nater kane & friends http://www.naterkane.com/blog the blog Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:47:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 en hourly 1 40.702348-73.942886http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with PageflakesSubscribe with PlusmoSubscribe with Live.comSubscribe with Attensa for OutlookSubscribe with FlurryAdd to Any Feed Reader completely suppressing errors in php http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/063ebnPwO6o/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/completely-suppressing-errors-in-php/#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:00:10 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=346 This is something that's been bugging me for awhile, and I never really bothered to dig in and see what I could do to work around it, until now.

unserializing an unserializable string

The easiest, and most popular way to check if a string is serialized is simple.

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. /**
  2. * Is a string serialized?
  3. *
  4. * @param string
  5. * @return boolean  
  6. */
  7. function isSerialized($str)
  8. {
  9.     if ($str === 0)
  10.     {
  11.         return false;
  12.     }
  13.     else
  14.     {
  15.         return ($str == serialize(false) || @unserialize($str) !== false);
  16.     }
  17. }

Quite a few very popular frameworks and apps do it this way, try to just simply pass the string to the unserialize method, make sure it isn't the boolean false, and prepend the method with an @ to suppress notice-level error output. Don't get me wrong, it works. But if you're logging your notice-level errors, then any time you're trying to check if a string is serialized in this way, it logs the notice that's generated. Storing data as a serialized hash in a key-value database (Tokyo Cabinet — which we've chosen to use for Nomcat, BerkeleyDB, CouchDB, Redis, etc.) magnifies the scenario and takes this wee-little_old Notice, and makes your logs fill up really fast. Since error logs are for tracking issues that a developer should really concern themselves with, logging all of these notices just wouldn't do, it's simply a waste of space and processing time to handle them over and over and over again.

As we've been building Nomcat over at NOM, we're often faced with dozens of reads from the data storage layer with each view that's generated, and recently while testing, we've run into log files that look something like this.

PLAIN TEXT
CODE:
  1. ERROR - 2009-06-04 01:49:15 --> Severity: Notice  --> unserialize(): Error at offset 0 of 1 bytes /path/to/application/libraries/App_Model.php 432
  2. ... a couple hundred lines ...
  3. ERROR - 2009-06-04 01:51:19 --> Severity: Notice  --> unserialize(): Error at offset 0 of 1 bytes /path/to/application/libraries/App_Model.php 432

just set_error_handler to an empty method

Initially I tried a few different options to work around this annoying little problem.

  1. Prepending the unserialize method with @ to suppress output, but it doesn't prevent logging.
  2. Wrapping in a try-catch block doesn't do the trick
  3. Wrapping it with error_reporting(0) and error_reporting(2) doesn't do the trick either
  4. But creating an method to handle the error, have it to nothing, and wrapping the unserialize line with set_error_handler and restore_error_handler does the trick!

This is what I came up with.

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. /**
  2. * Is a string serialized?
  3. *
  4. * @param string
  5. * @return boolean  
  6. */
  7. function isSerialized($str)
  8. {
  9.     if ($str === 0)
  10.     {
  11.         return false;
  12.     }
  13.     else
  14.     {
  15.         set_error_handler(array('App_Model','unserialize_handler'));
  16.         $return = ($str == serialize(false) || @unserialize($str) !== false);
  17.         restore_error_handler();
  18.         return $return;
  19.     }
  20. }
  21.  
  22. /**
  23. * dummy error handler set up to obsorb any errors thrown by isSerialized
  24. * @return
  25. * @param object $errno
  26. * @param object $errstr
  27. */
  28. function unserialize_handler($errno, $errstr)
  29. {
  30.    // don't do anything
  31. }

If you noticed that I'm passing an array like this: set_error_handler(array('App_Model','unserialize_handler'));, you've got a good eye. This is how you can specify in which class to find the method you want to use as a callback, neither $this->methodname or Classname::methodname will work. However if you aren't writing object oriented code, you can simply pass the name of the method you want to use to handle the error as a string like this: set_error_handler('unserialize_handler');.

Let me know how it works for you.

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/completely-suppressing-errors-in-php/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/completely-suppressing-errors-in-php/ 11 rules to help you survive 2009 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/1rXo_jP8eGM/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/11-rules-to-help-you-survive-2009/#comments Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:41:14 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=329 I had an entire post written about what this last year has meant for me, the good and the bad, what I'm grateful for, etc... However, I don't really write about anything personal here, I instead decided to take that post and send it as a personal email to a number of people who are close to me, and keep intimate communications intimate.

Instead, here's a few things I think might be good advice for surviving this upcoming year if you "work in tech". It's a living list, so if you feel that I've overlooked something that might touch you, let me know and I'll add to it.

