I’ve been meaning to set up Subversion for source control on my various projects. After having worked in an environment with tight source controls for almost half of a year, I’ve gotten used to the convenience and peace of mind of having a source control in place. So today I took the plunge and got svn to work with a SVN client, Versions, along with my favorite lightweight code editor Coda, on my MacBook Pro.

Life is good.

So when I decided to take up a “job”, one of my objectives was to find out if what I know is what’s being practiced by my peers. I wanted validation to my methodologies. And I wanted to learn more from others. My new job basically gave me a free reign on most of what I’d like to implement. So I brought with me my methods of client-side development in terms of CSS (and CSS resets), Unobtrusive Javascript programming, semantic XHTML markups, separation of structure, presentation and logic… etc etc. But I still have no idea if there’s more to be learned. Surely there was.

The company decided to hire a technical auditor to audit all the technical aspects of what we do and how we do it. I was thrilled and was really looking forward to learning from this guy. About 15 minutes into my explanation on what I do, I asked if he’d recommendations on how I can improve on what I do. He answered, “Nope. You are ahead of the game. You are doing everything I’d recommend my clients do.”

I was really pleased to be validated by someone who’s job is supposed to magnify and correct inefficiencies and issues. He was surprised I was even using Unobtrusive Javascript programming because so few people even have heard of it, let along practicing it.

So that made my day. Now I know I am actually up to par with the top ranks and I should probably raise my rate.

Actionscript has come a long way with v3.0. But I was surprised how fast I picked it up with my first Flash project a while back considering how much I hated Flash. It’s going to be interesting to see how I will be using it in an almost entirely Object Oriented environment using Model, View, Controller concepts — both of these things I actually wrote on my white board earlier this year as my new year resolutions for 2008…

I will probably hop on the “full time” train once I have checked out the potential of the project. I am definitely not going to repeat the same mistakes when I was a full time employee last.

Ah, life.

I wrote about installing different versions of Internet Explorer on Windows XP for testing purposes (simply because each version is so drastically bad in its own unique way that you need to test each one of them separately). I had decided to take that one step further with Firefox today.

Thank goodness for oldapps.com, I was able to get hold of Firefox 1.0 and 1.5 to play with in XP.

Installing on Windows XP (not for the faint of heat, or you can try the standalone versions of Firefox without worrying about going through the troubles.):

1. Download and install an older version of Firefox. When you run the installer, make sure you choose custom installation and install this version in a different directory. For example: Mozilla Firefox 1.0 (in keeping with the default naming convention). Continue installation as prompted. DO NOT RUN Firefox when it’s done.
2. Open Windows Command Prompt and type the following and press Enter:
set MOZ_NO_REMOTE = 1
3. In the same Command Prompt, type cd and find your way to the version of Firefox you just installed. Using the folder naming convention above, it’s probably something like this:
cd /"Program Files"/"Mozilla Firefox 1.0"/
4. Once you are in the directory, type the following and hit Enter:
firefox.exe -profilemanager
5. Firefox’s profile manager should now appear. Now create a new profile and name it accordingly (i.e. firefox1.0). If you want, name the default profile to the version of Firefox you currently have prior to the installation.
6. Now go to the appropriate Firefox folders and make shortcuts from them and put them where you access them the most (The Taskbar in my case).
7. Right click on the shortcuts and select Properties to pull up the Properties window. In it, there’s a Target field. At the end of it (after the double quote), append the bolded typeface in the following:
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 1.0\firefox.exe" -p Firefox1.0

Do this with each version of Firefox shortcuts you have with a matching profile name. And you are done. The only caveat is you can't run multiple versions of Firefox concurrently like you can with the "Multiple IE" install.

Here’s what my VMWare Windows XP Taskbar looks like:

Installing on Mac OSX:

The process is similar to those found on Windows XP. But I couldn’t get them to work as advertised. So I can’t really endorse the methods here. But there are standalone versions out there that made my life easier.

The upside of Mac OSX is, multiple versions of Firefox can be running at the same time!

UPDATE: I did manage to get multiple Firefox versions to work without asking for a profile upon launch every time as described by Jeroen Coumans’s blog (PDF). But there’s a trick that you should know about!

