“Smarter” Checkboxes With Javascript
A new script makes checkboxes in web forms “smarter” and
easier for your users to select.
Definitions of Telecom Industry Terms
Added a new page filled with definitions of terms used in the telecom
industry. One of the things that makes working in software so interesting is that you get to work in lots of different
types of businesses and learn lots of new stuff along the way, such as this telco terminology. (added Nov. 15, 2005)
New Navigation Scheme
I finally killed the “breadcrumbs” navigation that has been with the site since forever. Breadcrumb
trails not only show the context of the current page (where it fits in with the site), they also
provide links that let you go directly to a higher level of the site.
Fine. But most site visitors started somewhere deep
into the site and had no easy way to get directly to, or know that other sections (on this site, mainly the various technologies)
existed on the site without
tedious clicking up, and then down the hierarchy. Too much to ask. Thus, I finally
took the time to do something I wanted to do for a long time: I put primary navigation along the top. Secondary navigation
along the left — a menu that is specific to the section you selected in the primary nav. Hope you find it more
user friendly.
Baby Name Generator New script on blazonry generates a baby name. Enter the
mother's name, the father's name or both mother's and father's names and get a U.S. baby name based on the name(s)
you entered. This is a PHP script. Name generators are now easier to find now that there is a link to them on all left navigation
menus.
My Favorite Little Script
The password generator script is an unsexy, little script
on this site that I use often. Yes, I visit my own site to use this handy tool. I point it out because it's somewhat buried in the
javascript section.
Ajax Makes Scripting Cool Again
It's worth getting excited over Ajax (a new acronym that stands for "Asynchronous Javascript and XML".)
Google Maps
is just one example of Ajax in action. Read a few articles, check out some apps linked to in the articles, and build your scripting skills.
New PHP Script: Butt-Simple Photo Gallery
I had many digital photos and needed a simple photo gallery that was fast to create. The resulting
gallery is not elegant, but made my relatives happy that I uploaded the photos at all. (added Feb-14-2003)
Tutorial: Debugging 101
Learn a basic technique that will help you figure out problems with your code and fix it. Experienced, professional
programmers use this technique. You should, too. Written for PHP but the basic concepts
apply to all languages and scripting technologies including JavaScript. Only the syntax
would change. (added Oct-02-2002)
My Big Fat Personal Recommendation for Safari
I am a huge believer in Safari, a service from O'Reilly that provides electronic
versions of thousands of quality technical books. Searches are powerful and provide code snippets that you can copy and paste. I
won't program without it anymore. Among the benefits:
get search results for your specific questions
copy and paste code
download chapters for viewing offline
no more steady inflow of books to find shelf space for
There's always something I have to look up, or a new technology I want to scan. I spend less on my Safari subscription
that I used to spend buying books. You can even try it free for 14
days. In the resources section, I show top-selling books on Amazon next
to top search results on Safari. Or go straight to
Linux for an example.
Updated Web Services App
I updated my code that uses Amazon Web Services to display information about products.
Web services is powerful technology not limited to any platform, programming language
or vendor. PHP is my preferred programming language. You can use Perl, Java, ASP, .NET, etc. as you
can see from the range of technologies in the best-selling books about web services
on Amazon.
Excellent Database Article: How to Write Efficient MySQL Applications
is an excellent article (requires basic knowledge of databases). It is more than how to
write efficient MySQL. It covers the basics of queries, normalizing tables, indexes (what an
index is, when to use one) and more. Highly recommended. Read it and you will write better apps. (added Sept-30-2002)
Excellent Book Son of Web Pages
That Suck: Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design is an excellent book that I
mention because it is not one of the books in the list of best-selling usability books.
It is filled with great tips,
techniques and links that are relevant to anybody who creates a web site. I am listed in the
Acknowledgements as one of the “Friends of Web Pages that Suck” (translation: unpaid contributor)
after submitting several daily suckers to the author’s
web site which is an excellent site to visit often. (added Sept-27-2002)
Geeking around with XML, PHP, MySQL Revised.
