,slug,nofollow,track_me,param_forwarding,redirect_type,created_at,group_id) VALUES (‘%s’,'%s’,'%s’,0,1,’on’,'prettybar’,'%s’,1)” % (title,link,slug,line[1]) cursor.execute(qry) else: # Swap already assigned slugged url. newlink=’http://planenews.com/’+slugs[link] newcontent=line[3].replace(link,newlink,10) print “ALREADY PRETTY: %s : %s” % (newlink,link) newcontent=MySQLdb.escape_string(newcontent) title=MySQLdb.escape_string(line[2]) # Save new content qq=”UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content=’%s’ WHERE ID=%d” % (newcontent,line[0]) cursor.execute(qq) except: print “ERROR” cursor.close() conn.close()

I had problems with the Google XML sitemap generator plugin because of my database size, more than 10,000 articles. Here is a Python script that will work no matter how large your database is. Make sure you edit the domain name at the end, for the home page entry, path to the sitemap.xml file, and of course, put in your database login info. Put the script on a cron-job, et voila! See the code below…

#!/usr/local/bin/python import MySQLdb import sys ##### Connect to MySQL. try: conn = MySQLdb.connect (host = “”, user = “”, passwd = “”, db = “”) cursor = conn.cursor() except MySQLdb.Error, e: print “Error %d: %s” % (e.args[0], e.args[1]) sys.exit ##### Open file for writing f=open(‘/home/gil/public_html/sitemap.xml’,'w’) ##### Print xml headers to file. f.write(“< ?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>n <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"n xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"n xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9n http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">nn”) ##### Get all posts data. query=”SELECT ID,post_modified FROM wp_posts WHERE post_status=’publish’ ORDER BY ID DESC LIMIT 10000″ cursor.execute(query) count=0 for line in cursor.fetchall(): count+=1 # Set priority to 1 for most recent 12 posts, then 0.6 if count>12: priority=’0.6′ else: priority=’1.0′ if count<13: freq=’daily’ elif count<100 and count>12: freq=’weekly’ else: freq=’monthly’ mod=str(line[1]) mod=mod.replace(‘ ‘,’T') mod=mod+’-05:00′ if count==1: modhome=mod urlset=”<url><loc>http://planenews.com/archives/%s</loc><lastmod>%s</lastmod><changefreq>%s</changefreq><priority>%s</priority></url>n” % (line[0],mod,freq,priority) f.write(urlset) ##### Save entry for home page urlset=”<url><loc>http://planenews.com/index.php</loc><lastmod>%s</lastmod><changefreq>daily</changefreq><priority>0.8</priority></url>n” % (modhome) f.write(urlset) f.write(“</urlset>“) conn.close() f.close()

Here is a script to convert you PHP-Nuke database to your new Wordpress one. It does not transfer comments, but does users, topics and stories. It is written in Python. You need to edit the database logins and specify your url and PHPNuke admin user id. The MySQLdb Python module must be installed. If it works for you, you better send me a few bucks to buy a Cigar or a Cointreau, because this will save you a lot of time! (Click on the Donate button below), Scroll down to get the code…

And by the way, here are the two lines to put in your .htacesss file to convert the old PHPNuke URLs to the new Wordpress numeric urls. The will turn, for example:

http://planenews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11117

into: http://planenews.com/archives/11117

So your visitors coming from an old link won’t miss a beat.. Here it is:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^name=News&file=article&sid=([0-9]*)
RewriteRule ^modules\.php$ /archives/%1? [R=301,L]

