Here are the 195 articles I've written, from today back until April 6th, 2005.

• jQuery Live Events
  February 16, 2009
  

  jQuery 1.3 came out on January 14th, jQuery 1.3.1 on the 21st, and with them we now have live events built into jQuery. Live events are pretty magical at first glance. They allow you to set events only once, and they work forever in the future, even as you're creating new elements and adding them to…

• I need web developers
  January 14, 2009
  

  I'm in need of a few good developers. I've put up a job posting at Authentic Jobs, PHP Web Developer / Project Manager: (Anywhere) I'm looking for an individual (no teams) to help me lead web development projects. I need someone with lots of experience giving quotes and managing projects with other…

• buttons need type="submit" to submit in IE
  December 26, 2008
  

  In a typical round of doing Internet Explorer clean up at the end of a project, I had to figure out why my <button>Submit</button> wasn't submitting a form in IE. I did a search on "html button" and went to the w3c HTML 4.01 specifications: type = submit|button|reset [CI] This attribute…

• Win $200 in a Web Dev Writing Contest
  November 11, 2008
  

  Sometimes the hardest part of being an aspiring writer is coming up with a practical excuse for actually sitting down and writing an article. Contests to the rescue! Server-Side Magazine is holding a contest for new articles. What better excuse to start writing than the chance of winning a $200 Amazon…

• Use Arrays in HTML Form Variables
  November 3, 2008
  

  When you're dealing with processing forms, a lot of the time you have a one-to-one mapping of form fields and database columns, with perhaps an extra submit button or some fields that need special processing (eg. passwords). Although many frameworks like CodeIgniter make this easier, you can still easily…

• 5 Reasons Freelancers Can Succeed in a Shrinking Economy
  October 24, 2008
  

  Like many people, I've been a bit obsessed about the economy lately. I'm wasn't sure whether or not to be scared, and to be honest I still don't. But I did think of some reasons freelancing might be a safe place to be. You have a diversified clientele. Your clients can be anywhere in the world, and…

• Keeping a Live Eye on Logs
  October 22, 2008
  

  In web development, you can get really used to getting good error messages. If you're coding in PHP, you come to rely on the web server telling you if a variable is undefined or a file is missing. Likewise, when you're debugging, sometimes the easiest sanity check is to output some text. You'll find…

• Using PHP's empty() Instead of isset() and count()
  October 20, 2008
  

  I often work with data arrays in PHP as a way to pass information around or store information in sessions. When you work with these, you can't always assume that all properties are defined. I had some conditional logic code in PHP that was only supposed to execute if an array contained any values: $data…

• Testing Web Pages with Lynx
  October 19, 2008
  

  If you're not familiar, Lynx is the most basic web browser, found on Unix and Linux servers. There are no photos, just pure text, links and forms. You're probably wondering why you would ever think about supporting a browser that's based in a console window. Does anyone actually browse the web from…

• Stop CSS Background Flickering in Internet Explorer 6
  October 18, 2008
  

  I was once again reminded of an IE6 bug I had forgotten about - background images flashing or flickering when the mouse hovers over them. So, I went looking for a solution. Here's what I found: try { document.execCommand("BackgroundImageCache", false, true); } catch(e) {} Works like a charm. Turns out…

• Test Driven Development
  July 20, 2008
  

  I had heard of Test Driven Development (TDD), an agile development technique, and I knew people I knew were using it. I started using it recently after I finally learned the philosophy behind TDD. I had always understood it to be just a method of developing where you just make lots of unit tests. I've…

• Google is Hosting Ajax Libraries
  June 2, 2008
  

  You may have heard that Google is hosting a number of Ajax APIs, including jQuery, prototype, script.aculo.us, MooTools and dojo. Ajaxian actually has a good write-up of the benefits of this hosting. Long story short: Google's servers do caching and gzip compression as good or better than most of us…

• Parse Accept-Language to detect a user's language
  May 4, 2008
  

  I'm an English-speaking Canadian living in Germany. Quite often I go to a website like Google or Kayak and find myself looking at a German version of the site. Okay, I do live in Germany, but why assume that everyone within Germany speaks German? What about visitors from other countries, or even people…

• Twitter
  May 1, 2008
  

  I succumbed to twitter. If anybody here twitters, feel free to follow me at @jesseskinner or leave your id in the comments.

• Three years of The Future of the Web
  April 6, 2008
  

  Three years ago today, I wrote my first post. I was just about to move to Berlin and was looking for a new job. A lot has happened since then. I started freelancing a year later, and I couldn't have done it without this site. 100% of my clients come directly through my "hire me" page. By the time this…

• Saving data to a file with PHP
  February 24, 2008
  

  Lately, I've been skipping using MySQL in situations where I just want to store a few variables, like configuration options, and don't necessarily want the hassle of setting up a database. You can easily store data to a file using serialize and unserialize to turn a PHP object into a string, and then…

• Easy web scraping with PHP
  February 17, 2008
  

  Web scraping is a technique of web development where you load a web page and "scrape" the data off the page to be used elsewhere. It's not pretty, but sometimes scraping is the only way to access data or content from a web site that doesn't provide RSS or an open API. I'm not going to discuss the legal…

• See all the articles
  February 12, 2008
  

  I've just added a new page where you can see a listing of all the articles I've written (this article is my 181st). This might be an easier way to see older articles than going page by page or month by month. Check it out: All Articles

• IBM: Where and when to use Ajax
  February 6, 2008
  

  My second IBM developerWorks article is now online: Where and when to use Ajax in your applications. It's not a very technical article, so you can read it even if you've never programmed before. I talk about the benefits of using Ajax, and point out some problem areas that need special attention so…

• Code Igniter 1.6.0 Released
  February 4, 2008
  

  The long-awaited new Code Igniter version just came out last week - check out the announcement, the download, the Change Log, and (if you're updating) the update instructions. I'm just installing it now, but looking at the Change Log it seems it'll be a really stable release, considering how stable…

• Update a Dev Site Automatically with Subversion
  January 19, 2008
  

  If you're using Subversion during development (and you really should be using some kind of version control system), you can wire it up so that your development site will be updated automatically every time you commit a file. And it's easy! Well, it's really easy if your subversion server and development…

• JavaScript Functions are Variables
  December 29, 2007
  

  JavaScript functions are variables, and this is a big difference between JavaScript and many other programming languages. It can be a bit of a paradigm shift for people new to JavaScript, but it allows for some really cool things you can't do in many other languages. When I say functions are variables,…

• Hallelujah! IE8 Passes the Acid2 Test
  December 20, 2007
  

  We thought this day would never come: Internet Explorer 8 now renders the "Acid2 Face" correctly in IE8 standards mode! Apparently we can expect to see Internet Explorer 8 in at least Beta form in early 2008. According to the IE blog: The key goal (for the Web Standards Project as well as many other…

• Use an empty action to submit a form to the current page
  November 3, 2007
  

  The title says it all: you can use an empty action attribute on a form to submit that form to the current page. This means you don't need to use server-side scripting (using REQUEST_URI or PHP_SELF or whatnot) to write the current URL into the HTML. The following is perfectly valid: <form action=""…

• Accessibility Is About Minimizing Requirements
  September 30, 2007
  

  What are the minimum requirements for using the web? an Internet connection a web browser What are the minimum requirements for using your web site? Well, the answer could include any of the following: a high-speed Internet connection a keyboard a mouse (and the ability to use a mouse) a large computer…

