Klaas
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Posts posted by Klaas
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WYSIWYG was the only reason I used Dreamweaver in the past... Excellent time saver and increased productivity. I recently dropped $2k on Adobe CS2, so I have Adobe GoLive CS2 now, but I don't actually use GoLive. I'm thinking about purchasing a system specifically for using CSSEdit though.
Yeah for quick stuff DW's WYSIWYG is handy since the generated code is pretty good compared to most alternatives.
DW has changed a lot though, offering loads of handy features for those who just use the coding perspective. Browser checks, validation, good autocomplete, code browser, documentation, etc.
Adobe offers a Web bundle now, including DW, GoLive, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, etc. Very expensive though :/
CSSEdit looks great. Too bad it's for Mac. It's getting time I get myself a Mac though, lots of interesting web dev software
I wish there were some sort of serious IDE under Linux (Kdevelop and Anjuta are, IMHO and with all due respect, just autotools wrappers, and bloated (well KDevelop at least) and not well-thought-out, at that). Terminal-based editing & compiling serves me fine for now though.
Eclipse works under Linux, OSX, Windows, Solaris and even HP-UX
needs java installed though -
For all serious stuff I use Eclipse, for quick editing Textpad, Vim or SciTE.
I also used to work with Dreamweaver but since I'm stepping away from expensive commercial software I quit using it. It's a great editor for HTML/CSS stuff though (if you turn off WYSIWYG
)The great thing about Eclipse is that it's a platform, not just a regular IDE or editor.
Currently I use it for Java development, GUI design, UML design, DB design, XHTML/CSS/Javascript and PHP. It also has an SVN module, debuggers, etc.
So whenever you need to code in another language or do something else than programming you switch perspective. No need to open another program, use external tools or learn a new interface, it's all in the same box.
Too bad that the web dev support isn't that great. It has minimal autocomplete, debugging, validation and code browsing for HTML/CSS/JS/PHP but nothing more besides regular editor features.
For Java, UML modeling or GUI design it's fantastic. Hopefully the web dev mods will be of the same level in the near future.
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The political influence and power given to His Holiness has dropped due to a secularization in society, caused by the rise of secular governments among protestant countries. The simple explanation is that many people in society feel that they are beyond the need of any kind of moral or spiritual authority. It is pure arrogance on the part of western culture that has driven a wedge between man and his need for a higher authority. It is truly the pinnacle of society’s deluded thought when we say that man must lead man. And now we see the fruit of that thought.
You seem to forget that there are also other people in this world than Catholics. The point of secularism is not installing an atheist immoral authority led by man but an authority that does not force people to follow this or that religion.
I applaud Deacon_raptor's stance on this. Giving up on secularism is welcoming fascism. The results can also be seen everywhere: the soviet union ("atheist fascism"), Iran, Medieval Europe, etc.
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"Because you are the customer"
Duh
Obviously it's a joke, but mind you, I've seen several serious websites like this one.
Last semester, when I designed the Italia website, the rest of my class had to make a site too. Quite a lot of them were comparable to this one. Ugly stupid javascript, colors that make you grab for aspirines, information scattered all over the place with no structure, inconsistent navigation, ...
I don't expect beginners to design something fantastic from the start, but some of them could have used their brains.
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Becoming a self-employed web designer, web publisher and/or web developer.
I'm not sure about what precisely though but the "self-employed" part is very important to me. I don't see myself doing a 9 to 5 job or following the same old schedual years after years, and I wouldn't like to work under someone.
I already managed to get several clients (a university, a union, a large cultural organization and several small firms) to keep me occupied during the holidays which is a very nice school for what I'm planning to do in the future.
I do think that once I finish college I'll probably work in a firm for a while so I can network and gain some real life business experience. Belgium also isn't the best country to start a web development business because people are pretty conservative around here regarding internet. So my best bet would be doing something in the consultancy or publisher area, not design or development.
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I've been on several "desktop quests" too but always turned back to the regular XP look and functionality in the end.
It all looks great for a while but in the end it's just a skin, usually one that wastes resources. What I want is something that could boost my productivity, but sadly not one such desktop has done that.
On my laptop the only thing I currently use is Yahoo widgets engine. It has a few handy things like a calendar + tasklist and a battery monitor, but other than that these things are a load of crap imho.
