Still As Life

Here it is, the all new Still As Life design on Wordpress. Check it out at blog.stillaslife.com or head to the new portal page at www.stillaslife.com!

This old Blogger blog will remain here, accessible at stillaslife.com/blogger.html so that the articles on it are still available for everyone.

The new Still As Life blog also incorporates a gallery system for my fractal art and wallpapers, which are free for anyone to use as their desktop background and so on as long as my little copyright statement remains intact. The gallery is of course, very empty at the moment as I have not yet put many of my completed ones up, and I am re-rendering some of them at higher quality on the new computer. There will of course be new ones as well as time passes.

That's it for this blog. I'll see you at the new one!

Labels: art, code, design

I've been talking about it, so where is it?

The new Still As Life blog?

Well, the design is virtually completed, and setup for Wordpress, I just have a few more small things to sort out in it along with setting up the basis for the second half of the website.

That's right, there's a second half!

Don't all pass out at once, I have been working!

The new Still As Life design is, I am proud to say, in my opinion Web 2.0, though as Web 2.0 is as flexible as any other definition of a design style, that is open to interpretation.

So, I can safely say, it will be alive soon.

Since I'm changing over to Wordpress instead of Blogger, and the file paths will be changing, that does mean a different RSS URL along with other changes, but in the long run, I think it will be very beneficial.

That's all for now, catch ya.

Labels: code, design, internet

No, I have not been procrastinating about any of my personal design projects as mentioned earlier. Okay, I have a little bit. Anyway, the point is, I have been doing things.

You probably wouldn't have noticed this yet, but the copy on TerraMedia, particularly on the Home and Learn More pages has been updated. As the description meta tag is also what shows up in Google when TerraMedia comes up, this has also been updated to better reflect the primary target.

The new copy and tags don't yet show up in Google as it has not yet been crawled again, but this will hopefully be there in the next week or so.

Now, that's not that much is it?

No, but I have been doing other things too.

I was working on the new template for Still As Life, then it was looking awesome and was almost finished when a thought popped into my head. "Hey, I think I might change this blog over to WordPress rather than keep it on Blogger."

So I have spent most of the past couple of hours converting the template to a widgetized theme for WordPress. Despite having made widgetized themes before, as well as worked on ones that have already been widgetized, I always seem to forget something. A very useful thing to have on hand if you plan on widgetizing a WordPress theme is the article on Automattic about it. Very easy to follow and makes lots of sense. However, the section where it explains how to add multiple widgetized menus is a little confusing. So for the unsuspecting widgetizer, it may not work as simply as it would first appear it should. For that reason, here is what it should look like if you have 2 widgetized menus:

<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(2,array(
'before_widget' => '',
'after_widget' => '',
'before_title' => '<div class="title">',
'after_title' => '</div>',
));
?>

Note that when it is mentioned on Automattic:

"I have a theme with more than one sidebar. How do I make them all dynamic?

Oh, that’s easy. Instead of register_sidebar() you should use register_sidebars(n) where n is the number of sidebars. Then place the appropriate number in the dynamic_sidebar() function, starting with 1."

It is referring to the second register_sidebar, not the first.

Anyway, hope that helps someone. There is also a possibility I won't use WordPress, but I'm having fun with my beautiful code all the same.

Labels: code, design, work

Powerhouse Music and Technology is a music store that sell musical and computer gear. They specialise in guitar parts, especially pickups, knobs, scratch plates, effects peddles and other guitar modifications.

I have been working on their site since the beginning, including the transition to a Zen-Cart based website.

Zen-Cart provides a vast amount of functionality and automation of things, thus it can almost be used entirely in the place of MYOB Retail Manager style inventory and sales management, it prints invoices, keeps the website up to date with current stock and so on.

Everything is customisable.

It does have a few downfalls, for example, only one image can be used for each product, unless you know how to use FTP and know HTML image tags. If this is the case, than you can put more images in the product description since it allows HTML to be entered in it.

It also does not have built in warranty claim management or return authorization management, so this must all be done manually by email, phone, or any other means.

