Jono's Blog

CSS Drop Down Menu

20 December 2007, 12:06 am

Today I learned how to do a couple cool things with Style Sheets, more specifically how to code pop ups and state based effects WITHOUT the need for javascript.

For example lets say that I had a box (div) called 'menu' and in that box was a list (ul) of menu items each with the class "item".

In the style sheet I could write:

#menu ul .item{display:none;}

This translates to:

Do the following to all things with class "item" that are in an unordered list (ul) that are in the box called 'menu:
Make the item invisible so that you can't see it in the browser.

An then we can write:

#menu ul:hover .item{display:block;}

Which roughly translates to:

Do the followin to things with the class "item" that are inside a unordered list that has the cursor hovering over it that is inside the box called "menu":
Show the item as a box.

The key component here is styling the tag within an items based on the state of the parent tag.

Here is the link to the full tutorial which also includes a working demo as well as a sample style sheet.

9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design

17 December 2007, 10:26 am

Well here I am, the rest of my day has been pretty slow as well however I stumbled across another great article...

Web design can be deceptively difficult. Getting a design that is both usable and pleasing, delivers information and builds brand, is technically sound and visually coherent...

Link: 9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design

HTML v5 vs XHTML v2

17 December 2007, 1:45 am

Today I was reading an interesting document about about the two different ideologies behind the two potential upcoming standards in web development, more specifically HTML 5 and XHTML 2

While the intention of both HTML V5 and XHTML V2 is to improve on the existing versions, the approaches the developers chose to make those improvements is very different. And with differing philosophies come distinct results. For the first time in many years, the direction of upcoming browser versions is uncertain. Uncover the bigger picture behind the details of these two standards.

Read the full atticle entitled HTML v5 and XHTML v2

Leopard is my bitch...

28 October 2007, 6:43 am

They say time changes things,

Last week, for the first time in my life I payed money for a new operating system...

Before it was even released.

The point of this post is not to gloat about how awesomely insane leopard, instead I want to point out a core difference between Leopard and Vista.

As a PC user I will happily spend days researching BIOS mods in order to activate a pirate version of Vista.

As a MAC user I will happily pay the entire price for the retail package for the new version of OS X a week before it even hits the shelves.

Windows Vista Ultimate : $750 plus postage

Mac OS X Leopard : $158 delivered to your door

PC users typically hate Microsoft

MAC users usually love Apple

To tell the truth, with my time spend with both Vista and Leopard, I will vote for OS X any day. In fact if I wasn't so addicted to bloody TF2 I would be running Ubuntu on my main box and never use a windows at all.

Oh dear, how times have changed.

And now for my unboxing...

28 August 2007, 7:28 am

They say if you play a Microsoft CD backwards, you hear satanic messages. Thats nothing, cause if you play it forwards, it installs Windows

Just in: facebook pwns everything...

22 August 2007, 4:30 am

Top 10 reasons why Facebook is better than Myspace:
1. Applications
2. Groups
3. Applications
4. No cheesy hard to read template
5. Pokes
6. The ability to add a blog like this one to a facebook profile
7. The way that one photos page will show all the latest stuff from all your friends at once
8. Naming people in photos
9. Events
10. Applications

There you have it folks, facebook is better than myspace!

Click here if this video does not appear.

Office 07 via Parallels Desktop for Mac

15 August 2007, 6:34 am

Today I was working on some flowcharts when Dave from Uni told me that Word 07 has some great streamlined tools built in for creating flowcharts and diagrams.

I gave it a shot and sure enough it was awesome, in face I have gotten so used to Office 07 that I wanted to use it on my MacBook Pro as well.

Here is some irony for you... the Windows Version of Officer 07 runs better on an intel based Mac (using parallels) than the OSX native Microsoft Office Mac 2004.

Basically, Office 07 is running in a way that is native to an x86 processor while office 2004, not being a universal app runs via emulation and tends to be a bit slow and chunky.

Here is a nice screenie of Office 07 on Parallels running in 'coherence' mode.

I actually decided to PAY $100 and purchase a full lisence of Parallels because it is quite possibly the most awesomest software on an intel mac EVER, and I wanted to support this software so that it can evolve into something even more amazing. (VMWare Fusion is great as well but this is my personal preference.)

Check out Parallels Desktop for Mac over at http://www.parallels.com/

First

10 May 2007, 7:07 pm

Click here to view this video.

Hi, I'm a Marvel...and I'm a DC.

