Something Metaphorical

Still Here

Brady — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 22:47:25 +0000

I haven’t posted in awhile due to being rather busy. I’m still around though, and I’ll answer any questions anyone may have. I just upgraded the version of PaginateIt to 1.1.1 to fix a bug mentioned by a couple of users in the original PaginateIt post.

I also have a new version of PaginateIt that is completely rewritten to implement three different methods of pagination. It won’t be based on the same API as version 1. The reason I did this was to be able to write unit tests, so when I make changes, I can catch anything that may have broken. Let me know if you’d like to test it out and I’ll send you a copy.

Morning Sunshine - WordPress Theme

Brady — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 19:53:07 +0000

Here’s a WordPress theme I’ve had sitting around for awhile. My brother designed it and I had the majority of it done, but just neglected it. I also included a PSD in the second download for the top corner in case someone doesn’t like the flower and wants to replace it with something else.

Download: MorningSunshine.zip (47.16 KB)
Download: MorningSunshinePSD.zip (267.76 KB)

PaginateIt - A PHP Pagination Class

Brady — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 01:55:23 +0000

After coding pagination functionality into a million different sites and wasting too much time every time, I decided to give OOP a shot. I’ve used this class in one site already, but haven’t tested it extensively, so there may still be some bugs.

I also used this opportunity to check out different software licenses and settled on The MIT License as it provided more flexibility. I checked out the GPL that I’ve heard so much about, but I thought it to be too restrictive for this project. This is being provided as is for whatever use anyone may want it, commercial or otherwise, under the condition that my copyright stays intact. I’d like a little credit

I had inline documents within the class, but I forgot to save and I don’t feel like going back and writing them again at the moment. So if you want to know what something does, just ask me. The Readme documents the methods and usage.

Go ahead and leave feedback and comments about anything (licenses, documentation, coding style/preferences, etc). I’d especially like to know if anyone finds this useful. If you need any support, don’t be afraid to ask.

PaginateIt.zip - contains readme and source file

Example - A working example of PaginateIt’s output
PaginateIt.phps - Source
Readme.doc - Documentation, usage, and licensing information

Microsoft Certification

Brady — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 04:39:22 +0000

Well, I’m gonna have to go get my first Microsoft Certification for work within the next 3 days. I’m not particularly looking forward to it. Not because I think it’s going to be hard, but because I hate getting off my lazy butt and driving up north, especially in traffic. Oh yeah, that reminds me, I need to pick up my license plates from the dealership for my new truck. I think a received a phone call a couple of weeks ago, telling me they were there.

Ringing Endorsement

Brady — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 04:10:20 +0000

Some guy wrote in to my employer and bashed my work on a website. I used pixels to declare the font size and he felt I should have used a relative unit. It wouldn’t have been such a problem, except he couldn’t see very well and was using IE, pretty much the only browser that won’t let you increase the font size unless it’s relative. He claimed the 14px menu looked fine to him, but the 12px text was too small for him to read. Here’s a quick excerpt from the book he wrote:

I have encountered this problem on many sites made by unprofessional webmasters. But I couldn’t even expect to see it on yours one. Every software developer knows, that software should be tested to run properly in different environments! Probably, you should hire a new webmaster and check his work more carefully.

He outright called me unprofessional and even suggested that I be fired! Can you believe the audacity? A guy that doesn’t even work in the field calling me unprofessional. Some designs don’t work with a relative unit because they’d screw up the design, making it just as inaccessible. I’m sure he’s already written to CNN, ABC News, Fox News, and CBS News, telling them that their webmasters are unprofessional and should be fired. Now if we take into account the majority of the sites in the corporate world, he’s the one looking like an outright fool.

Tabs for IE6

Brady — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 07:21:43 +0000

When I read a news article over at Google claiming that the MSN Search Toolbar would add tabbed browsing functionality to Internet Explorer 6, I just had to try it. It was a severely disapointing experience and the toolbar was promptly uninstalled. It felt like a half assed attempt to keep up with every other browser on the market that already offers this functionality. Perhaps me being used to tabbed browsing in Firefox made the experience unpleasant, but opening and closing tabs caused the window to flicker. When I pressed Ctrl+W to close a tab, it closed the whole window without warning me. You can’t even hide the toolbar without losing the tabbed functionality. As if it’s only job was to completely disappoint me, I was forced to restart after uninstalling the toolbar. Let’s hope Microsoft gets things right in IE7.

Clearing Windows DNS Resolver Cache

Brady — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 23:19:19 +0000

Occasionally, my cable modem from Time Warner decides it doesn’t wanna work. Actually, it happens a few times a day and I have to recycle the modem (unplug power, wait 30 seconds, plug back in) for it to find the connection again. It drives me insane because it likes to drop the connection exactly when I’m gonna do something mildly important. I’ve called TWC about getting another modem, but I gotta answer all these stupid questions from the support guys who pretend it’s my router or my fault somehow, and I’m just too lazy to drive across town to pick up another one. It wouldn’t be super bad, but once I’m back online, I can’t connect to any sites that I attempted to go to while the connection was down because Windows XP keeps bad responses from websites in the DNS Resolver Cache for 5 minutes. So here’s a fix for anyone else experiencing the same problems.

Open a command prompt by clicking the “Start” button, then click “Run…“. In the command prompt, type this:
ipconfig /flushdns
and press Enter. That’s all there is to it. If you don’t like the command prompt, you can go to Start->Settings->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services then click DNS Client and restart it.

I googled DNS Cache after writing this post and found this page that has more information, along with a Registry Tweak to keep WinXP from caching negative responses: DNS Resolver Cache By Vic Laurie

Hello World!

Brady — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 02:48:56 +0000

I suppose this is my obligatory re-introduction. I say “re” because I kept a blog a couple of years ago before it was the cool thing, but the amount I’ve learned about web development during that time has increased immensely. Now just seems like the time to jump back on the wagon. I wanted a place to log whatever nifty nuggets of information I might find, to voice my opinions on a whole range of issues, and I just felt left out with Brody (brother) and Junior (friend) starting their own blogs.

I’m by no means a designer, so I gotta throw a thanks to Ian Main for the Green Marinée theme that I modified for this design. I’ll probably end up getting my brother to make me a new design, and I’ll code it up and contribute a theme back to the wordpress community, so don’t get too attached to this one.

Of course I gotta put a plug in for my other site, Crazy Vercher Films. Check it out for some funny videos, and the forums are nice, too *hint hint*

Welp, I’m off to watch the second half of the Spurs game.
Go Spurs Go!