Michael Barton

Drupal 6 Module: Status Messages Alter

Michael Barton — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 02:23:30 +0000

In January 2010 I released Status Messages Alter, my first Drupal module released to the community. I’ve created many modules over the years, I finally had the time to give something back to my fellow Drupal enthusiasts. I’m very excited about this. What does this module do? The module provides developers with a new hook [...]

How to send files easily with Droopy!

Michael Barton — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:17:11 +0000

There comes a time when you’re working with someone, or talking to a friend or family member on the phone, and something comes up and they want to send you a file. Now this isn’t just any old file, it’s a large file. A file that will be annoying to send via the inbox, and [...]

The History of Hacking

Michael Barton — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:35:19 +0000

I came across a pretty cool image of the history of hacking from a site I like to read. I thought I’d share the image with you. It’s pretty neat. Hope you enjoy it.

A handful of Social Monitoring Tools

Michael Barton — Mon, 31 May 2010 04:33:04 +0000

Have you ever wanted to monitor your social media buzz? Maybe you have or maybe you haven’t, regardless, you’ve wanted to keep track of something, a search term, a product, etc. A great of way of doing that would be to use one of the following 5 social monitoring tools: socialmention offers Real-time social media [...]

C# 4.0 & Optional Parameters

Michael Barton — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:29:22 +0000

When writing a method in .NET (C# or VB), you typically have to overload that method if you want to provide default or optional parameters. Now, thanks to C# 4.0 and VB 10, you can use optional parameters. For example, prior to C# 4.0, you had to do the following: 12345678910111213// Assume we're using a [...]

How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords

Michael Barton — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:36:55 +0000

A little article from the people at Lifehacker explaining how easy it is to hack simple passwords. Hopefully this scares you into creating more secure passwords.

Best Jobs in America 2010

Michael Barton — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:04:20 +0000

I came across an article about the best jobs in America. Systems Engineer won it; keep in mind that Systems Engineers are not System Administrators. The following image shows the list. Be sure to click on the image for the full image.

Smashing Magazine & Website Security

Michael Barton — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:04:18 +0000

I wish I was Digg.com because I found a great article from SmashingMagazine.com about Website Security. It’s very long and comprehensive – which I like. This article touches on a lot of things. It lists the ways your website might be vulnerable and it gives you solutions. Furthermore, it also gives you some links to [...]

How to get yourself a Digg-like site

Michael Barton — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:07:59 +0000

I like the concept of Digg. It helps free up the information so more people can find it. If you don’t know what Digg is, please go and check out Digg right now. Please comeback or you’ll miss out on what I have to say. In this article I’m going to tell you how you’re [...]

Sun Life Buys Stadium Naming Rights & Sponsorship For Super Bowl

Michael Barton — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:58:59 +0000

Welcome to Sun Life Stadium, the 22-year-old arena that the Miami Dolphins call their home. In the ad of all ads, insurance company Sun Life Financial Inc. purchased naming rights to the stadium for the 2010 Pro Bowl and Super Bowl. Now, I know, I know, I’m a little late and the Pro Bowl is [...]

2 FREE ways to compare files

Michael Barton — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:24:23 +0000

When developing software or just working with a lot of files and folders. There comes a time when you need to figure out the differences in your files and folders. When that time comes, you can either spend a lot of money on something fancy, or you can go the free way and take a [...]

How To Handle Client Support Requests Virtually

Michael Barton — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 06:19:23 +0000

I just came across a good article on sitepoint.com about How To Handle Client Support Requests Virtually. It has a few good points and links to other articles from sitepoint.com that you should skim also. The article talked about using screen shot tools to show what you’re talking about, it listed some meeting tools to [...]

How to Delete Flash Cookies

Michael Barton — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:11:18 +0000

Flash Cookies, otherwise known as Local Shared Objects, are stored on your system by many Flash Applications to save game state, session information, and other security related information. It’s really up to you to decide whether or not you want to keep the cookies, and for how long. I had a situation recently where I [...]

