Digital portfolio of Kieron Wilson

MySQL Capitalise strings

2009-08-09 16:48:00

Simple mysql query to capitalise strings

SELECT CONCAT( UCASE(LEFT(TRIM('MYSTRING'), 1)) , LCASE(SUBSTRING(TRIM('MYSTRING'), 2)) );

XHTML valid external links with mootools

2009-06-12 12:40:00

W3C no longer include the target attribute of the <a> tag in HTML 4.0 Strict and XHTML 1.0 Strict document types . To make our links open new windows we will have to use Javascript, and with mootools it make this task very easy. Just add this snippet to the bottom of your html document and it will look for all external links on your page and add the target attribute to each of the links.

$$('a[href^=http]').each(function(a) {
    if (window.location.hostname) {
        var hostname = window.location.hostname.replace("www.", "").toLowerCase();
        if (!a.get('href').contains(hostname)) {
            a.set({
                'target': '_blank',
                'class': (a.get('class')) ? a.get('class') + ' external' : 'external'
            });
        }
    }
});

The Guide To Life

2009-05-11 18:57:00

The Guide To Life

1. Hope that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train.
2. Never spit into the wind.
3. Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.
4. A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
5. A closed mouth gathers no feet.
6. He who lives in a glass house should change in the basement.
7. He who throws dirt loses ground.
8. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but a waist is a terrible thing to mind.
9. Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
10. Always drink upstream from the herd.
11. Add life to your years, not years to your life.
12. Today is the tomorrow you forgot to plan for yesterday.
13. Anything you lose automatically doubles its value.
14. Common sense is very uncommon.
15. Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
16. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
17. Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway.
18. He who laughs last didn’t get the joke.
19. If at first you don’t succeed, never skydive.
20. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten; unless you win the lottery.
21. Never lick a self-adhesive stamp.
22. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
23. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
24. We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
25. You always find something in the last place you look.
26. Fear any item that weighs less than its operating manual.
27. Never eat yellow snow.
28. Always remember to pillage before you burn.
29. Do not utilize a superfluous word where a diminutive one shall suffice.
30. If you put your nose to the grindstone, you’ll get a flat face.
31. When you’re in over your head, close your mouth.
32. Always keep a “You are here dot” with you.
33. Dream as if you'll live forever; live as if you'll die today.
34. .sdrawkcab dootsrednu tub sdrawrof devil si efiL (read backwards for the intellectually challenged people)
35. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
36. Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
37. There is no rehab for stupidity.
38. Even the smallest candle burns brighter in the dark.
39. Excuses are the easiest things to manufacture, and the hardest things to sell.
40. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
41. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
42. Intelligence is like a river. The deeper it is, the less noise it makes.
43. Never let a computer know you're in a hurry.
44. Never try to leap a chasm in two jumps.
45. Never pet a burning dog.
46. Plant a tree so an apple can fall on your child's head.
47. Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
48. Only dead fish go with the flow.
49. Procrastination: The art of keeping up with yesterday.
50. Silence is wise if we are foolish, but foolish if we are wise.
51. Just because you can jump off a bridge, that doesn’t mean you should.
52. Success consists of getting up one more time than you have fallen down.
53. The things that come to those who wait may be the things left by those that got there first.
54. The wonder of a single snowflake outweighs the wisdom of a million meteorologists.
55. The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent.
56. Time is the best teacher; unfortunately it kills all its students.
57. Perfection, as a concept, is inevitably a flawed characteristic.
58. When someone points skyward, it's the fool that looks at the finger.
59. Don't be disappointed when the center of the universe is discovered, and it isn't you.
60. Swim to shore before you laugh at the drowning man.
61. Never squat while wearing spurs.
62. When it comes to thought, some people will stop at nothing.
63. Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
64. Don't hide under an apple on the firing range.
65. Accidents don't just happen. They must be carelessly planned.
66. Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level.
67. Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
68. Become yourself.
69. If you can't see the bright side of life, polish the dull side.
70. Bad is never good until worse happens.
71. When arguing with a fool, make sure they aren't doing the same.
72. If there is no fire extinguisher, roast marshmallows.
73. Birth is the beginning of the end.
74. A fight to the death between zombies has a couple inherent problems.
75. Do not use a hatchet to kill a fly on your friend’s forehead.
76. A closed mind, like a closed book, is merely a waste of space.
77. Life is a mirror: what you see in it depends on what you see in yourself.
78. A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a best friend will be there with you saying, "Damn that was fun!"
79. The shortest distance between two points is always under construction.
80. When the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.
81. A camel never sees its own hump.
82. Turn the door handle, push, and then walk.
83. You can understand some of the people all of the time, and you can understand all of the people some of the time, but you can't understand all of the people all of the time.
84. Change is inevitable, except from the vending machine.
85. There are two kinds of light: the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
86. A tree never hits a car except in self-defense.
87. He with a single chopstick goes hungry.
88. You can be led to wisdom by a wise one; however, that doesn’t mean you can think.
89. What we learn from history is that we fail to learn from history.
90. You can do anything you want, provided you aren't stopped by law enforcement officers or physics.
91. Sitting in a church doesn’t make you a better person any more than sitting in your garage makes you a car.
92. Religion is a great comfort in a world torn apart by religion.
93. Some days you are the pigeon, some the statue.
94. He who has never made a mistake has never made a discovery.
95. Let not the sands of time into your eyes.
96. The idiot bakes snow in the oven and expects an ice-cream pie.
97. Salt can only sting an open wound.
98. Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
99. If you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure.
100. Don’t Die.

