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Blogs ยป Archive for August, 2004
Crouching Javascript, Hidden PHP [2]
Continuing yesterday’s rant, this installment should (hopefully) get a bit more juicy, if I can work out where it’s going.
First up, already some good feedback to the last part (thanks!), most to-the-point being Alan;
I can tell you having worked with SOAP, various RPC layers, and simple GET/POST / XML parses, that most of the time RPC tends to suck big time, It’s great for the first 3 test calls, but as a project grows, there is a point where it doesnt work as expected. You then enter one of the worst nightmares in hell to debug.
When javascript (especially if you are risking life and limb trying to get a MS implementation to work) comes in, it’s alot easier to stick with the basics.. KISS / POST/GET/ strings and XML as needed..
Also interesting is Danne Lundqvist’s similar but alternative approach to what Javascript Serializer does with script src attributes; manipulating the attribute using the DOM which he describes here.
What’s up with Javascript
Returning to the thought from last time: “It’s 2004. Someone must have solved this once-and-for-all by now.” (the problem being how to we pull fresh data from the server into a page that’s already loaded), …
Tuning SpamAssassin
I have been wrestling with this of late and stumbled upon this article in the Linux Gazette (http://linuxgazette.net/105/youngman.html).
The overview is excellent and can help in identifying methods for further battling the ever increasing volume of spam going through our mail servers.
In particular, I like the coverage of white and blacklisting, bayesian filtering and tweaking spam hits scores.
New Flash Article
Flash has many hidden facets, and many components that can often be overlooked, ignored or undervalued. In my latest Sitepoint Flash article Flash’s Hidden Gems: The NumericStepper Component, I dig into the NumericStepper component, a component whose value will soon become apparent when you start to investigate its methods, properties and events.
If you’ve ever wondered what uses you could find for the NumericStepper component, then I advise reading this article which will shed some light on one of Flash’s hidden gems.
View Flash’s Hidden Gems: The NumericStepper Component
Here
Friendster shoots the messenger
Remember Friendster’s switch to PHP?
Well it seems Joyce Park’s reward for announcing the top secret switch from Java/JSP to PHP (and giving Friendster a bunch of free advertising) was firing.
Jeremy Zawodny sums it up…
[Continued...]
Although I still can’t figure out the logic behind firing Joyce, as the “switch to PHP” annoucement was in no way damaging to Friendster, feels less-than-good to have been involved in the blogging frenzy that ultimately seems to have got her being fired.
Hopefully someone’s going to step in with a better job offer quick, given a resume that included books and work on mod_pubsub
sIFR and HTMLoverlays
Here are a couple of fun new toys that have surfaced in the past 24 hours. First up, Mike Davidson, Shaun Inman and Tomas Jogin have released sIFR, a new take on Shaun Inman’s infamous IFR Flash replacement technique. Flash replacement is a smart technique built on top of semantic HTML, where portions of text are replaced (using JavaScript) with a Flash equivalent using a custom font embedded in the Flash file. sIFR improves on previous versions by ensuring that the replaced Flash file takes in to account the exact size of the headling (the ’s’ is for Scalable). It can also be applied to any element on the page, not just headings.
While this technique is excellent for spicing up headings, I would recommend avoiding using it for larger chunks of body text. While Flash rendered text can now be copied and pasted it still lags behind regular HTML text in a number of ways with regards to accessibility and usability – for example, with sIFR resizing text using regular browser font sizing controls will not take affect until the whole page is refreshed. That’s not to dismiss the technique: it’s a marvellous piece of work and a …
file uploads and MM documentation
I’m sure by now you’ve all used the cffile tag to upload a file to your server or to read a file already on your server etc.
Chris Cantrell points out a tid bit I’m sure a few of you didn’t realize, especially if you follow the ColdFusion docs to the letter.
This tid bit has to do with uploading and renaming a file all in one step instead of using 2 cffile tags, one to upload and the other to rename / move the file.
The short story is that instead of just specifying the path to upload to you can specify the path and file name.
Overlay Blending Mode in Photoshop
Here’s the official Photoshop definition for the Overlay blending mode:
Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the base color. Patterns or colors overlay the existing pixels while preserving the highlights and shadows of the base color. The base color is not replaced but is mixed with the blend color to reflect the lightness or darkness of the original color.
Er… come again? I hope that was confusing to more people than just me. Although if you read it slowly, it starts to makes sense…
Recall that multiply darkens images (white makes the underlying layer show through completely, darker colors on the blend layer result in a darker image) while screen mode lightens images (black has no effect, while lighter colors on the blend layer result in a lighter image). You may remember that one application was duplicating the layer and setting the top one to multiply or screen mode. Multiply resulted in darker areas getting darker, while screen resulted in lighter areas getting lighter. Overlay does both of these things at the same time, so if we take our standard rose image, duplicate the layer, and set it to Overlay, the contrast of the picture is turned up quite …
Why you don’t necessarily get what you pay for, and how to turn this to your benefit
Lots of you have posted to this blog saying things like, “You get what you pay for.” These posts are in response to my sharing with you the trials and tribulations of finding reliable web design/development services at low prices.
This entry explains why you don’t necessarily get what you pay for, and how you can turn it to your advantage as a web professional.
Imagine a graph with QUALITY running across the X axis and PRICE running across the Y axis. Let QUALITY mean whatever it means to your clients: results, speed, creativity, more business, better image….
Now imagine that you populate this graph with price/quality data points for every web design/development professional out there.
If you get what you pay for in this business, then the line formed should be narrow.
But I know from experience that it is not. The “line” is a very wide scatter plot. Some people charge way too much relative to their quality (and get their price). Some people charge in proportion to their quality. And some people charge way below.
My goal when I buy web design and/or development services is to find the professional who does not charge in proportion to their quality.
There are lots of you …
Crouching Javascript, Hidden PHP [1]
Jason has been pondering the options of getting Javascript talking to PHP or, put another way, how to get a web page to load data without reloading (or at least without appearing to reload).
Why do this? Because you can give the impression of a rich client (a desktop GUI) vs. a typical web-based thin client where simple user interaction often requires extensive page reloads and waiting around.
By way of example, consider a simple web-based administration app where the administrator has a list of users and can edit each user in the list. How can we avoid reloading the list of users between each edit to a single user?
At first glance it’s a simple problem to solve – or perhaps it should be a simple problem to solve. Look a little further and you discover it’s one of those grey areas of web development that leaves you thinking “It’s 2004. Someone must have solved this once-and-for-all by now.”
Anyway, this is a long and not-particularly-focused rant which also follows on from Seperating Browser from Resource and Serializing PHP data structures for Javascript.
Feel free to flame / correct. The mission is to try to define the “problem” as …
VS.NET 2003 and Office 2003?
Just in case anyone’s having the same problem as the one described below…
When using the Server Explorer in VS.NET, whenever I went to add a new data connection, a popup would appear saying “Unable to add Data Connection. Some program files are not properly registered on your machine. Run the Setup program again”.
Well, I’ve got SQL Server 2000 locally, VS.NET was on complete install, nothing seemed to be missing. However, after an email to Microsoft Support, the problem seems to be that Office 2003 removes 2 DLLs required by VS.NET and makes local copies of them (I guess so they can be sure of the correct version being used). Anyway, simply copy the files “MSVCR71.DLL” and “MSVCP71.DLL” from the directory “[Program Files]\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\VS Runtime” into your “Windows\System32″ directory. Make sure they’re “71″ not “70″ as I originally did!
Reboot VS.NET and Server Explorer should work a treat. If not, cry :)