Getting your legacy site to look good in IE8

Michael Barton — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:08:44 +0000

Internet Explorer 8 was released March 19, 2009 and what an exciting browser it was supposed to be. It was going to be faster, allow you to browse privately, it was going to be be XHTML compliant, and it was going to be more secure. All those fun things, right? Sadly, IE8 was faster, had [...]

Over 40 Free, Must-Have Open Source Resources

Michael Barton — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 06:48:30 +0000

I’m a huge fan of Open Source. If you don’t believe me, check out my meetup group, Richmond’s Open Source Meetup Group. This little article lists 40 of the Free Open Source Resources out there to help you save some money. With a tough economy like the one we’re facing today, it’s good to be [...]

10 Ways To Make Your XHTML Site Accessible Using Web Standards

Michael Barton — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:59:45 +0000

In 2009, Smashing Magazine wrote up a great article about the 10 ways to improve the accessibility of your XHTML website by making it standards-compliant. A few of the things they touched up on were specifying the correct DOCTYPE, one thing we seems to ignore because most of the time our IDEs generate this for [...]

20 Amazing jQuery Plugins and 65 Excellent jQuery Resources

Michael Barton — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:09:26 +0000

If you’re into jQuery, then you need to bookmark this site. It’s amazing! Not only do you get links to some of the great jQuery plugins out there, you also get links to some amazing articles/tutorials on jQuery. Try it out and let me know if you need help with anything.

How to check if your popup was blocked using JavaScript

Michael Barton — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:42:56 +0000

I’m researching how to get pop ups to not be blocked using flash, and in that research, I found out how to check and see if a popup was blocked or not. It’s such a simple solution I don’t know why I haven’t consciously noticed it before. I’ve created many popups in the past, just [...]

How to detect if an iPhone user comes to your site

Michael Barton — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:48:11 +0000

Been thinking a lot about how I don’t have an iPhone lately. Then I thought…what if I wanted to keep iPhone users from visiting my site, in spite… Of course I’m not really going to do that. Only saying this because apparently you’re supposed to tell stories and have something exciting when you open for [...]

The Roadmap To Becoming A Professional Freelancer

Michael Barton — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:55:19 +0000

I came across this article about The Roadmap To Becoming A Professional Freelance Web Designer. It’s a great article. I’m just not a fan of the name because the tips in the article can be used for a Web Developer, Programmer, Small Business & any type of product. Just to name a few. I think [...]

How to force a download with a “Save As” prompt using a .htaccess file and/or Apache

Michael Barton — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:35:44 +0000

This is an oldie but a goody. In web development there comes a time when you need to force a download when someone clicks on a link, without telling them to “right click save as…” In the past this was always a problem. Now thanks to Google, you can type in keywords and find a [...]

12 of the best places to get free images

Michael Barton — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:11:11 +0000

I’m always looking for economical ways of getting pretty visuals for my sites. Techradar put together a great list of sites that will help you into some nice visuals for you web sites.

45 Incredibly Useful Web Design Checklists and Questionaires

Michael Barton — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:02:44 +0000

There comes a time in your life when you need to admit you’re not perfect. You may be the best damn web developer in the world (me), and you may know your stuff like the curves on a pretty woman. But you don’t always remember everything you need to know – all the time – [...]

Tip: How to get back onto Windows Vista quicker

Michael Barton — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:01:26 +0000

This is a little tip taken from the book Vista Performance and Tuning Guide. They say to put your computer to Sleep instead of hibernating or turning it off each time you want to shut down your computer. I can confirm this – it works wonderfully. Back before I knew anything about computers (and when [...]

20+ Useful Desktop Blog Editors

Michael Barton — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:17:18 +0000

Even though I prefer a web interface when blogging, I feel I should let you all know about a great article introducing 20 or so blogging tools. It’s really well written so I don’t feel the need to summarize. Check it out and enjoy!