  1. If you start a new company, don't make ad revenue it's core business model. If you're an adult, you should know better.
  2. Don't take a word and add "TW" to the beginning of it, it's not cute and instead you'll be an annoying and uncreative schmuck. This is an updated rule from last year's "if the word ends in 'ER', don't leave out the 'E'".
  3. Don't think for a second that people want to pay for content, they will however, pay for services. Now someone just needs to come up with better services.
  4. If you build something, make sure it's ACTUALLY useful, and not just cool and trite.
  5. If you work at an agency and enjoyed reading "Getting Real", please forget everything you read, those ideas work if you're on the product side, and not client services... that book is no good for you, get a refund.
  6. There's no such thing as a social media expert. People can be experts in platforms and tactics and skills, but not in "social media". I however am an expert is calling people out on misusing and abusing ambiguous terms and buzzwords. Like most buzzwords, it's something most people don't understand... when talking about it, I use the term 'unmanaged (brand) communications' because it actually describes what's happening; people are talking about all sorts of stuff, sometimes it might be about you, and it sometimes happens on the internet.
  7. SEO experts are a joke, you'll never need one if you have a good information architect, a copywriter and someone who knows how to write good, semantic markup.
  8. If you "follow" more than a few hundred people on 'you-know-what', you're a dick and need to cut that crap out right now. It's actually impossible to track more than 1000 people whether online or in the physical world. Quit fronting like you pay attention.
  9. If you're a strategist of some sort and don't have any actual or physical deliverables as part of your work, reevaluate how you actually are a benefit your clients or get a new career. I don't want to have to hunt you down and burn you at the stake, we don't need more people selling snake oil and practicing brand voodoo.
  10. No individual person is worth more than $150 per hour tops, if you disagree then you must be greedy, fleecing your clients, fleecing our industry, or all three.
  11. Don't waste your time getting excited about the new hot mobile device. They all suck, really. If you do need one, please recycle your old one and just buy the one that is the least painful for you to use.
]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/11-rules-to-help-you-survive-2009/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/11-rules-to-help-you-survive-2009/ Question of the day 11/5 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/aZ1TmitiN60/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/question-of-the-day-115/#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:34:48 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=324 I've decided to start posting general and non-technical questions that I have. This new feature of regular content will, obviously, be called "Question of the day"

It's one thing to manage, educate and cultivate relationships with existing clients; how important is it to educate a potential client, who you have already decided not to work with, as to why you aren't interested in working with them? (NOT why you aren't able, if you're simply unable)

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/question-of-the-day-115/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/question-of-the-day-115/ Mashable’s open web awards are open! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/yMz9WeKsG2Q/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/mashables-open-web-awards-are-open/#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:30:33 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=322

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/mashables-open-web-awards-are-open/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/mashables-open-web-awards-are-open/ Democratus needs your support http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/BSfzVDykiXk/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/democratus-needs-your-support/#comments Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:03:51 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=318 First let me thank Josh Klein for mentioning this on his blog before I got around to it...

So...

I have recently been working on starting a website called Democratus that will be a sort of "customer service platform for government" and provide a place for ideas for change to come directly from the people and be delivered directly to our representatives and press. We hope to be able to get this website off the ground by early next year, but in order to do that we're looking for some funding. Recently we applied for a grant from the Knight Foundation, who sponsor a contest for ideas like this, and we're very hopeful that this will provide the funding we need to launch the site, but we need your help to get the grant.

All you need to do is visit the website of the Knight Foundation and our page there, and register and vote on our idea. It should only take a minute or two and it would really help. If you want to read our application it is there on the website, and if you want to leave a comment on the proposal after reading it (something about how innovative and important this would be in your life, for instance) that would be even better.

Feel free to forward this post to other people that you think are interested in encouraging political participation and efforts to make our democracy more direct.

1) Register with the Knight Foundation: http://is.gd/6cTK

2) Vist our site: http://is.gd/6cU3

3) Vote and comment on our proposal (clicking on 5 stars won't hurt)

4) And then if you'd like, tell us what you think by sending us an email to Nate.Heasley@gmail.com or nater@naterkane.com

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/democratus-needs-your-support/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/democratus-needs-your-support/ (Another) Scrollable Plugin for jQuery http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/IkhQHqu-vNE/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/jquery-scrollable-plugin/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:33:01 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=313 I was having a bit of difficulty finding a jQuery plugin that not only provided scrolling behavior to a list of elements, but also used & then generated markup that could still be accessible, semantic & validate whether or not the user ran the javascript.

jQueryThe best plugin that I could find that was already out there was Tero Piirainen's jquery.scrollable.js. If you check it out you'll quickly see that the markup that's used to generate the scrolling items could be improved upon. Nothing in my version of jquery.scrollable.js removes functionality from what Tero put together, and the improvements are basic.

  1. make those items scrollable horizotally or vertically
  2. decide how many items are visible at once
  3. scroll elements with mouse, arrow keys and mousewheel (requires mousewheel.js)
  4. make navigational buttons without programming
  5. have programmatic actions: next, prev, nextPage, prevPage, seekTo, begin, end
  6. need to know when list is scrolled with custom event listener
  7. You can now start with semantic markup
  8. I want this all in single js file that weights only 3.9 4.1 Kb minified!

First we start with simple & semantic markup

There's nothing fancy going on here at all, just a wrapping element, an anchor and an unordered list. Unfortunately due to the design requirements of this particular implementation, an additional <div> had to be added. If it wasn't for the creative constraint, and the lack of support for vertical-align: middle across many browsers, this extra <div> would have not been included.

