33Rockers http://33rockers.com Just another weblog Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:49:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en Flash content now spidered by Google http://33rockers.com/2008/07/03/flash-content-now-spidered-by-google/ http://33rockers.com/2008/07/03/flash-content-now-spidered-by-google/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:48:02 +0000 admin http://33rockers.com/?p=722 It looks like the battle against sites built on All Flash technology may have lost some ground.  One easy way to steer development away from “flashy” sites with things flying in and out everywhere has been that Flash sites “can’t be indexed by search engines”. 

Google killed this argument last week when it announced that this is a shortcoming of the past.

from Google Webmaster Central Blog:
“Google has been developing a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of all kinds, from Flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites. Recently, we’ve improved the performance of this Flash indexing algorithm by integrating Adobe’s Flash Player technology.”

To me, Flash site development still tends toward tiny unreadable text and annoyingly long page transitions. I like Flash, in it’s place - there are things that html still cannot do that flash can ( even with the help of ajax)…  But do we really need more All Flash sites? 

Links:

]]> http://33rockers.com/2008/07/03/flash-content-now-spidered-by-google/feed/ Download the new Nine Inch Nails for free http://33rockers.com/2008/05/16/download-the-new-nine-inch-nails-for-free/ http://33rockers.com/2008/05/16/download-the-new-nine-inch-nails-for-free/#comments Fri, 16 May 2008 14:04:23 +0000 admin http://33rockers.com/2008/05/16/download-the-new-nine-inch-nails-for-free/ I am glad to see some bands are thinking out of the box. NIN and a few other bands have decided to let fans download their music for free. Big Head Todd did it back in December - but they just gave away the MP3s. Nine Inch Nails let’s you download their new album in 6 different flavors…

  • high-quality MP3s (87 mb)
  • FLAC lossless (259 mb)
  • FLAC high definition 24/96 (942 mb)
  • M4A apple lossless (263 mb)
  • high definition WAVE 24/96 (1.5 gb)

All you have to to is give em your email address to send you the link. 100% free and legal tunes, “all files are 100% DRM-free.” What are you waiting for, download the free NIN album now. Oh, and have your torrent client ready. Most of the downloads (except the MP3s) are by torrent.

]]> http://33rockers.com/2008/05/16/download-the-new-nine-inch-nails-for-free/feed/ PHP - Pagination With PEAR and MySQL http://33rockers.com/2008/04/30/php-pagination-with-pear-and-mysql/ http://33rockers.com/2008/04/30/php-pagination-with-pear-and-mysql/#comments Thu, 01 May 2008 04:58:52 +0000 admin http://33rockers.com/2008/04/30/php-pagination-with-pear-and-mysql/ We’ve all come across pagination, from using google to browsing amazon you’ll have seen pagination before. It’s the numbered pages at the bottom of a given page to paginate the results into multiple pages.

Okay so the usual way of paginating mysql result sets within php involves code that looks something like this:

$total_pages = ceil($total_records / $products_per_page);

for($i = 1; $i < = $total_pages; $i++){
echo "” . $i . “”;
}

if($_GET['page'] >= 1){
$current_page = $_GET['page'];
} else {
$current_page = 1;
}

$offset = ($current_page - 1) * $products_per_page;

$sql = “SELECT * FROM table_name “;
$sql .= “LIMIT ” . $offset . “,” . $products_per_page;

While this is fine for quick hack job scripts. We as programmers have access to a solid framework in the name of PEAR. Within PEAR a package called Pager can help us enormously.

Paginating with PEAR

PHP Code:

'Sliding',
'perPage' => 10,
'delta' => 2,
);
$query = 'SELECT prod_name, prod_description FROM products';
$paged_data = Pager_Wrapper_MDB2($db, $query, $pager_options);

echo '

    ‘;
    foreach ($paged_data['data'] as $product) {
    echo ‘
  • ‘.$product['prod_name'].’: ‘.$product['prod_description'].’

