pedrocorreia.net - myNews

JSON: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Use It

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:34:47 +0100

Many sites are sharing data using JSON in addition to RSS feeds nowadays, and with good reason: JSON feeds can be loaded asynchronously much more easily than XML/RSS. This article will cover the following: * What is JSON? * Why does JSON matter? * How do we load JSON into a project? We'll also use our newfound skills with JSON at the end of this project to build a quick app that loads photos from Flickr without requiring a page refresh. What Is JSON? JSON is short for JavaScript Object Notation, and is a way to store information in an organized, easy-to-access manner. In a nutshell, it gives us a human-readable collection of data that we can access in a really logical manner. ...

HTML 5 Cheat Sheet (PDF)

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:28:07 +0100

XHTML is dead, long live HTML 5! According to W3C News Archive, XHTML 2 working group is expected to stop work end of 2009 and W3C is planning to increase resources on HTML 5 instead. And even although HTML 5 won't be completely supported until 2022, it doesn't mean that it won't be widely adopted within the foreseeable future. So in the spirit of the upcoming change we decided to release a handy printable HTML 5 Cheat Sheet that lists all currently supported tags, their descriptions, their attributes and their support in HTML 4. Please notice that the specification is an ongoing work, and is expected to remain so for many years, although parts of HTML 5 are going to be finished and implemented in browsers before the whole specification reaches final Recommendation status. We'll do our best to update the cheat sheet when new changes will become known. ...

QuickFlip jQuery Plugin

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:46:56 +0100

QuickFlip is a jQuery plugin I wrote that uses a CSS trick to cause a div, paragraph or any other piece of HTML markup to flip like a card. With a result similar to the UI animation on the iPhone, this jQuery plugin is easily integrated into your webpage to make any portion appear to flip and show its back. ...

25 Free Mac Apps That Will Boost Your Productivity

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:40:01 +0100

There are many applications that can help you work faster and efficiently. Though, not many applications come cheap. For this post we tried to digg deep to find the best selection of free and/or open source Mac applications that will help you be a more efficient designer. We're covering from application launchers, GTD (Getting Things Done) to design utilities that can help you focus on what's important: create. ...

XRegExp

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:04:49 +0100

XRegExp is an open source (MIT license) JavaScript library that provides an augmented, extensible, cross-browser implementation of regular expressions, including support for additional syntax, flags, and methods. XRegExp is fully compliant with the regular expression flavor specified in ECMA-262 Edition 3 (ES3), and has been tested with Internet Explorer 5.5-8, Firefox 2-3.5, Safari 3-4, Chrome 1-2, and Opera 9. XRegExp uses feature detection-no browser sniffing. Features * Adds new regex and replacement text syntax, including comprehensive support for named capture. * Adds two new regex flags: s, to make dot match all characters (aka singleline mode), and x, for free-spacing and comments (aka extended mode). * Provides a suite of 12 functions and methods that make complex regex processing a breeze. * Automagically fixes the most commonly encountered cross-browser inconsistencies in regex behavior and syntax. * Lets you easily create and use plugins that add new syntax and flags to XRegExp's regular expression language. ...

CSS Fundamentals: Containing Children

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:02:18 +0100

I've received multiple requests for simpler CSS tutorials that teach the tricky fundamentals. This will serve as the first entry in a series that will receive new additions sporadically each month. Today, we'll be reviewing the overflow: hidden, and clearfix tricks to force a parent div to contains its children. ...

jSlickmenu: A jQuery plugin for slick CSS3 menus

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:59:00 +0100

After releasing several jQuery scripts, I wanted to take the whole jQuery programming to another level. For that reason, I'm proud to release my first jQuery plugin for everyone to use. The plugin called jSlickmenu, creates, well, slick menus with jQuery. Combined with some great CSS3 features likes rotation and shadows, this plugin can really lift up your design. It's fairly easy to use, highly customizable and pretty cool (and fun!) to see. ...

XHTML 2 language dumped in favor of HTML 5

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:55:47 +0100

Looking to focus on the budding -- and game-changing -- HTML 5 specification, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) said Thursday it plans to increase available resources for the effort by discontinuing further development of XHTML 2. XHTML been an XML-based version of HTML and has been the subject of several W3C efforts ranging from XHTML 1.0 to XHTML Modularization and XHTML 2. The 2 version of the XHTML language was to offer capabilities for mobile systems and internationalization. ...