8 May 2007, 8:55 am

Computer says.... NO

7 May 2007, 6:34 pm

Elmo

16 April 2007, 1:11 am

Wow this is good, enjoy...

20 March 2007, 8:12 pm

A nice song for the eve of the PS3 launch...

Click here if you cant see the video.

Awesome hey?

New Shell Commercial - No more cheap oil...

13 March 2007, 8:49 pm

When companies like shell start saying in their adds that "...there is no easy oil anymore..." I think it becomes clear exactly how real peak oil is and how the "Doomers" are probably closer to the mark than the denialists or even the optimists.

"Peak Oil"... Google it now and perhaps one day you will thank me.

Where does money come from?

1 March 2007, 7:23 pm

No its not the mint.

I watched this slightly bias video last night that explores the way that our money system really work and how money is created.

Check it out here: Money as Debt

Mac Spoofs

1 March 2007, 5:29 am

Here is the rest of the series of spoofs based on the 'get a mac' adds.

Mac Spoof: Networking

Mac Spoof: Performance

Mac Spoof: Security

Mac Spoof: Upgrading

Mac Spoof: Portability

Mac Spoof: Gaming

Enjoy.

Day 2

26 February 2007, 3:50 pm

Ok I have about half an hour before I need to get my ass off to Uni so I will use this time to squeeze in an entry.

Hokay here is the earth, damn that is a sweet eartWRONG...

Anyway I am now in third year which technically is also final year(more on that later) and as the week goes on I am realising exactly how much work I am going to need to put in in order to pull off this hold Degree thing.

The funniest thing was yesterday in my Final Project Lecture when I looked around the lecture hall and counted 8 Apple Laptops ranging from old g4 ibooks up to 17" MBPs. Guess what? There was not a single 'PC' laptop to be seen. Anywhere.

The irony is that many of us started our Multimedia degrees hating Macs with a passion (including myself) and now after being forced to use them for video editing and other creative tasks, noone seems to be buying oldschool windows laptops.

In other news I have moved my OCAU Trading references over to my livejournal from my now non existing RDS blog, they can be found here

Anyway its time to get on the road and head to Uni.

No Video of the day today but maybe next time.

Have Fun.

Ever google yourself?

19 February 2007, 8:01 am

Ok so everyone has googled themselves before, I personally share my name with a prominent piano player from the UK and possibly some kind of lawyer in the US.

I only get a couple pages of results tho, nothing revealing apart from a link to my blog.

But...

Have you ever googled your REAL name? the name that you use when your are online (in the world of google)? the name that you sign up for everything with? the name that most people online know you as? that stupid name that you randomly chose in High School and now regret because its so lame?

My 'real' name which is sneak4919 (and occasionally 'sneak' or 'master sneak') returns many many many pages of results with lots of personally identifiable information such as my old mobile number, my old address, my email address (thank goodness for gmail's spam filter), IM details, as well as almost EVERY FORUM POST THAT I HAVE EVER MADE.

It is my fault for being n00b and letting my personal details find their way into the web like that.

Go on... google the name you really use and find out what the rest of the world knows about you..

Oh yeah, here is my video of the day.

WoW Movies

18 February 2007, 2:44 pm

If above video doesn't show then click here.

If above video doesn't show then click here

Parallels Desktop for Mac

17 February 2007, 7:01 pm

Well its been a while since I last blogged about apple so here is something new.

last night I updated to the latest version of Parallels Desktop for Mac and installed Windows Vista on a virtual drive on my Macbook Pro.

The latest beta includes a great new feature that lets me seamlessly integrate my windows programs with my OS X desktop.

Now I can finally run IE7 and Windows Live Messenger ( not the crippled mac version ) from the comfort of OS X.

Apparently soon they will be adding Direct X support as well, its going to be a brave new world.

Here are a couple video demos from youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpdclE_Jqa8

If the above video doesn't show then click here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpZuqvX_hwY

If the above video doesn't show then click here.

headlinebox Update

16 February 2007, 5:18 am

Well, I got bored again so I spent a few hours today working some more on the code for headlinebox which is still very much in development.

Today I:

Rewrote the style sheet to reduce repetition and improve control over styles
Finished implementing the drop down boxes for news items
Built a back end database that tracks new news items
Half way through implementing a ratings/feedback system for each news item
Played around with some of adsense settings

Things to do right away:

Finnish the rating/feedback system
install forum software to server and implement forum integrated comments system
Move new variable settings into the config file for easy setup

You can see a sample install of headlinebox here