    • ‘;
    }
    echo ‘

‘;

//show the links
echo $paged_data['links'];
?>

Lets take a look at what going on and i’ll explain the important elements.

require_once 'Pager_Wrapper.php';
require_once 'MDB2.php';

Line 1 and 2 we include the require PEAR classes which need to be installed into PEAR on the machine.

Next up are paging options, you can set these to numerical values to suit your needs, perPage value within the array = 10. This sets how many results per page. For more information on the other elements please visit the Pager Package documentation.

pager_options = array(
'mode' => 'Sliding',
'perPage' => 10,
'delta' => 2,
);

Finally we give the SQL query to MDB2 which is another PEAR package. We use this for the database absraction layer, loop the resultset and echo the list to the page.

$query = 'SELECT prod_name, prod_description FROM products';
$paged_data = Pager_Wrapper_MDB2($db, $query, $pager_options);

echo '

    ‘;
    foreach ($paged_data['data'] as $product) {
    echo ‘
  • ‘.$product['prod_name'].’: ‘.$product['prod_description'].’

    • ‘;
    }
    echo ‘

‘;

//show the links
echo $paged_data['links'];

Finally we echo $paged_data['links']; to produce the pagination. That’s it you’ve learned how to use a more solid paging solution. Go Forth and paginate your heart out!

]]> http://33rockers.com/2008/04/30/php-pagination-with-pear-and-mysql/feed/ Can designers now ignore what a site looks like in IE6? http://33rockers.com/2007/02/21/can-designers-now-ignore-what-a-site-looks-like-in-ie6/ http://33rockers.com/2007/02/21/can-designers-now-ignore-what-a-site-looks-like-in-ie6/#comments Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:22:20 +0000 admin http://33rockers.com/2007/02/21/can-designers-now-ignore-what-a-site-looks-like-in-ie6/ Can someone explain to me why a designer thinks that he can just ignore what a website looks like in Internet Explorer? Hey - if you want to boycott IE on your personal site, more power to you. But the reality is that IE6 exists and it doesn’t support PNGs and a bunch of other stuff that would be helpful.

It has always been a challenge to design for multiple browsers, especially if you have let go of evil table layouts. With the addition of IE7, we have some additional challenges. But the reality is that IE6 will be around for a while. Can we expect all of our clients and their site’s viewers to upgrade or buy a mac or switch to Firefox? I think not - I still have clients use AOL and still have no idea that there is a web outside of AOL.

Seriously - how can a site that looks like this in IE6 end up on cssmania…

Oh - and another thing… can we ignore file size in order to use pretty PNGs? The header graphic alone is 374k! I actually had to wait for this site to load - and I have a 3500k connection.

Internet Explorer 6 screenshot

kingdeuce

Firefox pretty screenshot

kingdeuce

]]> http://33rockers.com/2007/02/21/can-designers-now-ignore-what-a-site-looks-like-in-ie6/feed/ BBPress theme Crystal : updated http://33rockers.com/2007/02/14/bbpress-theme-crystal-updated/ http://33rockers.com/2007/02/14/bbpress-theme-crystal-updated/#comments Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:31:42 +0000 admin http://33rockers.com/2007/02/14/bbpress-theme-crystal-updated/ There has been alot of interest in the BBPress theme, Crystal - so I went ahead and improved-slash-updated it for the current version of BBPress, “Desmond” version 0.8. I fixed the issues with cross-browser compatibility and the code now validates. And no more bugs (that I can see).

You can view the demo here and download the updated code here.

]]> http://33rockers.com/2007/02/14/bbpress-theme-crystal-updated/feed/ google-hosted gmail for your domain http://33rockers.com/2006/12/21/google-hosted-gmail-for-your-domain/ http://33rockers.com/2006/12/21/google-hosted-gmail-for-your-domain/#comments Thu, 21 Dec 2006 13:26:26 +0000 admin http://33rockers.com/2006/12/21/google-hosted-gmail-for-your-domain/ I have been testing the new gmail “google apps for your domain” service for some months now with great results. Although, when I first switched over, the service was down for a day or so and I panicked. Mail was being returned to senders and I thought I had made a big mistake. I temporarily went back to my normal mail server, but the amount of spam the filters were not catching was too much to bear. So, I went back to hosted gmail and haven’t had a problem since. I tried to keep my domain’s mail server as a backup server, but then all of my client’s email (on the same server) defaulted to server - so I bit the bullet and deleted the backup mail server settings.