All about types in Javascript - Type detection

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:55:24 +0100

The drawback of having a loosely typed language like Javascript, is that you sometimes have to determine the current type of a variable. This mostly occurs when you create a function that accepts different types of parameters - or is limited to one type. A while ago, I had a function to open up a dialog to allow the user to send an email. That function accepted a parameter recipient to prefill the to-field. For convenience, I accepted a string and an array as that parameter. If an array was given, I had to convert it to a string. So I needed to check, if I really had been given an array. Unfortunately, detecting an array is the most complex task of type detection. So I will postpone my solution until later and start with the easier ones. Basic type detection ...

Asterisk-Java Testing with Groovy

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:54:52 +0100

Recently I have taken a bit of a detour into the world of telephony, working with Asterisk-Java, which by itself is a very valuable tool, and worth knowing a bit about if you are integrating a system with Asterisk. While it is a Java-based library, I am integrating it into a Grails application. We have a fairly comprehensive suite of unit tests asserting that desired behaviors are triggered upon certain events initiated through the Event API. This is made even easier, as usual, with Groovy-- specifically on the testing front. Here I show two hypothetical test cases, followed by supporting code that works specifically with the Asterisk-Java classes... ...

4 Steps To a Professional Database Design

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:35:15 +0100

Just as you require a blueprint to build a house, you will need a database blueprint in order to implement a database successfully .The process of the construction of the latter is called the 'Designing Phase' which includes a number of heavy steps for the end-product to be flexible. This phase actually defines the information (+ its structure) that will go into the database, the assumptions made related to the type or values of the data items and the relationship between the data items within the database. All professional companies use this procedure design their database and its the most efficient way. ...

10 awesome things to do with cURL

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:33:20 +0100

cURL, and its PHP extension libcURL, are tools which can be used to simulate a web browser. In fact, it can for example, submit forms. In this article, I'm going to show you 10 incredible things that you can do using PHP and cURL. ...

PHP 5.3.0 Release

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:31:10 +0100

The PHP development team is proud to announce the immediate release of PHP 5.3.0. This release is a major improvement in the 5.X series, which includes a large number of new features and bug fixes. The key features of PHP 5.3.0 include: * Support for namespaces * Late static binding * Lambda Functions and Closures * Syntax additions: NOWDOC, ternary short cut "?:" and jump label (limited goto), __callStatic() * Under the hood performance improvements * Optional garbage collection for cyclic references * Optional mysqlnd PHP native replacement for libmysql * Improved Windows support including VC9 and experimental X64 binaries as well as portability to other supported platforms * More consistent float rounding * Deprecation notices are now handled via E_DEPRECATED (part of E_ALL) instead of the E_STRICT error level * Several enhancements to enable more flexiblity in php.ini (and ini parsing in general) * New bundled extensions: ext/phar, ext/intl, ext/fileinfo, ext/sqlite3, ext/enchant * Over 140 bug fixes and improvements to PHP, in particular to: ext/openssl, ext/spl and ext/date ...

Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: July 2009

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:13:14 +0100

Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That's why we have decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months. And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we've decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn't it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application? This post features 40 free desktop wallpapers, created by designers across the globe. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. ...

VirtualBox 3.0.0

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:59:33 +0100

VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD. VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while Sun ensures the product always meets professional quality criteria. ...

Firefox 3.5

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:57:43 +0100

Firefox 3.5 is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under development for the past year. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use. Some of the notable features are: * Available in more than 70 languages. (Get your local version!) * Support for the HTML5 and elements including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio. (Try it here!) * Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode. * Better web application performance using the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. * The ability to share your location with websites using Location Aware Browsing. (Try it here!) * Support for native JSON, and web worker threads. * Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering. * Support for new web technologies such as: downloadable fonts, CSS media queries, new transformations and properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 local storage and offline application storage, text, ICC profiles, and SVG transforms. ...

A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:22:34 +0100

Our trip down mainframe lane starts and ends, not so surprisingly, with IBM. Back in the 1930s, when a computer was actually a fellow with a slide rule who did computations for you, IBM was mainly known for its punched-card machines. However, the transformation of IBM from one of the many sellers of business machines to the company that later became a computer monopoly was due in large part to forward-looking leadership, at that time going by the name of Thomas Watson, Sr. The Harvard machine was a manifestation of his vision, although in practical terms, was not a technological starting point for what followed. Still, it is worth looking at, just so we can see how far things have come. It all began in 1936, when Howard Aiken, a Harvard researcher, was trying to work through a problem relating to the design of vacuum tubes (a little ironic, as you will see). In order to make progress, he needed to solve a set of non-linear equations, and there was nothing available that could do it for him. Aiken proposed to Harvard researchers there that they build a large-scale calculator that could solve these problems. His request was not well-received. ...