• CSS Sprite Generator
  September 30, 2007
  

  Finally, there is an automated CSS Sprite Generator (via)! Just upload a zip of graphics and it will spit out a single image and a block of CSS you can use. What are CSS Sprites? If you use a ton of CSS backgrounds for things like icons, buttons and other non-repeating graphics, then you can combine…

• Getting an Image's onload to Fire
  September 28, 2007
  

  Are you attaching an onload function to an image but finding it doesn't always get called? The problem is almost always this: you need to set the onload before you set the src. The reason is obvious when you think about it: if the image is in the cache, the image will be loaded immediately after setting…

• Using Hash for JavaScript Debugging
  September 26, 2007
  

  No, I don't recommend smoking hash before doing your JavaScript debugging :) But I did figure out a technique which you can use to switch a page in and out of debugging mode. What happens if you need to debug a site that's getting traffic, and you don't want everyone getting your alert() messages or…

• Detect Internet Explorer 6 in JavaScript
  September 21, 2007
  

  Update: As some of the comments mention, the technique below doesn't work anymore. It's best to use object detection to accomplish what you need, or use conditional comments. But if you need to detect IE6, this should work: /MSIE 6/i.test(navigator.userAgent) Sometimes you just have to sniff for Internet…

• jQuery 1.2 Notes
  September 11, 2007
  

  Great news: jQuery 1.2 is out, and the heavily-awaited jQuery UI (an "official" replacement to Interface) will be out on Sunday. Be sure to have a read of the jQuery 1.2 release notes, but here are a few highlights that I can't wait to use: Partial .load() If you want to load a whole web page with Ajax,…

• Avoiding web page zoom in the iPhone and iPod Touch
  September 7, 2007
  

  I've been doing a bit of experimentation with web pages in the iPhone, and I've realised the first major problem is trying to prevent the iPhone from zooming way out on a web page, making it rather difficult to work with and more difficult to read. One would assume that a 100%-width layout would be…

• Private JavaScript Variables
  August 26, 2007
  

  I find myself needing to generate unique IDs in JavaScript a lot lately. Mostly this happens when I'm creating a lot of elements dynamically and I need to assign some unique ID to them so that I can find them later. And I need to do this because I've realised that storing pointers to elements in JavaScript…

• addDOMLoadEvent Revisited
  August 14, 2007
  

  I've gone back and reworked addDOMLoadEvent. I got rid of the global variables and reduced the size down to 563 bytes! For the new script and the demo pages, check out addDOMLoadEvent. Update [Aug. 19, 2007]: Now the script preserves any existing window.onload function, and also executes functions instantly…

• Unobtrusive Ajax
  July 27, 2007
  

  I wrote a Short Cut for O'Reilly that just came out called Unobtrusive Ajax. You can buy it online for just $9.99. It's a 57-page PDF that goes into depth on using JavaScript and Ajax unobtrusively, an extension of my Unobtrusive Ajax presentation. From the description: Unobtrusive Ajax is about making…

• Confusing JavaScript Equality
  July 25, 2007
  

  I got tripped up today by something that took me a few minutes to figure out. I wrote this: if (a == b == 0) { // only execute if both a and b are zero } But this was wrong. In fact, you can write this: alert(3 == 4 == 0); // alerts "true" Why is that? Because of the order things are evaluated. I made…

• Hidden Ajax Errors with jQuery
  July 4, 2007
  

  If you use Ajax with jQuery, you may have noticed that you don't get any error messages when things go wrong. Even if you have major bugs in your callback functions, jQuery just silently fails, sweeping any errors under the rug, and leaving you clueless as to what just happened. For example, you can…

• Drag and Drop on QuirksMode
  July 1, 2007
  

  Peter-Paul Koch has put together yet another masterful overview, this time covering Drag and drop, something that has been on my to-do list for over a year. His script even works with just the keyboard! Not only does he offer a great Drag-and-drop script, he explains how it was written so you can better…

• Safari for Windows
  June 12, 2007
  

  Good news for all Windows-based web developers: Safari for Windows is now available (via). Hopefully this means that we can make our web sites even more cross-browser (and hopefully doesn't just add another browser with its own quirky differences).

• Adding Style Blocks Using JavaScript
  June 7, 2007
  

  Who’s Got Style? - Nicholas C. Zakas writes a good analysis of dynamically creating and attaching <style> elements to a page using JavaScript. He ends up with a function that works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

• Making a 100% height interface
  June 2, 2007
  

  With interfaces on the web that resemble those of the desktop (and better), we often want to get rid of the ubiquitous scroll bar in our web applications. We want all the action to happen directly within the visible browser area. Instead of scrolling, we can offer users new ways to interact with the…

• Detecting and Debugging Timeouts and Intervals
  May 28, 2007
  

  When you start to cram a lot of JavaScript animations and Ajax onto a web page, it can become tricky to know all the code that's running in the background. When you start to detect some performance issues, it's equally tricky to track down what code is being executed. Luckily, the only way to get code…

• Wikipedia Discussions
  May 23, 2007
  

  I'm sure you all use Wikipedia on a regular basis. But what you may not be aware of are the millions of hours of hilarity, entertainment, and often revealing information waiting for you on every page of Wikipedia. At the top of the page is a link to the "Discussion" of that page, where the authors talk…

• Redirecting after POST
  May 22, 2007
  

  When working with forms, we have to think about what will happen when someone clicks back or forward or refresh. For example, if you submit a form and right afterwards refresh the page, the browser will ask if you want to resend the data (usually in a pretty long alert box talking about making purchases).…

• Helping visitors with .htaccess
  May 21, 2007
  

  When I changed all my URLs, I put in place something to email me whenever there was a 404 (page not found). This way, if I screwed up something with my forwarding, I'd know. It turned out that people were getting 404s mostly for one of two mistakes. Either there was spaces in the URL (an error of copying…

• Resizing a web layout based on browser size
  May 19, 2007
  

  Some people thought that my new layout was too thin, and I had to agree. Originally, I wanted the width of the text on the page to be in a more narrow, more readable column. I also tried to stick to a layout that could fit within a browser on an 800x600 resolution. The result was a column of text that…

• jQuery tutorial on IBM.com, in Chinese!
  May 18, 2007
  

  This is pretty trippy. IBM translated my jQuery article into Chinese: 使用 jQuery 简化 Ajax 开发 So if any of you understands Chinese better than English, there ya go. Now in Japanese too: jQuery を使って Ajax 開発を単純化する.

