Month: February 2006

  • February 27, 2006

    Google Desktop 3

    Google Desktop

    I don’t have it, but I plan on getting it. I am writing because I just got an email from my school stating that Google Desktop is ‘bad’.

    Google unveiled Google Desktop 3, a free, downloadable program that includes an option to let users search across multiple computers for files. To do that, the application automatically stores copies of files, for up to a month, on Google servers. This feature could make personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who’ve obtained a user’s Google password. [We] highly recommends our user community to NOT download and make use of the Google Desktop 3 program

    The way this is worded, it seems Google Desktop 3 allows you to search any PC on the servers for any information you would like. This is not the case. I did a little research and the Search Across Computers function allows you to, using your Google account, connect PCs to their servers where it will add Word, Excel, Power Point, PDFs and Internet Temp files (excluding HTTPS). You also have the option to select which files you would like to search and which to exclude. There is not music or video files sharing, as the email implies, the risk of your password being stolen is always an issue, and if the government wants to subpoena you, they will find a way to do it. Besides, if you aren’t doing anything illegal, what do you have to worry about?

    So, in my opinion, Google Desktop 3 will be a nice app to use. It will make backing up for me much easier. Get it Here. Later!

  • February 24, 2006

    The Visible Light Spectrum

    Visible Light

    I am taking a Light and Photography course at school where we are learning about the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) and visible light, color temperature, etc. When giving us a website for the EMS, my professor mentioned he could not find one that was more “interactive”. So, me being the overachiever, I decided to make one. This is how I made it…

    I wanted to make a spectrum with clickable areas to display each color. I did not want an image map. Image maps went out with tables. So I created the color background using a multicolor gradient overlay in Photoshop. I then measured out how many pixels each color was. Using some CSS, I created a div that was the height and width of the image I created and made the image the background. I then created a div for each color in the spectrum. With the parent class .color, I was able to float all of color divs left and give them a specific height…

    .color{
    float: left;
    height: 196px;
    }

    Then, each color got its own color ID that was defined by the different widths.

    Now, the hover part. To make each of these colors a link, I simply used blank .gif images set to specific widths. When you would click on the invisible image, the color information comes up. The color boxes were done by code I adapted from the Lightbox JS project, which is linked on the EMS site. Maybe when I get some more time, I will do the entire EMS, not just the visible light sections. Later!

  • February 18, 2006

    24

    God

    My new obsession. Before 11 days ago, I have never seen an episode of 24. I have been missing out. I took the necessary time over those days to watch the entire 1st season and start the second one. Before I make my comments, I would like to apologize to anyone that I have made fun of 24 too. I, before watching any episodes, felt the concept about a show’s whole season taking place over 24 hours was dumb. Boy was I wrong.

    The show is non-stop, heart-pumping, completely unpredictable action. Believe me when I say I am usually good at picking up what will happen next, and was wrong every time. There is no lame dialogue, no stupid parts (maybe one, which was quickly fixed) and a whole lot of plot. Not too much to not know what’s going on, but enough to keep you very entertained. And it’s all tied together quite nicely.

    Then, of course, there is Jack Bauer. The man. He thinks of everything. It’s really the epitome of what most guys want to be. Kiefer Sutherland does a great job- making every on screen moment as believable and entrancing as the last. If you have not seen 24, I highly recommend it. Start with Season 1 and work your way up. Later.

  • February 18, 2006

    State Drop Down box

    Today, working on a project, I searched for a ‘State Drop Down Box’ for a form. Believe it or not, I couldn’t really find one, and had to ‘borrow’ own. So figured why not add one that is easy to get to my site. on top of Code I have added ‘Code Cips as a category, and for this post, the slug is state-drop-down, so the url should be https://casabona.org/?p=state-drop-down/. Easy enough, right?

    Just copy and paste*! When processing the form, the variable name for it is ‘state’. Later!

    *OK- it’s not showing up right in the textarea, but it will in an HTML doc.

  • February 15, 2006

    Coding Process

    Here is a paper I recently found. It’s on my coding process (after being a coder for about 2.5 months), and was written my freshman year of college…

    What I do BEFORE I write any code?

    Before actually coding any program, I have to make sure I understand it. Usually, I will understand what I have to do, but not what that means when it comes to writing the program. However, for the last 2 assignments we’ve had, I sat down, and wrote exactly what I had to do, and then what kind of methods I could use for writing that program. This took some time on my part. Just recently I’ve realized I should do this, and it makes writing the program so much easier. Since this course is my first experience with programming, It takes me a little longer to actually realize what I have to do and how to go about doing it. This is, I should also mention, the longest part of the process for me. For the current program, we actually had to write and hand in what we thought we had to do. We had to set up an array that took the inputted number and added 1 to t hat spot in the array. Ex. If 50 was the input, the a[50]= 1. Then the program had to print out the array with the number in that array. So this example would print 50: 1. After figuring out what I had to do, I thought of the best solution. Since I am new to programming, the best solution might not be the best, but I want to be sure that the program works. My solution was that I should set up an array, then use a for loop to make each value in that array 0. Then read in the Int. with a while loop, and made the loop terminate with a value less than 0. After each number was read in, I set up another for loop that, if the value in the array spot was greater than 0, it would print the array spot and its value.