PLAIN TEXT
HTML:
  1. <div class="scrolling-list">
  2.     <a href="#newspage" class="more-link">More News</a>
  3.   <ol>
  4.         <li><div><a href="#">Someone reports second-quarter 2008 earnings &raquo;</a></div></li>
  5.         <li><div><a href="#">Bear scares comedian, everybody laughs &raquo;</a></div></li>
  6.         <li><div><a href="#">Someone Completes Someone else's Acquisition &raquo;</a></div></li>
  7.         <li><div><a href="#">Someone selected by Some Company, S.A.B. de C.V. for ADR program &raquo;</a></div></li>
  8.         <li><div><a href="#">Someone wins landmark multinational asset pooling mandate &raquo;</a></div></li>
  9.         <li><div><a href="#">Someone Announces Internal Restructuring Transactions and Guarantees Related to Acquisition &raquo;</a></div></li>
  10.         <li><div><a href="#">Someone wins comprehensive custodial mandate with one of New Zealand's largest organizations &raquo;</a></div></li>
  11.         <li><div><a href="#">Someone selected by East Timor to provide custodial services and training opportunities &raquo;</a></div></li>
  12.         <li><div><a href="#">Someone launches latest Global Derivatives Collateral offering &raquo;</a></div></li>
  13.         <li><div><a href="#">Someone expands Boston fund services operations &raquo;</a></div></li>
  14.   </ol>
  15. </div>

Presentation

Now we add styling that makes it match the look & feel of the main site.

The css required to make this bit work for you will be different for every project, so take a look at the included styles and tweak as necessary.

More News

And now for the behavior

If the user's browser allows javascript to run, we add some additional unobtrusive behavior (including mousewheel support)

PLAIN TEXT
JavaScript:
  1. jQuery(function( $ ){
  2.     /**
  3.      * make sure the CSS knows that we're modifying the DOM and then style accordingly
  4.      **/       
  5.     $('.scrollable').addClass('js');
  6.     /**
  7.      * If you have an element you'd like to use the same style, but not attach the
  8.      * behavior you can turn it off by first adding the scrollable classname, but making
  9.      * sure the js classname is not applied to the element (this is what I did to show the
  10.      * "no javascript" version in the second example). Keeping the use of the scrollable
  11.      * classname for the general styles prevents having to write redundant styles
  12.      **/
  13.     $('.scrollable.nojs').removeClass('js');
  14.     /**
  15.      * a little DOM modification to keep all of the markup valid
  16.      **/
  17.     $('.scrollable.js ol').attr('id','items').wrap('<ul><li></li></ul>');
  18.     $('.scrollable.js ul>li').attr('id','itemswrapper');
  19.     var emptyLinkTarget = (window.opera) ? "#" : "javascript:function(){return}"; // a hash breaks a few flavors of IE & a javascript link (though it's poor form) breaks Opera.
  20.     $('.scrollable.js ul').prepend('<li><a class="prev" href="'+emptyLinkTarget+'">&lt;&lt;</a></li>').append('<li><a class="next" href="'+emptyLinkTarget+'">&gt;&gt;</a></li>');
  21.     /**
  22.      * and now we initiate
  23.      **/
  24.     $('.scrollable.js').scrollable({
  25.         size:3,
  26.         horizontal:false,
  27.         duration:1500,
  28.         items:'#items',
  29.         prev:'.prev',
  30.         next:'.next'
  31.     });
  32. });

More News

This is the generated source we end up with... There's one thing you might notice, and that's the div class="__scrollable", though I initially placed that element outside of it's parent ol it did not work. It has something to do with how the xhtml 1.0 strict doctype is handled by the browsers. Though this may work in HTML 4.0 or various browser quirks modes, I haven't specifically tested all possible cases.

PLAIN TEXT
HTML:
  1. <div class="scrollable js">
  2.     <a href="#" class="more-link">More News</a>
  3.     <ul>
  4.         <li><a class="prev" href="javascript:function(){return}">&lt;&lt;</a></li>
  5.         <li id="itemswrapper">
  6.             <ol style="overflow: hidden; position: relative; visibility: visible; height: 124px;" id="items">
  7.                 <div class="__scrollable" style="position: absolute; height: 200000em;">
  8.                     <li><div><a href="#">Someone reports second-quarter 2008 earnings »</a></div></li>
  9.                     <li><div><a href="#">Bear scares comedian, everybody laughs »</a></div></li>
  10.                     <li><div><a href="#">Someone Completes Someone else's Acquisition »</a></div></li>
  11.                     <li><div><a href="#">Someone selected by Some Company, S.A.B. de C.V. for ADR program »</a></div></li>
  12.                     <li><div><a href="#">Someone wins landmark multinational asset pooling mandate »</a></div></li>
  13.                     <li><div><a href="#">Someone Announces Internal Restructuring Transactions and Guarantees Related to Acquisition »</a></div></li>
  14.                     <li><div><a href="#">Someone wins comprehensive custodial mandate with one of New Zealand's largest organizations »</a></div></li>
  15.                     <li><div><a href="#">Someone selected by East Timor to provide custodial services and training opportunities »</a></div></li>
  16.                     <li><div><a href="#">Someone launches latest Global Derivatives Collateral offering »</a></div></li>
  17.                     <li><div><a href="#">Someone expands Boston fund services operations »</a></div></li>
  18.                 </div>
  19.                 <br clear="all"/>
  20.             </ol>
  21.         </li>
  22.         <li><a class="next" href="javascript:function(){return}">&gt;&gt;</a></li>
  23.     </ul>
  24. </div>

