Breaking Windows

UPDATE: I do not appreciate being used in some embroiled WP v. MT argument. Thanks but no thanks (for those not playing along at home, I refer you to this post). My point in this post was not to voice frustration, merely point out the differences.

I have been a non-paying, and paying customer for years. Before MT cost money, I donated. Because I did that, I -- like many others who donated -- were given free personal licenses for MT 3 when it came out. That was a very kind gesture for them.

My comments below are a stepping off point, and I am not merely "trying" to use MTCS for a client. I am using MTCS for a client. I have yet to come upon a situation where I am butting heads with the software, the difference in MTCS being that many parts of the coding, specifically the use of many global templates, is not found in MTOS or MT 4.1 Commercial. Movable Type as a whole is very malleable software. I have been successful in using it in very different ways, and that is why I am a huge supporter of the platform.

I have had the opportunity to work with a number of the people at Six Apart, and they are great people to work with. Their paid support is amazing, and fast, and the user community over at the community forums and ProNet are equally amazing.

It is amazing to think that I have been using Movable Type for five years. I have created many sites and blogs in it. Now I am moving on to something bigger, much bigger: Movable Type Community Solution.

I cannot tell you who the client it, but lets go with "big secret client" for "big secret project."

From the IEBlog entry:

We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously.

I'm sorry, what? No, really, I just fell off my chair, can you please repeat that? 

Microsoft recently published a set of Interoperability Principles. Thinking about IE8’s behavior with these principles in mind, interpreting web content in the most standards compliant way possible is a better thing to do. 

Is it April 1 yet? No? No. Man, they even have a press release about it. I am shocked. And awe'd. I can't believe what I am reading. Seriously, go read the IEBlog post. Read it twice even (I had to).

This is ginormous news for web development. I guess it will put the IE Box Model hack out of business. Thank you Microsoft, for coming to your senses on creating a web browser. Now lets not fuck up the implimentation of IE8.

Do you think the standards-complient browsers such as Firefox and Opera had anything to do with this decision? 

Read this news from Ars.

It is kind of sad to read this. I may be dating myself here but I am old enough to remember Mosaic Netscape and NCSA Mosaic web browsers. Netscape IPO was in 1995, and I remember that, too.

Later there was the Netscape Navigator browser, I remember version 1.1N very well.

One of the guys who worked for me many hears ago, Kurt Kurt Krejny, got a job at a SEO firm. He has an informative blog post, and you should go read it, 10 Traffic-Stealing Weeds That Suck the Life Out of Your Google Garden and How to Yank Them.

You may not understand what that means, but there are many out there that do. This tool is indispensable at encoding and decoding HTML entities.

This might seem greek to some, but I was ecstatic (yes, geek dance and all) when I found it. I needed to figure out how to create a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) in OS X and there it was, in plain mono-spaced font, a thing of beauty.

For the uninitiated, that is how to setup a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate on a web server (Apache) in OS X.

It also has a nice tutorial on how to "fake" a Certificate Authority so you can use mod_ssl on your own box. Pretty slick

I really want to like Flash. I really do. But it does so many things wrong. When displaying HTML objects over a Flash file, such as xbox.com with the HTML drop down menu over the Flash file, you get a "flicker" every once in a while, sometimes the background of the rollover goes transparent too.

This is what is called a "feature" of Flash, and there is no way around it. That is just the way life is.

The second reason in today's lesson is a bit more technical. It has to do with the z-index of the web page (think of layers in Photoshop, or layers of a cake, or whatever) and the fact that Flash totally ignores it completely.

Flash always rises to the top layer, no matter the z-index you set. The only way to deal with this is to set a parameter making wmode = opaque. The fact that wmode does not equal opaque in the first place is even more baffling.

This makes combining Flash and HTML objects a total pain in the ass. This is why many sites do not have hybrid designs, or if they do, Flash is completely contained in one area and it does not interact with anything else on a page.

You would think by version 9 of something they could make Flash more usable. Flash is a usability nightmare. I fear it always will be. It is really a shame that SVG never caught on.