• A URL is (maybe not) forever
  May 17, 2007
  

  Last year, I wrote that A URL is forever. Well, like any good hypocrite, I went and changed my URLs yesterday. I used to have URLs like: /blog/2007/5/a-url-is-maybe-not-forever Originally I thought having the date in there would make my site more scalable, so in 100 years (ha!), I wouldn't have a problem…

• Detecting focus of a browser window
  May 16, 2007
  

  If you have some constantly running Ajax or JavaScript updates on a page, it might be nice to pause these when the browser is minimized or in the background, or when the user switches to another tab. After all, there's no sense in using the user's CPU and network if they aren't even watching what you're…

• PHP vs. Ruby on Rails: Update
  May 15, 2007
  

  It's now been six months since I announced I had switched from PHP to Ruby on Rails. Reader Richard Wayne Garganta wrote me to ask: So, now that you have worked with rails a while - are you still in love with it? I tried it a while back and found out my biggest problem was deployment. I have considered…

• Wanted: Ajax Developers
  April 18, 2007
  

  I'm starting to get really swamped with work, and it's about time I started looking for some great talent to help me out with cool projects like FlickrCash. Here's what I need you to be: You're a self-employed individual (no teams or agencies, please). You're freelancing full-time (at least 20 hours…

• jQuery tutorial on IBM.com
  April 11, 2007
  

  I wrote a jQuery tutorial which was just put live on IBM DeveloperWorks today: Simplify Ajax development with jQuery. I discuss a lot of the core functionality and philosophy of jQuery, including an introduction to writing plugins. So if you've heard of jQuery but haven't really decided if you want…

• Freelancing: First eight months
  April 8, 2007
  

  It's now been one year since I started freelancing, eight months since I announced I was doing it full-time, and exactly six months since I did a two-month review. And wow, I've learned a lot in the past six months. Let me share with those of you thinking of freelancing or already doing so. Schedule…

• Naked Day 2007
  April 5, 2007
  

  Today is the 2nd annual CSS Naked Day. So enjoy the lack of CSS, and if you have a web site, come join us.

• YUDOmagic - Share and Learn Magic Tricks
  March 25, 2007
  

  Announcing YUDOmagic, a new site where you can watch, upload and share magic videos. You can watch all the magic performances for free, and you can get access to watch tutorial videos and learn how to do the magic tricks yourself just by sharing a magic video of your own. There is also a free magic…

• JavaScript-only Links
  March 19, 2007
  

  JavaScript-only interfaces often have some links that activate some kind of click handler but don't actually go to another page. These are called JavaScript-only links, and there are a bunch of different ways to make them, listed here from crappiest to best: <a href="#" onclick="myFunc();return false">…

• FlickrCash
  March 9, 2007
  

  I've been really busy lately working on one of the coolest projects I've worked on: FlickrCash. It's built entirely using Ajax and JavaScript, specifically jQuery. FlickrCash searches for photos on Flickr in the most efficient way, so that you can see as many thumbnails as will fit in your browser.…

• Save the World with Distributed Computing
  February 15, 2007
  

  You've likely heard about Distributed Computing, or at least some of the well-known projects like SETI@Home that got a lot of publicity in the early days of the Internet. Distributed Computing has come a long way since then. Currently, there are dozens of projects that use Distributed Computing, and…

• Breaking Long URLs and Words
  January 25, 2007
  

  Sometimes in your content you end up with some really long words or URLs that just won't wrap and end up screwing up the width of your content (especially in IE 6), or just running off the edge of the page. Some common solutions involve automatically shortening the word or URL to a character limit and…

• target="_blank" With XHTML 1.1
  January 24, 2007
  

  I received a question this morning from someone asking: In XHTML 1.1 we cannot use attribute 'target=blank', so what is the solution? The solution is to use regular links, but to make them open into a new window using JavaScript. To do this, we can add something to the links to flag them as being special,…

• Submit a Form in IE with Enter
  January 23, 2007
  

  Usually, you want to be able to submit a form, like a login or search, just by hitting enter. But sometimes it doesn't work. Firefox will always let you submit any form by pressing Enter, but Internet Explorer is a little bit picky. I figured out a generalised rule of when it won't work: There is more…

• Unitless Line Heights Are Finally Valid
  January 15, 2007
  

  It's a miracle! There is a new W3C CSS Validator. I checked, and it's true, Unitless Line Heights are now considered valid! Back in February, Eric Meyer wrote about Unitless Line Heights, explaining that you don't need to put px, pt, % or em at the end of a line height, and you don't even need decimals.…

• Who will read your Semantic HTML?
  January 3, 2007
  

  I've talked about Semantic HTML before, and many other people have. But the one thing I find missing in these discussions is an explanation of why we should use Semantic HTML, or more specifically, who or what it will be that later reads your Semantic HTML to extract meaning from it. Semantic HTML is…

• Using Animated GIFs with CSS
  December 23, 2006
  

  Now that plain old HTML, CSS and JavaScript have made the web quite sophisticated, Flash isn't really as necessary as it once was. Nonetheless, I still see Flash being used to make things, well, flashy. Flash is often used just to add a touch of animation, like things moving around when the user moves…

• Using the a tag without attributes
  December 21, 2006
  

  Did you know you can use <a> by itself without href, name, id or any other attributes? The W3C says this in the HTML 4 specs: Authors may also create an A element that specifies no anchors, i.e., that doesn't specify href, name, or id. Values for these attributes may be set at a later time through…

• The New Design
  December 16, 2006
  

  If you're revisiting the site, then I'm sure you've noticed the new design. If you're reading over RSS, well, then you'll have to pop over and check it out. I got bored last night, started sketching out what a logo might look like for The Future of the Web, and ended up sketching a whole new site layout…

• When to use inline JavaScript and CSS
  December 10, 2006
  

  Unobtrusive Ajax is about keeping all JavaScript and CSS out of the HTML. This is a good idea. You certainly shouldn't be using onclick or onmouseover attributes in your HTML, and you should really avoid using the style attribute. But what about putting JavaScript inside a <script> element or…

• I've been tagged
  December 7, 2006
  

  Joe tagged me. So now I have to tell you 5 things that the blogosphere doesn't know about me. I know, these things are totally boring, and you didn't come here to learn about my pets, so I'll try to keep them slightly interesting and on topic: I ran a number of BBSes from 1993-1995. They were called…

• Was this link useful?
  December 6, 2006
  

  I had a bit of a shock this morning. I was logged in to Google, doing a normal search thing.. you know, click a link, click back, and then WHAM: Crazy times we're living in. Now, I don't even need to tell you how this will affect Search Engine Optimization. Now there's a whole new technique those black…

• Vanilla on Rails: The Coexistence of PHP and Ruby
  December 4, 2006
  

  I'm going to debunk another myth that might keep you from trying out Ruby on Rails (or any other new server language). MYTH: Once you start using Rails, you have to do everything in Rails. I wanted to integrate a forum into my new Rails site. So I took a look at the Rails forums out there and found…

• Switching from PHP to Ruby on Rails
  November 30, 2006
  

  Normally, I try to avoid server-side programming topics. But this time, I thought I'd share my story to perhaps inspire some of you to try something new. I switched to working in Ruby on Rails this month. Lots of people have done the switch, and even more have written about how Ruby on Rails makes coding…

• Multiple IEs
  November 28, 2006
  

  This week, I installed TredoSoft's Multiple IE package (via friendly bit). It's an installer for Internet Explorer standalone versions 3, 4.01, 5.01, 5.5 and 6. It's based on evolt's standalone versions, but packed up in a nice installer. It even fixes some problems with cookies and conditional comments.…

• Using POST with a regular link
  November 22, 2006
  

  Here's the problem: According to the principals of Representational State Transfer (REST), GET requests shouldn't change anything on the web server. Only POST requests should. For example, you really shouldn't have an <a> link that deletes an item. When you click a link, it sends a GET request…

