As of June 2008 Apple has made a version of Safari for PCs. It seems to have the same quirks as the Mac version. Should prove useful for testing. Thanks Apple.

Twitter was the darling app of SXSW07.

I don't use Twitter and when I found out about I thought it was utterly unnecessary.

However, this video does a great job of explaining it. Perhaps you can be become enlightened and your life better.

How cool is this?

Here's something interesting I found, test numbers for different credit card companies you can use for payment gateway testing. I've only tested the VISA and it worked.

Visa 1111-1111-1111-1111
MasterCard 5555-5555-5555-4444
Amex 3782-8224-6310-005
Discover 6011-1111-1111-1117

If you use Excel for data manipulation, here's a handy-dandy free app that has saved me a lot of time: ASAP Utilities.

"ASAP Utilities is a powerful Excel add-in that fills the gaps in Excel and automates frequently used tasks. Since 1999 it has grown to become probably one of the world's most popular add-ins for MS Excel."

I want to like IE 7 and I like Microsoft. I think as a web developer one needs to browse using the most popular browser on the planet so he/she knows how sites display on it. I like the new tabs feature and the "improved" CSS rendering. But why did Microsoft change the JavaScript engine?

All I see are JavaScript error prompts. All kinds of sites that were fine, are now "done with errors". This latest version has been out for quite awhile. Why hasn't there been a fix? Am I missing something? Have you been experiencing the same?

Not to mention the loss of compatiblity to thousands of apps that rely on Active X and require IE that won't work with IE 7- like a little known product like QuickBooks. Maybe I'm stupid but I can't event download updates for my other PC without having to install IE7 first. (Maybe I could, but it's not easy) This is rediculous.

I'm working on a ecommerce project and we're using the  AspDotNetStorefront shopping cart. It's a robust, customizable .NET app. So far I'm very impressed. Worth a look.

We're also using the T-Hub app to connect the store with QuickBooks. AspDotNetStorefront has code integrated into the default install for the T-Hub. In minuted I was able to install, configure and use the T-Hub. Also worth a look if you need to marry a web store with QuickBooks.

Need to create image maps (hotspots) on images uploaded via a web-beased content management system? 

CuteSoft.net  Classic ASP and ASP.NET

Free ASP Upload is an ASP class that allows file uploading without the need to install a binary component. Great for shared hosting environments.

Having just learned of the SQL Server Management Studio Express, I'm enjoying the "new" Microsoft with their free development tools. I also find it amusing how they decide to not include some of the most useful tools, but hey, it's better than having to purchase SQL Server or Visual Studio 2005.

Recently, I implementated the Serendipity blog for a client. Seems like a robust, versatile piece of software: easy to install, easy to skin and lots of add-ons.

There is anxiety about choosing a hosting company and understandably so. Everyone has heard a story or two about unfortunate situations that happen and the vulnerability of not having control. As with many things, nothing beats a recommendation from a trusted source, but there is a practical approach to choosing a host.

Based on the requirements for a site, there are several things to consider:

Web server platform – Does the site need to reside on a Windows server, Linux or Unix server, or does it matter?

Bandwidth – How much traffic does the site have? What kind of content does it display? Rich media requires much more bandwidth than text files.

Drive space – How many and how large are the files (pages, images, audio and video, PDFs…) does the site have?

Email service – How is email provided: in-house, ISP, web host or another provider? If the hosting company will provide email make sure they meet the requirements for users, size limits, spam control, virus protection and web mail.

Functionality – Does the site require additional components to function? Complex sites often rely on applications and server software that provide business processes that must be installed on the web server or another server on the newwork. This is a big issue. For example, if a site has a content management system or e-commerce, is it compatible with the host’s set-up? Will they allow the installation of new components? Some hosts will if they meet their approval, but most are leery of custom built apps.

Database – What kind of database is required? How does it need to be configured and managed? How large is the data. Site traffic also affects data resources.

