On enabling Hyper-V in the “Turn Windows Features On or Off” menu, I was prompted to restart to complete the installation. It rebooted, installed some stuff, then rebooted again. At that point, it got as far as the Windows logo and then nothing – no spinner, no HDD light, no feedback – just the black screen and the Windows logo.

The problem with having your PC break is you’ve lost the simplest way of Googling for a solution, so after much faffing around on my phone, I came across this post – it talks about Windows Server 8, but the common feature was we both have a Gigabyte USB3.0 motherboard… and sure enough, disabling the USB3 controller stopped it hanging on boot.

For anyone that’s interested, I did this by restarting, entering the bios settings screen, then disabling it in there. The exact location of the option will probably depend on your motherboard, but look out for something labelled “USB 3 controller”.

I did have another minor issue after that, whereby it ran Windows diagnostic and asked if I wanted to restore to an earlier point – I said no. Not sure why, if I’m honest. But then it sat with the HDD light flashing manically for about 10 minutes until I turned off the power and booted up again. Everything now seems to be fine!

I don’t know if it’s an incompatibility with the motherboard, or if a patch will come along at some point to fix it, so I’m disabling Hyper-V for now – having 2 USB3 ports is a lot more useful to me right now, especially with a VMWare license to hand and a pretty decent open source alternative available!

Incidently, I did try to install Ubuntu before I uninstalled Hyper-V, and it seemed to work alright – plus the Hyper-V management software looks really useful. Definitely some real potential there. Shame.

Background is the page has 200+ item types, each with 2 cost types, with each cost types having 4 tiers. 2x4x200 = 1600 input fields (not including other elements, like submit buttons, hidden fields etc).

I noticed that some of the later elements weren’t saving. In fact, dumping the $_POST to screen showed that they weren’t even making it to the form processing script. They’d just… disappeared.

I knew of a change in PHP 5.3.9 – the addition of max_input_vars, which allows you to specify the maximum number of elements allowed in a submission (apparently, in order to prevent DOS attacks using hash collisions). But as we’re currently running 5.3.8, it didn’t appear to be that.

Then, after a bit of Googling, it struck me – Suhosin patch. Sure enough, it seems Suhosin was enforcing a limit on the number of form elements that could be submitted in a single form, which makes sense seeing as it’s designed to “harden” PHP. The 2 offending directives are suhosin.post.max_vars and suhosin.request.max_vars, which are there to limit $_POST and $_GET input variables respectively.

So, if you forsee having more than 1000 elements in a single form, and you’re using the Suhosin patch, you should add the following to you php.ini file in order to allow it:

max_input_vars = 3000
suhosin.post.max_vars = 3000
suhosin.request.max_vars = 3000

This example sets the limit to 3000. Obviously, you could refine that number to whatever you need.

As far as I know, you can also set max_input_vars from within your .htaccess file – though I’m not sure if that’s the case with the Suhosin directives.

One of the things I’ve always said about web design/development is it’s near impossible to know everything. It’s a job you just keep on learning and learning at – and when you think you’ve finally got something nailed, someone comes along as shows you a better/more efficient way of doing things that you’d never considered. It can get a bit tiring, but if you love your work as much as I do, you’ll always find time to learn new stuff.

And so considering how much I’ve learnt regarding CSS in the past 2 years – and how much jQuery I’ve learnt even in the last 6 months, every time I look at the source for this site I feel a little disappointed. And, to an extend, embarrassed – a strange fear that another developer/design I know or respect will come along, take a look at the source and say “Christ, this guy is clueless”. Ok, I’m dramatising – it’s not that bad – but it could be better. Much better.

So, among the other 101 things I’m struggling to find time to finish at the moment, I’m adding site redesign to the list. I don’t know how different it will look – most of you might not even notice the change – but it’s something I feel I need to do. Motivation to blog is so much easier to find when you have pride in your website!

Of course I could have taken the easy route many developers take of scattering <a href="#top">Back to top</a> tags all over the page and adding something like id="top" to the <body> tag, but it’s not the most elegant solution – plus I’ve seen some examples of it looking pretty ugly when it’s overused.

For that reason, I decided to write what I think is a far more elegant, jQuery JavaScript based animated back to top scroller which I’ve implemented on several sites – you can see an example of this on this site (just scroll down a bit and you’ll see it in the bottom right!)

So, for anyone interested, here’s how I did it.

