Dan's blog

Twitter and the short URL conundrum

Dan — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:09:22 +0000

Although the spam seems to be dying down a little on Twitter since they introduced their 'report as spam' option I'm still a little cautious about clicking some shortened URLs - SO many of the links seem to lead to spam (spam and more spam). The whole concept seems to have gone full circle as well with people using extensions like Long URL Please to make the short URL long again. Although I think this is a good a useful add-on, the whole process seems a little excessive. I can see benefit in using shortened URLs in printed media but, when it comes to the web, why are we making links short just to make them long again? I guess Twitter has a big part to play in this by restricting messages to only 140 characters, but surely there's got to be a better way?! With this in mind, I've been trying to get some perspective on the issues. Shortened URLs:

You can't see where the link is going to take you (without a plugin)
Because most are obscure, they are difficult to remember
Multiple links may be created to the same resource
Added overheads in the redirection process
People can track who has visited the link
Spam links look the same as legitimate links

With this in mind

Maybe Twitter could implement a better way for sharing links without using shortened URLs. If links could be 'attached' to tweets and replaced with a token in your message then it would be like wrapping an HTML 'a' tag around some text. You would be able to see where the link is taking you and the message is still short (or even shorter, as there is no more http://).

Social Media Revolution

Dan — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:08:44 +0000

Very interesting, thought provoking video. We are well and truly hooked into social media - there's no turning back now!

Source of video and data

http://socialnomics.net/2009/08/11/statistics-show-social-media-is-bigge...

Spotify mobile demo for Google Android

Dan — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:02:27 +0000

Very smart demo of the up and coming Spotify client for Google Android. Also featuring offline sync. Check it out!

Windbelt electrical wind powered generator

Dan — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:27:17 +0000

A few years ago Shawn Frayne came up with an ingenious way of generating electricity on a smaller scale than wind turbines by using vibrations rather than rotary power. His invention, called the windbelt, works by oscillating a pair of magnets through a metal coil at the end of a belt which vibrates as wind passes over it. This physical phenomenon is know as aeroelastic flutter and it's the same principle that caused the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to collapse. Prototypes have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph wind, making the windbelt 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines.

Shawn Frayne talks about the windbelt

Gallopin' Gertie

Here's a clip of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (Gallopin' Gertie) twisting and vibrating under 40mph winds.

Sources

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4224763.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroelasticity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_Collapse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMojRXK14jU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw

Free subversion repository hosting accounts

Dan — Sun, 17 May 2009 13:17:10 +0000

I've come across a few subversion hosting services which offer free accounts so I thought I'd share the links. Most of these seem to offer a limited free account and a range of paid accounts. If you're working with subversion a lot and you come to rely on them then you may want to upgrade in the future - at least you can try them out first for free. However, if you're developing one or two projects on your own you may be happy to stick with the free account. These details are for the free accounts only, and most offer a lot more for the paid account (for example, SSL access, more users, repositories, etc.).

Service	Storage space	Active projects/repositories	Users	SSL
Beanstalk	100mb	1	3	No
ProjectLocker	500mb	Unlimited	5	Yes
Slik SVN	10mb	1	1	Yes
Springloops	100mb	3	Unlimited	No
Unfuddle	200mb	1	2	No
XP-Dev	500mb	Unlimited	Unlimited	No

These details are only up to date as of when I submit this post so make sure you have a look through the links to see what you're getting. If you're looking at hosting an open source project you may want to look at Google Code (http://code.google.com/projecthosting/) and SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/).

Firefox not checking spelling as you type

Dan — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:07:52 +0000

Firefox has a handy feature which can check your spelling as you type in forms. To enable this go to Tools > Options > Advanced > Browsing and check 'Check spelling as I type'. If this still isn't working you may need to install your dictionary (even if your dictionary is listed under Tools > Options > Content > Languages). To do this, go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3 and download your language, install and restart Firefox. You should now have many squiggly red lines in your forms as you type (ok, maybe that's just me :o) ).

Atlantis silhouette during solar transit

Dan — Sat, 16 May 2009 10:30:25 +0000

This image shows the space shuttle Atlantis in silhouette during solar transit on Tuesday 12th May 2009. Pretty cool!

Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)

Thierry made this image using a solar-filtered Takahashi 5-inch refracting telescope and a Canon 5D Mark II digital camera. Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)

Spotify world of music

Dan — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:11:33 +0000

Spotify is an online music service which allows you, much like Last.fm, to stream music to your computer via a downloadable app.

You can play individual tracks or build, share and collaborate on playlists. The free version allows you to listen to unlimited music with the occasional ad. They come up about once every 4 or 5 tracks so it's not too intrusive. You can also buy a day pass for 99p which gives you an ad free service for the day or sign up for a premium account and get unlimited ad free listening for £9.99 a month.

So far I'm very impressed with the service. It has almost everything I want to listen to and the best bit for me is that you can build custom playlists and share them with people or collaborate and build them together.

Because music is social, Spotify allows you to share songs and playlists with friends, and even work together on collaborative playlists, Friday afternoon in the office might never be the same again! We’re music lovers like everyone else.

We want to connect millions of people with their favourite songs by creating a product that people love to use. We respect creativity and believe in fairly compensating artists for their work. We’ve cleared the rights to use the music you’ll listen to in Spotify.

From http://www.spotify.com/en/about/what/

Spotify has a very simple interface, similar in a way to iTunes:

The player allows you to search by artist, album or track, then filter the results down. You can then create a playlist (on the left of the app) and drag your tracks in. You can select the playlist and make it collaborative so other people can change it or just leave it locked. Each playlist has a URL which you can give to other people using Spotify and they can open and play the playlist too (or add tracks to it)!

Head over to their site for more information:
http://www.spotify.com

Hitachi DZ-HV565E High Definition (1080p) SD Video Camera

Dan — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:26:16 +0000

I've been looking through some of the little HD SD-based camcorders recently and I came across the Hitachi DZ-HV565E in Argos. However, this video camera seems to be a bit of a mystery online, there just isn't much information about it, I couldn't even find any test footage on YouTube.

Anyway, I took the plunge and bought one from Argos today and so far I've been very impressed. The manual states that the camera is "exclusively available through Argos" which is probably why there isn't much information about it online. I did manage to find some information about the HV564E (http://mackney.com/blog/2008/12/hv564e-hd-sd-video-camera.html), which, apart from the back of the viewfinder, looks the same.

Here's a quick run through some of the key points in the DZ-HV565E specification:

1080p high definition
5x optical zoom
Automatic and Manual focus
5 mega-pixel still camera
2.5 inch screen
Web cam mode
3 led lights on the front for filming in low light
Various recording settings, including night mode
Macro mode
Removable rechargeable battery
Sound and video outputs for playback directly to a high definition TV (cables too)

What you get

I was quite impressed with the feel of the camera. It's quite small, not pocket small, but not as bulky as some DV based video cameras.

In more detail

When you start the camera up you are greeted by a bizarre tune and the menu operates with a confirmation beep which you will be happy to know you can disable.

The camera has three modes: video, stills and sound recording. For a low price camera (£117) it comes with a lot of settings which you might not expect. It can record in resolutions of 640x480 (VGA), 1280x720 (720p) and 1440x1080 (1080p) with each resolution offering quality levels of economy, standard and fine. The video recording modes also range from fully automatic to user specified with pre-sets for portraits, night, sport, landscape, sunset, beach/snow and spotlight. The white balance by default is set to automatic (and this seems quite responsive) but there are also options for daylight, cloudy, florescent 1 & 2 and tungsten. The camera will also let you shoot in several colour modes: standard, vivid, black and white, and sepia tone. Contrast and sharpness can also be set to standard, hard or soft.

I guess most people looking at this sort of range of camera just want to point and shoot, and the automatic modes seem to make this quite easy, but it's nice to know that you can customise other things if you want to.

The stills mode lets you select ISO ratings of 64, 100, 200, 400 and auto. There's an image stabilization mode available, and you can also capture pictures in single or continuous mode.