For the life of me I couldn’t get them to launch without asking for a profile even though I followed the steps exactly. The problem? I had three versions of Firefox in the same directory labeled:
Firefox 3
Firefox 2.0
Firefox 1.5

That’s a NO to the hack described on the site. In order for the script to recognize the paths, the portion of the name following the word “Firefox” can not be repeated. I have tried “Firefox-” followed by the version number, but that didn’t go. And underscore didn’t do it either. But if you simply remove the space making the names looking like:
Firefox3
Firefox2.0
Firefox1.5

Then all is good.

I will probably install a couple of older versions of Opera as well since they are supposedly pretty simple — simply install different versions of Opera in their own folders and be done with!

via [JiveBay] and [Jeroen Coumans]

Neely’s been telling me to just code for the immediate requirements and nothing more. But my philosophy has always been to look ahead just a little more and prepare for what’s to come as “no-brainer” feature requests. Apparently this type of thinking has been hurting my development time on this project…

I rarely read Wil Shipley’s blog entries because they are usually quite long and sometimes very technical. But just out of the blue I decided to read “something” today. And there I came across his coding strategy and philosophy on coding for only what’s necessary and nothing more.

I’ve always understood the idea of “push it out to the market first and fix it later”… But I just never felt right implementing that in good conscience knowing that I am purposely releasing a faulty software only to fix it when complaints flood in. But the way Wil explained it made a lot of sense to me and I think I am going to make what he says in that article my focus from now on — if there ain’t complaints, it ain’t broke. And if there ain’t requests, it ain’t a useful feature.

Live and learn…

Some people claim MS is all goodies under the hood for developers. Com’on, where are the goodies? I haven’t met a web developer who doesn’t hate IE.

People who continue to use IE by choice are idiots. There. I’ve said it. Idiots. Idiots. Idiots. Start using better browsers from companies who care so that the World Wide Web can be a better place!

Ok. I feel better now… Back to dealing with crappy IE for idiots who prefer it.

Microsoft should change their marketing tag line to: Your Misery. Our Passion.

This reminds me of Jason’s comment on how his other programmer friends told him that any coder in the Bay Area can get a job if he just sticks his resume on a rock and slingshot it in any direction. Just a couple of days ago, VMWare’s recruiter also contacted me about a similar position…

Too bad I can’t be employed on a full time basis.

Granted there are actually a number of other browsers not listed there, given IE’s lion’s share in the market, I found it amusing that they chose not to mention it at all. Considering Microsoft bailed out Apple at the brink of its demise back in the days, perhaps Apple ought to be a little nicer to Redmond even if they know Microsoft is just making bad copies of whatever Apple makes anyway…

One of the problems of testing web apps under Parallels with IE is, instead of testing development URLs such as http://localhost/, usually IP addresses have to be used, like such http://192.168.0.100, to reach OSX’s localhost server (because localhost on Windows would entail having an actual web server running under Windows). The problem with that is that some applications such as WordPress need to have a full absolute path in order for it to work properly (especially when dealing with themes). I’ve tried a couple of workarounds, but nothing is as simple as using Apple’s own Bonjour technology.

I found a post that explains how to set it all up. Even though his example deals with running Ruby on Rails, the idea is exactly the same for other development environments such as PHP and Java (enable port 80, 443… etc). Now I am a happy camper…

via [the naked brain]

What I’ve found useful and have been using ever since are these classes:

1. Prototype
2. script.aculo.us
3. Behaviour

There are tons of extensions and subclasses written for them, making them super useful when you want something done quickly and effectively. I especially like Behaviour for its simplicity and the ability it affords me to completely separate Javascripting from tangling with my HTML codes (hard coded, dynamically generated or otherwise).

There are other useful ones such as jQuery and moo.fx, but I’ve been pretty happy with those other three core packages so far.

Incidentally, Apple’s revamped site also has a lot of new Javascript-driven effects that are pretty interesting to look at and experiment with. Another really clean and simple site I like is Panic’s Coda product site. Really very effective use of Javascripts in presentation.

There’s always so much to learn with so little time… What to do!!

