A HattersWorkshop Blog – Technology, The Web, and Everything
Getting into Java... I'm starting to make my first Java applications with the aim of being able to program cell phone API and other handheld technologies. I see this as a huge market in years to come and can wait to get my...
Teaching Intro to Flash at Tunxis Again Looks like I'll be teaching at Tunxis again this semester. Can't wait to get started again as I have a lot of fun the last time we did this. The class is going to be restructured slightly to showcase the...
The difference between classic and motion tweens in... Here it is: If you're used to doing things "the cs3 way" then you can continue to do so with the classic tween tool. It works the same way as you remember, using key frames as normal, but you cannot...
PHP: If (equal to AND not equal) - eliminate form spam... Just learned a great function of PHP thats already made my forms a lot better. A while back I wrote an article about eliminating form spam without captchas by using css to hide a text input box for bots...
Drop Downs, Fly Outs, and Accordion Site Navigation: This last week I was in a meeting discussing a client site. It was a typical business meeting that was going into overtime on a Friday afternoon, and then things turned for the worst... someone suggested...
Aug
27
2008
HattersWorkshop is proud to announce the launch of http://www.epicflooringsystems.com.
They create artistic wall to wall custom floor systems out of an amazing variety of colored glass, percious metals, gems, and other bright and colorful materials. You wanna floor made from tiger’s eye? They got it. No really. They do.
The target market for them includes nightclubs, resorts, hotels, casinos, boutique and high end residences.
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Aug
25
2008
Sweet!
I’ve taken a job at Fathom in Hartford doing mostly web development and cross browser css work on some of their bigger projects. I’m excited to be pushed in this direction and glad to bring my experience with SEO and graphic culture to their mix.
I started last Monday and I love it! The people are creative and friendly and the office is decked out with enmities (and a Guinness tap), but its the little things —like free parking downtown— that make me really happy to be working for a company that actually cares about the wellbeing of their employees as well their bottom line.
Certinly what goes around comes around and I work late; Im debating going in on Monday anyway even though its a holiday. I havn’t quite set it up so that I can work from home and I have to get some work done for their client.
I’m still working with all my existing clients by doing work on Monday afternoon, evening and weekends, but I’m not taking on any more clients — which is a great feeling. I’ll still be on the blog, probably more frequently as I’ll be constantly looking for new solutions and work around to the web’s many mysteries.
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Aug
21
2008
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/18/7-principles-of-clean-and-optimized-css-code/
This is another post from SmachingMagazine. The principles are a pretty good standard ruleset.
#1 (shorthand CSS) is key. I opt for the least amount of whitespace as I can as some of the CSS files I write for larger sites still have a few hundred lines. This is without the IE 6 hacks, which are in a separate CSS file, which they recommend in #2. This allows your code to validate and also be condensed. Both good things.
Thank you Tony White.
Enjoy!
Aug
11
2008
Category : Technology, Typography
Here is a good top ten list. Everyone and their brother has one of these. This one is by Steven D. of smashingmagazine.
Number 1 and 2 are the em dash ( — )and ellipsis ( … ). I also found particular interest in number 5:
Not only is it ugly and lazy, a copyright symbol hacked together out of a capital C and parenthesis might not even cut the mustard in court. Use the real McCoy (©), and bill your clients extra for the legal advice.
I don’t know of too many web developers that follow all these rules. I’m sure now that CSS has made things a bit more standard we’ll be able to worry about smaller things, like small quotes.
Aug
06
2008
Category : Cool Web Programs, Technology
Brace yourself; this is a cool application. Taking cues from PC Anywhere and Goto My PC, Mesh allows you to access your computers, devices, programs, and files, from any computer that has an internet connection. All you have to do is previously download and set up their software on your PC and then you can get access just by logging into mesh.com.
You can allow other Windows Live users to access certain parts of your mesh. Each time they open, save, or upload a file a history tab is updated, this information is also visible on the Task manager.
You also have 5 gb of space on the virtual desktop to use as you want. No more emailing yourself a file, no more thumb drives that never have enough space for that big file…
The rest of the folders and devices in your mesh are set up like a shared network – except they’re accessible by anyone on the mesh from anywhere on the mesh. Unlike network shared locations, or firewalls this is built into the browser using ssl, the same scripts your online bank uses, so the information is secure.
I installed and started working with mesh yesterday and am pretty darn impressed. So far the only hitch I’ve seen so far is some weird things happen when I’m remotely connected to a PC with 2 monitors from a PC with 1. Im guessing once I connect the second monitor to the other it will be fine and scale without issue.
However, for a free application in beta testing, this is pretty good.
See the into video that will explain a lot more about how mesh works
Go to their website.
Aug
04
2008
Category : Social, Technology
I saw this morning that A List Apart is doing their second annual web designers survey. I took part last year and am glad to take part again this year. Web business in general are run pretty differently than most other industries and this project hopes to help to decode just what sort of an industry we have made. Maybe even shed some light on where we’re going.
Last year about 33,000 people took it and its definetly worth checing back in on once they publish the results. Do you’re part and spend 5 minutes to take the survey, its easy.
Aug
01
2008
Category : Featured, Slick Code, Technology
Just learned a great function of PHP thats already made my forms a lot better. A while back I wrote an article about eliminating form spam without captchas by using css to hide a text input box for bots to fill in. By giving the input box a legit sounding name like “email” the bots fall for the trap and the php handler discards their form entry results.
The only problem was that I still got blank entries every now and again from people using their back button, or search engine spiders. You could also trick the validation script by surfing with java turned off . And while I still dont know exactly which one of the above was the cause I have an ultimate solution.
The equal to and not equal to feature in PHP.
Instead of:
if ($test == "") {
mail($mailto, $mailsubj, $mailbody, $mailhead);
}
We use:
if ($test == "" && $email != "") {
mail($mailto, $mailsubj, $mailbody, $mailhead);
}
This little change not only checks to see that there is nothing in the hidden field but also checks to see that there IS something in the email field. As the email is required this is nothing new, but will dump all the blank entries I’ve been getting.
FYI:
&& = = and
!= = not equal to