What I like much more in this area is for example the Google ig personal homepage. Same functionality as all that widget stuff but uses much less resources and doesn't have to be installed.
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Yes, the Vatican sure has political interest. Take the referendum on assisted fertility in Italy for example.
Well personally I don't think there's anything wrong with that though, the Catholic Church is just an ideological group like any other, so it's only logical they mobilize their followers in such a case.
Well AFAIK in Catholic schools you still have to take a religion class and remember their president's opinion on homosexual teachers.
But what I really don't like them is how they constantly discriminate atheists. For example that normally teachers are obliged to teach Christian religion. Recently the school's president said they're willing to make an exception for Muslim teachers. Why not for atheists? I don't really care if it's obliged or not, but if you make exceptions for one group why not for another?
I know that generally the Catholic schools aren't very Catholic anymore, but those with power is a totally different matter.
Lol, never call CD&V the heirs of Daens, that's blasphemy
Daens was in no way a Christian-democrat, he was a "socialist Christian". What he did is opposing the hypocricy of Christian-democracy in those days, he was against Rerum Novarum. In his view the church was allied with the patrons and the point of christian-democracy was simply to appease the workers, not to help them.
There aren't any heirs of Daens anymore. In recent history Volksunie came closest to his ideology, and before that the Front Party (which was made up of ex-daensists).
But it's true that CD&V and the Vatican have very loose ties these days, glad that changed
I wouldn't underestimate our "mascotte". Take king Baudouin and this whole abortion business, if it wouldn't have been for a pragmatic prime minister he would have blocked that law.
Good you mention Vlaams Belang. That is another good example of what harm political involvement can cause to the Church's popularity.
Important Catholic figures like cardinal Daneels for example publicaly attack VB. The result is that the conservatives in VB have abandoned the Belgian Catholic church, and several others who think the Church should keep out of this did too.
So while I did agree with Daneels (he said that VB-ideologists aren't true Christians) it wasn't a very tactical thing to say.
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@Mithrandil
I suppose the Church in Belgium partly failed because of that, but I don't think that's true for the US, a totally different situation imho.
I also wouldn't underestimate the Church's political influence and vice versa here. Nowadays for example 80% of the Belgian teenagers go to Catholic schools.
In the past it also played in important role. Take the Oostfronters for example, young Flemish nationalists who went to fight with the Nazis against the Soviet Union on the eastern front. Many of them were recruited by the Catholic church literally to "repel the infidel".
Or take our own head of state, the king. While our current king is less involved in politics, our previous one was known to have a strong Catholic agenda and influence from the Vatican.
So while only few people go to mass in Belgium it doesn't mean that the Church doesn't have much political influence. If king Albert II dies I'm holding my breath when his pious son, Philip, climbs the thrown. With his ties to Opus Dei and his lack of intellect I'm pretty sure the Church will pull his strings.
This also reminds me of priest Daens, to show to other side of the medal. Priest Daens was a man who launched his own political party in the early 20th century. He was very leftist for those days because he lived among the poor workers. He and his followers actually changed a lot to the bad situation many people lived in, if it wasn't for him the common, non-socialst workers would never have had an honest voice.
He was however excommunicated by the Vatican because of his political involvement.
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Yep pretty impressive.
In other news, this one switched to opera for regular browsing. From now on Firefox will be my "development browser" and Opera my "browsing browser"
The thing is that Firefox with loads of developer extensions installed (HTML validator, greasemonkey, firebug, webdev toolbar, xml toolbar, snapper, colorzilla) is starting up reaaaally slow and even stops responding with 20+ tabs open.
Opera is a lot faster and really sleek, only downside is that quite a few sites render badly in it.
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I'm an atheist, so no religion here.
I respect religious people though, except those who try too hard converting others or lack respect for their fellow earthlings. The same goes for atheists; I've seen enough so-called atheists who try to impose their own doctrine onto other fellow atheists or religious people.
Well, my main problem with any "fundamentalist" religion, and by that I also mean the atheist "humanists" in Europe, is that they try to create a common set of moral values and look down upon those who don't strictly follow it.
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Yeah that's the Czech Republic. Those three little countries on the left are probably Austria, Liechtenstein and Denmark
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Nope, not regular hosting, but project hosting like SourceForge.
Google released a project hosting service for the open source community at OSCON. It doesn't require approval to add a project and it has the typical Google look. As far as I can see there's issue tracking and Subversion supported but other than that it seems pretty minimal.