This build is currently in a non-public svn repository, but I will be moving it to google code or github shortly (depending on whether or not I feel like learning how to use Git)

Standalone Demo:
http://www.naterkane.com/sandbox/scrollable/
Download:
First you'll of course need jQuery v.1.2.6
jquery.scrollable.js (7.5k)
jquery.scrollable.min.js (4.1k)
scrolling-list.css – the stylesheet used for the example
You can also grab a copy of jquery.mousewheel.js here


]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/jquery-scrollable-plugin/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/jquery-scrollable-plugin/ new NK&F logo http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/3YzXB0c0r4c/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/new-nkf-logo/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:51:34 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/2008/10/27/new-nkf-logo-2/ new NK&F logo
new NK&F logo, originally uploaded by naterkane.

it was time to update the very bogus & bad mark that we've been using for Nater Kane & Friends. comments are of course welcome.

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/new-nkf-logo/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/new-nkf-logo/ verizon business dsl is less for my money http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/hgXR-Ec2TAQ/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/verizon-business-dsl-is-less-for-my-money/#comments Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:51:14 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=270
Image borrowed from http://hoboken411.com/archives/11797

Image borrowed from http://hoboken411.com/archives/11797

I'm so pissed right now, I pay a total of a couple hundred dollars a month across various ISP accounts, mobile phone accounts and television / broadcast service accounts... Due to where I live, I'm stuck with Verizon DSL, and I have no choice in the matter, so when their service is crap, I get especially frustrated. You can read a bit about what happened when I tried to get cable service installed here.

I thought I'd repost something that I just put up on everyone's favorite customer service site, Get Satisfaction.

"and the tech support i need anytime" is not available anytime

I have a dry-loop business DSL account. The telephone number associated with that dry loop account does not appear on any of my paper bills.

I call the verizon business tech support number, and am asked to either enter my number, or say "i don't have one" relying on their voice recognition.

if i call after 5pm, the telephone system instructs me to call back during normal business hours and then disconnects me. i understand sales being closed at 5pm, however tech support being closed is unacceptable.

my connection has been very spotty all day, and now i have to wait until monday to call to speak with their support staff to fix the problem? c'mon. this is supposed to be "business class" service (and support). I pay extra for it, expecting an extra level of support.

View the original post over here.

Verizon Business DSL support = FAIL

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/verizon-business-dsl-is-less-for-my-money/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/verizon-business-dsl-is-less-for-my-money/ Basecamp phases out IE6 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/NZP-yJURBJM/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/basecamp-phases-out-ie6/#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:26:07 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/2008/09/02/basecamp-phases-out-ie6/ Basecamp phases out IE6
Basecamp phases out IE6, originally uploaded by naterkane.

This rules. Thanks for helping the web move forward guys!

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/basecamp-phases-out-ie6/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/basecamp-phases-out-ie6/ Compatibility mode and Targeting IE with valid CSS selectors http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/3WHDw1htf98/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/compatibility-mode-and-targeting-ie-with-valid-css-selectors/#comments Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:44:46 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=246 I caught a link to Microsoft breaks IE8 interoperability promise an article written by Opera’s CTO, Hakon Lie.

Daniel Klima’s comment caught my eye, so I thought I might respond here in addition to writing a comment over here. At the time of this post, my comment hasn't yet been approved by moderators of theregister.co.uk

And it is needed as hell,since soem [sic] servers will send IE7 CSS to IE8,which causes IE8 to render page incorrectly.Daniel Klima

9 times out of 10 i have no need in my projects for IE conditional comments. Outside of the additional HTTP request loading an additional file brings, why add ANY browser specific code to a document? If you're using IE CSS filters, then sure, use conditional comments and don't break your validation, but unless you're forced in some way to use some old proprietary-to-IE scripting or styles, there's no point.

A star shines less brightly

That star (*) that we've relied to heavily upon to override ones own css with additional rules aimed at forcing weak and non-standards-compliant browsers to render content in a way that satisfies the ego's of creative directors everywhere isn't totally burnt out, but it's on it's way to becoming history.

I put together a little test to see what rules IE8b2 renders and ignores using selectors that won't invalidate you CSS. You can view the remarkably simple test here: ie8csstest

What this means

  • If you are currently targeting IE6 with the * html hack, it won't break your site if you run it in IE8.
  • If you are currently targeting IE7 with the *:first-child+html hack, it won't break a site in IE8 either.