Powerhouse Music and Technology has recently undergone a makeover. I did not design the original Zen-Cart website for them as they found a template much to their liking. I did do all of the custom graphics and so on, as well as all of the custom code.

Over the past week or so, we have been going through the website and making various changes to the template. For anyone that had not seen it previously, it had a dark grey/blue background and used varying shades of dark blue throughout the website. It was a fixed width and had a plain black background behind the main content area. Boring.

If you have a look at it now, you will notice a few key changes that we have been working on. The first and foremost is that the website has been lightened significantly without changing the colour scheme. It is now a much lighter grey/blue with darker rows alternating lighter product rows so they are easier to read.

The second main change to the website is that the background is no longer a boring plain black that does nothing but emphasise the empty background. It is now a tiled pattern based off the material covering of an early Vox Guitar Amplifier. The pattern does not scroll with the rest of the website so it remains the same no matter where you are or what your screen resolution is. The decision to do this was made because having the website automatically adjust to fit different resolutions, while being based on the current template would take a lot of time and work and would rewriting the majority of the CSS. Thus, something else was needed to emphasise the content.

The background does this perfectly. The colour scheme does not clash with the current colours and even the black material on it's own without the stitching provides a better background than the plain black because it contains various shades. The background as a whole however now emphasises the content and makes the website more interesting, especially on higher resolution screens.

There have been other changes made as well, though not so significant, with the switch from dark to light, the text colour has all had to be changed and in doing so, the link hover colour has been changed to a green rather than a blue, to fit in with the green used in the logo.

The menu has also been adjusted to remove gaps in it that left it seeming empty, which it is far from being.

Finally, there have been a few fixes to widths that had not previously been noticable with the darker background that became apparent with the light background.

The past couple of days we have been gradually working through the site and picking up the colour glitches here and there that have been caused by the change and were missed for whatever reason in the main styles. So if you have a look and notice anything that doesn't quite seem right, such as unreadable text, it would be great if you could let me know.

Thanks.

Labels: code, design, work

The past month, I have been brainstorming and experimenting with idea's on new and interesting (to me) things to do on the web.

So far I have a few things. Of course, high up on the list is to market TerraMedia and Ultralight more, but at the same time, there have been other things come up as a result of that.

Company and product image.

For example, I have been trying to come up with a new and interesting logo for TerraMedia. I did a subject at university first semester last year that was based entirely around product and company image, through logo's, packaging and so on. KIB101, Foundations of Communication Design 1 is the subject. Great subject, I learned a lot doing it. The problem is, I could not get past one of my early logo idea's which I realised after I finished it, that it was very similar to the old Sony Walkman logo which is a trade mark, and while it's not the same, I didn't particularly like the idea of Sony having a reason to come after me. Thus, I ended up with the current logo, which is nothing too special, I like it, but it's not what I would ideally like.

So, this is something I have been aiming to change. I still don't really have anything set in stone yet, but I have some idea's that I am working on since my mind has seemingly been freed of it's mental block at the moment. How long this will last I cannot say, but hopefully for a while yet.

In working on this new logo, I have also been considering redesigning the TerraMedia website, and reworking it to better fit my new marketing strategy (which is at the moment still in it's planning stages, so I can't give you details because it is not yet in an entirely logical structure and will most likely come across as a bunch of babble). I spent a couple of hours with Rhi on Sunday afternoon brainstorming possibilities in this regard, and along with things I have since come up with on top of our combined masses of brain power, I think we have some very interesting idea's that I plan on experimenting with. I'd show you, but that would ruin the surprise.

Rhi is also helping me out with the new logo design which is awesome as she is a fantastic artist! So a big thanks goes to her!

Portfolio.

Next on the list is a possibility I have been throwing around in my mind and have just begun experimenting with using Joomla!

Joomla! comes with a weblinks component when you install it, and that, combined with part of my new marketing strategies has thrown into the works a directory style portfolio. In a way, like a Yellow Pages of web site's by TerraMedia. Of course, there aren't that many at this stage, and it probably doesn't sound like much, but the idea's that are whizzing through my mind regarding this have me really intrigued about setting it up. I have something partially working at the moment. I'm hoping to get it up and running properly within the next couple of weeks.

