Rounded Intro
So you’re all grown up and want Rounded Corners on your site. There’s just one small problem: the normal rounded corners implementation comes with tons of divs used for styles and you’ve got your fellow web developers screaming down your neck about web semantics.
So what’s this funky semantics thing? Basically, we’re looking for a separation of styles and data. We want to keep all the styles in the CSS style sheets and all the data in the XHTML files. Now, I’ve been known to be flexible on this a bit, however it is a great idea with a purpose and in this case, it actually helps us out a ton.
Ignore Me – Take The Easy Way Out
There are two jQuery plugins that can do this instantly, aptly named jQuery Corners and jQuery Corner. Yeah, I know totally different, right? They vary slightly in terms of their capabilities (anti-aliasing, background images, etc.). So if you’re not up to the heavy lifting or your requirements are very light (just basic rounding) these plugins more than fit the bill.
Posted in JavaScript.
Tagged with CSS, ie, internet explorer, JavaScript, jquery corners, tutorial.
By Kevin Lloyd
– December 22, 2008
Now, it’s no secret that I can be a moron sometimes, but I’d like to put it on record that it was all me and not Wordpress 2.7 that had the issue.
So I’m sitting here last night minding my own business and Chris Coyier sends out a tweet talking about how it took him 10 minutes to upgrade. So I figure, why not? I already had the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin ready to go, so I figured it would be a breeze. I guess I was wrong.
What Went Wrong
So I follow all the steps in the automatic upgrade. Everything seems to be going fine, however after the database upgrade I was bumped back into the admin screen. Everything was looking totally screwed up. Icons were scattered all over, colors were wrong, things were positioned incorrectly. It basically looked like the CSS style sheet was screwed up for some reason.
So I figured that my CSS and possibly JS files are still cached on my browser and that’s what causing the problem. So I did a screen refresh; nothing. I did a forced refresh; nothing. I cleared the cache; nothing. I cleared all the cookies; nothing. I started up Internet Explorer; nothing.
Posted in General.
Tagged with database, JavaScript, wordpress.
By Kevin Lloyd
– December 11, 2008
Welcome to the November 21, 2008 edition of Web Development 2.
Dereck presents My Google Penalty and My Response posted at I Will Not Die.
Sly presents 5 Search Engine Optimization Tips for Wordpress Blogs posted at Slyvisions dot Com.
Although I’m more or less devoted to CakePHP as my PHP Frameowrk, it’s also good to diversify sometimes. Greg Allard presents Quick Thumbnails in Django posted at Code Spatter.
Margaret Garcia presents Top 20 iPhone Apps for Entrepreneurs posted at Web Design Schools Guide.
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Web Development 2 using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Technorati tags: web development 2, blog carnival.
Posted in General.
Tagged with Carnival, wordpress.
By Kevin Lloyd
– November 21, 2008
This has always been a touchy subject, especially in larger computer firms. But first, let me tell you how I got into Open Source. I started coding in Turbo Pascal 7.0, in about 1996 when I was in Grammar School. I took Turbo Pascal more as an introduction to Programming, instead of a product to do something constructive in.
After Pascal, I was looking into something visual. Hence, I fell into Visual Basic 5.0. Yeah, I know, I’m sorry.
Legal Issues
Now this was my first step towards the open source community. I must admit, that I downloaded a pirated copy and ran with it for a while. Now, that was all well and good when I was sitting home playing around with stuff. But when it came to actually, to producing something for a market, you can’t (or should I say, shouldn’t) do that with pirated software.
After that, I got into web development. For this, there was a plethora of free tools available, for use. So I did that for a while. When I got back to college, I got into C++ (using Visual Studio, but still essentially free). That was a step in the right direction. However, as the semesters went on, we got more into using the .NET library. However, for my web development I never got into ASP.
The First Real Plunge into Open Source – Enter PHP
Bit by bit, web development gave way to web programming. This is where PHP came in. I got more familiar with PHP when I started working on different projects for clients. I chose PHP for a few main reasons:
- Free Documentation: I could learn almost everything I needed through online documentation.
- Cost: My first problem was hosting. ASP hosts used to be almost twice as expensive as their Linux counterparts.
