Thanks to Tom Brown for helping me change some parts of the blog layout today. I found an avatar I used years ago just the other day, and wanted to use it because it looks a lot like me. In 15 minutes he redrew it in Adobe Illustrator (so it could be vectorized and resized, retaining scale quality). Size it to the right height and poof, there I am in the top left corner. I also made a favicon and added a background gradient so the site feels a little more 3d than just the flat color it came with. I like this.
Category: Inclind
Adobe/Macromedia Flash. No other technology in the history of the internet has seen more abuse, other than perhaps Javascript when every so-called web designer went script crazy with it. Thank god the 90s are over. However, bad design still persists.
In an average week of surfing, you may find that half of the sites you visit employ Flash technology in some way. I categorize these sites into 4 categories:
1. Product Showcase (Super Mario Bros., Ford Edge)
2. Design Portfolio (pixelRanger, okaydave, tom brown)
3. Media Delivery (YouTube, last.fm)
4. Because-its-there (Metallica, Deftones, ads4africa)
And here comes IE8.
While I am glad IE6 is finally getting ditched by Microsoft, I am still frustrated by two things:
- The browser update still isn’t being forced on client machines
- IE8 will continue the legacy of IEs history of lack of compliance and standards support
Yeah. While there is reason to feel good about today’s rollout, there is still much to be wary of down the road.
True, Internet Explorer 8 will be more compliant than versions past, except for one thing: it will give the developer the option of making the browser render as an old version. With the addition of a meta tag in the header of a site, you can tell the IE browser to render the page as if they were using IE5, 6, or 7.
Yep. Thats right. Microsoft, instead of encourage things to get better is now even more so encouraging things to stay the same. Way to go guys. This is why we all hate your browser. Why is it that Microsoft has to go their own way instead of a unified movement to doing things correctly? This is why I use Firefox and Opera. They aren’t perfect, but at least they try to be.
So, while us pro’s will continue honing our craft at cross-browser compliant layouts, newcomers will be tempted to use the meta tag to copout and render a site as IE6/7. It was hard enough making developers see why using table layouts is stupid, and MS just gives one more way for them to continue being lazy.
More information on IE8s rendering mode:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/ie8-super-standards-mode.ars
From Wikipedia:
Teamwork is the concept of people working together cooperatively, as in a sports team.
Projects often require that people work together to accomplish a common goal; therefore, teamwork is an important factor in most organizations. Effective collaborative skills are necessary to work well in a team environment. Many businesses attempt to enhance their employees’ collaborative efforts through workshops and cross-training to help people effectively work together and accomplish shared goals.
Every business requires teamwork. It doesn’t matter what field you are in. Music, medical, law, military, web development, even marriage. Nothing is successful without the mutual backing of each other toward the end goal. Support comes from respect, not the requirement thereof based on a job title. Command it, don’t demand it. It starts with you!
AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), while a currently hot buzzword around the Web 2.0 landscape, is by no means a new technology. It has existed as far back as the mid 90s, though its usefulness didn’t capture public attention (and admittedly, our hearts and minds) until Google’s services started taking off (Gmail, Gmaps) a few years ago.
As such, it started becoming a staple of every new website or Web 2.0 redesign that it almost became a parody of itself. Amateur developers were using it just to use it, others were using it and adding much bloat to the header. Others used it along with some pretty animation to garner some sort of street cred in the community, while their actual application offered very little. In some instances, its use can severely slow down a page or lock up the browser (example, a Digg thread with 100+ comments).
For these reasons, I had held off on using AJAX, though I really wanted to. Eventually, I came to the believe that AJAX is like spice. If your application isn’t first solid, then throwing all sorts of AJAX and visual parlor tricks isn’t going to help it, the same way dumping spice on overcooked food isn’t going to save it. There are security implications to consider as well, so if you’re not going to have methods in place to halt URL spoofing or CSRF (cross site request forgery) you might as well not use it. You put your application, and more importantly, clients/client data, at risk.
However, with good planning and execution, AJAX can add great user features to a site, make form/url variables a breeze to manage, and let you blow by .htaccess in certain cases when URL rewriting is (or would be) a factor. Not to mention, the instant gratification for the user of a page updating itself without needing to refresh to going to another page.
Example. I’ve recently completed working on the front end for a major real estate company in the area. One of the features of the site allows the user to save and track listings. I wanted to do something new because I had time to spare, and decided I was going to save myself some time by using AJAX to send the data behind the scenes. I did this for a few reasons. One, I wanted to learn and have some fun. Two, its arguably the best way to do this so you don’t disturb search results or form data by sending them off to another page (like a form POST or link from the ‘Save Listing’); which in turn would require tedious form/url management and excessive htaccess rules, depending on the scenario (Save, Delete, Register, etc).