• Replace text with an image using CSS
  November 7, 2006
  

  Let's say you want to have a logo on a page, but you'd really like to use an <h1> with some text for the header in the HTML. Or maybe you like to use images for all your titles, but would still like to have plain text inside header tags in your HTML. There are a number of reasons for wanting to…

• The Ajax Experience Wrap-up
  October 26, 2006
  

  I had a really great time at The Ajax Experience, and got to meet a lot of really cool fellow JavaScript hackers. The sessions were all very interesting, but what really stuck with me was the difference that a good JavaScript library can really make in your development. John Resig's talk on Choosing…

• Carnival of the Web is on hiatus
  October 21, 2006
  

  Unfortunately, there will be no Carnival of the Web this month. I'll be putting it on hiatus indefinitely. Now that I'm freelancing, I simply don't have the time to read through blogs and pick the best posts. Perhaps it will come back some time in the future. I apologize to everyone who had submitted…

• Defining functions in a loop
  October 19, 2006
  

  Do you ever try to define a function in a loop, like an event handler for example, and find that it's always the last variable in the array that is pointed at by every event handler? It can take a while to debug this stuff. Let's say you do something like this: var links = document.getElementsByTagName('a');…

• Unobtrusive Ajax at The Ajax Experience
  October 10, 2006
  

  I'll be presenting at The Ajax Experience. This is an Ajax conference taking place in Boston from October 23-25, 2006. My topic will be "Unobtrusive Ajax", which I've described as so: Learn how the separation of content, presentation and behavior can not only make your web applications more accessible,…

• Freelancing: First two months
  October 8, 2006
  

  It's been two months now since I announced I would start freelancing full-time, and hardly anything has gone the way I expected. Here's a little list of some of the things I've learnt or found surprising: You don't work as many hours in a day as you think Originally, when trying to figure out how many…

• Carnival of the Web #4
  September 17, 2006
  

  Welcome to the fourth Carnival of the Web. First off, Jonathan Snook explains how to maintain an ideal source order while still displaying web site elements in the appropriate positions with Stackable CSS Columns. Next, Joe Kissell at Interesting Thing of the Day explains just what is so unconventional…

• How to make a web site for cheap
  September 9, 2006
  

  Even though I'm a web developer for hire, I'm not really interested in making really simple web sites. I believe most people could do it themselves, if they just learn a few things. I'd rather spend my time coding web communities or Ajax enhancements or whatever. So your aunt or some of your clients…

• Running both Internet Explorer 6 and 7
  September 5, 2006
  

  When the first beta of Internet Explorer 7 came out, the biggest complaint was that there was no easy way to have it run as a standalone browser. You're pretty much forced to upgrade your whole system to use it. I took the plunge anyway, deciding I'd rather run IE7, but I ran into all sorts of situations…

• 5 Basic Search Engine Optimization Tips
  September 3, 2006
  

  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has grown into an entire industry. There are tons of companies who do nothing except help web sites rank high on Google or get lots of search engine traffic. Most of these companies charge a lot for their services. I'm going to outline a few simple things you can do…

• Working around "Click to activate and use this control"
  August 29, 2006
  

  As you may likely be aware, the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Opera have decided not to give Eolas any money for their patent. Instead, users are forced to click on plugins (movies, sound, Flash and Java applets). In other words, anything inside object, embed or applet tags. Thankfully, there…

• Social Networking Spam
  August 28, 2006
  

  So everyone knows MySpace has gotten big. Really big. There are start-ups appearing every minute destined to become the next MySpace. This has attracted it a lot of attention. Bands quickly realised the marketing power of MySpace. You can find MySpace pages for bands like Beck, Eminem, and of course…

• How to add gravatars to your web page or blog
  August 23, 2006
  

  Last night, I added gravatars to the comments on this site. The best blog post to see them is Blog Tipping. Gravatars are globally recognized avatars. It's a clever way to let people upload a little picture that goes beside their comments. This way, people only have to add them once (at the Gravatar…

• Connecting People
  August 22, 2006
  

  I've become convinced the ultimate benefit of the Internet is and will always be the ability to connect people. Lots of people know this already. You can see evidence of it by the rapid pace of new Social Networking web sites being made. But I'm not interested in these billions of MySpace rip-offs.…

• Carnival of the Web #3
  August 20, 2006
  

  Hello and welcome to the third edition of the Carnival of the Web! Despite this being the middle of the summer, it's obviously not everyone has been on holiday. This month we have some more great blog posts I hope you'll enjoy. For more information on this carnival, or to submit an article, check out…

• WikiMapia: Easiest Google Maps Ever
  August 18, 2006
  

  If you want to put a map on your web site using Google Maps, the easiest way to do that is by going to WikiMapia, finding the place you want, then going to the menu and selected "Map on your page". You'll be presented with a box that lets you pick the size and exact starting location of your map, and…

• Finding a job as a web professional
  August 17, 2006
  

  If you're a web professional looking for a job, or looking to find a better job, there are some really great job boards to keep an eye on: 37signals Job Board This is a great site to find some of the best jobs out there. Many of them are looking for Rails developers, but there are other development,…

• Avoiding Comment Spam with JavaScript
  August 16, 2006
  

  Originally I explained this on the Code Igniter forum, and since others are blogging it, I thought I should bring it here. I guess I was nervous about sharing my anti-spam techniques on my own blog in case any spam bots are smart enough to read this article and somehow mutate and adapt. We'll see. For…

• The Desktop Web
  August 15, 2006
  

  That dynamic duo Tara Hunt and her PiC Chris Messina have got me thinking. They've been talking about web applications starting to move to the desktop. Okay, that doesn't seem so interesting, desktop applications are like the oldest things there are. But we've learnt some lessons from web apps that…

• Swift: Safari for Windows?
  August 14, 2006
  

  I just heard about Swift (via Chris Messina). Swift is a port of WebKit for Windows. WebKit is the rendering engine behind Safari (in the same way Gecko is behind Firefox and Mozilla). So I figure, sweet! Safari for Windows! I had some problems though. On one of my PCs, WebKit.dll couldn't be registered…

• Let people turn off ads Part 2
  August 13, 2006
  

  As I warned yesterday, I've put ads back on the site. Currently, I only have them on the individual blog post pages (the pages that have comments on them). If you only read from the home page, or if you read via RSS, you won't see them. I also walked my own talk by letting people turn off the ads if…

• Best site in bleep!
  August 13, 2006
  

  Pretty much the only comment/form spam I get is of the variety that ends with: Best site in bleep! My thnx to webmasters. The rest of the message is usually different. Two recent examples are "Excellent site you have! Awesome content. Thank you." and "Thanks for nice and actual info' Be the Best!".…

• Let people turn off ads
  August 12, 2006
  

  I mentioned in my review of dict.cc that I loved the ability to turn off ads. Unfortunately, now that ability is gone. There used to be is a large Adsense banner across the top of the page with a link to "Remove Ad". When you clicked the link, the ad would disappear. I guess it used a cookie to remember…

• Cross-Domain JSON without XHR
  August 11, 2006
  

  I was just reading on the Ajaxian a quote from an article Why XHR should become opt-in cross-domain, so I started thinking, isn't there a way around this already? A quick explanation of what I'm talking about: XMLHttpRequest (the function behind Ajax) will only let you connect to URLs on the same domain…