My current host, Stormwire (who I have been with for over five years) will not install Ruby and Ruby on Rails on my shared-server reseller account. They gave me the option to purchase a dedicated box. It is a good price, but far more than I can afford right now.

Thanks to my friend Pratap, I am now using Host Monster (in addition to Stormwire). While their features page lists some worthless bullet points, such as "Javascript/DHTML," they offer a lot.

If you purchase for 2 years, you get their hosting plan for $5.95 a month. This comes with a free domain, as long as you keep the plan and domain name with them. Nice deal there. Other important stats:

300 GB disk storage
3,000 GB/mo of bandwidth
SSH shell access
Ruby/Ruby On Rails v1.2.3 (even though the site says 1.1)
Support For Custom PHP.INI Files
SSL Secure Server (shared)

The rest of the bullet points every host has, usually because they use cPanel. Sadly Host Monster offers no reseller account, so no WHM. But for $5.95 a month, I am sold.

I called with questions, got through right away, and even found out that I can cancel and they refund the difference. Not bad at all.

This tutorial will teach you how to create a hello world web page using AJAX technologies.

It's easy, give it a try!

For a long time, there was nothing to talk about in web browsers. You used Internet Explorer, and that was it. Oh, to be sure, some Mozilla/Netscape holdouts clung to their ways, as did a smattering of users of Opera, Konqueror, and other obscurities. Internet Explorer itself hasn't had a major version change since the release of 6.0 in 2001, so there wasn't much to talk about there, either for five long years.

Granted, IE7 and FF2 are still in beta, but this is one very in-depth look at these three "next-gen" web browsers.

On a related note: if you have not downloaded Opera 9 yet, you really should.

This report shows statistics aggregated across all active websites tracked by W3Counter.

For example, 11% of all viewers still look at the web at 800x600. That is a lot, considering the stats are gathered based on an analysis of 1,536,728 distinct visits across 1,507 websites (today).

Users of Firefox 1.0 and 1.5 make up 26% of viewers. That is an encouraging number for web developers everywhere.

Source: W3Counter.com

They even offer stat tracking for your own site. It costs money, of course, but it looks like a good service if you do not have a stats package on your web server.

Several online Web sites have posted information in the past couple of days stating that Adobe Systems will discontinue development and support for two of its products: GoLive and Freehand. Adobe says the reports are not correct and the products are not being discontinued.

I posted about this earlier, from a MacNN story.

Rob Griffiths sent me an email Friday about the story on Macworld, as he saw my post on Breaking Windows. Oddly, both the Macworld and MacNN articles source the same post on the French site MacGeneration.

Adobe said that it will discontinue Macromedia Freehand illustration and and its own GoLive web design product, as the company simplifies its product line following the recent purchase and aquisition of Macromedia.

Thank God they are killing GoLive. And seeing as no one uses FreeHand anymore, that was an obvious choice too.

It's a shame, GoLive was a great product back when it was GoLive CyberStudio. It is obvious that Dreamweaver owns the market, and I am glad Adobe understands that too.

New research commissioned by the IAB and presented at its board meeting this week shows that as many as 12 percent of consumers don't accept third-party cookies--that is, the cookies set by ad servers and analytics companies that track the Web sites that consumers visit and the ads they view, among other data.

So the IAB is looking into an ad campaign to educate brain wash us into not blocking ads. This is a brilliant idea. Why don't you yahoos get a clue that people block cookies and firewall known ad servers because we don't want to see the ads -- especially the f'ing Flash ones that blink fast enough to give even a normal person a seizure.

The Job Board is here to connect people and companies who value simplicity, great design, beautiful code, Getting Real, and usability. Most of these folks are Basecamp users as well so you won't have to train them how to use your Basecamp.

Microsoft has confirmed an April release date for a patch designed to ensure that Internet Explorer can work around a disputed patent for technology allowing web browsers to access interactive application programs.