Add-ons – Hosting companies often have add-ons included with their hosting packages: shopping carts, payment gateway APIs, blogs, forums, wikis, site builders, newsletter distribution apps, the list goes on and on. Which of these are most useful?

Site & account administration – This can make managing your site easy or a pain. Hosting companies with good administration consoles allow users to log-in via a browser and control preferences and settings to manage the operation of a site and email services. This is important because the more robust the admin tool is the less need for customer service.

Support – Good hosting companies have 24/7/365 support by phone and email with quick response times. Check to see if they have a support ticketing system and logs on responses and resolutions.

Plan variety – Hosts with several plans allow you to choose what is needed without extra costs.

Security – Learn how the host updates and maintains their systems and what their security policies are.

Backups – Learn how often backups are done and whether they have off-site backup facilities.

Availability – Ask about down time for both their internal network and servers and the Internet connections into and out of their facilities. They should have redundancies throughout.

Price – Hosting prices have dropped steadily for the past several years and are a value now. Do some competitive analysis and find a good deal with a good company. They’re out there. One may also renegotiate their current plan based on the competition’s rates.

Depending on the specifics of a site’s requirements this list can get pretty long, but these are the main points to research. On-line places to look for leads on hosting companies are developer portals, software manufacturers support sites, resellers, and hosting watchdog sites. Also ask other business associates, especially IT folks. Be cautious of companies that host sites, but it isn’t their primary function. Often they provide this service to clients for which they have other relationships and market it as a side business. They usually cannot provide the level of service a true hosting company can. Quick action must be taken when the site is down and costing the business money. The more learned about hosting, the more confidently a sound decision can be made. Take time to do research and get help from a qualified consultant.

In addition to having the goal of learning Ruby on Rails, I am also diving into ASP.NET 2.0 using Visual Web Developer Express Edition.

My first impression, after using it for a couple days now, is Wow; a lot has changed from ASP.NET 1.1. I'm getting hung up on a variety of things like, no Bin folder, changes in namespaces and new server controls for data access. This is also my first use of the built in web server and SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. Administrating these is different - simpler, but still different. I'm trying to compare using these free development tools to experiencing RoR for the first time.

A concern of mine is using the new server controls instead of the 'ol fashion way of writing things out. I remember how poor Visual Interdev was at generating clean code with their drag and drop controls, but I can already see these are much better, but usually IDE speed = more code generated and more resources at run time.

My goal is to quickly develop simple, robust web apps. The web projects I work on are usually not too complex: simple CRUD apps with emphasis on the interface. Rarely do I get into n-tier architectures. However, the tutorials do show how easy it is to build sites with several layers if needed.

RoR has a preconfigured app architecture that is more robust than the single tier project I'm currently working on and that's a good feature. It makes you conform to best practices.

More to come as I proceed.

The Ruby on Rails phenomenon has caught my attention; so I've decided to learn how to program with it using the book, Agile Web Development with Rails. I'll be comparing my experiences to ASP.NET, my current programming framework.

I wanted to use my Mac, but was quickly discouraged by the complexity of installing Ruby, Ruby Gems and Rails. With a PC, it's just a few clicks and presto, everything's ready to go.

Installation on my PC was successful and I have completed the exercises up to Chapter 5 with no real issues - simple so far. The model, view and controller terminology is new to me, but it relates to the separation of functionality similar to code behind files, an n-tier architecture and an object oriented approach used with Microsoft technologies.

The Ruby on Rails framework will ship on the new OS X, Leopard. Read more.

As technology presents us with more options for creating web sites, there seems to be two very different and contradictory directions site design is going. One is rich media driven, with Flash at its core, and the other is web standards stressing usability, accessibility and compatibility.

Well done, highly interactive, rich media sites are incredibly engaging, and the direction big money is pushing the web, but they are rarely standards compliant and often are bashed for poor usability and accessibility. These sites communicate their messages effectively to their intended audiences. Mission accomplished.