• JavaScript Games
  August 10, 2006
  

  I've come across two JavaScript games in the past couple of days that have really impressed me: Lemmings! Seriously, it's nearly identical to the original lemmings game. It can run a bit slow but otherwise it's really impressive (via jim) A 3D Dungeon game from brothercake. This is a really cool usage…

• Freelancing Fulltime
  August 9, 2006
  

  Big news: I'm quitting my job, moving back to Canada (with Svea of course) and taking the plunge into fulltime web development freelancing. This is something I've wanted to do for a long, long time (like seriously 10 years). I'll be available to do any sized projects, from debugging CSS to adding Ajax…

• JSON is not just Object Notation
  August 4, 2006
  

  Until now, I've just considered JSON to be the equivalent to regular JavaScript object literal notation. Jonathan Snook has now explained the difference. It turns out JSON is a bit more picky than regular object literals. Key names must be quoted, and you can only use double-quotes around keys and values.…

• Context-Sensitive Class Names
  July 26, 2006
  

  Usually when assigning class names, it's most natural to assign a different class name to each uniquely styled area of the page. Often, there are common words you'll want to use as class names in more than one spot on the page such as 'date', 'section', 'title', etc. At first, it seems the solution…

• Carnival of the Web #2
  July 23, 2006
  

  Welcome to the second edition of the Carnival of the Web. To start things off, Emil Stenström at Friendly Bit brings up some good points with Current issues with Microformats. John Oxton makes us web developers all feel a little bit better about ourselves with No I am not bloody sorry. Rob Cherney…

• Holiday Time
  June 29, 2006
  

  I hate to do posts like "Sorry I haven't posted in so long" or "I won't be posting for the next while" but... I won't be posting for the next while. I'm leaving tomorrow morning to go back to visit Canada for three weeks, and chances are I'll be pretty busy. But don't worry—I'll be back just in…

• Floating Layers versus Popup Windows
  June 26, 2006
  

  There seems to be a trend towards using floating layers instead of popup windows. Floating layers (sometimes called "Div Popups" or "Floating Divs") are just HTML elements, such as a divs, styled to sit on top of the rest of the page. It's basically like a real window, and usually they are designed…

• Rich Text Editing in Opera 9
  June 23, 2006
  

  This happened a few days ago, but I didn't think to blog about it until now for some reason: Opera 9 has been released. There are a lot of changes to it, the most notable (to me anyway) is the presence of Rich Text Editing, otherwise known as contentEditable or designMode. Click here for a demo and…

• addDOMLoadEvent
  June 21, 2006
  

  There has been a problem with using window.onload in JavaScript. This event handler waits until all the images and other files load before executing. If you need some JavaScript to execute when the page loads, you usually only need the HTML to be downloaded, not all the images. The event to use for…

• This site is now XHTML 1.0
  June 20, 2006
  

  I just did some interesting reading that made me rethink the purpose of the different versions of HTML. One of the first things I did when I launched this site was work to convert it to valid XHTML 1.1. I was excited about the potential of HTML served as XML, and I saw the doctype of my site as a vote…

• File formats of the future
  June 19, 2006
  

  After reading Tantek write about file formats, I've been thinking about what will happen to file formats in decades or centuries from now. Tantek says, "I feel quite confident storing files in the following formats: ASCII / "plain text" / .txt / (UTF8 only if necessary), mbox, (X)HTML, JPEG, PNG, WAV,…

• Carnival of the Web #1
  June 18, 2006
  

  Welcome to the first monthly Carnival of the Web. Below you'll find some of the best posts from the past month in the web professional blogosphere. The next Carnival of the Web will be posted on Sunday, July 23rd. If you write about web design or development and want to contribute something over the…

• Cleaner Callbacks with Closures
  June 13, 2006
  

  Dan Webb at The Web's Bollocks has posted a great article, Cleaner Callbacks With Partial Application. It describes ways to use JavaScript closures to keep your code cleaner and more reusable, especially when creating XMLHTTPRequest callbacks. If you understand the basics of closures but want to see…

• Random SEO success
  June 12, 2006
  

  In November, I put some tools written in JavaScript on here. These are mostly conversion tools, things like pounds to kilograms, kilometers to miles, etc. I had the idea of coding and hosting some random JavaScript things on here, but since then I haven't added anything. Then I forgot about them. Now,…

• Last Call for the Carnival of the Web
  June 11, 2006
  

  This is a last call for submissions to the first monthly Carnival of the Web. Saturday, June 17th is the deadline, as the carnival will be posted here on Sunday. So if you have a blog that web professionals would be interested in, or if you've read something really great on another blog in the past…

• Yahoo! figures it out
  June 10, 2006
  

  When early versions of Internet Explorer 7 were released, it was clear that IE would now have a search toolbar like Firefox. It was also clear that this would default to use MSN, rather than the Firefox default of Google. Google freaked out and tried to sue Microsoft, but the Justice Department said…

• The Timely Web
  June 5, 2006
  

  Did you ever own a directory of the web? Like this big yellow pages book with every known web page on the Internet? I did. I never used it. I guess I skimmed through it, but it was very soon out of date. Not only were half the links gone, but there were so many new sites that just weren't included.…

• In Praise of the Hyperlink
  June 3, 2006
  

  A beautiful look at the web, with a reality check on just what the web is supposed to be: a collection of hyperlinked things. Jeremy Keith's In Praise of the Hyperlink

• I'm not a designer
  June 3, 2006
  

  You may not even notice right away, but I added shading to the boxes on this site. This is the final product of over three hours of working on my design. No, I didn't struggle with making shading images for three hours. I tried to redesign my whole site from scratch. I'm getting a bit bored with seeing…

• ppk on JavaScript
  June 2, 2006
  

  I just wanted to give a quick congratulations to Peter-Paul Koch of QuirksBlog. He just finished a JavaScript book, ppk on JavaScript. Way to go! If you're interested in learning more about JavaScript, or, as ppk said, if you want to congratulate me, buy the book. Update: You can pre-order the book…

• Faster than you thought
  June 2, 2006
  

  Seth Godin gives another example of the Internet leveling the playing field. This time it's a girl named Emily finding success selling her artwork online. Seth says: [This] should be proof to you that the whole thing is raveling (which means the same as unraveling, in case you were curious). That all…

• Unobtrusive JavaScript
  June 2, 2006
  

  You might have heard of unobtrusive JavaScript, but what the hell is it? Well, it's the separation of all your JavaScript from your HTML. That means putting all your JavaScript either in a <script> block, or even better, in an external file. Why bother? Yes, sometimes it's easier to put JavaScript…

• Blog Tipping
  June 1, 2006
  

  Joe at the Working at Home on the Internet blog just blog-tipped me, so I thought I'd pass on the Link Love. The idea of Blog Tipping is that on the first of the month, you pick three blogs you read and offer 3 compliments and 1 tip. So here goes. gapingvoid I love that you've gone back to drawing cartoons…

• Microformats Search and Pingerati
  June 1, 2006
  

  Tantek Çelik has just announced the release of Technorati's Microformats Search! Tantek has been the pioneer and mastermind behind microformats. So far, the use of microformats was forward looking, like "One day there will be tools that search the web for microformats, and then all the hCards and hCalendars…

• Ajax Security
  May 30, 2006
  

  Now and then, I hear concerns about Ajax security holes. Everytime this happens, I have to stop and think for a second. What security holes? Have I missed something? Can my visitors drag-and-drop their way into my database, or use Yellow Fade Techniques to gain root on my web server? Here's what XMLHTTPRequest…