In a blog posting, the firm warned that the ActiveX-related patch could disrupt existing uses of the technology and advised developers to test the updates on their systems. The patch has already been made available for download for this purpose, but the forthcoming April update will install the patch on all remaining systems.

So Microsoft is bending before they have actually "lost" the case? I say good for them. If/when Eolas wins this, it is going to be hell on the little guy.

How does your website look on Apple Safari? SafariTest will return a screenshot of your page as viewed with Safari.

Some notes: frames and Flash movies are not perfectly supported; f your page uses client-side redirection you must enter the final address; to view password protected pages use this syntax: http://[username]:[password]@[URL].

This is a great service for those Windows web based developers who care what their Web sites look like in Safari. It also uses PNG so the screen shots look very nice.

This is also something to bookmark if you want to get a full screen shot of a web site. Meaning from the top to the bottom of the page.

Microsoft stated two years ago that support for Internet Explorer for Mac would end in 2005. It has finally been two years. Two very long and painful years if you ask me.

In a note posted to Microsoft's Mactopia Web site, "Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates." This is already the case, but only unofficially. They will also pull downloads of IE for Mac as of January 31st, 2006.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court Monday refused to consider an appeal by Microsoft Corp in a case involving claims by a privately held California software firm [Eolas] and the University of California that Microsoft infringed on their patents with its Internet Explorer browser.

This is that Eolas debacle that I have written a lot about. It looks like it is finally over. Of course looks can be deceiving. This case now goes back to the federal court. So I am sure this will not be the last we hear of it.

So what is the big deal?

The case sparked concerns that Microsoft would have to alter its Internet browser, making it unable to run certain applets, or mini-applications, that run on Web pages. Microsoft's browser is used by nine of every 10 Web surfers.

Suppose Internet Explorer was forced to change their browser and no one else was, that could get ugly. Even if every web browser had to make a change for applets/plugins it would be a lot of work for both the browser and web developers.

The World Wide Web Consortium is claiming "prior art" in this case, which I agree. As much as I like seeing the government sticking it to Microsoft, this is not the place.

My favorite web application, Basecamp, just got a huge upgrade. Plus and Premium users now have the ability to use time tracking. I was looking at another web based solution, Blinksale, but having time tracking within Basecamp is so much better than using a separate application.

Basecamp is a web based project management application. It has an elegant design that is easy to understand by my clients, and extends beyond the web with support for RSS, iCal and FTP.

San Francisco-based Macromedia Inc. on Monday will announce Studio 8, the newest version of the company’s suite of applications for content authoring. Studio 8 sheds FreeHand, but adds two other applications giving the suite a better mix for its target customer, according to the company. Studio 8 now includes Dreamweaver 8; Flash Professional 8 (including a new Flash 8 Video Encoder); Fireworks 8; Contribute 3; and FlashPaper 2.

There is only one application I get excited about more then Photoshop, and that is Dreamweaver.

MacCentral has a preview of the new Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks. Dreamweaver just looks amazing.

After looking at the new features of the entire suite, I will be plunking down the $399 for the upgrade to Studio 8.

I am very interested to see the new text rendering engine in Flash 8 Professional. I am glad they "unsplit" Flash, last release had a Pro and non pro version, which I thought was pretty dumb.

As for the new Dreamweaver, the new background FTP is about time. The redesigned CSS panel looks great as well. The visual tools for CSS development look outstanding. The Mac version now finally has a tabbed interface for open documents too. Thats another "its about time" feature, as the Windows version of Dreamweaver has had this feature for some time now. New coding tools look great. This looks like a really solid upgrade for Dreamweaver, and may be some foreshadowing in regards to GoLive.

One of the great things about being a freelance web designer is the ability to turn down projects. I’ve come across a few projects recently that sounded interesting but made me feel nervous... As such I’ve written up a list of bad project warning signs.

Some sound advice for web designers our any freelancer.

Neometric Software has released PHP Studio 1.0. The software lets users write, visualized and test PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) code. PHP Studio costs US$25 to register and requires Mac OS X v10.3 or later.