Update

2009-05-11 17:30:26

Its been awhile since ive posted anything, just to let you know im still alive just very busy working on freelance projects. So hopefully over the next few weeks these projects will be completed and i will have a few nice mootool/php scripts i'd like to share, but untill then check out these links.

My new phone

2009-02-07 14:30:00

I got a new phone!

Sony Ericsson C905

- 8.1Pix cam
- GSP
- WiFi
- Radio
- MP3 Player

Heres a picture i took this morning. 3264 x 2448 Resolution.

Today is rainy ...

Animated css sprites with mootools

2009-01-25 00:35:00

Adding a little extra to plain menus using javascript to animate changes insted of instant changes for mouse hovers. Most menu effects are easy to animate, I will show you how to animate a gradient for the background which would nomaly snap from top to bottom, to tween between these positions.

HTML

<ul id="menu">
<li><a href="#">Link 1</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link 2</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link 3</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link 4</a></li>
</ul>

CSS

#menu li {
    display: inline;
    list-style-type: none;
    margin: 0px;
}
#menu li a {
    padding: 5px 10px;
    background: transparent url("bg.gif") repeat-x left top;
    color: #ffffff;
}
#menu li a:hover {
    background: transparent url("bg.gif") repeat-x left bottom;
}

background image

Javascript

$("menu").getElements("a").each( function(item, index) {
    var fx = new Fx.Morph(item, {duration: '600', link: 'cancel'});
    item.addEvents({
        "mouseenter" : function() {
            fx.start({"background-position" : "0px -170px", "color" : "#ff0000"});
        },
        "mouseleave" : function() {
            fx.start({"background-position" : "0px 0px", "color" : "#ffffff"});
        }
    });
});

Run down of the javascript

First we want to select all anchor elements that we want to apply the effect to.

$("menu").getElements("a")

we could of also used:

$$("#menu a")

You can read more about mootools selectors here

Next we want to loop through all element and add events to trigger the animation using the each method.

.each( function(item, index) {} );

Before adding any events its important to setup an effect object for each element and not for each event as this will cause a flickering effect when triggering the events multiple times. It is also important to include the option link: 'cancel' to cancel the event when another one is triggered.

var fx = new Fx.Morph(item, {duration: '600', link: 'cancel'});

For this example I used Fx.Morph so I can have more than one effect, for my events I wanted to change the colour font and background.

fx.start( {

      "background-position" : "0px 0px",
      "color" : "#ffffff"

} );

Demo

Simple javascript Modal window

2009-01-24 23:48:00

Small library to replace JavaScript's built in Alert, Prompt and Confirm popup boxes, only a 4Kb foot print compressed.

Compatable with
IE6+
Firefox 2+
Opera 9+
Safari 3+

Please post any bugs or feedback, I will try and keep this script updated with as many browsers as possible.

Download
Demo

Never give up

2009-01-23 23:35:26

This image cracks me up! haha.

How to correct css flicker effect

2009-01-18 14:12:00

Time and time again I see high quality designed sites with very poor coding such as flickering css effect, amateurs!.

Here is an example of what's going wrong.

Looking at the example, you can see that when you move the mouse over the link, the background disappears and waits for the new image to load, there is a few ways to fix this, you can use JavaScript to pre-load the images or you can use a css technique which I will show you.

Firstly you will need to alter your background image to include both states this like:

to :

Then alter your css code so when you mouseover "hover" it moves the background images instead of loading a new image.

a:link, a:visited {
background: transparent url("button.png") no-repeat left top;
}

a:hover, a:active {
background: transparent url("button.png") no-repeat left bottom;
}

Demo

My Desktop

2009-01-17 17:46:26

Hope you like, these are some of my other favourite backgrounds, just click on the images to download the wallpaper I've used.