Editor's Choice Article

PHP MySQL: Deprecated as of PHP 5.5.0
By Ray_Paseur

Introduction (all good things must come to an end)

The original MySQL API is going away, deprecated by PHP in Version 5.5, with published statements that it will be removed in the future (see the red warning box). Since PHP 5.3 is now (February 2013) at end of life, and PHP 5.4 is current, the issues that will arise from the deprecation and removal are already before us. In fact, some parts of the API are already deprecated. It's time to think about making a change in our scripts. And if you're thinking about PHP 5.5, it's necessary to make the change now: "Please, note that this alpha version [php 5.5.0alpha2] also introduces the ext/mysql depreciation."

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Kudos

tracyms wanted to validate a user input in an Excel workbook cataloging new course offerings for a school. He already had a Worksheet_Change sub that did most of what he wanted, and MartinLiss soon gave him exactly what he asked for. But when byundt read the question, he had the sneaking suspicion that tracyms needed something completely different, so he suggested a much shorter macro that responded only to a single change in column C, and received partial credit for the answer. After the question closed, tracyms provided more context and byundt suggested a userform, which tracyms resisted as being too difficult -- until one was posted: "Wow! Fantastic! I will import your form in my spreadsheet. It's so much cleaner! I'm working on a project at work for depts to enter their regular courses and add new ones as needed. I needed a way to "flag" the new courses and the form is perfect. The users will surely be impressed! :-) Thank you Brad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

teylyn posted her response to brothertruffle880's question about being unable to upload documents in Sharepoint a scant ten minutes after it was asked: "Sharepoint online resources are suicide inducing in their adjective-laden PR talk and sometimes dangerously wrong. And the YOUTUBE resources are no better. EE gets to the point without any sales pitch. That's why I use EE."

When allelopath had a question about a wireless router, the assistance provided by thinkpads_user and Darr247 went way beyond a simple yes or no: "Sweet jebus its working now. After the hard reset, everything was working correctly. I can't thank you both enough for your help. Above and beyond the call of duty."

One would expect that accessing the web using Chrome would be pretty straightforward, but btny's question proved it wasn't. A number of people took stabs at the answer, but it was tnjones4444 -- who had joined EE only a few days earlier -- that had the answer: "tnjones4444, you rock! That was it! I uninstalled the Lenovo USB/LAN port replicator driver software and that took care of it. To play Devil's Advocate, I reinstalled the driver and the issue came back. After uninstalling it again, Chrome worked like a charm! I now have to figure out how to get my end-user to use his external 22 inch monitor on his laptop to extend his desktop. He has it connected via a proprietary Lenovo USB replicator. I would appreciate if you could suggest me something. Again, thanks for the help."

Nata's Corner

I can't be the only person who noticed that today (in the US, anyway) is 3/13/13, can I? We're rapidly running out of interesting dates (and no snide comments about the other half, please).

Speaking of whom, he never worries about someone impersonating him on Facebook, because he doesn't have a Facebook account and isn't shy about telling people he never will. As it turns out, that may be a good thing, because trying to get Facebook to close down someone who is pretending to be you is just about impossible -- unless you don't have an account.

The news out of Facebook last week was the major redesign. I had to laugh at the way the New York Times reporter wrote the story, though: "The new design of the Facebook News Feed presents bigger photos and links, including for advertisements..." Which brings up my second biggest gripe about Facebook: that the advertising bogs down everything else. (My first is having to reset all my privacy settings every time they do something, and my third is that stuff I've hidden doesn't stay hidden... but those are for other columns.) I came across a great site -- PrivacyFix -- that helps with that, and with your Google privacy settings too. I don't think it will work on your car, though.

If you're a customer of one of the big ISPs in the US, you should check the terms of service, because a couple of weeks ago, they began implementing the Copyright Alert System that allows them to throttle your bandwidth if you're caught downloading illegal movies and videos (thank you, RIAA and MPAA). You get six chances -- everyone who knows nothing about baseball is calling it "six strikes" -- and needless to say, there's a fee for appealing.

The other half also likes -- I can't say he loves it -- his cell phone, which is a Palm Pre. Now, before you start going all nuts because he has a phone made by a company that was bought by another company that's still in trouble and was sold for its operating system to a television manufacturer, I have to point out that it does exactly what he needs and at the time, no other cell phone company did. Even our current provider doesn't offer some services he now gets for free, as long as he uses the Palm. But if the Obama administration and the FCC can convince Congress to change the law about unblocking phones, we might be able to get better than a 1G signal where we live.

