Category Archives: web

I am surfing Lawley's mamamusings, and looked the Site-Eater tool site, and I thought it was silly.

I couldn't come up to look how they do that with words feeding by CGI.

Take a look in my blog site, can you believe that?

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GIT d s++:+ a- C++ UL P+ L E---- W+++ N o- K- w+ 
O++ M V-- PS PE+ Y PGP- t--- 5-- X+++ R tv- b DI D+ 
G+ e++ h! r++ y+ 
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Yesterday was Friday the 13th of June 2003. I felt so bad myself that I didn't make to see my long-time friends at sandbar in Sandcastle because I am not feeling well, sore throat and little weak. Most important, I need more time to rest to improve my health and take my medicines. Alocholic and medicine doesn't mix. Sigh....

Instead going Sandbar, I am stuck here in my room, disappointed all night, resting, and I catch up more time finish my new homepage for my web hosting.

Now, today is Saturday, the new day and time has passed after 1:00 am. The curse day, Friday is over. I have some big news which could ease my sadness. My new web hosting and domain name, dfulmer.net is up and running. It feels a little like my old RIT webpage, along more polished and covered with lots of PHP.

I have something to tell you this webpage is not 100% completed. I am continute add more on my homepage. I have millions of my ideas in my mind to improve my new webpage... and keep coming back forever.

After I am done with Information Technology classes at Rochester Institute of Technology for my concentration: web developer / programming. Then, I feel there's something I need more: learning new stuff related to web progamming which never existed what I learned at Information Technology class courses. I find the interesting site, which I can learn myself from tutorial site, you can learn: HTML, XHTML, CSS, SQL, XML, XSL, DTD, JavaScript, DHMTL, and list goes on.

I enjoyed learning SQL tutorial for my first time and I took quiz for that after learning all SQL. I got 65% (13 out of 20 questions) on my first quiz. I also tried HTML and CSS quizzes without looking their tutorials. I got 80% and 85%.

Interesting. Too f**king small!

Play some of the world's smallest games: Pong, PacMan, Asteroids, Breakout and more. Ow, my eyes is getting bad...

To avoid from these, you need Windows Magnifier (In WinXP, it can be found in Start > All Programs > Accessories > Accessibility > Magnifier).

Link via Davezilla.

HT!

AFAIK, I found cool AOL IM Acronym Dictionary FWIW. IMO, this is good to fit for IM conservation on the computer, IOW PLS don’t ever use the acronyms in face to face conservation, JC and KIS. HTH on you!

BFN.

UPDATE (12:59am 10/20/03):

CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets. Webopedia defines, a new feature being added to HTML that gives both Web site developers and users more control over how pages are displayed. Here are some cool, unique and magical CSS sites:

CSS Creator – Select different CSS properties from the page on the browser, to select any display of color, look for the HTML tag you like to make this, and generate this into CSS code, copy and paste into your website.

Slants – It’s a hack. A trick. It is a way to make pure HTML and CSS draw something that is neither vertical nor horizontal. Do you want a slant of the heart?

Simple CSS rollover lists – This is rollover item or word to change color in background. JavaScript not required. All you can use simple CSS to make this text rollover!

CSS Validator – Validate your CSS code to find if there are no errors.

W3Schools CSS Tutorial – Learn CSS. Practice CSS. Take CSS quiz.

I am doing my freelance web developer at DeBee Communications for a whole day.

I am working the renovation on template layout to make clean, simple and easier to maintain.   Remember, this site is still in under construction.   Tomorrow, I am going to show James DeBee, founder of DeBee Communications the template layout, and I am hoping he will like it.

Thanks to SimpleBits, I borrowed their CSS code to make the navigation rollovers, no JavaScript necessary!

Web Design Resources is ultimate reference containing over three thousand links to information and articles about web design, with an emphasis on web standards and accessibility.   Includes:

Via Zeldman.

Do you need to know severe weather in your area?   Do you need to find out the Homeland Security color code? Do you need to know cyber threat on your computer? Amber Alerts? And Natural Disaster? Then you can sign up in Emergency Email Network to give your email address from your computer, cell phone, digital pager or fax. They can inform you the updates of weather, security, virus and more!

I signed up and to send this to my T-Mobile Sidekick pager.   "It's what the Internet was made for" - Emergency Email.

Firefox is a new browser, launched recently in Feb 2004.   Firefox supports on Windows, Linux and MacOS X.   Firefox is created by Mozilla.   Firefox changed the name from original Mozilla Firebird because of, to avoid overlap.   The colloquial name “Firebird” is also in use by another open source project.   As I said, the legal naming trademark problems with another software project named Firebird.