Status Messages Alter: My First Contributed Drupal Module

Michael Barton — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:45:57 +0000

I’ve FINALLY open sourced my first Drupal module. I’ve written several Drupal modules for clients in the past; however, this is the first one I’ve open sourced and given to the community. I’m very, very excited about this module. For those of you that don’t know, I’ve been an open source developer for years. Now, [...]

10 humor sites that will make you laugh out loud! (LOL)

Michael Barton — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:12:10 +0000

I came across this a while ago. Unfortunately I got a little caught up with business and wasn’t able to share it with you. Several months back CNN posted an article about 10 humor sites that will make you laugh. I’m a fan of “My life is average” and “Historical Tweets.” Visit Source

10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To

Michael Barton — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:01:11 +0000

In a perfect world this article would be King. But… you know… Visit Source

10 Sources of Inspiration…for anyone really

Michael Barton — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:27:50 +0000

I came across this blog about the 10 Sources of Inspiration for Designers and thought – this can be used for anyone really. I mean, why is it that we think only artsy people can be creative? Why can’t anyone just get inspired? Anyway, this article is good because it’s just so obvious… For example: [...]

TomatoCMS: The NEW CMS in Town

Michael Barton — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:56:24 +0000

Ladies and Gentleman, the moment you have all been waiting for – a new CMS to come into your life and confuse the shit out of you – TomatoCMS. Just when you thought there were enough CMS’ out there to choose from, a new one pops out and says “Hello World.” All kidding aside, I’m [...]

How to embed animated GIFs into your Flash or AIR app

Michael Barton — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:21:35 +0000

I’m working on a web page thumbnail generator and a new blog post (a good one this time) about web page thumbnail generation. A topic for another day; however, when making the preloader for it…I don’t like the flash preloaders that you see every where, and I thought giving progress back wouldn’t be worth it [...]

10 Tools to Improve Your Site’s Usability on a Low Budget

Michael Barton — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:12:14 +0000

Testing the usability of your site is one of the smartest things you can do. Usability involves making a website’s interface easier to use and simpler to understand, so that the user’s experience is as enjoyable as possible. Visit Source

Version Numbers and their Origins

Michael Barton — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:27:46 +0000

What do version numbers mean? Where did they come from? Windows 7, wait, where was Windows 6? Oh, Vista…sneaky, sneaky. Why do companies do what they do when choosing version numbers? Aha! This little article will explain it all to you: Visit Source

The Best jQuery Lightbox Scripts

Michael Barton — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:03:30 +0000

I found a site for you that lists some of the best jQuery Lightbox Scripts. If you don’t already know, lightbox scripts are pretty much just javascript files that create modal pop ups. A lightbox can be used to show images, videos, and/or web pages inline without having to open a new browser window. Keep [...]

10 tips on making your website work

Michael Barton — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:05:06 +0000

Google released a PDF booklet with 10 tips on making your website work. I’m loving the fact that the book is free and that it has has some good tips we all should know. jQuery('.caption img').jcaption({ copyStyle: true, animate: true, show: {height: "show"}, hide: {height: "hide"} }); Visit Site Download PDF A sneak peak of [...]

Building a Social Networking Site in Drupal

Michael Barton — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:58:14 +0000

Drupal is ideally equipped to be used as a base system for creating a custom social networking site like Facebook and MySpace. While these large social networks have their place, niche social networking web sites can help promote businesses, products, projects, and hobbies of any nature. This book provides careful instructions and clear explanations to [...]

The quickest way to building a social networking site

Michael Barton — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:04:17 +0000

The quickest way to get up and running with a social networking or dating site with video, chat, photos, blogs and more is by using a great piece of software called Dolphin 7 from BoonEx.

jQuery Autosave

Michael Barton — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:44:12 +0000

No need to click a save button anymore with this jQuery plugin: jQuery Autosave. Seriously, this is something I’ve been wanting and never had the time to develop. Thankfully, these guys/girls created what I’ve been wanting. In this article I’m going to let you know some of the features this plugin offers, how to use [...]