Web standards are based on are undeniably sound basic principles: separation of content, structure and presentation; and accessibility, usability and compatibility. For sites whose audience requires these benefits, web standards makes total sense. My problem with most compliant sites I see today is they are visually similar and boring. I read somewhere, someone describing them as decorated not designed. It’s true.

Enter stage left, common sense.

The reason all the standards compliant sites look similar is because it is very difficult to mark-up a web page that has an intricate design with many images and requires pixel level accuracy. This can be done in a fraction of the time using tables and spacer gifs, and render properly in all browsers. And besides, there are just as many hacks and workarounds in standards development as old school HTML.

Why use Flash in a self-gratuitous intro sequence, or fancy navigation menu that creates a technological obstacle to a site that doesn’t need the benefits of Flash anywhere else? Many a site has been built using Flash that can be just as good without it. This misuse is what has given Flash such a bad rap with the user centered design people.

Let’s not let the tail wag the dog. Making a site using web standards just for the sake of doing so, or using Flash where it is not needed are both equally inappropriate, especially at the expense of your client.

Surely there’s common ground and a practical approach. Sites should be developed based on their purpose and intended audience. If that demographic can use and enjoy the site, fine. Others outside of that group are not important. Writers write books to a certain audience. Movie directors make movies that are not for everyone. Web producers should have that right too and not be criticized.

Choose the technology or methodology carefully based on the benefits of its use and the cost of using it. Each project has specific requirements and they should dictate the most suitable way to go, not personal preference, or trends.

I attended the St. Louis Web Developers monthly meeting last night. The topic was Ruby On Rails. As I’ve written before, I’m interested in RoR, for the huge productivity agains (5X-20X) and its simplicity. The complexity of ASP.NET, my primary programming technology, does not sit well with me for small projects and RoR may be the alternative I’m looking for.

The presenter compared the excitement over RoR to the Java revolution a decade ago, but as of yet this fledgling language and framework hasn’t eked out any enterprise market share. My biggest concern is resource availability. It’s difficult for me to justify building a site with this for a client. Then they can’t find anyone to work on it other than me. I advocate using technologies that are widely accepted for that reason. Another reason to be tentative is hosting options. It’s also easy to be seduced by how quickly one can generate a simple app performing CRUD operations, but what happens when requirements demand a piece of complex functionality and being new to the technology hinders one’s ability to predict difficulties ahead.

I guess I need to get a book and learn more. If I start using this language perhaps my comfort level will increase, and as demand rises, I may be ahead of the curve – not a bad place to be.

Microsoft has launched a suite of new products geared towards the interface design and development market - ala Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, After Effects and the like. I don’t think Adobe is too worried at this point. Microsoft’s reputation on developing good graphics software is far from exemplary and FrontPage and the Visual Studio IDE editor are barely usable.

The three Expression products are Graphic Designer, Interactive Designer and Web Designer. Each has its own specialty, but they are made to work together and work with Visual Studio rounding out a full design-build environment.

Hopefully the usability and general attractiveness of Microsoft built software will improve because of the increased exposure and access to this type of software in PC-land. Not that design products are Mac only, but there is a huge rift between developers that are visually sensitive and those that live on function alone.

A new underlying technology that is integrated into these products is XAML. Similar to how SVG works, XAML is going to allow graphics to be applied and transported in new ways not really possible today. Another new technology is WPF a direct competitor to Flash's format.

Maybe stodgy Microsoft can give cool Adobe a little competition, but I won’t hold my breath. However, they are bringing new technologies to market; making a big effort towards web standards, interoperability, compatibility and open source initiatives; and bridging the gap between them and everyone else.

Before the ActiveX patch came out that changed how IE displays Flash and other objects, Microsoft wrote how the browser would behave differently. When I installed the fix, my browser does not display the prompt.

Instead it outlines the object when moused over and displays a tool tip that states "Click to activate control." This is far less annoying and, as far as I'm concerned, acceptable. I'm glad it's not the other way, but why wouldn't they describe the effect correctly?