The US is back on top of the list of spam relaying countries, and not by just a little. You would think that the country with most of the big manufacturers, big ISPs and big software companies would come up with a way to with spam, but I guess there's too much money being made all the way around. After all, when President Obama issued his cybersecurity order a couple of weeks ago, he exempted big tech companies (a cynic would say he did that because they contributed lots of money to his campaign or have lots of paid lobbyists) from the security standards.

Finally, a friend of ours told me she'd taken the hard drive out of her old computer, taken it apart and then dumped it in water and was confident her data had been destroyed, and I told her "maybe, maybe not". Better to use something like Diskwipe or Fileshredder... and please, don't drop the drive into a trash can to head to a landfill. Find an e-recycling center near you.

The Office Watercooler

At the end of January, Microsoft released the pricing structure for Office 2013 and Office 365, which didn't cause a tsunami of dissent, but rather a ripple that has gradually has been increasing in strength to the extent that TechRepublic blogger Mark Kaelin felt compelled to discuss the "angst" that was being felt in IT departments, and to explain the license structure. Then last week, rspahitz asked his colleagues in the Excel topic area what they thought of the plan. We've done a little editing.

rspahitz
Does anyone like the pricing for the Office 365 release? Seems a bit steep to me, at least for the casual user. If you only buy Office every 3 years, you probably pay more with this plan (although you probably also get all the latest updates.) So who would find it worth the price and who would prefer the CD every few years?

redmondb
All other things being equal, I prefer buying Office every few years. Unfortunately all other things are not equal, so unless MS bend (how likely?!), I've bought my last version and, with huge reluctance, will become a renter. (The current pricing means that I'll defer 2013 for as long as I can and will then pay in installments -- both MS and myself will be losers, but then there aren't very many of me.)

TommySzalapski
I much prefer the CD option since that allows me to get it for free when someone gets the new version (not an upgrade of course) or a new computer that comes with the new version and is tossing their old license (happens quite a bit, I'm usually only a year behind). I don't see the new subscription service providing me with a steady stream of free, gently used licenses. If they stop the disks entirely, I'll probably end up switching completely to open source versions or limping along with my old disks.

One of the aspects to the new licensing was that a "single user copy of Office 2013 is licensed to a single machine, not to a single user. Officially: The software license is permanently assigned to the device on which the software is initially activated." A week ago, Microsoft took some of it back.

rorya
MS have just announced that the retail licensing is reverting to the 2010 model. About time too!

byundt
Microsoft blog confirming Rory's statement about Office 2013 retail licensing: http://blogs.office.com/b/office-news/archive/2013/03/06/office-2013-retail-license-agreement-now-transferable.aspx

rspahitz
Interesting comments, with a lot complaints. It seems to me that if MS wants to make sure that you don't give away your copy to someone else, they should set it up so that when you use it, it has to connect to MS' website (or something like that) in order to enable it. If you install it on 10 machines, you are unlikely to use in one more than one at a time. And if you switch machines, it automatically disables on the first and enables on the second. If I purchase software, I expect to be able to use it forever (and I understand that I don't get updates without an extra fee, and it may not work on different hardware that comes out in the future.)

Of course, the side-effect of this is if you install on your own and your spouse's machine, you can't both use the product at the same time, so you'd need to purchase a second copy ... if the cost is reasonable, I'd do that, but not at $300+ for Office, or $100/year per copy. This also means that if someone steals your serial number (or license key) then you may need to call MS to disable it and have them issue another since you may get locked out if the thief uses it while you use it. After all, isn't the purpose of an individual license to be able to allow an individual to use the product as needed? Like if I buy an air-conditioner for my window, shouldn't I be allowed to take it with me when I move (or even if I visit a friend's house and want to drag it with me)? I just can't use it in two places at once.

redmondb
One door opens and...

So I am going to end up as a disgruntled renter?

zorvek
Remember the first rule here: money. Microsoft is running the numbers through their profit function with the goal of optimizing the money they can put in the bank. It doesn't matter one tiny little rat's ass if you are happy with what you can or can't do with their software. Will you keep spending your money on their products.

Now consider their new model: pay-as-you-go licensing. Ever since Salesforce demonstrated to world that significant profits can be made with that pricing model, Microsoft has been struggling to figure out how to convert their SKU pricing model into the same. And then Google docs forced them to to the web. Everything Microsoft does now - at least with regard to Office -- is with consideration paid to the web service model and pay-as-you-go pricing model.