Here's a quick video I made today. This was recorded in the highest quality mode (1080p fine) in the landscape setting. At the time of the video it was midday, fairly cloudy and very windy:

Visit the link below and select "watch in HD" to see the video in full quality:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nhLtn03MHhw

Here's a quick panoramic I filmed in Norwich:

Visit the link below and select "watch in HD" to see the video in full quality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqluxGE-JKk

I hope this has been helpful for anyone who is trying to find out a little more about the camera. I'll post some more videos when I have made some and I'll also try and upload some photos taken with the camera. Please feel free to post any questions in the comments too.

Product page on the Argos website

Outlook calender problem - all appointments recurring forever

Dan — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:42:13 +0000

I came across a strange problem with Outlook Calendar recently where every appointment which was added to the Calender and then edited suddenly repeated forever! A scary concept! It seemed to be related to a piece of software called 'OutlookAddinSetup'. From what I've read (http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/2901239...), this seems to be something which comes installed with Dell computers. After I uninstalled this program (from Control Panel, Programs, Uninstall a program) the problem has stopped and events only occur once.

If anyone knows what the program is supposed to do please drop a comment below :)

CodeIgniter 1.7.0 Released

Dan — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:30:56 +0000

It's that wonderful time again! CodeIgniter 1.7.0 has been released, so it's time to upgrade.

http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/installation/upg...

Upgrading looks fairly straight forward - here are some notable changes (http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/changelog.html):

Sessions

The Sessions class has been updated so that any custom data being saved gets stored to the database rather than the session cookie (assuming you are using a database to store session data), permitting much more data to be saved.

New form validation class

Some changes/additions to the new form validation class:

Simplifies setting rules and field names
Supports arrays as field names
Allows groups of validation rules to be saved in a config file
Adds some helper functions for use in view files

The old Validation class is now deprecated. It will be left in the library folder for some time so that existing applications that use it will not break, but you are encouraged to migrate to the new version.

PHP Style Guide

There's now a PHP Style Guide (http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/stylegui...) in the User Guide. Although this doesn't affect working code it's just good practice to make sure you have a regular style to your code, especially when writing libraries that others will use.

Well done to everyone who has been working hard on this :)

Diggnation - Live from London, 10th October 2008

Dan — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:50:25 +0000

I went to the Live Diggnation at the end of the Future of Web Apps Expo. Excellent show - I really hope they come back again next year! :) (video below)

Here's the video from the recording!

Flickr Picks #1: Autumnal selection

Dan — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 11:46:30 +0000

Here's my first "Flickr picks" picture selection. Every now and then I'm going to pick some photos from Flickr with a particular theme. I thought some nice autumnal pictures would be a good place to start as it's one of my favourite seasons for taking pictures (winter being the other).

The great thing about autumn is not only the colours from the leaves but also the moody weather - rain one minute, sun the next - it really creates a stunning atmosphere.

Double Bows
by Nicholas_T


Spotlight
by Nicholas_T

Full Moon
by joka2000

Just before it rained
by @Amit

Sous les pavés...
by Raphael Goetter

golden autumn
by sashomasho

Golden light on a frosty morning
by net_efekt

Hazy morning
by Per Ola Wiberg (former ponanwi and Powi)

two golden things
by foto3116

Autumn Sky
by mrhayata

Autumn Crashes Down On Us 1
by opticalreflex

Autumn Leaf
by Sister72

rain
by Wolfgang Staudt

Protecting a Drupal site from hotlinking

Dan — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:40:36 +0000

What is hotlinking?

Hotlinking, sometimes called image leeching or hot linking, is where another website embeds an image which is stored on your web host. So, for example, if you want to add an image to your website, you can upload the file to your web host then embed the image into your HTML referencing the source for the image as the location of the file on your web host. When someone accesses the HTML page where the image is embedded the file will be downloaded from your web host. If you don't protect against hotlinking, someone could embed that same image on their web page, which means that every time someone accesses their page, the image will be downloaded from your web host and drain your bandwidth. Don't do this, it's not cool and some sites see it as stealing.

How do I know if someone is hotlinking to my site?