(tl;dr – Don’t care about the explanation? Here’s the CSS you need, and here’s the jQuery.)

The CSS bit

Firstly, here’s a bit of CSS to get you started:

    .back-to-top {
        background-color:#333;
        border:1px solid #222;
        border-bottom:0;
        bottom:0;
        color:#bbb;
        display:none;
        float:left;
        font-size:11px;
        padding:10px 10px 5px;
        position:fixed;
        right:30px;
        text-decoration:none;
        z-index:99999;
        -webkit-border-radius:10px 10px 0 0;
        -moz-border-radius:10px 10px 0 0;
        border-radius:10px 10px 0 0;
    }

Nothing too special here. It simply applies some colour, a bit of padding, the affixes it to the bottom of the screen and hides it out of view until it’s needed.

You’ll notice I’ve also used a float:left;, which looks a bit out of place. The reason is that although I’d prefer to use a display:inline-block;, for simplicity you’ll see later on that I’m using the jQuery slideUp() and slideDown() functions, which both end up with a block element – unless you know the width of the element (which, assuming you guys will want to change the text to something else, I don’t!).

So, either whack this in your stylesheet (or in the <head> between some <style type="text/css"></style> tags and you’re ready to add the JavaScript.

The jQuery bit

Remember you’ll need to have the jQuery libraries loaded to use this. So, assuming you’ve already dealt with that bit, here’s the JavaScript:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $('body').append('<a href="#top" class="back-to-top">Back to top</a>');
    
    $('a.back-to-top').click(function(e){
        $('html, body').animate({scrollTop:0}, 'slow');
        e.preventDefault();
    });

    $(window).scroll(function() {
        if ($('body').offset().top < $(window).scrollTop()) {
            $('.back-to-top').slideDown('fast');
        } else {
            $('.back-to-top').slideUp('fast');
        }
    });
});

First thing you’ll notice is that this method doesn’t require you adding any HTML to the page yourself – the $('body').append('<a href="#top" class="back-to-top">Back to top</a>'); will do the job of appending the link to to the bottom of the page. This is also where you can change the text displayed on the button – as I used a float earlier, the button will expand as necessary, so feel free to change it to whatever you want.

Next we a have the bit that controls the actual animation. The jQuery click event will capture clicks on the link we added earlier, and run an animated scroll back to the top of the page. Much prettier the instant jump from simply using an anchor tag!

The last part isn’t mandatory, but I think it adds to the effect quite nicely. What’s the point in having the button visible when you’re already at the top??

Note: The $('body') bit in the last part ensures that the link becomes visible when the top of the body goes out of view – ie, as soon as you start scrolling. If you would rather it appeared, say, when the header went out of view, you could easily change that to reference the top of your content <div> – so if your content is wrapped in a div with a class of “content”, simply change it to $('.content').

So, either whack this in your .js file (or in the <head> between some <script type="text/javascript"></script> tags and you’re good to go.

Want it to work in non-javascript enabled browsers?

Seeing as the entire thing is jQuery/javascript powered, the code above won’t work in a non-javascript enabled browser – the button won’t even render, seeing as we’re inserting it into the page using jQuery’s .append function. To get it working, you’ll need to make a couple of tweaks…

First, either add an id to your <body> tag – something like id="top" (or if there’s already an ID set, just make a note of what it is…)

Next, manually add the following code to your HTML. I’d advise sticking it right at the bottom, just before the closing </body> tag. Make sure you change the #top reference to whatever ID you noted down in the previous step.

<a href="#top" class="back-to-top">Back to top</a>

This will build an identical button to the one the JavaScript was inserting automatically.

Finally, remove the following line:

$('body').append('<a href="#top" class="back-to-top">Back to top</a>');

And replace it with:

$('.back-to-top').css('display', 'none');

This ensures that the button you just added is hidden for those that *are* using JavaScript.

Of course, if the user doesn’t have JavaScript enabled, they won’t see animations, autohide, etc, and it’s a little bit more work to implement – but at least it’ll ensure it’s visible for all users, not just the large majority.

So there we have it!

A relatively simple, yet rather nice looking “back to top” animated scroller using jQuery and a bit of CSS. Feel free to use and abuse the code as you see fit, and don’t be afraid to change the styling to fit your own site design!

Oh, and if you’re using WordPress, in the javascript you’ll need to change the $ to jQuery (as jQuery on WP runs in compatibility mode to allow it to run alongside other JavaScript frameworks, such as prototype).