The only issue I have had thus far is the inability to use the gmail notifier for my domain email. But today, I found a new handy piece of software, the hosted gmail client. This is a mini-browser that sits in your taskbar, auto loads your hosted gmail, and has shortcut buttons to inbox, create mail, addresses, settings - for those people more familiar with a desktop application. I like it because my email is not lost in the 20 browser windows I have open at any given time. It’s a barebones program at this point, but hopeful google will add gmail notifier functionality to the client app.

gmail_client.jpg

The other thing I like about using gmail for my work email is the handy tool to find out where your spam is coming from. Anytime you comment or signup on a website, you can use a “custom” email address tailored to that site. Something like myname+wordpress[at]mydomain.com anything u put after the plus sign will get delivered normally to your email account - and you can use it to filter or identify incoming mail. Very cool.

Google also offers other free services branded with your domain name… google talk, google calendar and google page creator. The service is stil beta, so you have to sign up with your google account and wait to “be invited” - but it’s worth the wait.

]]> http://33rockers.com/2006/12/21/google-hosted-gmail-for-your-domain/feed/ IE7 standalone runs alongside IE6 http://33rockers.com/2006/12/09/ie7-standalone-runs-alongside-ie6/ http://33rockers.com/2006/12/09/ie7-standalone-runs-alongside-ie6/#comments Sat, 09 Dec 2006 18:06:15 +0000 admin http://33rockers.com/2006/12/09/ie7-standalone-runs-alongside-ie6/ I have been dreading the thought of “upgrading” to Internet Explorer 7 for the simple fact that I need to know what my CSS design looks like in IE6 too?!

I have been using my laptop with IE7 installed to fix the mess in some of my websites, but it didn’t seem like a long-term solution.

I remembered a while back hearing about a way to install multiple versions of Internet Explorer at once, but I figured it would be too much to ask for this to be possible with version 7. But, it is possible!

Well, this is a Microsoft product, so - of course - it is far from flawless. I installed IE7 thru the standalone version installer from tredosoft.com(not windows update).

As soon as it installed , IE7 started right up. But, then I realized I couldn’t resize the window… ugh… and then I couldn’t close the program at all. After a little ctrl-alt-del action and upon further investigation, I found that if I went into “Manage Addons” (Tools > Manage Addons..) and disabled the 3 components of the very helpful IE developer toolbar, IE 7 acted normally.

manage_addons.gif

Here is a list of some things that definitely will not work in IE7 - if you install it this way (from tredosoft.com):

  • Context menus (the one you see when you right click on an empty space)
  • The main menu bar.
  • Disabling popup blocker.
  • Feed reader.
  • Installing ActiveX components and ActiveX support.
  • Showing combo-boxes
  • Web pages that require authentication.
  • Adding search providers via websites
  • and my addition: IE Developer Toolbar

This is a great solution for web developers that still need to be able to see what their CSS will do in both IE6 and IE7. (I have already run into overlapping float problems with DIVS in IE7 - with a site that looked perfect in every other browser..)

For those of you foolish enough to have already auto-installed IE7, check out this article about the possibility of standalone versions of IE3 IE4.01 IE5 IE5.5 and IE6

One final unrelated note - the thing that annoyed me the most about IE7 was its lack of a standard menu by default. I can’t stand hunting around their little icons to try to find what I need. Luckily, if you right-click in the area around the tabs, you can check “Menu Bar” to turn it on.