This also is a reason behind the changes I would like to make in the design of the TerraMedia website. The current design does not incorporate any real portfolio the way I would like, thus it does not have one, which is not a good thing, in fact, it is a very bad thing.

Next up is email.

I have a Microsoft Exchange Server partially setup for TerraMedia. It's still in it's trial phases at the moment, but I am hoping to have it setup properly soon. This will make maintaining my email's, contacts and calendar (why does the spelling of calendar look wrong?) far easier from all over the world, not that I'm frequently all over the world, but you never know.

Once the Exchange server is fully setup and operational, TerraMedia will be offering it as a service instead of our current webmail/POP3 email service, if anyone is interested, pricing will be sorted out shortly. I aim to have this fully operational within the next couple of weeks as well to coincide with my plans.

Blogging.

I am planning on rearranging the news and client information blogs so that they are one and the same rather than two separate ones. I also accidentally blocked myself from allowing RSS, ATOM and OPML feed's from the news page, which is potentially problematic and another driving factor of a new design.

Blogging part 2.

Still As Life is still running off of what is essentially a standard template. Yes, I have changed it significantly. Background image, size, footer, menu etc, but it is still basically a standard template. This I do not like. In my brainstorming for TerraMedia, I stumbled across the foundations of a new design for Still As Life hiding in the dark, atramentous recesses of my mind.

So this is underway as well. I have it in progress, on the Still As Life server, but I'm not going to give you the link because that would ruin the surprise. If you can figure out the path to it though, enjoy and keep in mind that it is still in progress and the colours are far from final.

More Still As Life?

Yes, there is more. Still As Life was not originally intended to be solely the home of the personal blog of me, Matthew Brown. No, it was also meant to be a haven for my fractal gallery. Yes yes, there is my Deviant Art gallery, which does give me unlimited space and bandwidth for free. However, it is not really what I want. I have been tossing around ideas in my mind ever since I first began considering names for this blog. There is actually an installation of Coppermine Photo Gallery setup on this server and has been since I set up the domain. It's just one of those things that never quite went ahead.

Is there anymore?

As a matter of fact, yes! I just don't remember what else there was at the moment, that was actually part of the reason for this blog, so I don't forget everything. Oh well, I'll remember sooner or later. I actually have paper with stuff on it all over one of my walls for this reason as well, however this is one of the things that hadn't made it to paper yet. Though Rhi thinks the paper makes it look like I have gone mad with illegible scribble writing and drawings that look like they are part of the writing and so on. I am happy being mad.

Last but not least, in my creative and un-mentally blank mood, I have been doing some drawing (that does not look like scribble) as well. I have the outlines of a picture that I am quite proud of so far. Hopefully the rest of it will work right and I don't end up with, well, badness.

Labels: code, design, internet, rants, work

Recently, Sun Microsystems purchased MySQL for $1 billion. A little late I know, but I only just read about it.

There are articles about it on both the Sun and MySQL websites.

With a gigantic customer base, MySQL is a very successful open source endeavour, so purchasing something like this, potentially brings millions of customers, including clients like Facebook and even Google.

Along with such a large client base, comes the potential to really screw up. There are plenty of other database systems out there, both open and closed source with similar features and performance to MySQL, in particular, PostgreSQL. This means that if Sun were to mess it up, there are systems waiting with arms open. For example, on the TerraMedia server, we have both MySQL and PostgreSQL running. Of course, for many larger clients, transferring to a different system would be a lot of work and for many, it probably would not be worth it. However, for smaller clients, or transitioning systems, there is a much bigger possibility.

Added to that, at the Queensland University of Technology students are introduced to databases and taught using PostgreSQL in the introductory database subjects, no doubt this occurs at other universities as well. This means other systems are in a prime position to take a piece of the market from MySQL if things go sour.

Having used both systems though, I can see there are many similarities, so even someone who has only used MySQL could pick up PostgreSQL with very few problems.