Sadly, unless you go looking for this you may never know. One indicator could be that you suffer a sudden surge in bandwidth. I say bandwidth, not traffic, because stats tools such as Google Analytics may not pick this up because they only register web pages, not images. For argument's sake, I'm considering bandwidth as pure data transfer and traffic as people who are visiting your site and reading your web pages. Drupal's access statistics may also not pick this up as they will only register page hits. It may be picked up if you are using the private download method. However, people may still get around this by linking directly to the file.

The best place to check for hotlinking would be your web host's web stats package. In my case, as I'm using an Apache server with Plesk, I'm using Plesk Stat. This logs access at a lower level so I can see everything that hits the server. Somewhere in the stats package you should find 'referrals'. This shows where other sites have linked to your site, which also includes embedded images. You could go visiting the referrals looking for an image, but unless any really stand out I wouldn't bother - the best thing you can do is just to protect against the hotlinking, which we'll look at next.

How do I stop hotlinking?

Once again, it's htaccess to the rescue! With Drupal there is a default htaccess file in the root directory of your site. We're going to leave that be. I'm assuming that all of your images are stored in the /files folder, so this is the folder we will protect. There is already an htaccess file in there, so we just need to add a couple of lines to say not to serve images if they are referred from other sites. Here's a sample htaccess file showing how to do this:

SetHandler Drupal_Security_Do_Not_Remove_See_SA_2006_006
Options None
Options +FollowSymLinks
# Block hotlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(.*\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpeg|jpg|gif|png)$ http://yourdomain.com/nohotlinking.gif [NC,R,L]

Just to recap, this is the htaccess file that goes in your /files directory, not your root directory. This works by saying allow any blank referrals (some browsers do this, so just to be safe), allow any referrals from yourdomain.com, block any image files (the ones I've specified) and return http://yourdomain.com/nohotlinking.gif instead (which will show on the site trying to hotlink). The reason we add this to the /files folder instead is because if you add this to the root folder htaccess file the nohotlinking.gif will also be protected and try to redirect to itself, causing an infinate loop - so it won't work. Now just create an image called nohotlinking.gif and place it in your root folder - this will be the image people see when someone trys to hotlink.

Images which are part of your theme will not be protected by this method. If you want to also protect your theme images, you will need to add the same htaccess file to your theme folder.

Thanks to a tutorial on altlab.com for the info on this - which also has a really helpful tool for testing if you have this set up correctly.

Please feel free to post any comments below.

Dreamweaver closes straight after opening

Dan — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:29:18 +0000

This really is one of the strangest software bugs I've come across!

The Problem

Dreamweaver crashes and won't open again. When you try and open Dreamweaver it just closes straight away, with nothing more than a glimpse of the splash screen.

The Solution

One of the CSS files in the site you were working on has a file size which is a multiple of 8kb (mine was 24kb). You can try anything; rebooting, reinstalling, but Dreamweaver won't play ball if the file is still there. You need open the CSS file in another text editor and add a few dummy lines of comment text to increase the file size slightly; you should then find Dreamweaver will open again normally.

Thanks to David Powers for this. Please feel free to leave any comments below.

First flight for the Flexifoil Buzz

Dan — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:25:49 +0000

Took my little Flexifoil Buzz (Petrol) out for a fly today. Pretty cool kite actually. It was a little smaller than I had imagined it, but it's very responsive even under light winds, and very nippy once the wind picks up.

Strange MSN Login problem (Login error code 80048834)

Dan — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 11:40:52 +0000

No idea what this means, but I thought I'd post it in case anyone else was having the same problem - don't you just love spurious error codes?

I was trying for a while to sign on to MSN messenger but I kept getting error code 80048834 (ohhhh...that one....). After some help from Google I came across a forum post where a couple of people were having the same issue. Anyway, for people skimming this post I'll jump straight to the solution...

Fix

Go to http://login.live.com, login, accept their terms, then try again. I did this and I was taken to "Page not found" at http://storage.msn.com (which I still can't access), but at least I can now login. There was a post on the Microsoft Communities website maybe shedding some more light on the issue - it seems it could be something to do with the time on your PC being incorrect.

Please feel free to any any comments below.