With these new models the classic SKU-based licensing rules get muddled and are more easily circumvented. At the end of the day people will continue to cheat Microsoft out of their well-deserved revenue and Microsoft will continue to try to optimize their profit function.

What I find more disconcerting is that there is a lot of confusion about what, exactly, is available for whom and under what conditions. The introduction of O365 has muddled things up from the days when there were a fixed and small number of SKUs sitting on the shelf.

Regarding PowerPivot, know that the MVP community raised a bit of stink about this at the last summit. What change will happen is anyone's guess, but we were definitely heard.

redmondb
What I find more disconcerting is that there is a lot of confusion about what, exactly, is available for whom and under what conditions. Yes, the most significant part of my last post was the closing question mark. Whatever version of 2013 I end up with, its price is going to hurt, but I'd appreciate the luxury of being able to make an informed decision. (It's going to be fun when we need to get a meaningful answer to "Which version of Excel 2013 are you using?"!)

byundt
If you truly don't mind drinking the KoolAid, the subscription model for Office means that subscribers adopt the new improved version as soon as it is released. If enough people do it, then boxed copies of Office may go away about the time (my guess) that Office 2007 becomes insignificant in the installed userbase.

With the subscription model, everyone will be using v.Latest. Microsoft can roll out updates as often (or seldom) as their inventiveness and testing schedules permit. In exchange, we can develop for v.Latest and know that our client will have the exact same version as we do. And when answering questions here on Experts-Exchange, we won't have the continual frustration of writing answers for multiple versions of Excel because the Asker didn't realize how important it was to specify that information.

Although I begrudge paying more for anything, being able to install v.Latest on up to five different computers or virtual machines really suits my way of life. I plan to switch to Office 365 as soon as it is properly provisioned (access to Office ProPlus without need to be a large business).

rspahitz
zorvek>Remember the first rule here: money. Microsoft is running the numbers through their profit function with the goal of optimizing the money they can put in the bank.
Of course. And the problem is that nobody has a crystal ball to see the future. In one case, they should charge $10,000 per license because if everyone buys then they will make lots of money. Of course, that will likely drive most customers away and they'll actually lose money. On the other end of the spectrum, they should charge 1-cent because then people who are flocking to other products will stick with the mature product of Office and they'll get many more users ... and lose money because the product is so cheap.

What they need is that optimal price between too expensive and too cheap. I may be wrong, but I think that the $100/yr model is too much and word will get out that there are free products to do just about everything that Office does ... when that happens, their revenue will decline even if there is an initial surge (maybe only in the first year until the renewal comes). Once they lose their momentum, all may be lost as you see now with the iPhone/iPad market vs Windows 8 (or especially the Blackberry). They may recover but I can see Windows/Blackberry slowly going away unless they can find something to draw people back. And this Office model may just go the same way if they're not careful to keep people on board.

So what is that magical mark? Unfortunately, nobody knows; go too low and it'll get lots of sales but will be very difficult to raise the price for more revenue (even if people would have originally paid for it); go too high and people will bail on your product and likely never come back. Anywhere in between just makes the process go more slowly unless you can hit on that equilibrium.

byundt
I realize that discouraging the use of Shared workbooks has been the party line in Excel help forums everywhere, but folks keep asking questions about how to make them work.

In this thread http:/Q_28043094.html an IT-savvy Asker has been fairly successful in having multiple people make changes to Shared workbooks since 2001. While we may not want to change our general advice discouraging the use of Shared workbooks, I think it is important to learn the exceptions to the rule. Ideally, we can develop a list of factors that favor Shared workbooks as well as those that militate against them. I subscribed to the thread for this reason, hoping to learn something.

redmondb
With the subscription model, everyone will be using v.Latest.
Not necessarily - at least with Office 365 ProPlus ... Do I have control over software updates if I use Office 365 ProPlus? Yes, you can configure Office 365 ProPlus... You can manage software updates completely in-house...

all may be lost as you see now with the iPhone/iPad market vs Windows 8
I've no idea what it says or how it happened, but none of my three kids (all young adults) have iPhones or iPads and my youngest, who previously considered her Windows 7 laptop a necessary evil, just loves windows 8.

teylyn
So, PowerPivot is not included in the boxed Professional version. You need an enterprise volume license scheme to get it. Sounds scary if you are a small business with less than 5 employees. This post by Ken Puls on Rob Collie's blog shows you how you can get the volume licensing version of ProPlus for (currently) the least amount of extra $$$.