However, I can't point out the possible pitfalls without mentioning the benefits.

Sun is a giant in the I.T. industry with a large amount of finances available to back MySQL. Not to mention, Sun has been extremely successful in releasing the Solaris source code in 2005, and the Java programming language in 2006. Thinking along similar lines, you can hardly talk about Sun's support of open source software without mentioning projects like NetBeans and OpenOffice.org. Both of these have thrived under Sun as well.

Additionally, work conditions are not expected to change, including being able to work from home, and Sun have invited the current staff to continue work on the system, including the current leadership and executives.

It is clear to me that Sun understands the value of open source technology and the communities surrounding it and I don't doubt at all, that in adding MySQL to their arsenal, Sun won't screw things up and MySQL will continue to thrive from the added support.

For anyone reading that has heard my theories on the future of the I.T. industry, involving companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Google and so on, this move by Sun supports my expectations completely.

I will write up my theories one of these days, or copy a chat log about them, or something.

Labels: code, internet, software, technology

As you may have noticed, there have been a few small changes to the Still As Life template.

The left side bar now extends the length of the page, which in my opinion gives the site a much more complete look. I have also added a little footer along the bottom of the page that matches the description bar along the top. I think this helps with the appearance of completion.

These two things are the main template changes, but there is also a new link section in the left side bar called "Cool Tools".

This just has a few useful tools in it. It will no doubt end up getting split into sub-categories and what not. For now though, thats how it is.

Enjoy.

Labels: code, design

Yay a step forward for Internet Explorer finally. According to the Internet Explorer development blog, IE8 now correctly renders the Acid 2 face!

This is great to see! For anyone that doesn't know what the Acid 2 test is, it is a web standards test that was designed by the Web Standards Project that is intended to pick up rendering flaws in browsers.

It uses HTML and CSS to test certain features and how they are displayed by the browser. Any browser that correctly supports the W3C HTML and CSS 2.0 specifications should render the test correctly. If a browser doesn't completely/correctly support the features that Acid 2 uses won't render the page properly.

Interestingly, the test itself doesn't actually use valid CSS. This is because it was also designed to test how a browser will deal with faulty code.

Labels: code, internet, software

I ordered the SitePoint PHP Anthology 2nd Edition last Monday just in time to get the special $10 discount and today, it finally arrived just under two weeks after ordering it. Definitely not bad from the USA.

I had borrowed SitePoint's Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL from a friend of mine and it is an absolutely great book. It's very easy to follow and understand, it even filled in the holes that were missed in ITB004 (Databases) at uni. I highly recommend it to anyone new to PHP and databases in web development. It really is the best book I've read on these topics.

The excellence of this book is why I decided to go ahead and get the PHP Anthology from SitePoint instead of purchasing a PHP book from elsewhere. As well as the $10 discount, it also came with a free PHP quick reference poster, which is pretty mad. So now I shall probably be busy going through my new book for the next couple of weeks.

Catch ya.

Labels: books, code

The new development blog for TerraMedia, dev.terramedia is now online. Of course it is only new and is something I've only been working on for the past few days so it doesn't have a great deal on it yet, and nowhere near as much as I would ideally like, but it will get there. It may still have a few bugs here and there that need to be ironed out, but as it stands, it is ready to be live, after all, it is about development in regards to TerraMedia and so on.

As I have been using WordPress.org for some of my newer content managed websites, I have decided to use it for dev.terramedia as well. The reason for this is based on a couple of things.

1. First and foremost, I love the latest version of WordPress.
   
2. In my opinion it rivals systems like Joomla! as far as simple content management goes. Of course more complicated things may need the functionality Joomla! has over WordPress, but when that's not needed, I think WordPress is great!
3. It is only logical that I provide a working showcase of one of the system's I recommend using and demonstrate it in one of my own websites.
4. I didn't want the Blogger brand on my development blog. As great as Blogger is, you have to keep the Blogger button on it somewhere.
5. I wanted the extra control I have over the source in WordPress, not that I have any intention of modifying the source at this stage, but I like the extra control I have.
6. I am considering transferring the main TerraMedia website over to WordPress instead of Joomla! and would like to use dev.terramedia as a way to facilitate that change.
   