Welcome Drupal 6

Dan — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:20:26 +0000

Drupal 6 was released today! After having a play with the beta and release candidates...well, I don't have to say; this really is a phenomenal release! Here are some of my favourite new features which I'm looking forward to using:

Extended logging - You can set Drupal for OS level logging
Batch API - A progress bar can track tasks running in the background through multiple HTTP requests
Scripting from the command line - This is really cool! You can now run Drupal code through the command line
Forum improvements - Granular permissions can allow more control over forum moderation
Sticky table headers - Does what it says on the tin
Drag and drop features - Again, the tin...
CSS only theming - Define regions etc. in .info files without writing any php code, then set styles in CSS

Well done to everyone who has been clearly working hard on this!

Talks begin on Drupal 7

Dan — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:49:20 +0000

It's incredible how rapid the development of Drupal has become. Drupal 6 is only just around the corner and we're already talking about what improvements and features we'd like to see in Drupal 7! Drupal 5 has been absolutely fantastic. I've found it not only a great content management system, but also an excellent framework for building applications.

Anyone who wishes to officially request a new feature for Drupal 7 may do so on the Drupal website by submitting a new issue. Some things I'd like to see would be:

Some kind of media management system - not just for images, video and audio but maybe also PDFs and other attachable or embedded content
More core forum features
Built in WYSIWYG editor as I almost always use TinyMCE, which is great, but it would be nice not to have to install and upgrade it separately from the core
Improved node access control system
Automatic upgrade of core system and modules
Site backup for both files and database

Email access becomes slow when lots of messages are left on the server

Dan — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:14:45 +0000

I noticed recently that if you're using POP with leave mail on server (LMOS) enabled, authenticating and downloading new messages can become progressively slower. So much so that the email client can even time out, leaving the mailbox locked so you can't even log in again for a while.

What is POP?

POP stands for Post Office Protocol and it's how email clients like Outlook Express and Thunderbird are commonly configured to collect messages from a mailbox. One of the advantages of POP is that a connection to the server is only required when messages are being checked/downloaded to the email client. Once this is complete, the client can disconnect and continue to read/reply/delete messages 'offline'. Once a message has been downloaded and stored on the client a message is sent back to the server telling it to delete the message. This means the only place the message now exists is on the client, not the server. If you want to also be able to download the same message on another machine, you will need to leave the message on the server.

What is 'Leave Mail on Server' (LMOS)?

This is the feature which stops the client deleting the message from the server so that the next client to log on will still be able to download the same message. Instead of deleting the mail from the server some mail clients will mark the message as 'read', which can be a handy feature, but this is non-standard and doesn't really help with this slow down problem.

Why does checking for email become progressively slower with LMOS enabled?

In the POP sequence the mail client will request a Unique ID List (UIDL) which lets the client know what messages are in the mailbox. As messages have been previously left on the server, the mail will accumulate over time and the UIDL will get bigger and bigger and will take longer to check which message IDs the client hasn't already downloaded.

I noticed that the primary email client (the one which was set to delete the messages after download) seemed to access the mail quite rapidly - it only seemed to impact the clients which had LMOS enabled. I guess this could be because the primary client just downloads the accumulated messages (which in itself takes a long while) where as the LMOS enabled client will check all the messages and wait for the ones which it hasn't already got.

To fix this problem the mailbox simply needs to be kept more tidy, either by leaving the messages for only, say, 7 days (to give the other clients a chance to download the messages too), or just regularly purging old messages from the mailbox.

References

Drupal 5.6 and register_globals

Dan — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:37:17 +0000

As of Drupal 5.6 you will no longer be able to install the CMS onto a server with register_globals enabled. The notice on the Drupal website says:

"We no longer support servers with the PHP directive register_globals set to on. Attempts to install Drupal 5.6 when register_globals is enabled will fail. Current installations will continue to function, but will display an error on administration pages and the status report."

This check was introduced as a fix for the Cross site scripting vulnerability (DRUPAL-SA-2008-007) which occurs when register_globals is enabled. I was upgrading my Drupal installation from 5.5 when I found out so I only suffered the error on the status report, but people running a fresh install will find they can’t go any further until they disable register_globals.

What is register_globals?