I wonder how it stacks up to Zend Studio 4, which costs a lot more, but is a lot more complete.

But the $25 price tag is great for casual PHP work. If you don't use Dreamweaver, or Zend Studio, this might be something to look into.

PHP Studio has a searchable Functions Browser that is nice. The Help Browser is nothing more then a window that loads the documentation on php.net. But that is still helpful nonetheless.

From the do-we-care Dept.

Netscape 8 is out! Not for OS X though. I will have to try it out in Virtual PC. It includes a toggle which allows switching between Mozilla and Microsoft's rendering engines as needed. How exciting and revolutionary!

The funny line of the day goes to a Slashdot post: "They certainly aren't instilling a lot of confidence in their own code base. Netscape 8 switches to IE rendering when visiting www.netscape.com."

NEW YORK (AP) -- Microsoft Corp.'s share of the U.S. browser market has slipped below 90 percent as the Firefox browser continues to grow in popularity, according to independent tracking by WebSideStory.

I really love the sounds of this. It means more and more people are discovering for the first time that there is a web browser our there other then Internet Explorer.

Why would Apple move the location of such important information as the fun OBJECT code needed because of WinIE 5.5 SP2 so WMP doesn't hijack QuickTime? Well they did. And it took some searching, but here is something like the old one.

It has been a while since I have dealt with QT, the last time I was still working at CTLT, and Apple had just posted the ActiveX/ anti-hijacking code. Well I am back to QT for this Photochemical Sciences Outreach site. Fun stuff.

I also found some QuickTime detection scripts, but I cannot find the same page with the ActiveX code that I had bookmarked years ago. So here it is:

<object classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" height="256" width="320"><param name="src" value="posterframe.mov">

<embed src="posterframe.mov" width="320" height="256" PLUGINSPAGE="http://quicktime.apple.com" type="video/quicktime" CONTROLLER=false LOOP=false AUTOPLAY=false href="movie.mov" target=myself></embed></object>

Apple has added some great pages on their QuickTime Tutorials section, I just wish it was organized a little better. I can't imagine the page with this code is NOT on their site anymore, I just cannot find it.

That is what it says atop the Basecamp web site: Project Management Utopia. And they are not kidding.

I tried the free trial and bought a plan within the same day. Not only is this the cheapest web based project management app I have seen, it is also the easiest to use. The interface the 37signals created for Basecamp is down right elegant.

Annoying sound effects. Annoying sound effects that have a ton of base.

Exhibit #1
Be sure to mouse over the car logos, as well as the "collision center" button.

Exhibit #2
They have tamed this down since I bookmarked it. Mouse over "New Vehicle Inventory" or "Used Vehicle Inventory." It also helps to turn your speakers up. Not work safe!

Exhibit #3
Mouse over the "Dick Says Yes.com" button. Funny I just heard that in exhibit #1. Another annoying aspect of people who use Flash. They all go and grab the same FlashKit sound effect.

Why do people do this? In general, people do not want to hear sounds going off left and right, they surely do not need a stereo base beat for a button either. If you are in an office, or a school, or a library, or sitting at home browsing the web listening to your favorite music in iTunes (totally hypothetical here) wild button noises are the last thing you want to hear. Unless the sound effect has a purpose, it should die.

Sound effects can be used in Flash successfully if they are subtle. Most Flash designers do not know the meaning of the word subtle.

Popwire on Friday released Windows Media 9 Export Component, which exports content in Windows Media Viewer 9 format from any QuickTime-based application. Verified to work with QuickTime Pro 6.5.2, Final Cut Pro HD 4.5, iMovie 4.0.1 and Discreet Cleaner 6.0.2, the software features one-pass CBR and VBR encoding, 32 presets and automatic de-interlacing, with support for fractional frame rates and natural key frames. Pricing is US$29.95 and Mac OS X v10.3.5 and QuickTime 6.5.2 are required.