That's about it really. Nothing high and mighty about it, I just feel that for what it is and for what I need it for, it surpasses everything else.

Labels: code, design, internet, software

I think I've got the template issues sorted out now. As far as I can see, it works fine in Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 6.

I was able to get the majority of it to work fine between the browsers without needing any separate code for Internet Explorer, but in the end there was a width that both versions of IE were reading differently to everything else and I couldn't see any way around it but to use an IF statement. For anyone else that might come across something similar, I used the following:

<!--[if IE 7]>
<style type="text/css">
div#sideBar{width:250px;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--[if lte IE 6]>
<style type="text/css">
div#sideBar{width:250px;}
</style>
<![endif]-->

This effectively checks whether the browser is IE 6 or 7 and then executes the code within the statement if it is one of those two browsers. The code for any other browser is held within the rest of the style sheet where the width is 230px.

There are a couple of slight bugs in Internet Explorer still, but nothing major.

The border between the menu and main content is half see through, so you can see the background between the dashes, but this isn't a big thing really.

The other problem is the top part of the menu is displayed vertically when it should be horizontal, but again, this isn't a major problem.

Hopefully I'll sort these out soon, but there are some other things to be done elsewhere first and the layout is completely usable now afterall.

Labels: code

Ah the irony, I have managed to get the website template to mostly work in Internet Explorer now, yet that has thrown it slightly out in Firefox. It would seem this is going to be a bit more complicated to fix then I had at first hoped. The only thing left to fix in Internet Explorer is the overall alignment of the website, but thats easy enough to fix so I'll try and get that done tonight, then again, I have a lot on my to do list that I keep forgetting to do, so you'll have to forgive me if something else takes precedence over it.

Firefox's problems are where the complications arise as I don't see why it isn't working correctly. I think I will have to break the code down a bit to where it works and rebuild it, hopefully without throwing out Internet Explorer again. It's just going to be something little that I've overlooked, I'm sure.

Thanks for your patience in this, it's been a busy period since Thursday.

Labels: code, internet

It has come to my attention that yet again, Internet Explorer has failed to display the changes to my blog template correctly and is in fact even worse than the last time it failed. I don't see what the cause is, but as I'm currently in Lismore on my Mac, I can't test it in Internet Exporer, so I will see what I can do to fix it, if it still has problems it will have to wait until I am back in Brisbane with my desktop.

Sorry about this to anyone using Internet Explorer.

Labels: code, internet

The Still As Life template should now work fine for anyone using Internet Explorer (it hasn't changed for any other browsers).

I'm really not sure what the problem was, I haven't changed any of the current code, I just added a couple of CSS tags to the main column and to the navigation bar. The word-wrap and overflow tags. To my knowledge these shouldn't matter, but after adding them the template seems fine in Internet Explorer now.

All I did was add:

word-wrap: break-word;
overflow: hidden;

Really, these shouldn't affect anything, but apparently the word-wrap fixes long text breaking the navigation float, and the overflow fixes long non-text content breaking the navigation float in Internet Explorer 6 and 7.

Labels: code, internet

I have just discovered that my blog template doesn't work correctly in Internet Explorer, no big surprise there though I suppose. Instead of the navigation being on the left, it is being put below the blog, even though the spacing is created on the left for it. I have a feeling it is something to do with the float tags and IE's dodgy support of them. My apologies to anyone who has been viewing my blog in Internet Explorer and the navigation had been out of line. Hopefully I'll have it fixed this afternoon.

Labels: code, internet

Sitting in the Microsoft MiX On Campus presentation, it's currently about three quarters through and Nick Hodge, Professional Geek, is giving a presentation on Microsoft's new web based Popfly software based around their new Silverlight software. We have just received free Red Bull, and this is proving to be quite the interesting look into what's happening at Microsoft at the moment.