Neither rule break css validation, IE8b2 in standards mode ignores both rules (but renders IE7's rule in compatibility mode), everyone is happy, and "servers don't send the wrong CSS to the browser".

So what's up with this broken looking button/icon?

Compatibility and Standards modes can be toggled with a small button that appears to the right of the location bar. If you are viewing a file locally using file:// the button is missing, so I have no idea what mode local files are rendered with. For local testing, a locally running server is required such as xampp or something similar.

Standards mode is default

Compatibility Mode Button - Off

Off

This is the compatibility modes button. Though it's not remarkably clear as to what it is, or what state it represents, when it is in it's "not selected" state, it means the browser rendering pages in Standards mode.

Compatibility mode

Compatibility Mode Button - Off

On

When the button appears to be depressed, the browser is rendering pages in Compatibility mode. Which due to my test's results, is the equivalent of IE7 mode.

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/compatibility-mode-and-targeting-ie-with-valid-css-selectors/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/compatibility-mode-and-targeting-ie-with-valid-css-selectors/ A wee bit o’ standards added to IE8b2 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/XkJAA4VDMfk/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/a-wee-bit-o-standards-added-to-ie8b2/#comments Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:08:44 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=234 IE8 beta 2 was made available yesterday. Many folks have already grabbed a copy and started playing and testing, some even read the release notes. PPK has even already updated his CSS compatibility table, that man is on the ball.

The additional standards and CSS support are of course noteworthy

CSS Expressions is no longer supported in Internet Explorer 8 Standards mode

CSS Expressions is a proprietary extension to CSS that has a high performance cost. (CSS Expressions is also known as "Dynamic Properties.") Starting with Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, CSS Expressions is no longer supported in Internet Explorer 8 Standards mode. CSS Expressions is still supported in Internet Explorer 7 Strict mode and Quirks mode for backward compatibility.

Alternative style sheets

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 now supports alternative style sheets as specified by HTML4 and by CSS2.1. You can access the alternative styles that are defined by the Web page author by using the Style menu under the Page menu or under the View menu. You can use the No Style option on either menu to disable all author styling.
Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Release Notes

That's the end of the good news, here's (some of) the rest...

That's all well and good, but it turns out, that there are a ton of other issues, that despite this release being a beta, I still feel are a bit rediculous...

JScript errors may occur when you upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP or on Windows Server 2003

Do not upgrade from Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 on a system that is running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. A rare installation issue may occur in which Internet Explorer may exhibit false JScript errors and an inability to add Favorites or Web Slices.

To work around this issue, uninstall Window Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, install Internet Explorer 7, and then upgrade to Window Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2.

Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Release Notes

Being required to install an interim version (IE7) to upgrade from IE6 (which so many folks are of course still unfortunately running) to avoid erroneous reports of JScript errors (which will of course halt the execution of pretty much any JavaScript/JScript app from running is absurd.

And this one is just downright unacceptable.

You are prompted to continue installing Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 if you previously installed Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1

On a computer that is running Windows XP, you install Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 and then install Windows XP Server Pack 3. Then, you try to install Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2. When you do this, you receive the following message:

Install Internet Explorer 8

Are you sure you want to continue installing Internet Explorer 8?

Setup has detected that you’ve installed a new service pack for your operating system since installing a previous version of Internet Explorer 8. After completing this installation, you will not be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 8.

You can click the ‘OK’ button to continue installing Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, but you will not be able to uninstall it later.

To work around this issue, and to be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 later, click the ‘Cancel’ button and do the following before installing Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2:
• Uninstall Windows XP Service Pack 3
• Uninstall Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1
• Install Windows XP Service Pack 3
• Install Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Release Notes

I was never able to actually install SP3 on my last XP laptop. My first attempt threw an error at the very end of the installation process, after over one hour, and then it took another 45 minutes to "undo" the installation attempt. Being optimistic, I tried it twice, totally over 3 hours of time wasted. So theoretically, if someone had installed SP3 after installing IE8b1, it could be a multi hour process just to make sure that a web browser could at some point be uninstalled in the future. It takes less time to install the full Adobe Creative Suite than a service pack. C'mon now, this is just dumb people.

How is it possible to measure a few positivities for developers when the new issues regarding security, usability, and system stability for a general user are so great? I can't. Though some folks are jumping up and down, the low adoption rate of IE7 has shown us that the additional support for standards in this new version is theoretically exciting, but the fantasy of being free of IE6 and onto a standards based world in the next few short years is exactly that, a fantasy.

Read the full release notes here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949787

I tend to run beta's of everything... but for this one, I'm not going to let it run anywhere other than in it's own instance of XP in VMWare.

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/a-wee-bit-o-standards-added-to-ie8b2/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/a-wee-bit-o-standards-added-to-ie8b2/ A Dynamic “Paid” Stamp for Acrobat http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/0j-lXtxO84E/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/a-dynamic-paid-stamp-for-acrobat/#comments Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:24:43 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=224 I have no plans on writing a tutorial, and I generally find building forms in Acrobat to be a pain, and I don't feel that Acrobat Forms are really worth getting into. On that note, I've never before delved into the weird (Flash 4 esq) world of writing javascript for Acrobat, until now...