In php, variables don't need to be initialised; you can simply use any valid variable name and assign a value in one statement. When register_globals is enabled form variables are automatically injected into your php script. So, for example:

$_GET['loggedIn']

would become

$loggedIn

If this variable wasn't declared as FALSE previously in the script it could be set to TRUE by using

yoursite.com/?loggedIn=1

I don't have to explain the rest as I think it's pretty clear how this can be used to exploit scripts. This said, register_globals isn't a security vulnerability at all, but it starts becoming a problem when using un-initialised variables like above (there's a good explanation of this on php-security.org's blog).

Why does register_globals suddenly need to be disabled?

The cross site scripting vulnerability mentioned in the latest update means that exposed theme .tpl.php files can be exploited by using carefully crafted links (like above), and this is only an issue when register_globals is on.

How can I disable register_globals?

If you're managing your own server you can disable register_globals in your php.ini file. Servers running php 4.2.0 or higher will have register_globals disabled by default, so if it's on there is probably a reason in that some older scripts may require it to work. To disable register_globals in your php.ini file simply add:

register_globals = off

If you're hosting on a shared platform you probably won't have access to the server's php.ini so you might be able to disable it via an .htaccess file. Using php_flag in .htaccess will allow you to override settings in the php.ini file, but not all hosts will allow this as they usually like to retain control of server settings. It's worth a try anyway, so just create (or edit the existing) a file called .htaccess (you may need to create this as htaccess.txt on a Windows machine as it won't like the file name; then upload and rename appropriately) and add the following line:

php_flag register_globals off

If this results in an error (most likely error 500) then you will have to ask your host to disable register_globals. However, they may choose not to do this as if they change register_globals for their whole shared server, other customers' websites may stop functioning properly creating more hassle for themselves. If this is the case you'll probably have to move hosts, which is the situation I found myself in a while ago!

Handy fix for a broken Nintendo Wii Remote (Wiimote)

Dan — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 20:09:57 +0000

A few days ago one of my Nintendo Wii remotes started doing some crazy things. It seemed like there was a problem with the remote's gyro, as you couldn't get any response from swinging the remote in the bowling game (instead, you just took everyone's legs out with the ball!). Anyway, I found a strange fix which involves wacking the remote, button side down, against your palm several times. I wacked the remote hard enough to "fix" it, but not too hard as to break it. I guess it must have dislodged the remote's gyro because it started working again like normal.

Please feel free to leave any comments below.

How to get WPA2 working on Windows XP

Dan — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 09:18:56 +0000

WPA2 is the latest standard in Wi-Fi security, and it's considered fully secure (for today at least). It's a good idea to run the highest level of security you can, even on a home network. I won't go into the benefits, but as far as I can see there are no reasons not to move to WPA2 - you won't even notice any difference, but your connection will be more secure.

WPA2 isn't a standard option in Windows XP (SP2), so you'll have to download the hotfix from Microsoft:

The Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2)/Wireless Provisioning Services Information Element (WPS IE) update for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 is available

This will run a small hotfix:

As usual, make sure all your data is backed up - you don't want to suffer the irony of data loss due to trying to make something more secure.

Once the hotfix has been installed, you will need to restart, and you should now find that your connection's security is now WPA2.

When I ran this I was moving from WPA to WPA2, so the connection along with the password was carried across. However, if you're running WEP you will need to enter the security key when setting up the connection.

Please feel free to leave any comments below.

XAMPP and mod_rewrite (getting clean URLs to work)

Dan — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:50:28 +0000

If you're using a CMS or blog app, like Drupal or Wordpress (even if you're not) chances are you'll probably want to enable clean URLs (sometimes called search engine friendly URLs). This cool little feature uses an Apache module called mod_rewrite, and if you're developing your site using XAMPP this is disabled by default (possibly for security reasons).

To enable this module it just takes a little tweak of your httpd.conf file which will be found in xampp\apache\conf. The conf file already contains the line needed to enable the module, but there is a comment mark (#) just before the code which means Apache will ignore the code. The line you are looking for is:

#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

In my httpd.conf file this is line 118, but it may vary so just search for "mod_rewrite" in the file. Now, simply remove the comment (#) from before the line, and save the file. You'll need to restart Apache for the changes to take affect, and you should now find you can use clean URLs with XAMPP.