A Beginners' Guide to Big O Notation

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:18:26 +0100

Big O notation is used in Computer Science to describe the performance or complexity of an algorithm. Big O specifically describes the worst-case scenario, and can be used to describe the execution time required or the space used (e.g. in memory or on disk) by an algorithm. Anyone who's read Programming Pearls or any other Computer Science books and doesn't have a grounding in Mathematics will have hit a wall when they reached chapters that mention O(N log N) or other seemingly crazy syntax. Hopefully this article will help you a gain an understanding of the basics of Big O and Logarithms. As a programmer first and a mathematician second (or maybe third or fourth) I found the best way to understand Big O thoroughly was to produce some examples in code. So, below are some common orders of growth along with descriptions and examples where possible. ...

AJAX Multiple File Upload Form Using jQuery

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:16:12 +0100

Multiple file upload forms are sometimes essential for your web application but managing upload from multiple file input boxes becomes a bit tedious and lengthy. But thanks to jQuery using which we can make this task easier too. Today I'm going to create an AJAXified multiple file upload form that uses a lot lesser server side code and also provides a very nice user interface. ...

35 CSS-Lifesavers For Efficient Web Design

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:56:28 +0100

CSS-design is not easy. We need to find workaround across browser inconsistencies, not that easy CSS-concepts and quite counterintuitive CSS-solutions. However, there are effective and useful CSS-tools and Smashing Magazine reviewed many of them in our previous posts. Now it's time to present you with some fresh (or not mentioned earlier) tools that can assist designers in their work. Today, we will look at 35 new and useful CSS tools, generators and resources that can significantly improve your workflow and reduce your time efforts for CSS-coding. Whether you're writing, compiling, refining or experimenting with CSS code - or all of the above - these tools can help you get the job done faster and better than ever before. ...

10 Useful Outlook 2007 Plug-ins and Tricks

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:47:48 +0100

Tip 1: Defer Email in Outlook: Sometimes we send an email and then realize that we missed an important part of the message. I always wished we had Ctrl + Z (Undo) in Outlook. But here is an easy trick to delay email messages even after you press the "Send" button. We achieve this by creating rules in Outlook. Here is how to do it. ...

10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:46:10 +0100

Design patterns were first described in the 1960s by Christopher Alexander, an architect who noticed that many things in our lives happen according to patterns. He adapted his observations to his work and published many findings on the topic. Since then, design patterns have found their place in many areas of our lives, and can be found in the design and development of user interfaces as well. In short, design patterns are solutions to recurring problems. By extension, UI design patterns are solutions to common user interface problems. This article goes over 10 interesting UI design patterns that you can use in your own projects. In fact, you may already be using them now without knowing it. ...

Closures, Javascript And The Arrow Of Time

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:45:42 +0100

In most written media, time progresses as you move down a page: mainstream computing languages are no different. Anonymous Closures are a language mechanism that, effectively, lets programmers create new control structures. Although people associate this power with exotic dynamic languages such as FORTH, Scheme and TCL, closures are becoming a feature of mainstream languages such as Javascript and PHP (and even static languages such as C#.) Although this article talks about issues that you'll encounter in languages such as C# and Scheme, I'm going to focus on Javascript written on top of the popular JQuery library: I do that because JQuery is a great toolkit that lets programmers and designers of all skill levels do a lot by writing very little code. Because JQuery smooths away low-level details, it lets us clearly illustrate little weirdnesses of its programming model. Although things often work "just right" on the small scale, little strange things snowball in larger programs - a careful look atthe little problems is a key step towards the avoidance and mitigation of problems in big RIA projects. ...