Be aware that the team who develop the actual Excel product are not responsible for the current confusion and channel muck-up. If you are interested in a bit of background on how Microsoft works and used to work, again, a post in Rob Collie's blog will give you some insights. A funny thing happened in Redmond...

teylyn
>>will MS's action change anyone's mind?
As with many things: it depends.

The following is about the 365 plan more than being able to transfer the boxed version to a new CPU.

If you run a single person household with one PC that is fairly new, use Office to write a few letters and keep your personal finances, have no pressing urge to use the latest and greatest, then a low level boxed version will do just fine. I see not need for a 365 subscription in that scenario.

If you run a household with several devices (today I counted 12 "things" in my house that connect to the internet via our wireless router), chances are that a few of them may want to use Office in some form. The kids doing homework, dad using a combo of Excel, Access, Word and Outlook to run the home business, mum doing the books for charity organisations and answering questions on forums -- that easily adds up to four of five PCs using Office.

I'm in the lucky situation that my employer has a volume license program that entitles employees to the Home Use Program license for a nominal fee. For Office 2010 that license could be installed on two devices: one stationary and one mobile, i.e. desktop and laptop. When Office 2010 was released, that was a perfect fit for the hardware landscape of my household, so it worked out fine. That was three years ago. Meanwhile, we have added several devices to the mix. Not counting smartphones and iOS or Droid thingies we have acquired for fun or sofa surfing, our "real" CPUs now add up to five, with one on death row.

The Home Use license for Office 2013 has been cut down to one (1) installation, but that's not really a problem. At the mo' we're more than fine with Office 2010, no need to rush into 2013, but long term I feel that a 365 subscription will provide very good value for money for our particular configuration. We can have the whole family happily use Office 2013 Home and Student on their respective portable or desk-based CPUs. We'll get the benefit of all new releases, new features and updates at no extra cost.

I do agree that a lot of cheese was moved and many mice are scurrying and kicking up dust. Not everyone is happy. That's the nature of change. The new pricing scheme will not fit everyone, but it is a very good fit for a lot of private and business situations. I'm sure that Microsoft have done their market research before they came up with the new scheme. There will always be folks that don't fit the mold. Microsoft will lose some people to competitors due to these licensing and pricing changes.

rspahitz
>Microsoft will lose some people to competitors due to these licensing and pricing changes. ...even if a few disgruntled customers now go "open".
Probably true.

The question is, will they GAIN any customers from this policy. If not, then although they may make a bit more money now,maybe every change will make them lose a few more customers and before you know it they have no customer left to generate more revenue.

It seems that once you lose a customer for a product like this, it's very very expensive to get them back. Adding fluffy new features won't bring them back. Adding major features that few people need won't help much. Lowering the price might just do it, but then why bother to raise the costs now at the expense of all those people you'll lose.

I personally don't think that MS thought this out much if any ... and I still don't feel that I should have to pay 2 licenses for personal use just because I use the product on two devices. (Of course, I also feel that way about my music but apparently Apple tricks people into buying music over and over for new devices, when a device loses power, etc., so why can't MS benefit from this thievery also.)

byundt
<<but apparently Apple tricks people into buying music over and over>>
Actually, Apple lets you put your DRM-protected music on up to five devices -- and you can swap devices in and out of the list of five as required. And if you rip a DRM-protected song into an MP3, then there is no limit on number of devices you can put that file on.

When I took economics in B-School, the professor challenged the class to name examples of companies not setting prices at profit-maximizing levels. He argued that a company such as Microsoft would quickly change their pricing strategy if they found it costing them profits. The only good examples of prices not being set at a profit-maximizing level were for products sold too cheaply -- if so, scalpers quickly bought up most of the supply and found the profit-maximizing price.

redmondb
The only logic that I could see behind the "no transfer" rule was that MS didn't want anyone buying box sets, however, for some reason, it didn't want to come right out and say this. Considering the appallingly bad PR MS were bound to get as people found out how little their box sets were worth, I just can't imagine what MS's decision-making process was.

zorvek
Guys, the horse is dead. Microsoft is only trying to maximize profits. It's a pretty simple proposition.

Allow unlimited transfers/installations and make less profit. Allow no transfers/one installation and make more profit. Allow a limited number of transfers/installations and make most profit.