1. XML feeds, masking, embedded fonts, css styles (for the XML feeds) and scrollable areas is a combination for hours of fun headaches. One can easily spend all night trying to figure out why something doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to… Certain things are very poorly documented by Adobe (formerly Macromedia).
2. Flash is most useful when used with Actionscripts… Some designer/coder wannabes try to do Actionscripts but instead have code littered all over the place… It’s just NOT cool!
3. Sometimes what seems easy can be more than a handful when you try to code for it… Simplicity can be deceiving in Flash/Actionscripting….
4. Components are your friends. Use them whenever you can. Customizable ones are totally worth every penny if you had to buy them. Just weigh the time you could have spent on it if you had to code that biatch yourself…

I also learned a couple of client-management tips from Jiann… Even though Brian tried to warn me about some of these things, I’ve had some pretty pleasant clients that I didn’t think running into one of “them” was in my Karma…

1. Clients are always right even when they give you some of the worst designs, features and requirements to work with.
2. Trying to beautify, improve upon or enhance anything this type of client gives you only will give you more grief later… because he’s just going to ask you go fix it back to exactly the way he had it… never mind how stupid, unusable, ugly or impractical the design elements or features are.
3. It’s all about ego, pride and control. Some clients want to feel they are in control and will ask you to do crappy stuff even though they knew your solution was better.
4. Stand up to unreasonable requests and demand overage. Or else feature creeps will never stop if the pay is on project basis. Some clients think they own you if they are paying you… Just say “NO” to abusive clients…
5. Being over-confident in your ability to pick up new programming skills can make you lose valuable sleep and family time…
6. Never mind that you have just achieved miracle doing something nobody thought was undoable given how short the deadline is. This type of client will always look for the smallest fault and overlook the fact that you just completed some of the most important features of the site.

Ok… now I feel better….

Back to coding…

1. Flash rocks.
2. Actionscript is not too shabby.
3. Flash can truly do some wonderful stuff.
4. I am looking forward to seeing what Apollo and Flex can do…
5. If inherited from the wrong hands, Flash/Actionscript is a bitch to maintain and extend… All you Actionscript code “litterers”… you know what I am talking about…. Please freaking code everything in ONE FRAME! Take advantage of Actionscript’s Object Oriented design. Damn it…

Again, I can’t thank Murdza and lynda.com enough for bringing me up to speed so quickly on this…

The upside is, I am already pretty conversant with the back end and server side stuff. I am hoping by adding Flash to my arsenal of client side interactive design and scripting skills will make the overall combination of my skill set that much more demanding (since most people only know one thing or the other, client-side scripting or server-side, rarely BOTH). Unless, of course, you are Michael Murdza, who just knows too much about everything anyway…

The issue is this: When using AJAX to load one quicktime clip over another, if the first movie hadn’t finished playing as the second movie is loaded in via AJAX, the user will hear the audio tracks of both movie clips playing at the same time. I have no idea why that is, and I am not even going try to guess. And apparently this has not been documented (or the little that I’ve found in Google) by any developer that I know of…

Fortunately there’s a quick fix to this problem (or my clients will drive me crazy). The upside is that this problem can be mitigated with a quick Javascript since the Quicktime object supports Javascript controls. And here’s how it’s done. We all know websites, especially college ones, are reliable and all, you know, their content never changes and they never disappear… But I decided to keep a snapshot of it anyway for future reference. Apple also has a couple of decent documentations on the subject.

Basically I used Javascript to stop playback of the first video before the second one is even loaded in by embedding the event as onClick. In some cases, it may help to dynamically embed it in the < body> tag as onLoad.

An interesting side note: Javascript documentation says that onLoad events can be triggered with < body>, < iframe>, < frameset>, < img> and < object> tags in HTML, but in reality, use of < iframe> and < object> are weird among browsers.

IE6, IE7, Firefox, Opera — support onLoad in the < iframe> tag, but they do not support it in the < object> tag.
Safari — the only loner browser that supports onLoad in the < object> tag, but NOT the < iframe> tag…

Sometimes it can really suck being a web developer.

Knowing more about Java now made me realized something — PHP is a relatively easy language to pick up and for someone to be comfortable with. But precisely because of these “advantages”, PHP also makes someone without strong programming fundamentals a lazy programmer. Now that I know more about Objected Oriented programming with a “proper” language, I shall apply similar concepts to my future PHP projects. But I hope I get to work on Java programming more so some of that good stuff will actually stick!