Firefox has nice browser features:

• Almost 100% W3C standard compliant with XHTML, DHTML, CSS, etc.
• Rich, powerful, user friendly and fast
• Easy to organize the bookmarks
• Built with Tab browsing, popup blocking
• Built-in Google search bar
• Free download of Firefox extensions such as Calendar

I think I like Firefox, I’m going to get used to it in everyday’s life on the browser and trying to forget Avant.

UPDATE: I have a new problem with Firefox browser, I tried to use Movable Type on that browser, I notise the bold, italics, and url icons buttons have disappeard on the entry edit page.   Now I fixed it by using little hack found in MT text formatting buttons in Mozilla/

My friend came here last night, and we chatting about our social issues.   I showed him some of interesting and wonderful things (such as realistic working roller coaster model kit, and Nintendo's new Gameboy Advance game Classics) on their websites.   He asked me, "Why not I put a link on my blog whenever I saw something interesting like Boing Boing?"

I have seen too many interesting things which I hardly post on my blog, mostly I found these from Boing Boing, Gizmodo and wonderful web designer blogs such as Zeldman, Mandarin Design and Widgetopia.

Should I post the interesting things from the links on my blog everytime, everyday?   It could take too much time for myself alone to post.   And, some of the blog vistiors probably have seen some of that before in my blog.   Personally, I only pick the right time to find something interesting, to post it in my blog.

My blog is all about my personal and experiences what I had been there, done that and wrote my blog entry.

Wikipedia is free encyclopedia on the web, brings the standard encyclopedic knowledge. Wikipedia includes information more often associated with almanacs and gazetteers, as well as coverage of current events. The content of Wikipedia is created by thousand of users around the world. However, no single person owns the content; this article never been done forever.

I dug up deeply on Wikipedia and I really love this site. There are infinite amount of learning and education; when I enter the first word: Mario. Interesting, there is long article how Mario first got its name; how he appeared in the video game and lists of games Mario appeared.

As you want to ask the question on yourself; what is the happening events on year I born? Why there is Christmas? What is cat favorite food? How can I learn the rules of game play in Baseball? Why do I need to have education for my life? How does the name come from: Microsoft, Nintendo and Sega? All of those questions answered in Wikipedia. Here are fun facts:

There is a good article about Stopdesign discussed their issue about tables vs. CSS layouts.

I held out for a long long time by using tables, but after seeing Stopdesign's article (relatively) reasonable argument on how efficient CSS layouts are, I’m forcing myself to make the move on.

One of the major compelling arguments of switching is that in Stopdesign’s CSS makeover example, the final redesigned page was nearly 1/3 the size of the original file, which, leads to a much faster page load. Additionally, editing your pages would simply involve changing a few proportions and directions in a CSS file instead of opening up your table-filled page - increasing productivity (and ridding yourself of headaches).

I have to pratice to use CSS layout design instead HTML tables. Thank god, in past of my freelance web work, I used CSS layout for WPSD Alumni Association (borrowed this from alistapart.com) and DeBee Communications (borrowed from SimpleBits).

A year ago, I developed the login system in Western Pennsylvania School f/t Deaf Alumni Association (WPSDAA) website. The login system’s function is used by PHP server side scripting and MySQL database. Most of the scripts I learned from the book, Visual QuickPro Guide: PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites.

Last Wednesday, January 19th, I just found out myself that I can’t login in myself by using email account and password. It kept saying 'bad password', and I am puzzled with this. Even whole numbers of the alumnus members users cannot log in. I went over to PHPMyAdmin front-end MySQL database administration to see what’s wrong and tried to run the test with SQL query:

SELECT * FROM [table] WHERE email='[email name]' AND password=PASSWORD('[password]')

The result appears nowhere. Lastly, I tried the simple SQL query to see my password compare to my login password:

SELECT PASSWORD('[password]')

The result: the encrypted password is very different than my login encrypted password. I suspected that web hosting, ProHosting has updated a new version of MySQL database and PHPMyAdmin. I emailed to them about this and they replied me back that it is all true. I am extremely very angry with this; because there is no way that I could solve the password situation with my two hundred sixty WPSDAA register users. The MySQL password function is translated into an encrypted password, which I can't see the users' password secrets and there is no way for the decrypt this back to original ones.

I went MySQL developer’s reference manual web site to search the different way to solve this problem. In article of Encryption Functions, they said:

The PASSWORD() function is used by the authentication system in MySQL Server, you should not use it in your own applications.