• Firebug 0.4
  May 30, 2006
  

  If you haven't yet, go get the Firebug 0.4 extension for Firefox from Joe Hewitt. Roger Johansson mentioned it, and Justin Palmer posted an in-depth walk through of the many really great features in Firebug. The days of using alert() for debugging are over (except, perhaps, in other browsers. You can…

• JavaScript 2 and The Future Of The Web
  May 27, 2006
  

  I just tripped across a slideshow from a talk by Mozilla's Brendan Eich at XTech 2006 titled JavaScript 2 and the Future Of The Web. Yes, I found it when I was ego searching. Regardless, it's a great talk outlining the future of JavaScript and all the new, great changes we can expect to see come out…

• Using Ajax Without Server-Side Scripting
  May 23, 2006
  

  Ajax, by which I mean XMLHTTPRequest, is almost always used with some sort of server platform, such as PHP or Java, usually to retrieve data from a database. This might scare off some people from using XMLHTTPRequest, especially those who don't have the ability or knowledge to do server-side scripting.…

• Java UI Toolkits (for the Web)
  May 22, 2006
  

  One thing that was big at JAX were these toolkits that allow Java developers to program user interfaces the way they're used to, by using libraries similar to SWT or Swing. Two big ones I saw were Rich AJAX Platform (RAP), based on SWT, and wingS, based on Swing. Now, Google has released the Google…

• The Carnival of the Web
  May 18, 2006
  

  I'd like to announce The Carnival of the Web. This will be a monthly blog carnival showcasing the best posts in the wide world of web professionalism. The first carnival will take place on Sunday, June 18th, 2006. This carnival will be aimed entirely at web professionals. These include web designers,…

• Hire an Ajax Freelancer
  May 17, 2006
  

  If you want Ajax on your web site, I'm your man. Although I'm already available to do all types of web freelancing, I want to emphasize that I specialize as an advanced JavaScript, CSS and Ajax freelancer. I've been doing Ajax and other advanced JavaScript for over two years now, and it's really my…

• Lend money to make money
  May 17, 2006
  

  There is a new online peer-to-peer loan concept that is growing, and I think it's a great idea. (Via slashdot). Two new companies, Prosper and Zopa, are allowing people to ask the public to lend them money. Anyone can bid on lending the money, stating their own interest rate. Whoever offers the lowest…

• Code Igniter
  May 14, 2006
  

  I'm absolutely in love. While I bored was at JAX, I searched around for a PHP framework like Ruby on Rails. I already knew about CakePHP, but I wasn't convinced. I looked at a few others, but nothing caught my eye. Then I discovered Code Igniter. Code Igniter comes from the people who make Expression…

• Back from JAX
  May 14, 2006
  

  I had a really nice time in Wiesbaden, Germany at JAX 2006. Apart from being in a gorgeous city, the conference had some interesting content. Most of it was about Java technologies and I won't bore you (and myself) with too much of that, but I also attended sessions on Ruby on Rails, Groovy and AJAX.…

• See you at JAX 2006
  May 3, 2006
  

  From Tuesday (May 9th) until Thursday (May 11th), I'll be attending JAX 2006, a Java conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. Not only will I learn all about what's new in the Java world, I'll be able to really test out my knowledge of German. (Eek!) If any of you are going to be there by some freak chance,…

• Flip Cancer The Bird
  April 30, 2006
  

  There is a new charity drive web site Flip Cancer The Bird that will donate $0.50 for each picture sent in. The catch: the picture must have you giving the finger to Cancer. I think this is a fun idea. I'll have to send in my photo next. :)

• Ezine Articles
  April 28, 2006
  

  I just submitted my first article to EzineArticles.com. I just heard about this site a couple of days ago so I thought I'd try it out. Basically, it's a way to get articles read by a new audience. I won't get paid for it or anything, but ideally people will discover this blog and my writing if my articles…

• Help stop phishing
  April 26, 2006
  

  I really hate phishing emails for two reasons. First, they're just more annoying spam in my inbox. Second, I know that some innocent people out there are going to be frauded because of these emails. Thanks to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, there's something we can do to help stop phishing. And it's…

• Your voice
  April 25, 2006
  

  I was worried at first when I started my personal blog. I knew that all my friends and family would be reading it. How would I write a blog post so that it would be suitable for both my grandmother and my long time friends? I was even more worried when I started this blog. I was going to have some kind…

• Finding Max and Min
  April 24, 2006
  

  Maybe this is common knowledge to some, but I just figured it out today, so I thought I'd share it. Before, if I wanted to find the maximum or minimum number in a list of 3 or more numbers, I'd do something like: max = Math.max(Math.max(Math.max(a, b), c), d); min = Math.min(Math.min(Math.min(a, b),…

• Getting Things Done
  April 23, 2006
  

  Productivity is a hot topic these days, so I thought I'd contribute to the ever-growing mountain of hints and tips with a few things you can do to Get Things Done: Make a to-do list Write down a list of all the things you have to do. When you figure out more things to do, just add them to the list.…

• Guest writer
  April 23, 2006
  

  I wrote an article for the Working at Home on the Internet blog, about just that - working at home on the Internet. Go check it out.

• Review: dict.cc
  April 20, 2006
  

  As a Canadian living in Berlin, I'm constantly learning German, and the best resource is a good dictionary. Paul Hemetsberger's dict.cc is not only the best online English-German dictionary I've found, it's one of the best examples of how an online resource should act. Even if you have no interest in…

• What's the point?
  April 12, 2006
  

  What's the point of this site? Well, the Big Picture is an outlet for me to write about my greatest passion: the Internet, the direction it's moving in, and the way it is changing the world. But at the same time, I work as a web developer, so this is also my forum for sharing different problems and…

• Distributism
  April 11, 2006
  

  I was reading Tara Hunt's blog, in which she talks about how communism relates to cluetrain, the "new" web, and all the great stuff we're seeing happen on the Internet. I think she was absolutely right to suggest the distributed nature of the Internet will let the common people take power away from…

• Setting a form field to null or undefined
  April 4, 2006
  

  I came across another browser difference while debugging some JavaScript. Let's say you were trying to set the value of a form field the following way: document.getElementById('formField').value = someFunction(); But, it just so happens that someFunction() returns null. What happens when you set a form…

• Let's get personal
  March 29, 2006
  

  I think personal homepages are going to be the next big thing on the Internet. Seriously, hear me out. When the web was new, pretty much everyone got themselves a Geocities or Tripod account and set up some kind of web site. That's what's so new and special about the Internet: anyone can have a web…

• Review: Working at Home on the Internet
  March 24, 2006
  

  Joseph Hauckes from the Working at Home on the Internet blog has asked me to review his other site, the Working at Home on the Internet Web Page. I've been reading his blog since the beginning, and it's become one of the few blogs I read daily. He posts very regularly every day (he's only missed one…

• Website Reviews
  March 24, 2006
  

  I'm going to start doing the occasional Website Review. Consider yourself warned. I figure it's worth taking a look at the good and bad parts of other sites so we can all learn from their successes and mistakes. I'll mostly be focusing on design and usability, usage of web technologies (ie. HTML, JavaScript…