#!/usr/local/bin/python url=’http://planenews.com’ # We will conver your PHPNuke user to 1. nukeuser=40 import MySQLdb import re dt=re.compile(‘^(w+) (d+), (d+)$’) ##### INSERT IGNORE your Wordpress MySQL login below: try: conn = MySQLdb.connect (host = “”, user = “”, passwd = “”, db = “”) cursor = conn.cursor() except MySQLdb.Error, e: print “Error %d: %s” % (e.args[0], e.args[1]) sys.exit ##### INSERT IGNORE your PHPNuke MySQL login below: try: konn = MySQLdb.connect (host = “”, user = “”, passwd = “”, db = “”) kursor = konn.cursor() except MySQLdb.Error, e: print “Error %d: %s” % (e.args[0], e.args[1]) sys.exit ##### Import users query=”SELECT user_id,username,user_password,user_email,user_website,user_regdate,user_interests FROM nuke_users WHERE user_id<>1″ kursor.execute(query) user={} for line in kursor.fetchall(): user[line[1]]=line[0] print “%d %s” % (line[0],line[1]) lcname=line[1].lower() m=dt.match(line[5]) day=m.group(2) year=m.group(3) month=m.group(1) if month==’Jan’:month=’01′ if month==’Feb’:month=’02′ if month==’Mar’:month=’03′ if month==’Apr’:month=’04′ if month==’May’:month=’05′ if month==’Jun’:month=’06′ if month==’Jul’:month=’07′ if month==’Aug’:month=’08′ if month==’Sep’:month=’09′ if month==’Oct’:month=’10′ if month==’Nov’:month=’11′ if month==’Dec’:month=’12′ regdate=year+’-'+month+’-'+day+’ 10:00:00′ qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_users (ID,user_login,user_pass,user_nicename,user_email,user_url,user_registered,display_name) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’,'%s’,'%s’,'%s’,'%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],line[1],line[2],lcname,line[3],line[4],regdate,line[1]) cursor.execute(qry) desc=’Interests: ‘+line[6] caps=’a:1:{s:10:”subscriber”;b:1;}’ qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’nickname’,line[1]) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’rich_editing’,'true’) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’comment_shortcuts’,'false’) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’admin_color’,'fresh’) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’wp_capabilities’,caps) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’user_url’,line[4]) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’description’,desc) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’s2_format’,'excerpt’) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’s2_autosub’,'yes’) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’s2_cat456′,’456′) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’s2_subscribed’,',456,602′) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_usermeta (user_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],’s2_cat602′,’602′) cursor.execute(qry) ##### Import topics. query=”SELECT topicid,topicname,topictext FROM nuke_topics” kursor.execute(query) tax={} for line in kursor.fetchall(): print “%d %s (%s)” % (line[0],line[1],line[2]) slug=line[1].lower() slug=slug.replace(‘ ‘,’-') qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_terms (term_id,name,slug) VALUES (%d,’%s’,'%s’)” % (line[0],line[1],slug) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_term_taxonomy (term_id,taxonomy,description) VALUES (%d,’category’,'%s’)” % (line[0],line[2]) cursor.execute(qry) # Get taxonomy ID. tax[line[0]]=conn.insert_id() ##### Import stories. query=”SELECT sid,informant,time,hometext,bodytext,title,topic FROM nuke_stories” kursor.execute(query) for line in kursor.fetchall(): try: if user[line[1]]==nukeuser: user[line[1]]=1 except: user[line[1]]=1 hometext=MySQLdb.escape_string(line[3]) bodytext=MySQLdb.escape_string(line[4]) title=MySQLdb.escape_string(line[5]) guid=url+’/archives/’+str(line[0]) content=hometext+’<p>‘+bodytext qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_posts (ID,post_author,post_date,post_content,post_title,post_excerpt, post_status,comment_status,ping_status,post_modified,guid,post_type) VALUES (%d,%d,’%s’,'%s’,'%s’,'%s’,'publish’ ,’open’,'open’,'%s’,'%s’,'post’)” % (line[0],user[line[1]],line[2],content,title,hometext,line[2],guid) #cursor.execute(qry) print “[%d | %s %d] %s” % (line[0],line[1],user[line[1]],line[5]) qry=”INSERT IGNORE INTO wp_term_relationships (object_id,term_taxonomy_id) VALUES (%d,%d)” % (line[0],tax[line[6]]) cursor.execute(qry) qry=”UPDATE wp_term_taxonomy SET count=count+1 WHERE term_id=%d” % tax[line[6]] cursor.execute(qry) cursor.close() kursor.close() conn.close() konn.close()