june 10, 2010 04:53pm
Calc() Value Comes to CSS
When I first leaned CSS I became annoyed that arithmetic expressions could not be used as values. This was especially burdensome when making liquid layouts. If I wanted something to take up the full width of the page but have a fixed width margin on the side I would need to do something like:
width:100%; margin-left:200px;
Then I would use absolute positioning to overlay something where the margin is.
Well there is going to be an easier way. The calc() attribute has already been ratified by the W3C (the people who make web code standards). Now that code can look like:
width: calc(100% - 200px);
This is a much better way of doing things. This is probably the simplest way this could be applied. I'm sure people are going to have some amazing applications.
Posted By: kyle
june 08, 2010 11:52pm
My Opinion Of Apple
Apple is the worst technology company. I can say this for a number of reasons:
• Severely overpriced hardware
• They want to control their customers and developers in ways that no other company does
• Apple users live in an illusion that their computers are "virus proof"
If you want prof that Apple hardware is ridiculously overpriced, just compare the hardware to a PC. A few years ago apple switched to Intel processors. Now they have almost identical hardware. Processors, graphics cards, the types of memory, are all exactly the same. One day I was outside a mall and three guys that worked at the Apple store were standing there smoking cigarettes. I told them something along the lines of "you sell the same hardware as PCs for three times the cost." His reply was "sometimes four".
The free software movement has become furious with Apple lately for saying that developers can only code using their development tools, with their libraries, and developers can't translate code. This is ridiculous. They also claim the power to disable software after you already bought it.
The Chief Security Architect at FireEye, a digital security company recently said the following:
"Anytime there's been a hacking contest, within a few hours someone's found a new Apple vulnerability."
He also went on to call Mac fans ignorant. I couldn't think of a more appropriate word. The article can be found here.
Lastly, something that is not Apple's fault, but there is hardly any software support. People say often that they are better for web design, graphic design, video editing. Truth is, almost all of those programs can also be bought for Windows.
If you are an Apple fan, write in the comments why. I'd be curious to find out.
Posted By: kyle
may 18, 2010 09:21pm
The Web of the Future
When your browser asks for an upgrade, it's not doing it just to annoy you. Developers work daily on making faster browsers with more features. There are some new web standards that web developers can't wait to use. The problem is the vast majority of people don't have browsers that can process the new code.
One of the new codes is border-radius. In the past rounded corners has been done with images. It can be a real pain. Border-radius will round the corners. You can even specify what corner to round. I'm using it on the portfolio page. The newest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari all support it. Just look at the portfolio page in one of those browsers and then in Internet Explorer to see the effect.
Another new feature that has even less compatibility at this current time is gradients via CSS. So far gradients are usually done with a 1 pixel wide image repeated as the background of an element. New code allows gradients to be made through the CSS style sheet.
It will be years before this can be used in websites as a replacement for current methods. I estimate at least 10 years before the WC3 ratifies this and web developers will not have to worry about browser compatibility. This will only happen when a very large percentage of users have browsers that support this new code. With people still using Internet Explorer 6 now, this could take some time.
Posted By: kyle
may 18, 2010 09:09pm
How Passwords Work
A password is always encrypted in a database. Once you enter a password it gets translated into a hash. This is a non human readable form. It is a long series of letters and numbers. Theoretically there will never two of the same hashes. The password sent to the server is translated into a hash and then compared against a hash in a database.
If you have a hash you can crack it fairly easily. You need two ingredients:
1. A list of possible values
2. A program that will test these different combinations of letters and numbers on the hash.
(On Windows this is easily done. One publicly available CD can extract the logon hash and crack it. This is probably the most popular one http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/)
Once a hacker has a series of hashes they can crack them. This is why is it always good to inset the hashes into a database using a salt. A salt is like a key. It changes the hashes again. The hashes that exist in the database are there after a salt mixed them up again. If a hacker has salted hashes then the hacker can not make a list of possible hashes to try against the list they have obtained.
Hashes are also used in anti-virus and spyware programs. A list of all hashes of virus files are kept in a list. If the hashed vale of a file on your computer and the hashed file in the blacklist match, then your computer is infected. Hashes can be as long or short as is necessary. The encryption algorithm used to create the hash and the length of it must be known to check them. If they match, you get logged in. Once you know these things you can see how safe your passwords really are.
Posted By: kyle
april 27, 2010 03:24pm
A Constant Contact Replacement
Some of the business I have worked with use constant contact to keep in touch
with their existing customers. This service costs $15 a month. For a while I wondered if there was a alternative that could be installed on a web server. As it turns out, there is. Its called PHP List.
It does a good job of sending out mass emails and it has plenty of options to schedule the amount of emails going out. I know my web host tops out at 300 emails per hour. If I had 300 emails to send to, I could make it wait until sending out the next batch.
It also lets people set up mutable lists of emails so they can target specific groups of customers. Emails can be sent in HTML.
The emails all have links to unsubscribe in order for it to comply with the Can Spam Act.
All in all, its a pretty decent piece of software and its completely free. Web developers and web designers will find it easy to integrate into websites. You can find more info on their web site
http://phplist.com/
Posted By: kyle
april 27, 2010 03:24pm
Internet Explorer 6 Needs to Go Away
Internet Explorer 6 was released in March 2001. Since then it has earned the title of "least secure software on the planet" from PC World and has created headaches for Web Developers since it's creation.
Even though Microsoft has released two versions since then, some people still insist on using it. 12.9 % of the people who come to this website do. This website looks terrible when viewed in IE6. I'm sure many other sites these people visit look just as bad. There are a few reasons why this happens:
- Internet Explorer 6 has terrible style sheet support.
- Internet Explorer puts white where transparency should be in transparent PNG images
I don't build websites to support IE 6 anymore. Many times I'll add some code to tell the user to upgrade their browser. Google and Youtube have dropped support and tell their IE 6 users to upgrade.
Even the newest internet explorer lags behind. There is new code for web developers that the newest versions of Internet Explorer hasn't even started implementing. To see what I mean look at American Mussel in Internet Explorer, then look in Firefox. Rounded corners and shadows are just a couple of the things Internet Explorer has no support for.
To any web developer who wants an easy way for their users to upgrade I would recommend this script:
http://code.google.com/p/ie6-upgrade-warning/
Posted By: kyle
jQuery
jQuery has quickly become my favorite new tool in web design. It packs hundreds of functions to simplify things that web designers previously wouldn't of even bothered doing because they were too time consuming. A couple months ago I saw how it could be used for CSS animations and was amazed at how it could transform an element from one point to another and handle everything in between.
To do this in Java Script, a loop running off a timer would need to be created and it's appearance would need to be calculated during each iteration. Now it is so much simpler.
This is all it takes to make the text grow in the nav bar at the bottom of the page.
$('.nav_but').hover(function() {
$(this).animate({'fontSize' : '25px'});
});
I will probably be using more and more jQuery in all my future sites.
Posted By: kyle
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