Now I have to say, while the entire day so far has been quite the interesting and I will be going over it in it's entirety this evening, this Popfly is looking like one of the most interesting and useful things to come from Microsoft of late.

It creates mash ups of various web based programs to create new things without needing to know the code behind it.

Nick has given a few examples thus far and it is really quite interesting. It takes one block, such as a Flickr block feeding information into a Virtual Earth block. This mashes them together effectively so that if you search for a particular keyword, such as sunset's, it will display all photo's that have that keyword, and the location that it was taken, based on the location entered in the Flickr details. This is quite cool and is very simple to use and then implement into a website.

Apparently raw HTML can be put into the mash ups as well, however it has to be written with Microsofts Visual Studio Express. This could be annoying, but as the Express version is free to download, this is not so bad.

Nick went on and also showed a few cool examples on his own website, such as how he has incorporated his Flickr galleries into his website and so on. There is also a web based Live Messenger front end incorporated into his site that is pretty cool. Effectively, when the user is signed on, anyone can message them from the website. While some people could find this quite annoying, I think it could really be quite beneficial, and so far, all of these things, including Popfly, run great on a Mac as well.

It's still in it's beta stages, but it's starting to look like Google's free software push is really starting to push Microsoft to work on free software as well which is great!

Labels: code, internet, software, technology

Yesterday I spent a good many hours working on changes to a client's website that had to be completed by this morning. What should have been only a couple of hours of work ended up actually being 14 hours of work. The thing that took the longest ended up being a series of Javascript mouseovers and links. The reason for this is that at the time they were done, they were originally not meant to be links, just mouseovers.

So I had used a Javascript preloader to load up the images and also provide the mouseover changes:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- Hide script from old browsers

function MM_preloadImages() { //v3.0
var d=document; if(d.images){ if(!d.MM_p) d.MM_p=new Array();
var i,j=d.MM_p.length,a=MM_preloadImages.arguments; for(i=0; i<a.length; i++)
if (a[i].indexOf("#")!=0){ d.MM_p[j]=new Image; d.MM_p[j++].src=a[i];}}
}

function MM_swapImgRestore() { //v3.0
var i,x,a=document.MM_sr; for(i=0;a&&i<a.length&&(x=a[i])&&x.oSrc;i++) x.src=x.oSrc;
}

function MM_findObj(n, d) { //v4.0
var p,i,x; if(!d) d=document; if((p=n.indexOf("?"))>0&&parent.frames.length) {
d=parent.frames[n.substring(p+1)].document; n=n.substring(0,p);}
if(!(x=d[n])&&d.all) x=d.all[n]; for (i=0;!x&&i<d.forms.length;i++) x=d.forms[i][n];
for(i=0;!x&&d.layers&&i<d.layers.length;i++) x=MM_findObj(n,d.layers[i].document);
if(!x && document.getElementById) x=document.getElementById(n); return x;
}

function MM_swapImage() { //v3.0
var i,j=0,x,a=MM_swapImage.arguments; document.MM_sr=new Array; for(i=0;i<(a.length-2);i+=3)
if ((x=MM_findObj(a[i]))!=null){document.MM_sr[j++]=x; if(!x.oSrc) x.oSrc=x.src; x.src=a[i+2];}
}

// End hiding script from old browsers -->
</script>

Along with the body tags to go with it:

<body onLoad="MM_preloadImages('../images/image1.jpg','../images/image2.jpg')">

Except we have 8 mouseovers, so there are a fair few more images in the preloader.

Now I had been using the following code where the images were located in order to perform the mouseover function:

<a href="javascript:;" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('image1','','images/image2.jpg',1)"><img src="images/image1.jpg" border="0" name="image1" />

This was working great, but when it came to adding a link it became difficult. I didn't want to edit the main script as it is used by other pages for mouseovers without links, so I needed to do something inline. I spent a couple of hours searching and trying different alternatives for this, but nothing I found seemed to want to work correctly. A few things I got to work in just Internet Explorer, but not in any other browsers, I got some to work with the link but lost the mouseover, I had a few solutions that opened a new window, but wouldn't open the page they were meant to and so on. It proved to be far more difficult than placing it in a separate script, and looking back it may have been a better option to create an additional script in addition to the main one, but I hadn't thought of that at the time.