• Form field spammers
  March 22, 2006
  

  I didn't want to put my email address on the site, purely for spam reasons. I thought I could avoid spam by putting a contact form on the site instead. Now, I get more spam than I used to from comment spam bots using my contact form! There is no escape, and I will have to accept this as a part of my…

• A URL is forever
  March 21, 2006
  

  The golden rule of URLs: They never change. This certainly isn't a new topic. In fact, it's as old as the web itself. It seems like it's been long forgotten, brushed off and ignored. It is still highly relevant and can't be stressed enough. When designing URLs, assume they will be still be used 1000…

• Flash is our friend
  March 15, 2006
  

  Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Flash. My girlfriend wants to set up a web site. She wants it to act like a lot of her favourite web sites: Flash sites. At first, I wanted to explain to her why this is such an awful idea.. but I couldn't. I couldn't because I realised a Flash web site can be…

• The Future Is Now
  March 12, 2006
  

  So what's next with the web? Will we see the next big thing come when CSS3 gets adopted? Will there be a revolution on the Internet when browsers support XHTML 2? No, of course not. These things might make life easier for us, but they aren't going to change what we can do right now. We already have…

• onAfterClick
  March 10, 2006
  

  Okay, some time ago I posted onAfterPaste, a way to run some code after pasting. You can actually do the same thing with any event. Let's say you want to put an onclick handler on a submit button, but you don't want the function to execute until after the form is submitted. You may want to close the…

• U.S. Grants Rich Internet Application Patent
  February 23, 2006
  

  The U.S. has granted a patent (via) to a design company, Balthaser Online, for Rich Internet Applications, including AJAX, Flash and Java. Reading the abstract in the actual patent closely, it seems to me they've only patented the creation of rich applications from over the Internet. Their main product,…

• Google PageRank Updating
  February 23, 2006
  

  That's right, Google's Toolbar PageRank seems to be updating today. It seems really uneven though. Some pages are updated, others aren't. Perhaps it'll take some time to finish updating. Currently this site is still sitting at a PR2. Let's see what happens by the end. :) By the way, you can see the…

• Writing Semantic HTML
  February 22, 2006
  

  Semantic HTML means using HTML tags for their implied meaning, rather than just using (meaningless) div and span tags for absolutely everything. Why would you want to do this? Depending on the tag, the content in the tag can be interpreted in a certain way. Here are some examples. Header tags If you…

• Death to Web 2.0 Buzzwords!
  February 18, 2006
  

  As I've said before, and I'll say again, the last thing the web needs is Buzzword Hell. All buzzwords do is distract from the real tangible ways we can improve the web. So now, I introduce a way you can help save the world from Web 2.0 buzzwords! Buzzword Hellfire

• Check this out
  February 16, 2006
  

  I just had a look at the WayBack machine for thefutureoftheweb.com. Turns out someone else had it before. Creepy.

• Bursting the Event Bubble
  February 15, 2006
  

  Have you ever wanted to prevent a JavaScript event from firing when it has been bubbled up from a child element? For example, let's say you have an onMouseOver event for a parent element. Anytime the mouse moves over any of the children elements, the parent's onMouseOver event will keep firing. Or,…

• What is Web 2.0?
  February 14, 2006
  

  I know, this question has been answered thousands of times. Even still, nobody can agree on what it is exactly. Here's my take. Web 2.0 obviously implies the "next version" of the web. Ask Tim O'Reilly (who coined the term to promote a conference), and he won't really be able to summarize it either.…

• Web Standards, Best Practices, or Professionalism
  February 9, 2006
  

  Over the last few posts, I've been trying to redefine "Web Standards", or rather, expand the definition to include things outside the validation of HTML and CSS. I wanted to talk about the larger picture of doing things the Right Way. Then, Jim left this comment: Please, do yourself a favour and stop…

• What I love about the web
  February 7, 2006
  

  Right now, A List Apart is asking its readers what they love or hate about the web. I just sent off mine, but I thought I'd put it here so it doesn't go to waste if they don't include it in their next issue: What do I love about the web? Anybody can have a voice. It just takes one person with something…

• How do web standards benefit visitors?
  February 1, 2006
  

  Why do web standards matter? It's easy to say that web developers who ignore standards are unprofessional, but it's not so easy to explain why. (If you haven't yet, read my last post to see what I mean by 'web standards'.) Web standards are fun, cool, exciting. Right? This might be reason enough to…

• The Standard Web
  January 31, 2006
  

  I'd like to talk about web standards in the future, but I realised I need to first define what it is I'm talking about. So, this is what I mean by using 'web standards': Make sure your HTML and CSS validate. The point is simple: if you're using a standard format, use it correctly. However, just because…

• hCard
  January 27, 2006
  

  Continuing my discussion of microformats, let's take a look at the hCard. The hCard microformat is a way of identifying contact information in HTML. People can use tools to look into the HTML and extract this information as a vCard. vCard is a standard for an electronic business card. There are a number…

• Predictable design
  January 24, 2006
  

  Jonathan Snook just posted a nice example of why you should stick with what's predictable. When designing, there's a lot of temptation to go against the grain, to do something a little different than everybody else does it. Except, it makes your interface less predictable. And predictability is key…

• Element dimensions on QuirksBlog
  January 23, 2006
  

  Peter-Paul Koch just announced that he's put up a new test page comparing the JavaScript dimension and positioning variables (offsetWidth, scrollHeight, etc.) across multiple browsers. As a quick side note, QuirksMode is my favourite JavaScript and CSS reference, when it comes to figuring out browser…

• Microformats
  January 18, 2006
  

  Microformats are a way of defining new data formats using existing standards and languages (ie. HTML and XML). It's a very exciting area of web development. The concept is relatively new, so there are really only a few formats out there (currently nine formats plus ten draft formats). There's also a…

• Multiple classes in Internet Explorer
  January 16, 2006
  

  I recently discovered the power of using multiple classes. That is, using more than one class on a single element. The class attribute simply accepts multiple classes separated by a space. For example, you can do something like this: <style> .box { border: 1px solid black; } .small { width: 400px;…

• 5 things every web site can learn from blogs
  January 14, 2006
  

  Blogs are here to stay. However, I don't believe every web site needs to have a blog to benefit from the way blogs have changed the Internet. Here are five things blogs have taught us that we can use to improve all web sites: Update regularly Many web pages have some kind of "News" or "What's New" section.…

• JavaScript Speed Detection
  December 14, 2005
  

  This question came up on the css-discuss mailing list today (asked by Howard 'duke' Holtz): I would like to include a Flash header on the homepage, but switch to a standard gif header for viewers with slow connections. I was hoping that there is a way to maybe have two “includes”, and use one or…

• No More Ads
  December 10, 2005
  

  As you may have noticed, there are no longer ads on this site. I decided to get rid of them for a few reasons. First, they were just a big eye sore, as far as I was concerned. Second, since I don't have a whole lot of traffic (yet??), I was only making a few cents a week. I weighed the two, and decided…

• Why Not You?
  December 9, 2005
  

  Steve Pavlina just wrote a wonderful piece, "Why Not You?". Like I wrote about a few days ago, I strongly feel that everyone is capable of doing anything. The problem is, nobody seems to know it. Steve addresses this, asking "Why not you" go out and fix the problems in the world that you see. "It's…