Please feel free to leave any comments below.

Essential Firefox web developer / designer add-ons

Dan — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 14:06:46 +0000

I've been taking a few Firefox add-ons for granted, so here's a little nod to some excellent add-ons which have made my life easier. I'm not going to list 50, simply because I've found either some do the same thing, or I don't end up using them as much as I thought. So here they are:

Firebug
Web Developer Toolbar
Dummy Lipsum
IE Tab

Firebug

Firebug Homepage

Firebug allows you to inspect whatever page you're on and view the CSS and HTML from within the page.

This has always come in handy when editing (X)HTML/CSS which I didn't write, as it takes a while to become familiar with the class and id names. Just click the little tick in the corner and Firebug appears, then use the inspect button above to select the area of the page to inspect. Hover over the title (like above) and firebug shows you the HTML and the CSS used to construct that element, along with all cascading styles. You can then edit the CSS to try different styles and get your layout right. This doesn't actually edit the source HTML/CSS, so you can edit away without messing anything up. It's also got some other handy features, like viewing the DOM and calculating loading times of all markup, scripts and images.

Web Developer Toolbar

Web Developer Toolbar Homepage

This works well with Firebug, although providing some of the same features, it's also got the ability to highlight page structure by showing block level elements, div ids and classes and one of the features which I find really handy - resizing the browser window. You can set up various screen resolutions and resize your browser to test fluid and fixed width layouts.

Web Developer Toolbar can take any page to pieces and visually show you how it is built up. I find this is a good way to develop layout, as you can see how the divs are stacked up on the page, saving me from having to set background colours in order to get my layout right.

Dummy Lipsum

Dummy Lipsum Homepage

This pretty much does what it says on the tin - inset Dummy Lipsum text into forms.

If you're developing a site but you haven't got any content, you probably find yourself inserting dummy text, whether it's a quick brown fox jumping over a lazy dog, or copying and pasting from some lipsum site, it all adds up. Dummy Lipsum allows you to generate and insert lipsum text into any form field on the fly. It may seem pointless now, but it's saved me a lot of time, and as it's always random the page always looks genuine when you're skimming your eyes over.

IE Tab

IE Tab download page

This is a very neat way of quickly viewing any page in an Internet Explorer tab within Firefox. To get the 'New IE Tab' button like above you'll need to go to view > toolbars > customise, then drag the button onto your toolbar.

If anyone wants to add anymore, please feel free to post a comment - thanks.

Getting alt text to display without a caption using img_assist

Dan — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:58:48 +0000

I ran into a spot of trouble recently with img_assist, in that it only displayed alt text if there was also a caption below the image. Img_Assist takes the alt text from a combination of the title and description, and these fields are filled by default from the title and body of the image node. Although there is no real need for a caption below each image, you will almost always need alt text.

The problem was that Drupal wasn't wrapping the caption in a span, which meant no easy way of hiding it without digging into the module code. This is the HTML output:

<img class="image _original" width="200" height="75" title="Sunset" alt="Sunset" src="http://example.com/files/images/sunset.jpg"/>
<strong>Sunset</strong>

It turns out that the HTML filter was set to a lower weight than the inline images filter, so the span was being removed when the page was being processed. To fix this, simply set the HTML filter to something lighter (I set mine to -10) and you'll find the caption is now wrapped in a span. This setting is found in Administer > Site Configuration > Input Formats > Configure Filtered HTML (Or whatever filter you're using) > Rearrange tab. Now you should find that the page displays the caption to accompany the alt text, like this:

<span class="inline none">
<img class="image _original" width="200" height="75" title="Sunset" alt="Sunset"  src="http://example.com/files/images/sunset.jpg"/>
<span class="caption" style="width: 200px;">
<strong>Sunset</strong>
</span>
</span>

Then, to remove the caption from displaying on the screen, use the following CSS:

span.caption {
display:none;
}

I think it's a good idea to run the HTML filter first in general so it cleans the unwanted code up but doesn't also interfere with other filters.

Please feel free to post any comments below.