I finally came across a solution that seems to have worked:

<a href="javascript:;" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage(image1','','images/image2.jpg',1)" onClick="javascript:window.open('http://www.website.com')"><img src="images/image1.jpg" border="0" name="image1" /></a>

Once I worked this out, the simplicity of it amazed me, yet every possibility I tried seemed to be equally simple, they just didn't work correctly.

I hope this is useful to someone as I know that I had trouble finding a solution to this with a quick search.

Good luck and enjoy.

For anyone interested in the sites that I looked at for information on doing this they are as follows in no particular order:

• HTML Goodies
• Page Resource
• Rick Strahl's Web Log
• W3 Schools
  

Labels: code, internet, special interest

One of the most annoying thing's I have ever come across in my web design experience, is when working on a website with another designer, they are adding formatting, either in HTML or using inline styles, in the HTML file instead of in the CSS file. This is extremely frustrating when I try and do things using the external style sheet and I find I don't have the control over them that I should have, and this is frustration is compounded, when I know that I wrote the style that should do it myself and all of a sudden, it's not there anymore and I have to go hunting through the HTML looking for whatever snippet of code he has added or taken out of the style sheet.

Of course to make things even more difficult, he has added it in multiple HTML documents so I have to go through 30 odd files and remove or modify this tag to do whatever I needed.

His reasoning is that this makes the code easier to manage, but I really don't see it, it just seems to create more work from where I'm sitting.

So the only way I can see that this can be even worse, is that he is my boss so I can hardly complain about his coding practice, despite how illogical his reasoning is.

If there is one thing I can't stress enough to people, it is to write your code to the World Wide Web Consortium's standards. Standards compliant code is NOT hard to write, especially if you just use one of the Transitional standards. There's a whole stack of free information and tutorials on it at the W3 Schools website too.

Learn it, do it.

Perhaps I'm the only one that finds this annoying, but as good as PHP is, it seems to me that he is using if excessively and all he is really managing to do is slow the loading time down.

For example, we have had a problem with 100% heights specified in the style sheet where all browsers read that correctly, except for Internet Explorer which didn't read it at all, so the height has to be manually specified for it. I figured out that if you specify the height in the HTML it works in Internet Explorer, so we just have to manually specify the height for each page (yay). So he is using PHP to write an if else statement in the HTML document that says if the browser is Internet Explorer, make the height this much, else make it 100%.

This is completely unnecessary though as all the other browsers ignore the height="" tag anyway and use the height specified in the style sheet. You can set the height to 10 in the HTML and the other browsers will still do it as 100%, as they should. So really, this PHP statement is a waste of his time, my time, the server's CPU time, and ultimately, the user's loading time.

This particular statement is not big I know and should still be executed quite fast, but there are statements like this all over the place that just waste time, and time always adds up.

Labels: code, internet, rants, special interest

For the past 5 days or so I have been wrestling with creating floating backgrounds for a clients website. None of the options I could think of wanted to work. Now it was a little different to your usual floating background.

Usually you'll have a background that you just don't want to change throughout the course of the website so you would use something like:

<style type="text/css">
body {
background-color: #ffffff;
background-attachment: fixed;
background-image: url(background.jpg);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
}
</style>

But I needed something a little different to this, I not only needed the background image to stay put as I scroll, but I needed it to adjust to fit different screen resolutions and remain central so as to suit the website content.

I just could not get this to work how I wanted though as I had to have the content of the website aligned with the centre of the background, so that it would fit with the white spacing.

I eventually ended up just creating a div and putting the background in the div and aligning the content centrally in the div. Of course this just didn't work on anything below 1280x960 as there would be a scroll bar due to the size of the background, so back to the style sheet drawing board for me.

Now, as I was hunting for information regarding this, I came across very little. Eventually I found something on the W3 Schools website that looked like it would do the trick, the background-position element. I'm not sure why I've never come across this particular element before, but it was there so I gave it a try, exactly as they demonstrated it.