]]> http://33rockers.com/2006/12/09/ie7-standalone-runs-alongside-ie6/feed/ essential photoshop tool you may not have noticed http://33rockers.com/2006/12/06/essential-photoshop-tool-you-may-not-have-noticed/ http://33rockers.com/2006/12/06/essential-photoshop-tool-you-may-not-have-noticed/#comments Thu, 07 Dec 2006 03:10:57 +0000 admin http://33rockers.com/2006/12/06/essential-photoshop-tool-you-may-not-have-noticed/ The shadow/highlight tool adjusts shadows and highlights in photos better and easier than any other tool. Still using “Levels” and “Brightness/Contrast” to adjust images? Check out this tool in action.

I have alot of small business owners as clients. Inevitably, they don’t have very good images for their websites. Overwhelming shadows is a common problem. A seminar speaker at the recent flash forward conference in Austin pointed out a tool that was introduced in Photoshop CS, that I - and probably you - totally overlooked.

Here is the shadow/highlight in action…

Before Image - terrible contrast - bad shadow cast
before image with shadow

To find the shadow and highlight tool in Photoshop CS and above, go to Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight…. The standard tool will adjust most images, but if you check “Show more Options” you will see something like this…
Shadow highlight tool

After a quick tweakwith this shadow-highlight, and a few color adjustments, and cropping the important part of image (my nephews), I have a much more usable photo.

adjusted image

]]> http://33rockers.com/2006/12/06/essential-photoshop-tool-you-may-not-have-noticed/feed/ Unobtrusive iFrame with JQuery http://33rockers.com/2006/12/05/unobtrusive-iframe-with-jquery/ http://33rockers.com/2006/12/05/unobtrusive-iframe-with-jquery/#comments Tue, 05 Dec 2006 16:05:48 +0000 admin http://33rockers.com/2006/12/05/unobtrusive-iframe-with-jquery/ I couldn’t find a great way to do an iframe in an xhtml site and stil maintain accessibility - until I came across malsup’s media plugins. They basically create a link to the swf, mp3, or quicktime and replace the link with the content via a custom class on the href tag.

So, I figured, what a great way to do an iframe, too. Something like:

<a href="myiframe.html" class="iframe">Iframe Content</a>

I passed along the idea to my programming genius, Vlada and he came up with a great jquery iframe plugin by modifying malsup’s swf plugin.

<a href="http://33rockers.com" class="iframe w:700 h:300" >Iframe Content</a>

makes this…

<div class=iframe><iframe id=content_iframe marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://33rockers.com/" frameBorder=0 width=640 height=480></iframe></div>

You can also set the defaults in jquery_iframe.js and just use
<a href="http://33rockers.com" class="iframe" >Iframe Content</a>

If javascript is turned off, it will just show a link to the content.

Here is the code in action and u can download the source code here.

]]> http://33rockers.com/2006/12/05/unobtrusive-iframe-with-jquery/feed/ To err is human http://33rockers.com/2006/12/05/to-err-is-human/ http://33rockers.com/2006/12/05/to-err-is-human/#comments Mon, 04 Dec 2006 20:58:45 +0000 admin http://www.33rockers.com/2006/12/05/to-err-is-human/ hi all-

My name is Warren Cardinal. I am a web developer in Austin Texas.

err… I just bought the site 33rockers.com from Karthik (he is 17, btw - for those of you who asked).

Wow! this site has alot of bad press ;)
I will do my best to delete or credit any plagarized posts. If you are the original writer of any (or know who is) please lemme know or comment on this post.

This is my first real foray into the world of blogging. I run a web design studio, pretty much night-and-day and haven’t had much time to get started. So, I thought beginning with a site in progress would be a good kick in the ass to start recording some things I have found and some things I am doing.

I am also new to Wordpress, which powers this site. I met Matt, the genius behind Wordpress at a conference in Austin a while back. Since then, I have wanted to try it out… but I just haven’t found the time.

Over at Lucid Crew, we are in the midst of developing a CMS that will run hundreds of sites from one install/one database. It’s not a blogging platform (though u can blog with it) - but a full-featured css-xhtml CMS that wil have custom features for everything from real estate sites to yoga studios. I am thinking of rolling it out as a hosted solution for other designers… details to come soon.

]]> http://33rockers.com/2006/12/05/to-err-is-human/feed/