Simplistically speaking, in comparison, C and C programmers typically need to clean up after themselves. The problem with that is, sometimes these parties get so wild that it makes the clean up afterwards impossible. That’s when “memory leaks” occur (ahem, Safari). The “parties”, of course, are the programs that rampage through your computer’s memory when they are having the time of their lives (which is not all that long). I mean, WHO likes cleaning up after parties, right? Think about it: Even if you try, there are bound to be spots where you just can’t get to or miss out from all the other cleaning you have to do YOURSELF. Java frees programmers from that headache by being in the business of memory salvation. Bless Java.

So here’s how it works… Whenever your Java program disposes something that it no longer cares for in your system memory, it’s considered trash, garbage, litter, junk, scrap, rubbish, Microsoft’s customers, whatever name suits your fancy, and is eligible for Java’s free garbage collection service. Did I mention enrollment is automatic, and it’s free? With small parties, Java only cleans up after your mess once in a while. But with parties in the size of Coldplay’s concerts, Java will do it a bit more frequently.

Well, I lied when I said it’s free. Com’on, nothing is free. You know that. Luckily, it costs in terms of system performance with all that bookkeeping and cleaning Java has to do. But it’s not really that bad if you consider the work Java’s done for you and the time and brain cells it saves you. I may be going out on a limb here, but I’d say the small performance hit your program suffers is well worth the price. And besides, with today’s qua-gazillion-megahertz computing power and memory availability, these performance hits are barely noticeable. It’s like being thrown at with a penny — of course it hurts. But just a little, and the pain only lasts long enough for you to realize that the sucker who threw the penny is now a penny poorer, and you are now a penny richer…

On a different note, the new Mac OSX Leopard is supposed to ship with a new version of Xcode that comes with garbage collection feature… Buh-bye, major memory leaks…

Maybe it’s because of all the codes I’ve been reading, programming and tinkering with. For the past couple of nights, my dreams have been nothing short of me trying to solve some obscure programming problems in Java! How weird is that? The messed up part is, every line of code in the dream made sense!

Damn I need some rest and time away from Java…

Since this is as close to formal programming training as I’ll get, I found some of the brain teaser questions on some homework problems more challenging to figure out since I am really not a “left brain” kind of guy (which is why I have two art degrees in the first place). When it comes to slightly complicated if/else statements or for, sometimes my brain just locks up, and I get “writer’s block” for coders… The assignment on writing a “Bubble Sort” messed me up quite a bit before I could immerse myself in how it should be coded… I think Alex got annoyed a few times after the 100th time I asked him how something trivial works in Java… But really, my brain completely went on a strike…

I still got one last problem on writing a “Magic Square” class on the assignment… Hopefully I can complete that in time for class on Tuesday.

A couple of interesting statistics about this class:

1. A typically uber-geek class has almost 1/2 of the students being women.
2. Everyone else in the class has either an IBM ThinkPad or some sort of loser Dell laptop. I am the lone Mac user in the class with the only Mac laptop (yoohoo!).
3. Everyone else planned on coding Java using Windows; I am the only person using Mac OSX (yoohoo!) while one other guy is using Solaris.

Hopefully this class will worth its weight in tofu. I had the same instructor in a previous database design class, and that class turned out to be very “profitable” for me. So hopefully I’ll be able to make what I learn here equally successful economically.

Some browsers (namely IE and Firefox) have this annoying behavior that’s a Windows-only trait — upon clicking an active link, it leaves a ghosting outline of dots around the link enclosed by the anchor tag. There are two work arounds that I know of to get rid of, or rather, prevent this from happening.

Method 1: Javascript — Yes, yes, I know client-side scripting is not reliable and all that jazz. All I am saying is, this is A work around. The idea is to make these links sans-anchor tags… That is to say, write a Javascript to respond to “onClick” events within, say, < div> or < span> tags.

EXAMPLE:

< div onClick="doSomething();">Click Me< /div>

Method 2: Div tags — If you are trying to avoid Javascript at all costs, < div> or < span> tags may be your best friend. Simply enclose your links with a < div> or < span> tag immediately following the < a> anchor tags, the ghost dots will disappear all by themselves. Sweet, huh?

EXAMPLE:

< a href="linkToSomething.html">< span>Click Me< /span>< /a>

Again, if Microsoft had bothered to adhere to industry standards, there wouldnt’ be a need to use work arounds like these. So I beg of you, use an alternative browser as much as possible. And only use IE sparingly when you must (for those idiots who develop sites that work ONLY with IE).