Enjoy!

I’ve never been an iPhone owner, but I appreciate the fact that he gave the mobile industry the kick up the arse it needed.  Arguably, if it wasn’t for the iPhone, Google may never have bought Android and we’d all still be stuck on Symbian (or Windows mobile 6!).

And I’ve never been an iPad owner, but I appreciate that he took a gamble by taking what was close to being a stagnant market, and reinvented it. If it wasn’t for the iPad, I probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to consider buying a Samsung Galaxy Tab.

And I’ve never bought a song from iTunes – but I appreciate the fact that Apple  bitch slapped the music industry into realising it couldn’t carry on living in the 80’s.  I don’t think Apple were key in turning downloading mp3s into an everyday thing, but they were certaintly instrumental in hurrying it along.

At some point today I came across a quote from Jobs that really struck a chord with me.  It’s actually the reason I was inspired to post this blog, so that I wouldn’t forget it:

You can’t connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path.

And so, despite not being an Apple user in any shape or form, RIP Steve Jobs – one of the greatest business minds of my lifetime. I hope Apple can keep pushing the industry forward without you.

First was my Xbox plugin – which I never actually got round to publicly releasing – for which the API I was using had apparently stopped returning data. A quick check and it turns out the Xbox API I was using (written by Duncan MacKenzie) had been switched off. To be fair, if he really was receiving 3million hits a day then I see his point – aside from a little hat tip in my plugin code (which he would probably have never even seen) he would have been getting very little credit for his efforts, and maintaining the API, and paying for the bandwidth, was probably costing him a fortune.

I was tempted to berate him for not giving any notice to the people that use it, but then it occurred to me – as well as not having to sign up at all, he was providing it for free. So to be fair, I have no right to complain. I just wish he’s considered moving to a more sustainable model – I’d have paid a couple of £ a month to use it, as I’m sure many others would have, and he may have even been able to turn it into a profit maker. I guess now we’ll never know.

The other was Momentile – a 365 photo project site. They never actually officially had an API, but did provide RSS feeds for each user, which I was hooking into to display your latest photos. Great – except they relaunched yesterday with no warning, and the photo URLs changed – so now that plugin has broke too. To be fair though, it did sound like they’d been forced to launch early as the iPhone app update was accepted unusually quickly, but still – would have been good for at a few hours notice. Crap, if they’d let me know the day before I could have pushed an update out same day in preparation, but right now I’m 250 miles from home and most likely won’t get a chance to go it until Tuesday now. Shame.

So yeah, I’m not sure if there’s a lesson to be learned here or not. To the API providers, I guess the lesson is if your users are willing to spend their free time writing stuff that helps promote you (and even more so if they’re not making any money out of it) a quick email to let them know so that they don’t end up getting grief from their plugin users (complaining it’s not working) would be ideal. The lesson for me? Never trust an API will be around forever.

Anyways, since I started typing this I’ve discovered maybe I can get that plugin fixed today, so I’m off to give it a go. Wish me luck.

So what have I been up to?

• Working on yet another Glastonbury Festival related personal project, involving some crazy Google maps integration… well, maybe not that crazy, but I’m new to the maps API so it’s been taking a fair bit of my time up reading through the documentation and trying to work out how and if I can do what I want to do. I’m hoping that, unlike several of my other Glasto projects, this one will actually see the light of day!
• WPSynergy. Yep, this is still alive! After making the mistake of announcing our plans far too early (and not long before both myself and Jeremie took on some work that has kept us busy for the past year), I have been putting some of my time into building the main WPSynergy website, plus some themes to launch with. Annoyingly, we’ve also been let down by a couple of people – for example, I wasn’t actually supposed to be building the main website, but after 4 weeks waiting for a guy to finish it off before he disappeared off the face of the planet, this also fell into my lap. So yeah, this project is not dead – it’s simply been postponed until we/I have the time to get myself back on my feet and get the essentials ready for launch.
• Spending too many hours at my day job. Do you ever get that feeling that your entire daily routine seems to be get up, go to work, come home from work, sleep, repeat? That’s damn close to how I’ve been feeling over the past few months. The reason for this relates a lot to my next point…
• Having no car. Yep, Vlad the Vectra was finally retired after the head gasket started playing up and it started sounding like it was ready to blow up. Thankfully, 3 months on, I’ve managed to sort out a new motor – a 1999 Ford Focus Zetec. Might not sound like much, but I fell in love with Focus’ the year they were released (1998 I think) so this has been like fulfilling a mini dream for me!
• Moving house. Sure, the actual move itself was only a 2-3 day event, but as with the fun of renting, from the day I handed in my notice at the old flat I’ve had an average of 2 viewings a day. I had no concept of how much effort it took to keep a house tidy enough for randoms to trapse through every day, but it turns out its not easy feat.