Do you really want to second guess some marketing people at one of the largest and wealthiest companies in the world with one of the most successful software products?

redmondb
Do you really want to second guess some marketing people at one of the largest and wealthiest companies in the world with one of the most successful software products?
Need you ask?! I wonder, is there one person here who, when they first saw the "no transfer" rule, didn't just know it was going to end in tears?

zorvek
Sure. We've established that already. And so has Microsoft.

redmondb
So we did second-guess some marketing etc. etc.?

In Brief

I guess that's the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' itself. Happy birthday, Dude. You'll fit right in in the Valley.

That makes me feel very secure, it makes me feel very warm inside. Facebook has applied for a patent on a system that would let members not see advertising by paying for it. The folks who came up with KPro should sue.

You see what happens? Apple's iTunes U has had a billion downloads of free educational content. Apple also had $450 million cut from its damages in the Samsung case, but won the UK version of the battle.

You can imagine where it goes from here: "More standards compliant..." Oh, well, now... there's a good reason for installing IE 10.

I myself dabbled in pacifism once. In case you had any doubt, Twitter is full of haters. This has no relationship to the Christian Science Monitor story on a similar subject.

This aggression will not stand, man. How guys will use Google Glass.

...bones or clams or whatever you call them... Michael Dell bought back Dell, but with Carl Icahn in the mix this ain't over yet; Barnes & Noble chairman Leonard Riggio wants to buy the company's stores, but not the Nook, not surprisingly.

They're gonna kill that poor woman. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has axed working from home. Traffic on the Bayshore was already bad enough.

Oh, you've already got the check made out, that's great. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason was fired least week after another quarter of weak earnings.

I guess I seen somethin' every bit as stupefyin': Registration opens today for Google's I/O developer conference.

One hundred percent electronic! A bill legalizing online gambling was signed into law in New Jersey, only to be blocked in court a few days later.

I'd say he's still got about $960 - $970,000 left, depending on the options. There's another Facebook IPO lawsuit -- which brings the total to one for every 1,638 users ("The story is ludicrous...").

The occasional acid flashback: The San Francisco Bay Bridge got a new look March 5 that isn't much to look at during the day, but at night is pretty spectacular. Equally amazing, though not as spectacular, is the new eastern span, due to be completed in about a year.

Maybe we stomp on it and squoosh it: Microsoft is on the hook for at least $720 million in fines to the European Union for breaking its agreement regarding browser choice, having been ratted out by Google (and Opera). By way of perspective, that's about 11 per cent of last quarter's net income. Next up for the EU folks: privacy, and the tech companies are none too happy.

Well, I dig your style too, man. The people east of the Rockies might not agree right about now, but the lo-tech approach to photographing snowflakes renders some pretty cool images.

That's a great plan, Walter. Google has released information about national security letters, those requests from the FBI about which it is not even supposed to talk about.

Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man. Q: What do you get when you cross the guys who attended the MIT Sloan conference on sports analytics with these algorithms? A: Kate Upton.

Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. Q: What do you get when you cross rebounding machine with a recording company nightmare? A: Jack Sparrow.

I can get you a toe, believe me. playing games to help scientists.

For your information, the Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint. Looks like the music industry has finally figured it out: If you can't beat 'em, exploit the living daylights out of them. Heck, everyone knew that.

We takes the money.The television industry hasn't, though. Cablevision is suing Viacom over being compelled to take low-rated networks in order to get the highly rated ones.

Well. I guess we can close the file on that one... (AKA Signs of the Apocalypse): A hacker takes a prison's computer class. Legos closed a highway. A California town was offered $11.65 million to change its name for ten years. Friendster's autopsy (PDF here).

Milestones

New Aces: EugeneZ, in MS SQL Server, and cactus_data, in MS Access, are the two most recent additions to the list of members who have reached 2,500,000 points in a single topic area.

New Geniuses: We miscounted last issue by saying that nobus had earned his twelfth Genius certificate, but he made short work of our error; he has now earned his twelfth, in Hardware Components. hnasr has earned his first, in MS Access; he is the 36th EE member to reach that level.

My First Million: Reaching the 1,000,000 point level in February were padas, MartinLiss, Sulimanw and johanntagle. Congratulations!

Milestones:

• Ray_Paseur has reached the 12,000,000 point level in PHP.
• hanccocka has earned 11,000,000 points since joining Experts Exchange.
• CodeCruiser has earned 3,000,000 points in each of three topic areas, the most recent being ASP.NET.
• woolmilkporc has earned 2,000,000 points in each of three TAs; his most recent is Linux.
• ahoffmann, who is rapidly approaching his sixteenth (!) anniversary as a member of EE, has become the newest member of the Lifetime Members club.