Entries from 2012
Industry News: CSS Media Queries and Call to Remove Share Buttons
What do you think about the recent call to remove share buttons from websites? Also, does your website utilize CSS Media Queries? If not, they may not be as difficult to incorporate as you might think. [Continue reading]
Watching for Broken Links in Published Materials
Does your organization distribute materials created by those who are less familiar with how URLs work? If so, you may want to be more involved with the review process for this content. That way the organizational newsletter, for example, isn't sent out with broken links. Here are the more common issues I've run into over the years. [Continue reading]
Going Beyond the Typical Sort: Sorting by Specific Values with MySQL’s Order By Clause
When performing MySQL database queries, have there been times where the "Order By" clause doesn't seem to cut it? Well it turns out that we can do more than sort by one or more columns in ascending and descending order. MySQL's FIELD() function provides a way to target a specific value from within a column. Let's take a closer look at the function. [Continue reading]
Browsers Hiding Aspects of the URL: Benefit or Hindrance?
What's with browsers hiding parts of the URL in the address bar. It's one thing to fade aspects of the URL to bring focus to the domain name. But why do browsers like Firefox hide the protocol and Opera hide GET variables? The URLs look cleaner, but in the end it may lead to miscommunication. [Continue reading]
Duplicating the Current Browser Tab with Ctrl+N
When browsing the Web, have you needed to duplicate the page you're currently looking at? It doesn't take too much work to copy the website's URL and paste it into a new browser window. If you're using Internet Explorer however, there is a faster way. [Continue reading]
Keyboard Shortcut to Jump to a Specific Browser Tab
When working with browser tabs, did you realize there are keyboard shortcuts for switching tabs? Okay, it's probably just me. Even though there are shortcuts I use almost every day, the keyboard isn't always the first thing I turn to when interacting with the browser. However, I love finding ways to be more proficient and keyboard shortcuts can make completing tasks much faster. [Continue reading]
My Preference for Internet Explorer and Why That’s Changing
Now that we're all gathered, it's time to confess. Until recently, my browser of choice has been Internet Explorer (IE). Even though other browsers have come along with better standards support and great add-ons like the Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox, I've found myself straying back to IE. Since the official release of IE9, however, my preference has been changing. [Continue reading]
Converting PowerPoint Files to PDF: Which Option to Choose
When posting PowerPoint files online, I usually upload a PDF version of the presentation since they tend to be smaller in file size. There have been more than a few times where the PowerPoint file is over 100 megabytes (mb) and is reduced to around 15mb PDF. With that said, there are at least 3 ways to create PDFs in PowerPoint and each option may produce files of different size. [Continue reading]
Make Sure Those Passed IDs Contain Numbers
When passing row IDs between pages, it's a good idea to check the value is what you expect. Values which could be tampered with by the user need to validated and sanitized. So, if an ID is supposed to be a number, we should make sure it is before running the database query. Let's discuss some options for checking for numbers. [Continue reading]
The Pros and Cons of Google+
Over the past week, I've been digging through my potential blog post list, but nothing spoke to me. Then, inspiration hit when corresponding with a few Twitter friends about Google+. This won't be the timeliest post, but then again that's not the goal for this blog. Hopefully this will be helpful for those who haven't jumped onto the Google+ bandwagon or are struggling to see the value of using another social networking tool. Or maybe you're good with what you have. [Continue reading]