Since the site has session management, I could weave security through the XMLHttpRequest, and check along the way that my variables are what they should be (by comparing it with stored data in the database). Essentially, by checking against the ID of the account that is logged in to the one in the database, it ensures that nothing funny will be going on by altering URLs or things of that nature. Also, with a little more added in with Coldfusion, data integrity is prime.
So, once we have the action event in place, we also need the reaction, so the user knows something has occurred. If the AJAX request returned success, the Save icon and link will fade (grey out) and say Listing Saved. It also no longer allows them to click. Otherwise, if something went wrong down the line and the request returns an error, we get notified of the error and what went wrong, displaying a friendly error message to the user.
After this was complete, a simple reverse on the logic was necessary to allow them to delete the listing from their saved listings (which goes through all the same security checks as before). It sounds like a lot, but really the execution time is like 2 seconds and basically is instantaneous to the user. My script was only like 2kb, so the page overhead was barely even affected.
AJAX is a simple, effective, yet powerful way to enhance a web application. With great power comes great responsibility, so take care of your data, its the livelihood of any modern day site.
Way busy lately as December moved on to January and we sped into 2008. I don’t have time to write too much at the moment but I will talk about some of the things I have been up to.
I started getting back around to reading heavily again, much thanks to the movie “Zodiac” which is a downright brilliant representation of the events that occurred in the late 60s and 70s regarding the Zodiac Killer of California. After viewing, I picked up the book “Zodiac” by Robert Greysmith (who chronicled and amassed all the information on the case over the years) and could not put it down. Thus, my love affair with books began again. In the past 2 months I have read about 16 books.
Have Read:
The Brothers Bulger – About Billy and Whitey Bulger, one a corrupt politician, the other a feared gangster of Boston. Kind of dry, but interesting nonetheless.
The Art of War – A MUST READ by Sun Tzu. Thought provoking.
Zodiac – All the facts, cases, and events surrounding the Zodiac Killer of California. I will most likely read the revised version of this book, Zodiac Unmasked.
This is the Zodiac Speaking: Into the Mind of a Serial Killer – An in-depth analysis by psychologists on the inner psyche of Zodiac and perhaps who he was at his core, based on his letters and attacks.
The Unabomber and The Zodiac – Interesting look at the striking similarities between the Zodiac and the Unabomber, in method, style, writing, and motive. It is suggested that the Unabomber could have been the Zodiac, though it was disproven through a DNA test.
Brutal: My Untold Story of Life in Whitey Bulgers Mob – Kevin Weeks was Whitey Bulgers right hand man, and in this book he details his life from childhood, mob life, to living a straight life after 30 years of shakedowns, murders, robberies, and scams. Highly engrossing and interesting read.
Gordon Ramsay – One of England’s top chefs details his life in this candid biography, a tooth and nail climb to the top, his passion for cooking, and the methods behind his iron fisted control of a kitchen.
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists – Probably one of the best books I have ever read. This isn’t a book on how to get chicks, no, it instead details the lives of men who’s mission in life is to get chicks. Ultimately, while their initial game is great, their ability to maintain a relationship is terrible, and thus these mens lives spiral downward into drinking, drugs, and depression. The writer himself realizes the only way to win the game is to quit.
The Way of the Wiseguy – A book by Joe Pistone (aka Donnie Brasco) who talks about what the typical life of a wiseguy (mobster) is like.
Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business – All about Joe Pistones life in the mob, from the start to end and everything in between. Thrilling and captivating, Joe Pistone is one of the most important FBI agents ever. He went deep cover into the NY mafia, almost becoming a made man before his operation was pulled. Due to his effort, this agent was pretty much the biggest force in bringing down the mob with his information.
I Heard You Paint Houses – A book about the life of Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran, muscle for the teamsters and batman to Jimmy Hoffa. Working for the mob and the teamsters, Sheeran details the last day of Jimmy Hoffa and his murder (he was a part of it). Absolutely captivating, I could not put this one down. Full of great stories and especially the truth about the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, one of America’s greatest unsolved mysteries.
Batman: Year One – Frank Miller’s groundbreaking graphic novel about the first year in the life of Batman, which served as the blueprints for Christopher Nolan’s revisioning of the Batman franchise with 2005’s “Batman Begins”.
Little Black Book of Connections – Jeffrey Gitomers guide to making, keeping, and maintaining networks of business and personal connections.
The Hard Goodbye – Another Frank Miller classic, the first in the Sin City series.
Agile Web Development with Rails – Theory and methods in approaching development using Ruby on Rails.
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell – Tucker Max’s absolutely HILARIOUS book detailing his college life and adventures with friends. Wild, shameless, and candid.
Books I am still working through:
Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires
Military Ops
The Career Programmer
Slash – A Biography
Little Green Book of Getting What You Want
Beyond Good and Evil – Nietzsche