• Inspiration from Television?
  December 6, 2005
  

  John at Success Begins Today just mentioned that he has put up some new inspirational articles. He writes: Most people receive inspiration from people they see on television or hear on the radio. I think this is sad..but probably true. I can't help but imagine millions of people sitting at home, watching…

• How to deliver XHTML 1.1
  December 4, 2005
  

  A while back, one of my first posts was This site is valid XHTML 1.1, where I explained what I had to do to change the markup from XHTML 1.0 to 1.1. However, I guess I was a total liar in saying that's all I had to change. This is because Internet Explorer doesn't support XHTML 1.1. So, using PHP, I…

• UTF-8 Encoded Dynamic Text in Flash MX
  December 1, 2005
  

  If you are struggling to get UTF-8 characters to show up properly in dynamic text fields in Flash movies, even though you've embedded the fonts, make sure you aren't publishing as Flash 5! This painful undocumented little thing took me forever to figure out. I followed all the documentation to a tee,…

• Do It Now
  November 29, 2005
  

  Talk about synchronicities. The day after I linked to some motivation quotes, my favourite blogger, Steve Pavlina, puts up a new article entitled Do It Now. It's 8000 words, so if you have some time now give it a read, or you might want to bookmark it for later. Steve's writing is a pleasure to read,…

• Hide Firefox Referals From Firefox Users
  November 29, 2005
  

  I'm glad Julian Bez pointed out we don't have to bother Firefox users with Adsense Firefox referals. Just yesterday, Google opened up Firefox referals for International content providers. I immediately added the banner to the Tools page of this site, and to Free Horoscope Daily, but I totally didn't…

• Motivation is a Trap
  November 28, 2005
  

  Over on Success Begins Today, John Richardson put up some great Quotations by John Maxwell: "The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing,…

• No-JavaScript CSS
  November 28, 2005
  

  On one of my web sites, I use JavaScript to show/hide div layers containing each section. I have links to "#section-five" for example, but the onclick event changes the section-five div to display: block; and the previous div to display: none;. This is designed so that browsers without CSS or JavaScript…

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
  November 24, 2005
  

  As announced yesterday in the W3C News: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has released Working Drafts of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 and HTML Techniques for WCAG 2.0 and a First Public Working Draft of Understanding WCAG 2.0. Unlike many W3C documents, these…

• CloneCD For Mac OS X
  November 22, 2005
  

  If you find yourself with a Clone CD set of files (.CCD, .CUE, .IMG & .SUB), and you're using OSX, you'll probably realise quickly that you can't burn these files. This is because CloneCD is unfortunately only available for Windows. Luckily, there is still a way around this. Here's the steps I had…

• Feedburner RSS
  November 18, 2005
  

  I have started using Feedburner for The Future Of The Web's RSS feed. If you have already subscribed to the old RSS feed, I highly recommend you change your RSS reader to point to: http://feeds.feedburner.com/tfotw If you have no idea what I'm talking about, or if you haven't yet subscribed to the RSS…

• A Few More Tools
  November 14, 2005
  

  People have started using some of the tools I put up lately, so I thought I'd take a few minutes and add a couple more common ones. I'm open to suggestions, if you think of anything else that would be useful. Metres to Feet Feet to Metres Centimetres to Inches Inches to Centimetres Millimetres to Inches…

• Chitika Channel Tips
  November 12, 2005
  

  I started using Chitika eMiniMalls a few days ago on Free Horoscope Daily, as well as on the tools pages of this site. So far so good, it seems like a very promising ad service. The ads can be contextual like Google Adsense, but I suspect you can get them to perform better by specifying keywords to…

• onAfterPaste
  November 10, 2005
  

  Working with designMode="on" or contentEditable (what can we call this? I want to say Rich Text Editors or Midas Editors Web-Based HTML Editors or something. We don't really have a nice buzzword for this..), a common problem is dealing with pasted content. The user can paste any HTML into these areas,…

• New Tools
  November 6, 2005
  

  Just for fun, I added a few simple JavaScript powered conversion tools, and PHP powered "geek" tools. There are just a few, but I will probably add more in the future. I don't know if they will be of use to anyone (except me perhaps), but feel free to steal the JavaScript for your own purposes. What…

• Don't Quit Your Day Job
  October 31, 2005
  

  For a long time now, since I was in high school, I've had an itch to start my own business. I've had many ideas, most based around the idea of a web design company. I've never followed any of them through though. I've always felt like I would in the near future, but it was never the right time. Lately…

• Comments
  October 23, 2005
  

  I finally got around to adding comments to the site. Feel free to test them out if you like. No html is supported..that is, everything will be converted to HTML entities. There is no preview or edit. It's pretty basic stuff. I guess that's the problem with writing my own blog code.. I never get around…

• New Design
  September 14, 2005
  

  So what do you think? I redesigned the web site, as I'm sure you'll notice. Unless it's your first time here, of course. It took me about 15 minutes to do the design. I was kind of bored of the other one so I thought I'd go for the terminal-window look. I should put some of my old ANSI art here next..…

• Free Horoscope Daily
  September 11, 2005
  

  I just launched a real simple web site, Free Horoscope Daily with my father. It contains free, daily horoscopes, and nothing else. I was sick of all the clutter that ends up on horoscope web sites, and wanted to make one that was simple and good. It may grow in the future, but right now I like it how…

• Patching Worm
  August 29, 2005
  

  If someone were to write a worm that went around the Internet, eliminating the vulnerability of the computers it passes through, is that immoral? Is it illegal? Since the worm is doing no damage (unless you consider patching a hole to be damaging somehow), I wonder what the implications would be. What…

• What about application/xhtml+xml?
  April 26, 2005
  

  It turns out I wasn't done last week when I switched the site over to XHTML 1.1. It turns out that according to the W3C, text/html is not an allowed type for XHTML 1.1. And the type application/xhtml+xml brings with it a number of concerns. The biggest concern is that Internet Explorer doesn't support…

• This site is valid XHTML 1.1
  April 21, 2005
  

  That's right, I've updated this site so it is now valid XHTML 1.1. It was previously XHTML 1.0 Strict. So what did I have to change? I changed the DOCTYPE tag to: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> I had to remove the "lang" attribute…

• XAMPP Review
  April 21, 2005
  

  I installed XAMPP Version 1.4.13 on Windows XP. The first thing that impressed me about XAMPP was that the installation didn't require a reboot. Every other lazy program seems to need a reboot after installation, but this one doesn't. And it's server software! XAMPP is started in a console window. This…

• XAMPP
  April 21, 2005
  

  Though it came out a few years ago, I just heard about XAMPP, a free package combining PHP, Perl, MySQL and Apache. It comes with PHPMyAdmin, FileZilla FTP Server, Webalizer and lots more. The best part is, it's designed to be run on development computers. It installs into a single directory, and makes…

• What is Ajax really?
  April 11, 2005
  

  There has been quite a bit of buzz surrounding Ajax lately, even some coverage in the Wall Street Journal. So what is Ajax? A software package? A programming language? A dutch soccer team? Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. It's a buzzword to refer to using DOM Scripting and JavaScript…

• First Post
  April 5, 2005
  

  Hello there. We are living in a very exciting time. For the first time in human history, the entire earth is connected. We have the ability to share anything with anyone at anytime, easily and inexpensively. We face enormous potential with this technology, and we haven't begun to realise the full implications.…