ADDED 5/18/2006:
I experienced this pop-up today for the first time on a page with a Shockwave object and a page with QuickTime.

A question I sometimes hear when first talking with prospective clients is, “Which technology platform and programming language is best for my site? Then, in the same breath they’ll say, “I heard Footron Version 3.0 is the best.”

We’ll examine some factors to consider when making this important decision, but first a few truths to think about.

• You can do almost anything you want to with ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, RUBY, PEARL, JSP, PYTHON, CGI, Cold Fusion, or any other popular web programming language.
• Microsoft Internet Information Services and Apache are both good web servers.
• Microsoft and SUN are good platforms.
• Most web languages have similarities since they have been derived from lower level languages like C, C++.
• Some are more prevalent than others.
• Some are more robust in features than others.
• Some lend themselves to rapid application development (RAD) better than others.
• Some are more robust in features than others.
• There is no best. It depends on the project.

Site Requirements

A site’s requirements are derived from its purpose, the resulting functionality and audience demands. If the site contains all static content that simply acts as an online brochure, the platform is not very important. HTML, which is what creates web pages, is platform independent. The web server does not need to do much work to display the site. If your site has any dynamic content, a content management system, or e-commerce, then more importance is placed on the platform and web server’s role.

Functionality for such features is provided by programming from scratch, purchasing pre-built applications, or leasing services. While making these choices is beyond the scope of the article, the platform to choose is tied directly to which of these alternatives are used. If you’re programming from scratch, there is flexibility to use any reasonable web platform. Leased services are also somewhat independent of the platform of the web server because of APIs and web services that allow for interoperability. If you buy a content management system or shopping cart the platform is largely determined by that application. Any other applications used on the site should be of the same platform. It can create a lot of problems to mix technologies. Don’t to it if you don’t have to.

The amount of traffic to the site also influences platform decisions. Sites with few visitors (5-2000/day) can usually handle the load with one web server and single tier architecture. Sites with a lot of traffic (2000-1,000,000+/day) may need several servers to distribute the load and processing. Some technologies scale better than others.

Where’s the site going to live?

A site resides on a web server. How it's developed is determined by the type of server, or the type of server is determined by how it's developed. Companies can host their own sites, lease dedicated servers, or lease space on shared servers. These options come in all platforms and are closely priced.

There are basically two factions of web platforms: Microsoft and everyone else. Apache is the most popular web server. It is most often found on non-Windows computers (Linux, Unix, Macintosh, Sun). Second, is Microsoft’s Internet Information Services, IIS, it follows Apache in market share across the web, but leads in business use because of Microsoft’s focus on business computing and development.

Who’s going to work on it?

Vendors are usually specialized and have a platform and programming language of choice. They sell what they know and can usually justify their preference. It is important to make sure there are other resources available to work on the site than just the vendor that built it. Choose a technology that has an abundance of development resources available in your area.

Common Choices

Microsoft Internet Information Services, IIS (Windows) Languages
Active Server Pages, ASP – Microsoft’s core web scripting platform can be developed using VB Script, a language derived from Visual Basic, or JScript, JavaScript. ASP has essentially been replaced by ASP.NET, but there are a lot of sites still on the web using this technology.

ASP.NET – Microsoft’s pride and joy. A true paradigm shift in how web sites are developed. The .NET framework provides a huge arsenal of objects (namespaces) with robust functionality and the speed of compiled assemblies versus interpreted script. ASP.NET can be programmed in C#, VB, and JavaScript.

PHP – This is the most popular and arguably the best open source scripting language on the web today. It's mostly used on non-MS web servers, but there is a version for IIS too. It is also made to go with MySQL database server the most popular open source database server. The language has nice syntax and structure with quite a few built in objects, but nothing compared to ASP.NET.

Pearl – Pearl was very popular in the open source world, but it has been surpassed by PHP.
 
