Entries Tagged 'JavaScript' ↓

Microsoft finally rolled back its WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) requirement for downloading IE7. Are they being nice now?

Nope. So why’d they do that? Here are some clues… Continue reading →

So, what’s the next big thing gonna be? TAG SPAM. That’s right Continue reading →

So you’re learning or using Ruby on Rails, or even just using Ruby with a database. The ActiveRecord component of Rails provides one way to work with databases through Ruby. ActiveRecord applies a concept called ORM (Object Relational Mapping) to quite literally map object oriented programming constructs to relational database constructs.

What’s that mean? It means it you can write Ruby in a fairly Ruby way (to be fair to purists, a Rails way) when working with databases. Most folks will be using an SQL-based relational database, such as MySQL, PostreSQL or SQLite3. Others are possible, but MySQL is certainly the most common and probably best supported.

Specifically, Rails uses an approach called database migrations to substitute for writing SQL directly. Migrations make things pretty easy, indeed. You can learn plenty about using migrations with the main book for Rails, Agile Web Development With Rails. However, I encourage everyone to also take a look to the book, Ruby for Rails.

The general approach of Ruby for Rails is to get you to know how the magic works, and help you develop a better understanding of the underlying technology so you can do more with it. This is really a key thing. You’re not going to be good at Rails without learning Ruby itself, much less CSS, XHTML, and perhaps Javascript, and definitely a little SQL.

What?! Yeah. That’s right, you do need to know about the details. Perhaps not intimately, but well enough to understand what it is you’re really doing. SQL is a big subject. Lucky for you, database-driven web sites tend to do a lot of the same kinds of things in most situations. Therefore, you don’t need to be a master of SQL but you need to experience it and understand how it works. Particularly MySQL’s version (and if you’re a programmer, consider SQLite as well)

SQL isn’t that hard, but it is fairly different from most other programming languages. (yes, I think it IS a programming language.) But I don’t just want you to know SQL a little, I want you to know a little database design too. This is what is important so you will have some concept of what it is migrations is doing for you. When you have this in your head, you will then also know what migrations may not be able to do for you.

Google Analytics was previously semi-useful as a web site traffic analysis tool. The previous incarnation was often confusing and had many non-intuitive mystery features coupled with terrible organization and absurdly missing features (delete an “account”? how?).

From a user standpoint it’s just gotten worse with the added AJAX. More pretty line graphs and distracting tool-tip style mouseOver events, less explanation of what the hell I’m seeing! To make matters worse, the stuff has been re-organized, or I should say, further disorganized in a truly Microsoft manner.

I guess Google really is actually in competition with Microsoft. Google makes a great search engine, but they make lousy interfaces. They made themselves famous with the orginal Google search engine page’s simplicity. But everything else they produce just seems to out-do Yahoo! and go head-to-head with Microsoft for making hard to use web sites. Only Adobe makes more difficult to use web sites, but they make them very pretty.

Apple. Oh, Apple… where for art thou?

When will AJAX just die? Only a few years ago JavaScript had gone away quietly to the graveyard of annoying technologies. Flash is/was on its way there. Now there is a renewed irrational exuberrance for all things overly animated.

Oh, and Google, my dear, the Beta forever thing is getting old. Keep it up and desperate SONY might sue for trademark infringement just to make some cash.

Looks like Google has quietly updated Analytics with more AJAX, resembles stuff from the Yahoo toolkit, but I don’t know or care which toolkit they’re using. It’s just kind of a shame they’re adding all that but there is still no way to remove an “Account” from the Account. The redundancy of having accounts named after the first site entered as an account all under the umbrella of the GMAIL login is pretty ass backwards anyway. It’s even more of a shame that the interface has become less intuitive and is very beta…

Here are a couple of interesting wordpress themes that resemble
unix/linux command line
and
Comodore 64
of course these are done in PHP but I’d like to see these done in Ruby or Rails and perhaps one that looks like irb. Oh wait, _why has already half done that…

Appollo? Flash? Flex? Other buggy apps never fixed, just versioned up for sale? Why do we need web apps online and offline? It is little more than DRM, lock-you-in-to-a-platform, Microsoftian mess. We don’t need it. We don’t need word processors online, or anything else like that. It’s bunk. This is the Adobe/Macromedia attempt to sell more books and training material for crap that is never finished and needs to be downloaded constantly to annoy web users with the latest version. They’re slowly just giving up the ghost as Apple and the Linux world beat them senseless with better stuff, so they just start emulating Microsoft. Dumb.

Oh, woe be to us all even the home of WordPress is using SNAP. I just hope they don’t roll it in to WP as a “feature” that can’t be turned off.

Lately, many sites are talking about and mostly decrying the use of SNAP to create obnoxious popup graphics over every link on a web page. Well, unfortunately, lately many of the same sites are also implementing these damned things.

Now you can send an e-mail to: erik@snap.com
The address of one Erik Wingren, Snap UX Research jackass.
He listed his e-mail address on Macworld’s forums as:
erik[at]snap[dot]com
As if that barely obfuscated form could stop spam from overloading such a stupidly short and simple e-mail address! Please, spam the hell out of him and snap.com !!

Welcome to the next generation of malware, the DOM script. Oh, wait… that’s already happened before! The new second coming of JavaScript (as DOM Scripting) has simply brought it back. Yay. No JavaScript, please. No Flash, please. I don’t read moving books, I don’t need moving web pages either.

Why did Adobe suddenly share Action Script with Mozilla? Here are my ideas on the subject… Continue reading →