I like sharing news about good tools, and these 2 are sites provide extremely useful scripts that I use regularly to make my life easier at work. I’m no JavaScript expert - but I can get by well enough, but there are times when you need that extra oompf in your application without spending:
- loads of money
- months of research
- much effort - hahah, I’m so lazy
Let’s start with SWFObject which was more commonly known as FlashObject but due to legal issue with the word “Flash” and Adobe - but poor old Geoff Stearns (who wrote ths script) wasn’t able to convince Adobe with a compromise. You can read more about this issue from his blog article.
The good thing about this script apart from the easy of inserting flash object tags into your source code is 2 fold:
- It overcomes the issue with IE by making you click to activate a flash movie. This was something to do with a patent held by the University of California and how Microsofts implements ActiveX components. So, by dynamically inserting the object tags, we over come the built-in detection of any activex components.
- Easy insertion of flash and can easily configure what the minimum version is required (major/minor). If the version flash is not high enough, you can easily display alternative content.
The other script is from http://script.aculo.us/ who produce a great JavaScript effects kit. It’s not small by any means, the prototype file alone is 70KB alone … but its crossbrowser compatible and really takes the hard word out of coding nice effects.
Actually, there is an alternative to scriptaculous, and thats by mootools - I haven’t checked this out recently as the website has had a facelift, but I did do the following test for a website called Medical-Destination that I was helping to build for a client.
Alternatively, there’s its little brother moo.fx - which is very small - but you get what you download!
I’m going back to London this weekend to visit family and friends, and I realised how much I missed London. Its been over a year since I’ve been back home and the first thing I could think of was good old “Big Ben“.
And since I’m back in the groove (for however short lived) in updating this blog, I wanted to update the header image with something appropriate. It’s the best I can do without an overhaul of the site in a short time!
However, looking for a decent image without infringing on someones copyright isn’t - well its not that bad, I just didn’t fancy emailing out request. And plus, I’m a good boy after all and don’t fancy gettng my arse sued if I did use a pic without permission (I wonder how many people do?). Google Images turned up some interesting photo’s but not many captured how cool Big Ben can be without spending enormous amounts of moola on a picture that I’ll probably remove after a few months.
Enter, iStockPhoto!
Affordable imagery (10 Credits for 12USD to start with depending on the image quality you want), a good selection (it’s not Getty after all and all member generated imagery), and last - it’s just a simple and very usable website. A good usage of AJAX incidentally … well done guys.
FYI, the header of “Big Ben” is from a photo by Chris Schmidt courtesy of iStockPhoto. The original download was about 850pixels wide, which cost 4 credits. Brilliant.
Well, half a year onwards (post-coup) and things are fairly normal. It’s about time I got my act together to post again and with that I thought I might as well upgrade Wordpress to v2.1 along with the newer K2 theme (0.95 RC1) thats compatible with WP2.1.
Not much different? Well, I thought so too … well, there are a few enhancements under the bonnet which I’ve yet still need to figure out.
Anyhows, there are a few things in the works thats very exciting but however hush hush. But, I am working on something that’s not so hush hush and thats an online magazine for an asian diving magazine. Things are still in the early stages so there won’t be much to show for a while … however, I’d better not say much more until things are finalized :D
It’s a little side project for the wife’s friend who introduced me to the project, so its not exactly money making - and how I’m gonna do this with a full time job is another amazing feat that I’m going to have to achieve hahah … no worries, I’ve been doing this for years - and if can’t do this … I’m sure the wife can think of numerous tortuous things to do to me … oooh hit me baby!