Ruby - Ruby is the new kid on the block. It is gaining popularity because it’s easy to learn and Ruby On Rails, a RAD framework, created by 37 Signals. Purists love its simplicity.

Cold Fusion – Cold Fusion is part of Adobe’s suit of development products. It is a super easy to learn, RAD system that uses a tag structure, like HTML, to provide functionality. Before Macromedia (now Adobe) purchased it, Cold Fusion’s future was uncertain. They kept it alive and Adobe plans to make improvements and reestablish it as a major web development alternative.

Common Gateway Interface, CGI – This was the first technology to provide server functionality on the web. CGI apps are programmed in C, C++, Java and other primary development languages. This technology is still out there, but outdated.

Apache Web Server Languages
ASP – There is a version of ASP created for Apache, but why? It’s kind of like trespassing.
PHP – This is PHP’s true home.
Pearl – ditto.
Ruby – ditto.
Cold Fusion
CGI

Enterprise Systems

Large businesses today are using software systems that manage information and provide collaborative tools for a wide degree of business services that include web publishing. It gets really complicated on projects of this scale. IMB’s Web Sphere, Oracle’s JD Edwards, Sun’s J2EE, and Microsoft’s Family of Servers all have web publishing components. There are hundreds of smaller development firms that have their own systems built with several of the languages listed above.

Most Importantly

Whatever platform is used the application can be developed well using best practices, or end up being a mess.  When choosing a vendor and subsequent development technology look for a team that can deliver a well designed and executed application while keeping things simple.

Forms are always a pain. They are difficult to design and difficult to make user-friendly. Here are a few rarely used tags that can be incorporated into page XHTML mark-up that will improve the usability and accessibility of forms.

Label

<label for="firstName">First Name</label><br />
<input type="text" name="firstName" id="firstName" />

The label tag used in the code sample above relates the descriptive text to the form control. This is important for screen readers.

<input class="input" type="checkbox" title="Select Color" name="color" id="color1" value="red"><label for="color"> Purple</label>

When used with checkboxes it allows users to click on the text to check the checkbox, similar to desktop applications.

Fieldset & Legend

<fieldset>
<legend>Pick a Color</legend>
<input type="radio" id="color1" name="color" />
<label for="color1">Red</label>
<input type="radio" id="color2" name="color" />
<label for="color2">Blue</label>
<input type="radio" id="color3" name="color" />
<label for="color3">Green</label>
</fieldset>

The fieldset tag is used to group form fields. With a little CSS it works well for humans and machine readers alike. The legend tag provides a way to give the grouping a title.

Optgroup

<select name="Colors">
<optgroup label="Reds">
<option>Crimson</option>
<option>Brick</option>
</optgroup>
<optgroup label="Blues">
<option>Azure</option>
<option>Sky</option>
<option>Navy</option>
</optgroup>
</select>

The optgroup tag groups options in drop down lists. They can have CSS styles applied to them.

Other Techniques

Tab Index

input type=”text” name=”field1” id=”field1” tabindex=”2” />
Adding the tabindex attribute to a form control sets the tab order. Make sure your form element tab in the correct order for those who do not use a mouse.

Access Key

<label for="field1" accesskey="f"><span class="access">F</span>ield 1:</label> <input type="text" name="field1" id="field1" accesskey=”1” />

CSS    .access {text-decoration:underline;}

Adding the accesskey attribute to a form’s label control allows users to press a key to focus the form element – again useful for those who don’t use a mouse. To indicate what the accesskey is for a form, underline the corresponding character in the field’s label.

Back in 2003 Microsoft was sued by Eolas Technologies for a patent infringement. The technology in question is how Internet Explorer handles the inclusion of objects (ActiveX controls) such as Flash, video and Java applets in web pages.

On April 11, 2006 Microsoft is scheduled to release an update that makes the browser compliant with the lawsuit’s requirements. All IE browsers shipped after that date will also have the update installed. This change will affect thousands of sites with embedded content. This content will no longer automatically display in web pages. Users will have to click a prompt to view the content. This will greatly affect the user experience.