Compiling Conditional Code into ASP.NET Websites

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:36:40 +0100

In the software development lifecycle, there are three streams of environments; development, testing and production. For development environments you normally have extra information that is running to make the debugging experience easier, but for test and production environments you want that turned off so you can squeeze that extra bit of performance out of the application. Doing this can be a challenge without littering your source code with #if #else conditional compilation statements. Well this task is made simpler by the System.Diagnostics.ConditionalAttribute class. This class indicates to compilers that a method call or attribute should be ignored unless a specified conditional compilation symbol is defined. By using this class you can define builds for development environments so that debug or trace statements can be executed, and for production this can be removed from the assembly altogether. To begin with open Visual Studio 2008 and choose File > New > Web > ASP.NET Web Application. For this example, I want to demonstrate how to use conditional compilation statements to create different assemblies. I'll create two builds; one for development and one for production. For development I want debugging information rendered in the browser, and for production I want that removed. ...

CSS3 Unleashed - Tips, Tricks and Techniques

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:35:49 +0100

Separation of content from presentation has numerous advantages, some of which include: improvements in content accessibility, flexibility and control over presentation, share formatting across multiple pages, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content. This is why CSS was developed and all of this is achievable to a certain extend through current level of CSS. However numerous new features will be incorporated in CSS3, empowering web developers to take web design even further. ...

15 jQuery Plugins To Create An User Friendly Tooltip

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:35:09 +0100

Tooltip is a good way to show extra information when user hovers the cursor over an element. The "hover box" will appear when the mouse hover in, and disappear when the mouse hover out. If the tooltip is being used appropriately, it can improve our site's user friendly level, and also save us a lot of spaces. Today, we are going to see 15 jQuery plugins to create an user friendly tooltip. ...

40 Sources To Download High-Quality Free Photoshop PSD Stuff

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:34:20 +0100

When it comes to Image editing or photo enhancement, Adobe Photoshop is usually the primary option to consider. However, the software package itself is a quite hard to learn - and extremely hard to master. Display beautiful images is a potent element in web and graphic design, where there is less concern for readability and more potential for using images in an artistic manner. Photoshop is useful for both creating and editing images to be used in print or online. Not too easy to use, but full of high-quality features, Photoshop is the best choice for any image manipulation job. This article showcases the sources to download beautiful and ready to use free Photoshop PSD files and resources which helps you to enhance your design work. ...

Class-Based vs. Prototype-Based Languages

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:19:32 +0100

Class-based object-oriented languages, such as Java and C++, are founded on the concept of two distinct entities: classes and instances. * A class defines all of the properties (considering methods and fields in Java, or members in C++, to be properties) that characterize a certain set of objects. A class is an abstract thing, rather than any particular member of the set of objects it describes. For example, the Employee class could represent the set of all employees. * An instance, on the other hand, is the instantiation of a class; that is, one of its members. For example, Victoria could be an instance of the Employee class, representing a particular individual as an employee. An instance has exactly the properties of its parent class (no more, no less). A prototype-based language, such as JavaScript, does not make this distinction: it simply has objects. A prototype-based language has the notion of a prototypical object, an object used as a template from which to get the initial properties for a new object. Any object can specify its own properties, either when you create it or at run time. In addition, any object can be associated as the prototype for another object, allowing the second object to share the first object's properties. ...

50 Fresh JavaScript Tools That Will Improve Your Workflow

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:12:15 +0100

JavaScript is an integral part of the RIA revolution. JavaScript allows developers to create rich and interactive web interfaces and establish asynchronous communication with servers for constantly up-to-date data without a page refresh. Many things that were once accomplished using Flash objects can now be built using JavaScript - with the added benefit that it is free, typically more web and mobile accessible under most circumstances using best practices for development techniques, and without the need to use proprietary software for development. Though JavaScript has been around for a while, new tools, techniques, and information are constantly being pumped out to continually push the technology into greater heights. In this article, we wish to share with you a huge list of fresh and new tools and resources that JavaScript developers will find useful and informative. ...

23 Colorful And Inspiring Web Designs Where Textures Are In Full Action

pc@pedrocorreia.net (pedrocorreia.net) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:55:01 +0100

Where do you go normally when you are planning to start your new web design project and you are curiously finding for a mind blowing web design inspiration or just want yourself to bring up with some amazing creative ideas which can help you to create your web design project like it will make a trend or inspiration for others. But sometimes, your mouse is not moving around as you want or your hand is not in your creative control or maybe when you are just tired and do not have creative mood to work. Today, We are listing down 23 Colorful And Inspiring Web Designs Where Textures Are In Full Action. This list is not long in numbers but I promise you that when you start browsing them in details it will must boost your creative web design ideas professionally and motivate you for design your web design something which people will never forget that you have made it! ...