I’m angry again. I felt like I screwed up with WPSDAA password login system. Those PASSWORD() function I used from Visual QuickPro Guide book, and I believe they are making a bad choice to use PASSWORD() function in my login system application.

I have forced to shut down the WPSDAA login system, to avoid the problem from user logged in or else they might click 'forgot password' to get old & bad password, which it might get worse problem. I have been thinking and figuring out how to solve this damn problem from keeping users records to change the password without register needed.

Next to part two...

From Part One.

I shut down the login system in WPSDAA web site on Wednesday, January 19th to avoid the growing problems from users unable to log in. I have been thinking for two days since I do not want to destroy the register users where they store the name and emails in login system and have to start over again to register new ones.

I got good idea how to solve this: creating a new password column in database. So, I made the flowchart diagram to solve this problem in WPSDAA user interface. Here how it works:

Also in MySQL function, I have used new Encryption Function, to avoid using PASSWORD() function which was used before Wednesday, January 19th. Please note to yourself, this new encryption function for administrator may not see the users’ password, they only see the encryption password, instead users’ words, there is no way to decrypt (or change) this back to normal password. It is safe to prevent the hackers, also bring the users to show our honest and trust. The function code remains confident only for me.

However, few days later, I spend some of my time reading MySQL developer’s reference manual web site about Encryption Function, and I found answer that I could restore the old password in WPSDAA web site login system:

I have been using web browser, Firefox everyday since December 2004. I am extremely very happy with most useful Firefox add-on tool: extensions. It is small add-ons that add new and unique functionality to Firefox browser. They can add anything from a toolbar to right-click button to a completely new feature. They allow the web browser to be customized to fit the personal needs of each user if they need additional features. Here are my ultimate list of Firefox extensions:

Dictionary Search - Looks up a user selected word in an online dictionary. Simply click and drag on this word then click right-button mouse to go dictionary.

Tabbrowser Preferences - Tired of having multiple Firefox browser windows to switch? Get Tabbrowser, to enable enhanced control for tabbed browsers in one window.

ColorZilla - Want to know the exact color of hexadecimal or RGB in browser? It's great for web developers!

Web Developer - One of my favorites and must-have for web developers out there! Adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web tools include converting from POSTs to GETs, hiding images, outlining level elements, disabling style sheets, resize browser resoultion, validations, and many more!

FlashGot - the ultimate download tool. It handle single and massive (all and selection) downloads using the most popular external download managers for operating systems.

Linky - Increase to handle links. Open/download/.validate links and pictures in tabs or windows.

Adblock - Prevents being manipulated by web advertisements (iFrame, Flash, etc) Just point the ad box and right-click : Adblock: done.

Wikipedia - Adds a toolbar for easier editing of Wikipedia pages.

LastTab - yet another most useful keyword shortcut to allow tab navigation in most recently used manner. I modifies Ctrl-Tab to switch the tabs.

That's all I have on my PC desktop. Also, I have to install same thing all over in my Apple Mac.. argh!

Since you know that I am developer and programmer for the web applications in my full-time Mellon employee and my freelance work. I spend countless minutes and hours of my time building the regular expression rules for inputting the characters in web form to beat glitches, bugs and weirdness.

I found the most useful site, RegExLib.com, the Regular Expression Library. This is free, open source for everyone to look and find the right regular expression, to set this expression string in any programming languages (PHP, ASP.NET, Perl, etc.) instantly. It could save me the amount of time at work.

If you're programmer, you might not miss this one. Bookmark this!

Since I worked Alumni Association of WPSD website for more than a year, and I never get tired of this. I would say biggest thanks to James DeBee when he first asked me that he want me build login system in alumni website. Since then, I bought several my ideas in website for fun part of my work: security level, managements, wiki of Alumni Directory, and blog tools of WPSD News. Without of James' idea for login system in alumni website, all of my ideas would be lagging or very late today.

Now, I have been thinking so much time which I would love to share with you about secrets behind Alumni Directory. I have investigated most of my time to make sure there is no sensitive information to show you what the secrets exposed in Alumni Directory.

What is Alumni Directory and what does this offers? This web site includes the whole list of alumnus names, find some of their geographically locations (mostly in United States), some of every pictures of class group who graduate their year, view list of deceased and association names. Also there is the search function for first, maiden and last names to pull up the current contact information. I used MySQL database and migrated those with PHP into the web site on the fly.