The Open Source Misconception
One of the problems that people have with Open Source is that they think that it’s unsupported. People seem to think that open source software is written by a bunch of kids in basements or something. This is not the case, by any means. For example, a lot of the Linux distributions are totally free and totally supported. Wake up people; free doesn’t mean unsupported. The whole “You get what you pay for” isn’t always true.
Posted in CakePHP, Linux, PHP.
Tagged with CakePHP, database, free, jquery, MySQL.
By Kevin Lloyd
– November 12, 2008
I’m not sure how many of you guys share my views about passwords. Or maybe I just don’t feel comfortable with other people telling me what to do. Yeah, I think that’s it. If I decide that my password is going to be qwerty, password, letmein, or even 123; I think that’s my business. Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand the reason behind this. Some sites are trying to protect the users against themselves.
Reasonable Requirements
Now some of these requirements I can understand. Some of them are actually reasonable. I can deal with a minimum length; although these days they seem to be getting longer than eight (8) characters.
I just don’t think that I need this type of protection. Although I don’t use the same password for every website (any more, lol). Currently, I use an algorithm to generate a password for a new site. It’s a combination of a common stem or base and appending the service name that I’m logging into (eg. Yahoo, Gmail, etc.)
My Problem With Requirements
Currently, my stem only consists of lowercase letters and numbers. I know it’s not the most secure base, but it’s long enough and it serves the purpose. What I can’t stand is a site that needs me to enter a special character or an upper case character.
Posted in General.
By Kevin Lloyd
– November 8, 2008
I must say, this was a major hurdle for me when I first started out with CakePHP. If you’re working with some data from a database, then it’s all Model-View-Controller magic. Your forms are automatic: $form->input() is pretty much all you need. Why is this? That’s because all the information about the fields (names, sizes, types, etc.) come straight from the database.
You’re Out On Your Own
The problem right now is that, you’re all on your own. You need to describe your data on your own. So, on with it:
Here’s your model code:
[code='php']
class Contact extends AppModel {
var $name = 'Contact';
var $useTable = false; // Not using the database, of course.
// All the fancy validation you could ever want.
var $validate = array(
'name' => array(
'rule' => '/.+/',
'allowEmpty' => false,
'required' => true,
),
'subject' => array(
'rule' => array('minLength', 5),
'message' => 'Subject must be 5 characters long'
),
'email' => array(
'rule' => 'email',
'message' => 'Please enter a valid email address'
),
);
Posted in CakePHP.
Tagged with CakePHP, database, form.
By Kevin Lloyd
– November 7, 2008
Before I start bashing Internet Explorer 6.0, I’d like to share a story with you. I’ve had a high yields savings account at HSBC Direct for some time now. Now I think I know why I haven’t experienced many user issues with their website before. I also use ING Direct Savings Account and Electric Orange Account for some of my banking, you know all eyes in one basket and that stuff. Now, maybe it’s their features or their interface, but I use ING Direct, daily. HSBC is more of a backup savings account. I send money there and don’t really worry about it, so I’ve never used it enough to find a problem.
The Problem
But the other day, I decided to open a second account with HSBC and I got the following error:
A Technical Error Has Occurred
I was only trying to transfer money from one account to another, I didn’t get it. So I figured there must be some problem with the website right? So I wait it out for a few days to let them fix their problem. But alas, the next time I checked, same problem. So finally, I decided to write their Tech Support and I got the following back in a lovely email:
Posted in General.
Tagged with browser, CSS, firefox, ie, internet explorer.
By Kevin Lloyd
– August 10, 2008
I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve had some problems with Wordpress 2.5 and their new image upload. Now I know there have been many, many, many, (well let’s just say a lot) of posts and articles about how to fix this problem. But, none of them seemed to work for me. Most of them just go into the basics: setting folders with the right permissions, etc.
My Set Up
I won’t go into detail, but I think being on Dreamhost has something to do with it, because trying all this on my local PC with XAMPP Lite on Windows XP.
Here’s What I Tried
In addition to trying all of the above on my existing blogs, I’ve tried the fresh install approach. I installed a fresh copy of Wordpress and then bit by bit, I copied in database tables. All seemed to go fine, for a while, then (for some reason) I would just get that error again. It didn’t matter what the browswer was either. When I attempt to insert an image the screen would blank out.
Posted in General.
Tagged with database, ie, wordpress.
By Kevin Lloyd
– July 28, 2008
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