Acrobat has a neat little feature called Stamps. They are simply other small PDF files that are added to a document to add the same sort of information that a rubber stamp might add to a paper document.

More often than not, I receive invoices and bills in non-paper format. Whether it's an html email, a Word document, a PDF, etc... Instead of printing these bills and invoices out, marking them paid, and filing them in a traditional paper filing cabinet, I decided I want to keep my filing as paper-free as possible.

After wasting over an hour looking though worthless tutorials on how to write javascript for Acrobat Forms, I came up with paidstamp1.pdf. Feel free to use it for yourself.

If anyone has anything along these lines that's better than my lazy attempt, please send it to me.

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/a-dynamic-paid-stamp-for-acrobat/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/a-dynamic-paid-stamp-for-acrobat/ Last.fm has a new masthead http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/YorJPLCMKEM/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/lastfm-has-a-new-masthead/#comments Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:44:35 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/2008/08/20/lastfm-has-a-new-masthead/ Last.fm has a new masthead
Last.fm has a new masthead, originally uploaded by naterkane.

Last.fm has recently decided that they needed a slightly looser looking masthead, and i just noticed it. Me likes.

It comes in black too.

I often forget that sometimes a nothing more than a subtle update to a familiar interface or brand can help to keep things feeling fresh, even if there actually isn't anything else substantial that's going on.

Walmart recently revamped their logo, and I caught it in a broadcast ad. It gives me a smiley face to know that I will no longer have to look at theirs.

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/lastfm-has-a-new-masthead/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/lastfm-has-a-new-masthead/ Small talk with a web designer http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/czzcX6cEM-w/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/small-talk-with-a-web-designer/#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:44:56 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/2008/08/15/small-talk-with-a-web-designer/ Small talk with a web designer
Small talk with a web designer, originally uploaded by naterkane.

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/small-talk-with-a-web-designer/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/small-talk-with-a-web-designer/ Summer is starting to get hot http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/XKTg4R6Ub5c/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/summer-is-starting-to-get-hot/#comments Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:20:02 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=204 I'm pleased to share that we have a few new clients this month. Two excellent agencies and one bad-ass custom jewelry studio, The Kaplan Thaler Group, Continuity & Complete Technique respectively.

We did a little bit of front end dev work for a rather large client of Continuity's, have a fun microsite that we're helping KTG Buzz (Kaplan Thaler Group's interactive division) build over the next few months, and we're doing some e-commerce work for Complete Technique that's been a blast to dig into.

There are other exciting things in the works, but until they're ready to be introduced into the world, it's mums the word.

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/summer-is-starting-to-get-hot/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/summer-is-starting-to-get-hot/ A little award under the belt http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/GM-WSQ4LmcM/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/a-little-award-under-the-belt/#comments Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:58:48 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=197 Nobody bothered to tell me, but I just got word that TimeInc.com, a website I built for the great folks at ROKKAN back in September 2007, won an award this past April. ROKKAN did all of the IA and creative work, and all I did was the dev, but it was a fun 2-3 weeks putting it together, and I was happy with what launched.

So hooray! The Summit International Awards gave the site a Bronze SCA award. And although I don't know what 'SCA' is an acronym for, it still is nice when other people feel that stuff you did was good.

It's not much of a listing, but here's where it's listed.

And here's what the site looks like:

I even put it in my portfolio last fall (though those screenshots are crappy)

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/a-little-award-under-the-belt/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/a-little-award-under-the-belt/ Brightkite rushes to get it right, unlike some others http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/cPbuT6EZrY8/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/brightkite-rushes-to-get-it-right-unlike-some-others/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:28:36 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=188 With every third "new" native app crashing on my phone after a few minutes of use now that I've upgraded from 1.1.4 to 2.0, I'm not in a huge rush to jump from the web apps that I like and use to native ones.

Doing it right doesn't mean rushing to the market place

I don't honestly know why folks have been a bit anxious that Brightkite hasn't yet released a native iPhone app. Maybe it's like when the holiday season rolls around and you're the only Jewish kid on the block... you see all of the other kids get a ton of stuff at once, and you have to wait through a day of sweaters, boxes of pencils and other gifts that don't stimulate your holiday fantasies until you get that Red Ryder BB Gun you've been pining for. And what happens when another kid gets it before you do? They shoot some other kid's eye out... totally blowing your chances at getting one for yourself.

Yes there are quite a few other location-based networks out there, but most of them focus on a typical social-networking model (or twitter) and add location like it's salad dressing on iceburg lettuce. To me, Brightkite just tastes like a whole different kind of salad.

It seems like most people just don't want to have to type in the address of where they are, and since FireEagle's API allow's digestion of data much easier than sharing it's data with other services, there hasn't really been an automated way to geolocate these services from raw geodata to a physical address. One thing I did as soon as I started using Brightkite to make mobile checkins easier, is to create a placemark of addresses or businesses I visit frequently, so when I just type in the name of the placemark, everything comes up in a jiffy.