<style type="text/css">
body {
background-color: #ffffff;
background-attachment: fixed;
background-image: url(background.jpg);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: right top;
}
</style>

Again, this did not work exactly as I had intended. It worked as long as the window was the right size to put the content in the centre, when the background was right aligned. I now had an idea of where to go though, if I could align to right top, why not just top?

So I changed my code slightly to reflect this idea:

<style type="text/css">
body {
background-color: #ffffff;
background-attachment: fixed;
background-image: url(background.jpg);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: top;
}
</style>

And there you go. By just aligning the background to the top, it was automatically centred as well, so regardless of how big the screen resolution is, the background floats to the centre along with the content.

I believe most CSS is fairly self explanatory and easy to use, so I don't see why some developers are so reluctant to utilize it, but in case there is anything you aren't sure about in this snippet, here is an explanation of each piece of code:

First off I have created an inline style (usually I would put this in an external style sheet, but for the sake of demonstration I'm using inline styling):

<style type="text/css">

Following this I have told the browser that the HTML tag I am applying the style to is the body tag with:

body {

I have then specified the background colour. This is not necessary, but is good practice in case the background image can't be found for whatever reason or if a user has images disabled etc:

background-color: #ffffff;

Next I told the browser not to scroll the background but to keep it in the one spot:

background-attachment: fixed;

I then specified the path to the image I wanted for my background:

background-image: url(background.jpg);

Since I don't want the background to repeat at all, horizontally or vertically, I specified as such:

background-repeat: no-repeat;

The last CSS element I have defined is where I want the background to be positioned in relation to the browser window:

background-position: top;

Finally, I closed the style sheet, and then closed the inline style tag:

}
</style>

Of course, all of these elements have a variety of values that could be used in them instead of the ones I have used, but in order to make the background really float the way I wanted these are the tags I had to use.

I hope this makes your job easier somewhere along the way.

Labels: code, internet, special interest, technology

I have worked on a variety of websites using a variety of different systems.

As I have sub-contracted for multiple companies as well as my own freelance work, and in-house work, I have written website's from scratch using the latest standards in XHTML and CSS along with complimentary PHP work.

In addition, I have designed and developed website's based around numerous content management systems (CMS) and utilised Flash to add to the user experience of particular website's.

Below I have grouped the website's I have worked on by what system they are based on. Note that many of the Webtrix™ Technologies websites are based on a standardised template. Also note that this is a portfolio of websites I have worked on and as such, not all of the sites listed below were designed solely by me.

Assignment's and General Interest Project Websites

• TerraMusic (KIB103 Assignment 2 - Distinction)
  

Plain HTML/XHTML and CSS

• Kes Photography
• Blue Hills College (old website - inactive)
• LANBash (inactive)
• World of Warcraft Site Designer Application (inactive)

Ultralight by TerraMedia

• Ultralight Web Design Solutions Website
  

Joomla!™

• TerraMedia
• The Prodigy Project
  
• Australian Tonerider Review (old website - inactive)
• Powerhouse Music and Technology (old website - inactive)
  

ZenCart™

• Powerhouse Music and Technology
  

Wordpress.org

• Alstonville Pathfinder Club
  
• dev.terramedia
  
• Australian Tonerider Review

Simple Machines Forum

• Powerhouse Music and Technology Forums
  

Webtrix™ Technologies

• Domain Resorts and Residences
• Domain Resorts and Residences Santai
• Domain Resorts and Residences Drift
• Domain Resorts and Residences Beach Shacks
• Domain Resorts and Residences Mainwaring
• Domain Resorts and Residences Pandanus Pocket
• Domain Resorts and Residences North Stradbroke Island
• Swallow Fashion
  
• Purely Nails and Beauty
  
• Thermogen
• Trawler Seafood Restaurant
  
• Highland Smash Repairs
• Trend Smash Repairs
• Baclites
• Ekonopaper
• Mobile Therapies Australia

Labels: code, design, internet, work