So this is my life for the past 6 months. Right now I’m sat in front of a fresh Ubuntu installation at Lissa’s house (on a bloody 2mb line) waiting for Eclipse to install so I can spend some more time working on Modmat2, then monday it’s back to the grind.

So there you go – I’m not dead, just bloody busy.

Neither release is critical – both plugins should continue to work without applying the latest updates. However, seeing as several functions used in these plugins were depercated in 3.0, this may mean the older versions may continue to work with future WordPress releases.

Just so you know.

Essentials 1 to 6 can be found here.

7. Bin Bags
Bin bags have 1,000,001 uses, least of all to keep stuff dry. Its rained hard and the ground has gone all muddy? Take a few with you to lay out and sit on. Got caught in a rainstorm and your clothes are drenched? Throw them in a bin bag till you get home to stop them getting all the rest of your dry stuff damp. Starting to rain and you’ve forgotten your coat? Tear a hole in the top and sides, slip it over your head and voila! Instant poncho! Plus if it does rain hard and you find the inside of your tent getting progressively more and more wet/muddy, throw all your nice, dry clean clothes in a bin bag so they stay that way.

8. Plasters (ideally good quality waterproof plasters)
Ideally, you should also aim to bring a couple of different sizes. The main reason for adding this to the list is blisters – most of us don’t usually spend 12 hours a day on our feet, and it can come as a shock to the system – hence, blisters after the first full day are fairly likely. Now I won’t lie, its going to hurt regardless of what you do – but putting a decent plaster on it should at least minimize the pain. Also useful for impromptu cuts, which – if it rains and everything gets muddy – are screaming out to get infected. Note – you can probably get these from the medical tent, but they’re likely to be the cheap plastic ones that die as soon as they get wet.

9. Sun cream
This one’s really down to you and depends on 2 factors: a) Do you sunburn, and b) Is it going to be sunny. If the answer to either of those questions is yes, I’d advise picking some up before you go. Bearing in mind the festival is at the peak of the english summer, and if/when the sun does come out, its usually scorching. Its likely at some point this will happen and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a field with nowhere to shelter. Again, available from the medical tent but – can you be bothered walking up there every 2 hours?

10. Toilet paper
In the last couple of years Glastonbury has got better and better in this respect – I’d say at least half my toilet visits I’d see paper on the roll, which is impressive. But its not there all the time, and to avoid getting caught out I;d advise at least taking 1 roll yourself – just rip off a dozen or so sheets when you leave the tent and keep them in your pocket, just in case. And you’ll thank me for suggesting it – especially if you’re stupid enough to get the chilli fries after a night drinking. Also teams up with the wet wipes as a makeshift towel after your festival shower…

11. Torch
Only essential if you feel any sort of guilt about kicking someone’s guy rope out at 3am, or if you’re the sort of person who insists on walking to the toilet in the middle of the night. But also very, very useful once you’re in the tent – once you’re in there and the door’s zipped up, its pitch black. Seeing as you can pick up torches for a couple of quid from homebase (and most motorway services petrol stations apparently), there really is no excuse.

And there you go – between this post and the original, I think we have a fairly comprehensive list of camping essentials. If you think I’ve missed anything, let me know in the comments!

For that reason I’ve decided to hold back on my yearly tradition of publishing a spreadsheet, as I didn’t want to have to be updating every couple of days between now and June. However, it doesn seem to have stabilized enough now to feel confident that I won’t have to fix it too many more times.

If you’re wondering why I bother doing this every year, its because I like to have a alphabetically ordered list with me when I go. Thing is, I already know who I want to see by the time I get there, and when I forget what time/stage they’re playing on its a pain in the arse having to search through 3 days/20 stages of line-ups to find them. Thats why I’ve always preferred to have a alphabetically ordered list handy so I can quickly find when/where a band will be playing. Simplez.

I’ll update the spreadsheet when I hear word of bands being added/removed from the lineup, and as the details of more stages are released.

Enjoy! And see you at Glastonbury!