I wanted to learn how to work with XML data so I wrote a PHP program that provides up-to-date lists of
best-selling programming books at Amazon.com.
My program gets and parses XML data from Amazon.com’s servers. I get new data every hour for the
various keyword subjects of interest. (added Sept-21-2002)
XML and Web Services are awesome. The fact that I can automatically get current data from another
company’s database and make use of it on my own site is awesome.
Programmer notes are provided below lists of books.
Excellent Shareware Text Editor
Several people have written to ask what text editor I use. TextPad,
an excellent shareware program for development on Windows (my desktop development environment). Is easy to customize for
syntax highlighting. I set mine up for PHP, HTML, SQL, JSP and XML.
A friend started using it recently for ASP development. (added Sept-21-2002)
New JavaScript: JavaScript to Fool SpamBots Added. Spam, spam, I hate spam. Here is a little JavaScript to help fool the SpamBots, or at least slow them
down from “mining” my email address. I also use it on the contact us
page. (added June-10-2002)
Article: PHP vs. ASP vs. JSP, Part 1
I recently met a Microsoft product evangelist ASP.NET. Got me thinking about
ASP vs. PHP vs. JSP and why I'm loving PHP. (added Jan-08-2002)
2001-November Site under new management. New folks just took over maintenance and
hosting of this site. We like this site and want to keep it going. We will carry on the
mission of helping the developer community through hands-on tutorials and examples.
2001-01-09 Updated: Upload and Resize Image Updated the Upload and Resize image script. This script allows a user to upload an image file and resize it if necessary.
2001-01-08 Updated: Secure Web Development article Version 3.0 of "Best Practices for Secure Web Development" by Razvan Peteanu, an excellent article about web application development.
2001-01-03 Added: Perl: mail2mysql Added a new script which takes a UNIX mailbox and parses it and inserts the messages as HTML into a MySQL database.
2001-01-03 Article: The Misery of Web Applications If you think people complain a lot about Windows, just wait until Web applications become more widespread -- you ain't seen nothing yet.
2000-12-28 Updated: Perl Regular Expressions I added to the Perl Regular Expressions page including a new Quick Reference page and moved the examples to a separate page.
2000-12-27 Updated: Calendar Menu Updated Calendar Menu PHP script. Finally fixed the Y2K bug. Also added the feature to click on the dates of the calendar to fill in a text field.
2000-12-08 Added:PHP: mklib.php mklib.php is a library I created to make building web applications easier. Common functions I use over-and-over again are collected and put in this library. Example functions are processing data before inserting into a database and formatting date/time strings for display.
2000-12-06 Article:High Tech Sloppiness An interesting article at Salon.com regarding usability and poor practices in the high tech industry, software and hardware.
2000-11-10 Added:MySQL & JDBC A basic and brief article on setting up MySQL & JDBC. It includes a basic example on how to select a row from a database. It also documents a problem I had that gave me a serious headache and how I solved it (the problem, not the headache — headache was figurative).
2000-11-05 Added:PHP: Session Variables An article discussing Session Variables in PHP, with the "Guess a Number" game as a complete example. Including running statistics from game to game.
2000-11-01 Added:Misc Perl Utilities Over a few days I've added several utility Perl scripts: untabify, search and replace and a log file processor are a few examples.
2000-09-04 Added:Printing Web Pages The first guest author on web.blazonry, with an article explaining how to specify an alternate document for printing.
2000-09-04 Added:Webpage Margins A reference article on how to set a webpage margins for the various browsers, so they can be flush with the browser edge.
2000-08-02 Added:Secure Web Development "Best Practices for Secure Web Development" by Razvan Peteanu is an excellent article about web application development.
2000-08-02 Updated:Web Application Security Who submitted that? A common error made in web application development with a ballot stuffing example. Example script now included.
2000-05-31 Added: PHP - Upload and Resize Images How to upload images and resize them using PHP and some common UNIX utilities. Useful for automatically creating thumbnails.
2000-04-21 Updated:CSS Tutorial Updated the CSS tutorial with some new material, simpler formatting, and updated resources.