    What I do BEFORE I get my first clean compile?

    Before my first clean compile, I go back to make sure that I didn’t miss anything. If I did, I would fix it. This is before any compile. I align everything to make sure it is all written correctly. Then if I compile, and it is not clean, I fix the errors the best I can. Sometimes, this would include asking a friend for some pointers on where I messed up. With this particular program, my error at compile time was that the file input class Prof. Plishka provided was not updated. So I went out to the website and got the updated one. I make sure everything makes sense, and then I proceed to my first clean compile.

    What I do AFTER my first clean compile?

    After my first clean compile, I first pray to God that the program works. Sometimes, it does. Usually, it doesn’t. So I go back to my code to check where the problem might be. After checking through the entire program- pretty much line by line, I assess where the problem might be and solve it accordingly.

    Quite a bit has changed since then, and now coding is ‘like a second language’ to me. I don’t really need to put a lot of thought into how I will do something, just into how I can make it better, more efficient. I use a lot more print statements for error checking now than I did then, and they really do help pin point any problems. I don’t need to check line by line any more, since I am more familiar with whatever languages I use, so I usually can tell what is giving me trouble. As for asking friends for help, that is always good to do. Writing code is like writing a paper in the sense that you might over look errors because you wrote it. Later.

  • February 13, 2006

    One Image to rule them all

    Or 2. Checking out my stats today I saw a lot of links I didn’t recognize, primarily My Space profiles. One site I found was hot linking an image for the cover of the fight club book. So I changed it to a nice Public Service Announcment. I did the same with the Yankees-Boston image from this post, which was also being hot linked.

    Finding it strange that only those two images were used, I did a google image search on those two, and it turns out they are the number ones. Below are the images I replaced on the multitude of sites used in the hot links. Later!

    Hot Linking = Bad
    BoSucks

  • February 13, 2006

    Trials and Tribulations

    The site was down last night, and is now fixed. It broke for no reason,
    somehow the permissions got changed, and my server admin fixed it. Then
    there was some kind of error on the site about an array, but I’m assuming
    that is because I reinstalled WordPress and it did not complete, due to
    ‘lack of permissions’. I noticed it when I tried to post about hot linking,
    and the number of sites I found that were hotlinking to me. I will post it
    later on when I am at home.

    As of right now, however, the site is fixed, and I apologize for any
    inconvenience. Later!

  • February 8, 2006

    links for 2006-02-08

    I just found out about this great feature on del.icio.us that auto-posts the sites you tagged for the day. I figure Ill give it a pilot run, test any bugs it might have and see how it works out. Here is the first set…Later!

  • February 6, 2006

    Teach yourself how to program

    As some of you may know, I have taught myself a lot of the programming I know. It started with HTML, then CSS, some JavaScript, and then I moved on to PHP and MySQL. AJAX and Java are in the works, though I have some help from school with Java. In any case, I thought it might be good to write how I went about teaching myself PHP.

    With HTML and CSS it was a little easier because I had Frontpage to learn from. But the best way to learn those 2 things it to look at other people’s source. I still do that occasionally when I see a cool CSS effect that I want to try. There are also an infinite amount of resources on HTML, as well as other Web based languages. W3 Schools is, in my opinion, the best.

    PHP/MySQL Programming for the Absolute Beginner

    Learning a programming language like PHP is a little harder than that because PHP is processed by the server, and is invisible to the user. When I taught myself, I first purchased a book that familiarized me with the language. PHP/MySQL Programming for the Absolute Beginner is great for that. It covered not only the language, but some theory behind programming. I strongly suggest you learn theory if you are serious about programming. While languages change, theory will always be the same. Don’t just learn the syntax of a language- but how and why each component works- Ifs, Whiles, methods/functions, etc.

    In addition, read online tutorials, how tos, and do it yourself. The programs from that book and books like PHP for Dummies are good. Do a program a day- even if they are simple and easy. They are meant to teach you how to use certain types of syntax. My Del.icio.us links on the side usually have some good PHP/programming resources. PHP.net is and will always be the best. It’s a huge database of all of the php functions- Functions are code written outside of the main program that can be called upon. The ones on php.net are built in, already written. These will save you massive amounts of time you would spend writing your own stuff. PHP has over 700 built in functions. Occasionally, on this site, you will find something I have written, and I will make the code available for download.

    It is not always easy to learn a programming language, but if you work hard, do practice programs and READ, you will be well on your way to writing your own apps in no time. Later!