Here's the link: http://code.google.com/hosting/
And here's a link to a blog post about it: http://benramsey.com/archives/project-host...on-google-code/
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This is a little class I made for one of my client's websites. They asked to put a link to the weather forecast on their main page, but I wouldn't be myself if I didn't make something fancy out of it.
So together with the link today's and tomorrow's weather is displayed automatically, together with some nice icons.
Here you can view it in action, scroll to the bottom:
In case some people would like to see the code here it is:
(note: it's not great or very reusable but it'll give you and idea)
<?php
/*
* Created on 17-jul-06
*
* Copyright 2006 Klaas Van Waesberghe
* klaasvw@gmail.com
* http://www.kvw.be/
*/
define('FC_LOCID', 'BEXX0020');
define('FC_CC', true);
define('FC_DAYF', 2);
define('FC_LINK', false);
define('FC_PAR', 'na');
define('FC_PROD', 'xoap');
define('FC_KEY', 'na');
define('FC_UNIT', 'm');
define('FC_CACHE', 'cache.xml');
class Forecast {
var $url;
var $xml;
var $dagen;
var $path;
function Forecast($path, $locid = FC_LOCID, $cc = FC_CC, $dayf = FC_DAYF
, $link = FC_LINK, $par = FC_PAR, $prod = FC_PROD, $key = FC_KEY, $unit = FC_UNIT) {
$this->path = $path;
$this->url = $this->_buildURL($locid, $cc, $dayf, $link, $par, $prod, $key, $unit);
$this->xml = $this->_getXML();
$this->dagen = array();
}
function get() {
$this->dagen = $this->_parseXML();
return $this->dagen;
}
function _parseXML() {
if (empty($this->xml))
return false;
$data = array();
$dom = domxml_open_mem($this->xml);
$root = $dom->document_element();
$dagen = $root->get_elements_by_tagname('day');
foreach ($dagen as $dag) {
$n = array();
$n['max'] = $dag->get_elements_by_tagname('hi');
$n['max'] = $n['max'][0]->get_content();
$n['min'] = $dag->get_elements_by_tagname('low');
$n['min'] = $n['min'][0]->get_content();
$icons = $dag->get_elements_by_tagname('icon');
$n['idag'] = $icons[0]->get_content();
$n['inacht'] = $icons[1]->get_content();
$data[] = $n;
}
return $data;
}
function _getXML() {
$cacheFile = $this->path.'/includes/'.FC_CACHE;
$xml = '';
if (file_exists($cacheFile)) {
// hours since time changed
$time = (time() - filemtime($cacheFile))/(60*60);
// read cache file
if ($time <= 4) {
$xml = file_get_contents($cacheFile);
}
// read remote XML and update cache file
else {
$fp = fopen($this->url,'r');
$xml = '';
while(!feof($fp))
$xml .= fread($fp, 1024);
fclose($fp);
$fp = fopen($cacheFile, 'w');
fwrite($fp, $xml);
fclose($fp);
}
}
return $xml;
}
function _buildURL($locid, $cc, $dayf, $link, $par, $prod, $key, $unit) {
$url = 'http://xoap.weather.com/weather/local/'.$locid.'?';
// array containing the url parameters
$paras = array();
if ($cc == true)
$paras[] = 'cc=*';
if (empty($dayf))
$paras[] = 'dayf=0';
else
$paras[] = 'dayf='.$dayf;
if ($link == true)
$paras[] = 'link=xoap';
$paras[] = 'par='.$par;
$paras[] = 'prod='.$prod;
$paras[] = 'key='.$key;
if (empty($unit))
$paras[] = 'unit=m';
else
$paras[] = 'unit='.$unit;
// attach parameters to url
foreach ($paras as $val)
$url .= '&'.$val;
return $url;
}
}
?>To use it:
<?php
require_once('Forecast.php');
$fc = new Forecast('path_to_cache_directory');
$data = $fc->get();
foreach ($data as $day) {
echo '<strong>Day x</strong><br />';
echo 'Max temp: '.$day['max'].'<br />';
echo '<img src="location_of_icon_dir/"'.$day['idag'].' alt="day" /><br />';
echo 'Min temp: '.$day['min']/'<br />';
echo '<img src="location_of_icon_dir/"'.$day['inacht].' alt="night" /><br /><br /><br />';
}
?>Explanation:
The XML data comes from weather.com. You'll need to download their sdk and you need a license key and product id (both free). You can signup for it here:
http://www.weather.com/services/xmloap.html
When you download the sdk read the included pdf which will explain the URL to get the XML data. The constants at the top of the class can be used to configure the URL parameters or you can give the parameters when you make an object of the class.
