I’m currently writing a python script to analyse web servers for connectivity. Due to various issues I have encountered whilst running this and other sites such as DDOS attacks and Mysql failing due to lack of memory. So far it probes a given site to see if it is active. If it detects connectivity it will attempt to restart the apache server.
One cool thing I learnt whilst doing this was correctly logging the output of the script using the python logging lib. The next update in this project will be to add a feature whereby it will e-mail and attach these logs for viewing by an admin should the site be down. Another idea I’m mulling  over is the ability to tail the access log of apache and detect if a site is currently under attack. Then hopefully update the IPTables to block that address.
The code so far – Note this is still in development!

import requests
import sys
import subprocess
import logging
class WebUp():
    def __init__(self):
        if(len(sys.argv) < 2) :
            print ('Usage : python webup.py http://example.com')
            sys.exit()
        self.url = sys.argv[1]

	logging.basicConfig(filename='/home/usrname/WebUp.log',format='%(asctime)s %(levelname)s:%(message)s', level=logging.DEBUG, datefmt='%d/%m/%Y %I:%M:%S %p')
    def checkURL(self):
        try:
         r = requests.head(self.url)
	 if r.status_code == 200:
	         logging.info("Website OK" + str(r.status_code))
         return r.status_code == 200
        except ( requests.exceptions.RequestException) as e:
#            print("Connection Error " + str(e))
            self.handleError(e)
    def handleError(self,e):
        # Log error 
        # Get latest tail of access.log
        # Attach to e-mail?
        # Exit
        logging.warning('Website is down due to:' + str(e))
	# restart apache
	logging.info("Attempting to restart apache2 service")
	p = subprocess.Popen("sudo service apache2 restart", shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
        for line in p.stdout.readlines():
		print (line)
        retval = p.wait()
	self.checkURL()
if __name__ == '__main__':
    checker = WebUp()
    checker.checkURL()

I’ve just been digging around in some of my old projects and found my Hours Manager application.
The purpose of the application is to provide me with a way of logging the hours that I do, given that my schedule is so busy, trying to remember when I did what can often be challenging. Unfortunately  it never saw the light of day again due to my hectic schedule.

Given that again I am in a situation where having a log of my work schedule would be beneficial, of course you may be wondering, why don’t I just download one of the many good time management apps for the play store? The answer for me is simple, what would I learn from that?
Programming in Java is something new for me and I have various other android app’s that i have developed in the past although none of which have ever been polished enough to publish. Therefore I’m making a real effort to get this app on the market, not for profit just for the whole experience of releasing an application.

The challenge I have overcome today was adding the functionality to allow users to delete entries from the sql database.  To do so I wanted a dialog window to pop up when the user long pressed one of the entries in the list view.

The code that follows simply creates a new Alert Dialog window from within the SQL View fragment, from there two buttons are initialized (one to confirm and one to cancel). The database is also queried to ensure that the correct item is successfully removed, then the array adapter is notified that the data has changed. From there the list view adapter is updated with a new incarnation of the database.

Hopefully this snippet help’s someone else who’s struggling with creating a Alert Dialog within a Fragment. 

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    protected void removeRow(final long _position)
    {
        // Create a new Alert Dialog, with the fragment activity context
        AlertDialog.Builder alert = new AlertDialog.Builder(
              getActivity()
        );
        // Here we set the dialog title to that of a static string ("Delete Record?")
        alert.setTitle(R.string.dialog_title);

        // Now we open the database and query it for the current entry string - Date , Start Time, End Time etc
        openDatabase();
        alert.setMessage("Are you sure you want to remove the following entry?n" + info.getRowInfo(_position));
        closeDatabase();

        // When the confirm button is pressed
        alert.setPositiveButton("Delete", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialogInterface, int i) {
                // Open the database again
                openDatabase();
                // Delete the entry at a specific position
                info.deleteRow(_position);
                // Tell the adapter things have changed
                adapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
                adapter.notifyDataSetInvalidated();

                // Re-populate our information in the List Adapter
                populateList();
                lv.setAdapter(adapter);

            }
        });
        // If the cancel button is pressed simply dismiss
        alert.setNegativeButton("Cancel",new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialogInterface, int i) {
                dialogInterface.dismiss();
            }
        });
        // Ensure our database is closed
        closeDatabase();
        // Finally show the alert dialog
        alert.show();
    }

Alert Dialog displaying record information