Browser Size by Google

Michael Barton — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:51:23 +0000

One of my favorite producers showed me this the other day: Google Browser Size A great tool for designers, information architects & developers to look smart in meetings. :)

Richmond’s Open Source Meetup Group

Michael Barton — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:20:09 +0000

I just started my first Meetup at meetup.com called “Richmond’s Open Source Meetup Group.” My goal is to help people learn about the new up and coming Open Source Technologies, along with re-introducing some of the heavy hitters in the Open Source Community. Enjoy! Richmond’s Open Source Meetup Group http://www.meetup.com/richmond-open-source/

Forcing SSL with phpMyAdmin

Michael Barton — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:27:29 +0000

I installed yet another install of phpMyAdmin, and every time I forget how to configure it to force SSL. All phpMyAdmin installs should do this (use SSL). You never want to login without SSL unless you’re on a secured network. 2 ways to force SSL with phpMyAdmin 1) Using Apache .htaccess (this can also be [...]

Michael Barton’s Classifieds have arrived!

Michael Barton — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:03:23 +0000

I finally got my classified site up. Go there to see the books or computers or whatever I might have that you might want to own. Visit Michael Barton’s Classifieds site.

5 Ways to Make Ajax Calls with jQuery

Michael Barton — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:11:44 +0000

I just came across this article on the web about the different ways to make Ajax calls with jQuery. A very good article and something you should check out. It’s very easy to read so you can be new to jQuery or a veteran like myself. Check it out: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/5-ways-to-make-ajax-calls-with-jquery/ Now, just so you know, [...]

The Vendor/Client Relationship

Michael Barton — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:00:03 +0000

This gave me a giggle even though my head feels like it’s being prodded with a fork by a phantom…

15 PHP regular expressions for web developers

Michael Barton — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:55:32 +0000

This is amazing. Somebody finally put this together: http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/15-php-regular-expressions-for-web-developers Bookmark it because you’re going to need it if you’re a web developer. It’s helped me. Well, it hasn’t yet but I’m sure it will. And that’s also why I’m blogging about it. I want to remember it and I want it somewhere I’ll be sure [...]

Using PHP to format phone numbers

Michael Barton — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:43:02 +0000

Been out of the game a little while, my apologies. I know there isn’t much I can do to make it up to you (my fans); however, I’ll give you this in hopes of trying to win you back. Format phone function using PHP: 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334function format_phone($country, $phone) { $function = 'format_phone_' . $country; if(function_exists($function)) { [...]

10 Browser Testing Tools

Michael Barton — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:13:06 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of Quality Assurance for my #1 Client, and in addition to being fully thorough, it’s good to have a bunch of tools under your belt. Rather than re-blog about it, I’ll share with you a blog about 10 Browser Testing Tools. He says they’re for designers, I say they’re for [...]

14 CSS Tools to Save you Time

Michael Barton — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:50:52 +0000

Hey team, check this out: http://webtecker.com/2008/04/07/14-css-tools-to-save-you-time/ It’s an article telling you about the 14 CSS Tools to Save you Time. It should save you time, I hope.

Removing the Flash, Image, Anchor, Etc. Dotted Outline

Michael Barton — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:09:43 +0000

Ever have that annoying dotted outline around your flash or image? You know, the one around your anchor links that you ignore most of the time…ever have someone tell you to take it off and not know how? It happens to the best of us. It’s the annoying dotted outline (dotted line) that we don’t [...]

Preload your Images with this FREE jQuery plugin!

Michael Barton — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:53:27 +0000

I like you. I think you’re cool. Thank you for reading my Blog. It’s getting better the more I write. But anyway, enough about us. Let’s talk about how you’re going to use my Image Preloader script. It’s free, do whatever you want with it. Call it your own, whatever, I don’t really care. I [...]