Here's a short explanation as to why they didn't have an app ready to roar on the 10th (or 11th) of this month:

  1. We don’t have a 3G iPhone to test on yet. More specifically, we’d like to see how well the GPS in the new phones works.
  2. We don’t want to release something that’s not rock-solid. And by rock-solid, we don’t mean crashing, but rock-solid from a usability standpoint. The app should be as easy to use as possible. We have some very ambitious goals concerning the user interface, but getting it just right takes time and we’re just not quite there yet.

Not having a copy of the device you're developing for is a great reason to hold off releasing software. But what's special here is their second point... They are really stressing usability, they care about not only if the software is going to function, but really how each user is going to interact with it's interface.

In the meantime they thought they'd release their API and add a new feature to keep people (and developers) happy.

So who's maybe jumped the gun here?

Everyone's favorite giant corporation! This is a great example of a native app that I've installed, then abandoned for the web app is Facebook's... The other day Facebook released an update to their already released native app for the iPhone, and though people seem really happy with the update, I've honestly failed to notice any significant changes (though they must be there.... somewhere) and have gone back to using their web app over at iphone.facebook.com since it allows me to respond to friend and even requests unlike the native app. Though the UI of the native app is relatively snappy, it doesn't have nearly all of the functionality of their existing web app, it still requires full connectivity to use, and isn't much more that a bookmark to a dumbed-down version of their previous offering.

So is it worth it to go native?

John Allsop also just wrote a long and interesting piece comparing native apps to webapps over at web directions south. Though he didn't really look into anything but the free apps, the article does have some good points, especially regarding how to monetize your efforts (as a developer or company), and what it really takes to make a couple of bucks off your hard work.

Let’s say you sell your App for $1.95. You’ll need to sell 25,000 copies to make $50KUSD. Hang on, Apple takes about 30% so you’ll need to sell 30% more. That’s 36,500 copies. If you look at a typical conversion rate of say 3% of downloads to sales (in my experience, good Mac apps can get that kind of conversion), if this were a desktop shareware app, you’d need to have 1.2 million downloads. That’s more than 10% of the entire projected iPhone user base for the end of 2008 interested in your app.

OK, let’s think about higher price points - at $5, you need to sell 14,000 copies to make $50KUSD, with a theoretical download of 476,000 demo copies. Up this to $10, and we are looking at 7,000 sales, and 233,000 demo downloads. And that’s for a single developer. Double this for 2 developers, triple it for a team of three, and so on.

Now, let’s compare the “sell the app” business model with the increasingly common “subscribing to a service” model. Let’s say we only have customers paying $5 a month. They are already paying $60 a year! So to make our $50KUSD, we’ll need around 1000 customers (about 14% of the number of sales of a $10 app). And I’ve factored in about 12% costs here (transaction and hosting costs, based on personal experience).

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/brightkite-rushes-to-get-it-right-unlike-some-others/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/brightkite-rushes-to-get-it-right-unlike-some-others/ Twitter Grows Even More - Did Yuh’ Know? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/AWtAg9IAFoU/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/twitter-grows-even-more-did-yuh-know/#comments Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:48:49 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/2008/07/07/twitter-grows-even-more-did-yuh-know/ Another Twitter ( http://twitter.com ) API script announced today, Did Yuh' Know? ( http://didyuh.com ). Did Yuh' will allow Twitter users to prefix their messages with DYK: or YUH: to note that their message contains short fact, clipping, or idea. Messages with the prefixes will be displayed on the Did Yuh' site. This service is similar to Sidebar Creative's http://overheard.it/ and Matt & Mark Armendariz's (they're friends but not actually related) http://yayandnay.com

read more | digg story

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/twitter-grows-even-more-did-yuh-know/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/twitter-grows-even-more-did-yuh-know/ Outer-glow effect with PHP and the GD library http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/GzoeposygwM/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/outer-glow-effect-with-php-and-the-gd-library/#comments Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:19:34 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/?p=168 I was recently working on a photo gallery project for a friend who is an avid Flickr user. She had an established workflow when it came to making her work available to her friends and clients on Flickr and didn't want to change that workflow if she didn't have to.

Ok, now it's time to skip ahead. I built the side using the Flickr API, and everything is working swimmingly. I decided to hire my friend Matthew Armendariz to handle the interface design. Since the client was a friend of mine, having someone else be responsible for the creative would keep me free from having to worry about that process, and Matt is a pretty good designer.

It took no time for Matt to whip up a few comps, the one we ended up going with had a slight outer-glow around each photograph, and since we were working with seemingly fixed output from Flickr, I figured, no worries, I'll just create two "glowing" background images, and display one or the other depending on whether the current photo was portrait or landscape.

It worked like a charm... until I came across a few photographs that the client had uploaded with non-standard aspect ratios. Then I had the realization that these outer glows needed to be dynamically generated. Since as the developer there wasn't any way that I could trust that she upload files of any specific aspect ratio, and since she was using Flickr to manage her photos I couldn't (and wouldn't want to anyway) enforce any specific sizes uploaded, I needed to come up with a an easy, browser agnostic, and friendly solution.

