Friday, February 27, 2009

Improve Page Rank by Paying Attention

Again this week I read a good deal of misinformation from some otherwise knowledgeable coders concerning Google Page Rank.These folks were saying things like themore hits you have to your web site the higher your Page Rank will be and the web site with the most incoming links will have the highest page rank.Neither statement could be further from the Truth.Mathematical PageRanks (out of 100) for a simple network (PageRanks reported by Google are rescaled logarithmically). Page C has a higher PageRank...

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Monday, February 23, 2009

Preventing SQL Injection - Convert to Entity Number

When working with rich text editors or simple forms that post to a database it is always necessary to strip out and replace characters (like single quotes) that might be prohibited by database programs or potentially used in SQL injection scripts by hackers.In ASP this is often done with a trim-replace VB function like this:<% field_name = Trim(Replace(Field_Name, ' , )) %>The code trims white space on both sides of the Field_Name and then replaces all single quotes with a blank space....

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Saturday, February 21, 2009

HTML 5 Draft Recommendations Released

In 2004, some members of the W3C HTML working group (the folks responsible for crafting the Hyper Text Markup Language) decided to form a new working group with the goal of addressing real-world needs of developers. The WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) began creating the specifications of HTML 5.Although HTML 5 has not been finalized yet it is supported by current browsers including Safari, Firefox, Opera, and IE 8. The February 20 Draft Recommendations have arrived...

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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Breadcrumb Navigation Example and Code

One of the most visited examples of our site is the Bread Crumb Navigation Example. Breadcrumbs are usually positioned horizontally across the top of a webpage below any title bars or headers linking back to each previous page through which the user navigated.Breadcrumbs provide a trail for the user to follow back to the entry point of a website. Generally, a greater than (>) glyph is used as hierarchy separator like:You are here: Home > Blog > BreadCrumb Navigation ExampleWe use a few...

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Friday, February 13, 2009

Prevent image stealing?

Welcome beginning coders! Every Friday we'll put in a bit of advice and code inspired bythe questions we receive while moderating several web development forums.Some of the questions are quite interesting and make us take a fresh eyes look at issues put to rest years ago. This isn't one of them.Repeatedly we get requests from folks on how to prevent image stealing. With the anecdotal increase inFaceBook stalkers we've had multiple requests this week to show how to layer a transparent image on...

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Monday, February 09, 2009

Travis TAG non-profit web site goes live

Travis Vanguard and Academy Auction Web siteThe non-profit site www.TravisAuction.org went "live" this weekend in a soft opening.  The site is one of a number of pro-bono sites that TexasWebDevelopers donates over the course of the year.

Located in the heart of Uptown, Travis Vanguard and Academy is a Dallas Public School for academically talented and gifted students in 4th through 8th grades and serves the entire city of Dallas.  The students come from all economic and ethnic backgrounds and the academic program includes language arts, foreign languages, mathematics, humanities, sciences, technology, the arts and physical education.

Travis addresses the unique social and emotional needs of the gifted child. Students are assisted in understanding themselves in relationship to others in preparation in becoming responsible citizens in a global society.

Please consider making a tax-deductable donation to the William B. Travis PTA to help fund the projects and services the PTA provides for the students, including after school programs, that are not funded by DISD.

Any and all donations, no matter how small, are welcome and appreciated!
 

 

Saturday, February 07, 2009

XHTML Guide in PDF format

We like to respond quickly to requests and one came in after last week's blog post regarding our HTML 4.01 Entity Generator Tool.

The request was for a PDF that could be opened and referenced in a pinch.
The result was the XHTML Guide in PDF format.

Screen Shot of part of the document is below:

Sxcreen Shot and Link to XHTML Guide as PDF

Monday, February 02, 2009

Color Scheme Generator - usability for the sight impaired

We've experienced writer's block but have you ever had color block?

You know, it's crunch time when developing that final logo or web site color scheme.  All of the collateral marketing materials must mesh without seeming forced.  Is that brown a little too red?  Does that rose color really work with that shade of blue?  Well, now you can produce a wide palette of colors that are both pleasing and usable for the sight impaired with our Color Scheme Generator.

Select a Base color and then dial the degree of Hue, the percent of Saturation and the Percent of Brightness.

Select a Scheme: monochromatic, contrast (base + complement), soft contrast (split complements), double contrast (2 neighbors + complements), analogic (base + neighbors).

Select a range of visions: Normal, Protanopy, Deuteranopy, Tritanopy, Protanomaly, Deuteranomaly, Tritanomaly, Full colorblindness, or Atypical monochromatism.

Finally, force color results to display Web Colors (or use Hexadecimal) and view color sample with white text and black text overlaid on the color.

All in all, a really cool tool which will help produce a range of colors for your template that are both aesthetically pleasing and with a high usability factor.

Screen Shot below:

Screen Shot - Color Scheme Generator