The Fix

Sites will have to change how objects are included in the HTML mark-up to prevent this rude disruption. Click here for a Google search on the topic. Here are some resources with more information:

MSDN Instructions on How to Activate ActiveX Controls

MS Knowledge Base Article

Adobe Developer Center

What about other browsers?

They are also in violation of Eola’s copyright, but they haven’t been sued yet. Netscape, Firefox, Opera and Safari have not done anything. Time will tell what will happen to them.

I ran across this excellent resource for building standards compliant web sites using ASP.NET 2.0. The information presented here is useful for any platform. It covers doctypes, mime types, broswer issues, accessiblity and some good tips for forms.

I read so much Microsoft bashing online it was refreshing to read how they have addressed a lot of problems with server control rendering in the new version of ASP.NET.

http://www.shauninman.com/ -  Shaun Inman is the designer/developer responsible for Designologue, Mint and IFR. Originally from the Boston, Massachusetts area, he now resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

The IFR technique is very cool. Limited font selection on the web is always the bain of the designer and this is a slick way around it.

ASP.NET offers an easy way using GDI+, the .NET Framework wrapper assembly for Microsoft's GDI (Graphics Device Interface) technology, to generate dynamic jpgs to use for dynamic text if that's your platform of choice, but the Flash method is completely client-side and platform independent. It's probably a bit faster too.

Older versions of Dreamweaver put positioning styles for <div> tags as attributes. Dreamweaver 8 has improved this by putting the styles between <style> tags in the head section of HTML. The cool thing is, you can move these styles to a linked style sheet and Dreamweaver will work. Nice.

While I was searching the Web for inexpensive ways to build sites for small clients I can across Ruby On Rails. ROR is a framework built with the Ruby programming language by 37 Signals. Not being familiar with Ruby or Rails, I was immediately curious about it.

Ruby is a relatively new language that was created to be clean and simple code. Rails is a framework created for rapid application development. It has a robust set of classes that provide common functionality with a minimum of effort. Cool.

I am a Microsoft developer, but ever since ASP.NET came out I always though it was a bit much for small sites that do not require all the “horsepower” that .NET can provide. This might be a great way to efficiently build sites for small clients. Although I have not had a chance for much hands-on work with Ruby to evaluate it.

My biggest concern with building a site, with a somewhat obscure technology like this, for a client is when they need to make changes they will not be able to find resources that know the language and framework. Market-share does have its advantages. Hopefully Ruby will continue to grow.

I’ve been researching ways to provide less expensive solutions to clients with very limited resources. Since I’m a Microsoft developer I looked for products built with ASP.NET.  Content management systems and shopping carts are the two primary applications I was focusing on.

I found two applications that could be used for content management, DotNetNuke and Rainbow portals. Both are open source portal systems that have evolved from the MS IBuySpy portal. Since I was a team leader a few years ago that worked with that app, I was familiar with it. Of the two, it seems DotNetNuke has more users, more modules (functionality components) and better documentation.

I installed DotNetNuke and have been playing around with the admin for a couples weeks. Seems like a pretty good FREE solution for CMS, except it lacks some workflow features like preview, an approval system and rollback, but if you can live without that, it’s hard to beat free. Besides you can always build on top of it. It’s ASP.NET and well built.

 This blog is running DasBlog V1.8.5223.2. I thought about building my own, but it seems a lot of ASP.NET folks are using this and it has more features than I would have included. It was easy to implement. I modified an existing theme to match my site's look. It's not exact, but close. A redesign is not far off anyway. So far I'm pleased with the app. It's a good starting point that I can modify as needed.

I also felt it was important to have my blog on the same server as my site rather than using a service such as Blogger. After all, generating traffic and exposure to promote my services as a web project manager is part of my reason for doing this. And it's free.