CSS wasn't going to help me. SVG and Canvas isn't broadly enough supported. And since this site was pretty much Javascript free, I had to look to the server to help me execute the agreed upon creative work

Oh my GD!

The GD library is an often overlooked alternative to ImageMagick, but since it's light weight, comes with most PHP installs, and was already available on the production server, it seemed like the best choice.

First I had to start with making sure that the file I was generating was going to identify itself properly

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. header ("Content-type: image/png");

Next was to pull in the parameters i was going to need to generate the correct size image... I decided to go with a 22px "border", which is really just the size of the glow.

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. $border = ($_REQUEST['b'])? $_REQUEST['b'] : 22;
  2. $width = ($_REQUEST['w']) ? $_REQUEST['w']+($border*2): 500;
  3. $height = (isset($_REQUEST['h'])) ? $_REQUEST['h']+($border*2): 500;

Next we create the image, using the specified or default dimensions. And then define the colors (in RGB) that will be used to generate the image... white and light gray.

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. $im = @imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height)
  2.       or die("Cannot Initialize new GD image stream");
  3. $white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255);
  4. $gray= imagecolorallocate($im,200,200,200);

Now it's time to create our initial shape... First the image is painted entirely white, and then a box is drawn inside of the white image with the gray color.

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. imagefill($im, 0, 0, $white);
  2. imagefilledrectangle($im, $border, $border, $width-$border, $height-$border,$gray);

Now there's just a grey box with a white border... not only is it boring, but it's not glowing at all. It's time to fix this. GD has a few decent filters built in, just as any image library should, and the ones that I chose to use for this were IMG_FILTER_SMOOTH and IMG_FILTER_GAUSSIAN_BLUR. The gaussian blur filter, unlike the one you find in PhotoShop, does not unfortunately accept parameters, so instead I had to put calls to GD's imagefilter() method in a for loop. The loop allowed me to also easily play around with the number of times and in what order each filter was applied to the image without having to do too much cutting and pasting.

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. for($i = 0; $i <10; $i++){
  2.     imagefilter($im,IMG_FILTER_SMOOTH, 0);
  3.     imagefilter($im,IMG_FILTER_GAUSSIAN_BLUR);
  4.     imagefilter($im,IMG_FILTER_GAUSSIAN_BLUR);
  5. }

Now we just generate the image as a png, and then clear the memory

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. imagepng($im);
  2. imagedestroy($im);

And that's all there is too it. Since the default size specified is 500px square, the default output looks like this. If I need to generate an outer–glow for an image that's 250px tall by 400px wide, I add the following query to the URI of the file blur.php?h=250&w=400 and voila! Of course caching the output of this file on the server will speed up any requests after the initial one, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

I've included the source of the file below.

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. <?php
  2. header ("Content-type: image/png");
  3. $border = ($_REQUEST['b'])? $_REQUEST['b'] : 22;
  4. $width = ($_REQUEST['w']) ? $_REQUEST['w']+($border*2): 500;
  5. $height = (isset($_REQUEST['h'])) ? $_REQUEST['h']+($border*2): 500;
  6. $im = @imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height)
  7.       or die("Cannot Initialize new GD image stream");
  8. $white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255);
  9. $gray= imagecolorallocate($im,200,200,200);
  10. imagefill($im, 0, 0, $white);
  11. imagefilledrectangle($im, $border, $border, $width-$border, $height-$border,$gray);
  12. for($i = 0; $i <10; $i++){
  13.     imagefilter($im,IMG_FILTER_SMOOTH, 0);
  14.     imagefilter($im,IMG_FILTER_GAUSSIAN_BLUR);
  15.     imagefilter($im,IMG_FILTER_GAUSSIAN_BLUR);
  16. }
  17. imagepng($im);
  18. imagedestroy($im);
  19. ?>

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/outer-glow-effect-with-php-and-the-gd-library/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/outer-glow-effect-with-php-and-the-gd-library/ Facebook fails on a semicolon http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/naterkane/~3/DptHYY_XYeY/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/facebook-fails-on-a-semicolon/#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:17:32 +0000 nater kane http://www.naterkane.com/blog/2008/06/02/facebook-fails-on-a-semicolon/ Facebook fails on a semicolon
Facebook fails on a semicolon, originally uploaded by naterkane.

A simple semicolon caused Facebook to fail on me this evening. Mobile Safari claimed no errors since this was something going wrong on the server.

I was really surprised that this error wasn't handled very elegantly or deliver any kind of meaningful message that could have possibly empowered an unsophisticated user. If I was provided a link I could click to send an email to support with any data they might be able to work with I would have felt less stuck, but instead I had to just quit Mobile Safari and try hitting the same page again a few minutes later. Once I did that everything was kosher, but until I created that new session, nothing changed when I went to visit this one friend's profile.

These things happen, and I'm not trying to be a hater, but since Facebook have stepped up and provided such an excellent iPhone UI, I was just expecting to be impressed, and not feel lost, with how they would handle an error if one would arise.

]]> http://www.naterkane.com/blog/facebook-fails-on-a-semicolon/feed/ http://www.naterkane.com/blog/facebook-fails-on-a-semicolon/