First thing, if it is your first time to go there, you might need to register and confirm your Alumni account, to access into Alumni Directory. The other thing about alumni password-protected login, I developed and created five levels of security in Alumni login system; each security level is: Admin, Board Members, Alumni, Student (WPSD) and Guest. For example, you logged in as alumni of security level; you can access the whole information in our alumni site. If you login as student, you have only limited access to pages, such as History pages, vice versa. Alumni Directory is open for everyone in all five levels. However, the admin can have their authorization to change the security levels on the users.

I developed the friendly browser interface or GUI (Graphics User Interface) front-end database on Alumni Directory site to add, edit, modify and delete its data. It is only allowed for board members to view these; they can have their time to change in anyplace on web browser. You could sneak between two screens what these looks like:

Top: Logged in as Alumni security level
Bottom: Logged in as Board Members security level

RRS Feed. Really Simple Syndication. I used this to surf more than 20 times per day on web everyday. You will notice RRS in my blog. What the heck is that?

BCC says:

In a world having under the weight of billion of web pages, keeping up to date with the information you want can be a pain in your butt.

Now, wouldn't it be better to have speed-reader the latest news and features delivered directly to you, rather than clicking from site to site? Yes, that what RSS can do with their service. RSS is Really Simple Syndication. It feeds out of staying up-to-date, by showing you the latest information which you are interested such as your favorite to read.

Now, as you rub above your head how can you start using RSS feeds? In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. There are two different ways you could use RSS feed: accessed using a web browser online OR downloadable desktop applications. All allow you to display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want. You could look the huge numbers of news aggregator lists found in Wikipedia.

My #1 choice news aggregators I spend most of time: Bloglines, the free online news aggregator. Why is that? Because, I rather use online over desktop news aggregators, because I could get online from different location from my work, my home and my portable laptop and check the online RSS feed news aggregator everyday.

Take a look few of my RSS subscriptions in Bloglines:
Pgh_Deaf_Events at Yahoo! Groups - Subscribing email makes me annoying. I chose RSS over email, and check the updates there whenever I could.

Grant W Laird Jr Blog - A WPSD alumni, business owner web hosting: Crazy Web Hosting and he talks about his family, technologies and deaf culture.

Photos from daveynin's contacts - From Flickr. My family, friends and contacts post their new pictures in Flickr, and notify me their recent pictures coming!

Joystiq - My favorite video game blog feed. They send short and sweet paragraph about upcoming news.

Yahoo! News: Odd News - Unique, bizarre news across the world. Also I subscribe CNN.com - Offbeat.

eBay RSS Feed - Customize eBay Searches delivered by RSS feed - select your favorite categories, names and things post in RSS feed every hour.

And finally, I also have feed in my blog. You might find this on left side bar in this very blog page.

I do believe RSS is the greatest opportunity to have my time to use online news aggregator and it is now known as Information Age.

I joined Deaf club Poker League in downtown Pittsburgh to play Texas Hold'em every Friday night. I am addicted to this due my winning and made into top three overall points out of 30 people after week #7 (November 4). I earned my profits for the money.

I was anticipated to see the final stat table updated and posted hard copy spreadsheet in deaf club bulletin board a week after, and it take me seven days to wait to see the results. Hate that.

I came up the idea to have poker into dynamic web for faster informative and productivity - profile, stats and scores. I asked deaf club to build this into their deaf poker league web site, and they easily approved this and very excited. I figured that it might take less than a month to develop this, and my result is wrong. I developed this fast four days, thanks to my existing skills from DBA website (this site from RIT is closed, so I only have small screenshot for this) and WPSD Alumni website to speed my programming skills.

Speaking of developer, I wrote the codes - PHP and MySQL for its dynamic and web application. Both are still in beta version. Opening site in public right now should be no problem, but there are some unfinished stuff to do in site, even I have lot of features in my mind to improve in application (modify the poker player/stats) and I am going to improve the design in days and weeks ahead of us.

The big advantage of having poker web application, the poker chairman can login, update its recently game on own time - it takes no more than five minute to finish the job. The new number of stats displayed instantly on poker web site afterwards.

Another great advantage for having deaf club to grow the attendance for poker on Friday night and see the perfect, error-less poker stats on our deaf club web site.

If you using aged Internet Explorer (IE) all the time and does not have Firefox web browser on your Windows XP, Linux, or Mac computer, then give it a try! Firefox released the new version to 1.5 few days ago. This version including the sophisticated security and performance features (like faster/tabbed browsing, improved pop-up blocking and accessibility).

Firefox is one year old already, grabbed 8.65 percent of the market; compare with IE 91.35% (IE comes with Windows platforms), and continue to raise today.

Google support Firefox for referral for marketing in Google AdSense program to