This is good news. Don't look at your monitor like that! It is great news, it really is. When I worked at CTLT one of the things we had to deal with was Windows users who did not have QuickTime, or who preferred Windows Media. If this software was available at that time, we would have bought licenses for all our compression machines. Being able to create Windows Media versions of your content is very important to your audience, and this looks like a great app to do that.

After a years-long drumbeat of developer complaints, Microsoft may finally be budging on its support for standards and on key missing features in its Internet Explorer browser.

If Microsoft would make a standards compliant browser, it would make my life as a web designer much easier. I could go on and on about this point. But plain and simple: If Internet Explorer adhered to web standards, I could focus on making better web sites faster and not spending at least half my time fine tuning for IE.

Microsoft has won the latest round in its long running battle with Eolas Technologies over the ownership of the patents regarding plug-ins for browsers.

Now Microsoft can try and claim prior art again. I really do not see how they can do that.

This has been going on for a while, and I don't see it ending anytime soon. Microsoft survived the DOJ, they will probably survive Eolas.

This has gone on so long that I have lost count on who is winning and who is losing. I just don't want to have to change the way I use the OBJECT and EMBED tags.

Thanks to Rob for making this a Pick of the Week at MacOSXHints.com. I have never heard of it, but I think I will have Firefox open a lot more because of it.

Be sure to look at the detailed list of features, and download this very handy extension today!

This is a great example of using bullet lists, nesting bullet lists for sub navigation is tabs, and its all ready for you in a zip file for download.

Microsoft has won a patent for automatically downloading software using the OBJECT tag, and to strengthen it's claim has relied on none other than the infamous Eolas patent.

Source: Builder.com

SpamStopper is a web designer’s utility that will help keep email address harvesting spambots from grabbing email addresses from your website(s). No, I’m not joking — this actually works!

How does it work? SpamStopper encodes the text of your email address so that it no longer looks like an email address in your HTML, which makes all the current harvesting spambots ignore it when they scan internet pages. Basically, indexing spiders look for certain email address-identifying characters, and SpamStopper makes it so that those characters aren’t displayed — it’s pretty much that simple.

Be sure and take a look at this totally free utility. Sure I have found web pages that do this, but having an application with a nice GUI is so much better. Kudos to the developer!

The PHP Function Index for Mac OS X. Check it out! Thanks to Rob for pointing this one out to me.

I have had it up to here with Dreamweaver's FTP upload. This was brought back to my attention today as I was updating the Print Materials page on the Robin For Congress Web site today.

The FTP upload in Dreamweaver only has one saving grace. When I save a document, it will upload it to the server automagicly. Since I was in DW and did not feel like opening Fetch, I decided to upload the 3 PDF files. That was a bad idea. I forgot how bad DW's FTP upload was.

So I uploaded these 3 PDF files in Fetch just to see the time difference. There is a big difference. I am not supprised. It took almost half the time to upload in Fetch.

I have used DW since version 1.2. I have never been happy with the FTP upload feature in DW. You would think that at version 7.0.1 they would have made the FTP faster.

Macromedia, are you listening? It is so slow I would go as far as saying unacceptable. The only reason I except it is because of convenience. And no I am not just talking about uploading PDF files. If I upload a folder full of HTML files in Fetch, it takes the fraction of the time that it does in DW.

I am not impressed Macromedia.

Recent Evolt article Ten CSS tricks you may not know, is seeing plenty of discussion, so it deserves a bit of a critique.

I posted this link the other day, and it sure has seen its fair share of linkage. It is also nice to see this appendix to the original article.

Source: Tantek's Thoughts

Neil has put together a pretty good check list of things to help with the new MT 3.1x install:

So now that I’ve upgraded I can fill you in on what you should do to make MT 3.1x work fast. I’ve covered some aspects in other entries but I’m repeating them here for the sake of completeness.

On a related note, MT is now using Smarty for both dynamic publishing and caching. Pretty cool. I am glad I did not bail for WordPress when MT 3.0 was released. Reason being I have been using Smarty for bgnews.com for years now as a Digital Partners member. I am very interested how the integration of Smarty into MT will work.