The XML is cached and only refreshed every 4 hours. You'll need to make a file cache.xml and fill it with the XML data you got from the URL.
When making an object of the class ($fc = new Forecast('cachepath')
the only parameter you have to give is the path to the directory where the cache file is.The class will only display <fday> data, and only the max and min temperature and the numbers of the icons associated with it. The icon images you can find in the sdk.
If you want to parse additional data just enter the url for the XML in your browser and analyse the XML and write appropiate PHP code to parse it.
And last but not least, the array you'll receive from $fc->get contains a 2-dimensional array. The level 1 elements are the days and the level 2 elements are: min = minimum temperature, max = maximum temperature, idag = day icon, inacht = night icon.
So to display the whole thing just play with this array (eg. put it in a foreach loop as I showed)
One last note: this uses the PHP DOM XML extension for PHP4.3. I don't know if it works with PHP5 and several hosts don't have DOM XML installed.
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ISP's in Belgium are utter crap. Generally a €42/month cable connection will get you 10GB down bandwith and 2GB up a month.
So I'm stuck with that. Fortunately I don't download a lot but it really sucks if I have to download a linux distro because that means I'll have to watch out carefully not to exceede my limit.
If you go over the bandwith limit they put you on 4KB/s download speed for the whole month, happens to me a few time a years.
One positive thing though is that the speed is 10Mbps.
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Yeah things change fast :/
My PC is also between 2 and 3 years old and almost everything is outdated; no PCI-E, no DDR2, no SATA, ATI 9800, no 64 bit/dual core CPU.
But still, even though all this new stuff is here doesn't mean that older PC's are worthless, even for games. I'm still amazed how well my PC performs with new games like BF2 or Oblivion.
I don't really agree that AMD is better priced, atleast not now. Intel did some big price cuts for their pentium D line and they're very cheap. A pentium D 930 is now only €180 while an Athlon X2 3800 is about €100 more. Performance is similar, except like you say AMD performs better in games and Intel better in multitasking and heavy-duty stuff.
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Well I did a bit of research and the Pentium M and Core Solo/Duo consume less power than a Turion. The desktop CPU's of AMD however consume a lot less than Intel's. But since even an AMD desktop CPU consumes too much (4x as much as a Core Duo) I'm going for a mobile CPU.
The Conroe CPU's will be the same socket as Pentium D, not Core Duo IIRC. And the motherboard also needs an intel 965 or 975x chipset, which aren't very cheap ATM (in Belgium or the Netherlands they're all €150+).
I also don't want to waste money on a winxp OEM copy, so that's another €80 saved if I wait until Vista is released.
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Changed my mind again
I guess I better wait until next summer with all the new stuff coming out. It would be stupid to invest in an expensive now when Conroe, Vista and DX10 is coming.
So I switched plans. Since I was planning to build a home server next summer I'll do it now instead. It doesn't require the latest and greatest hardware and it'll save me some money.
The main requirement is consuming little power. So here's the rundown of specs I'm looking for:
CPU: Intel Core Solo/Duo, Intel Pentium M or AMD Turion
Motherboard: Should have 4 SATA ports, integrated graphics card, RAID 0 and 1, support for up to 2GB DDR2 memory
GPU: onboard
Memory: 1GB DDR2
Network: I'll buy one of those Intel gigabit ethernet cards. Cheap and puts some load off the CPU
HD: I already have an 80GB SATA drive which I'll to put the OS and software on, and I'll probably get 2 200GB or 320GB SATA drives
Case: I was thinking of a Cooler Master Stacker. Has lots of space, sturdy and supports EATX, mATX, ATX, BTX and mBTX (so pretty future proof)
PSU: 400W Enermax Liberty
Other stuff: DVD reader, DVDRW and a floppy drive
I guess such a system will only consume 20-50W if I choose the right motherboard for the CPU.
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Very good advice Morgan
This is a typical problem with most novice web designers. Being able to use a tool (Photoshop) doesn't make you a designer, you also have to understand what design is all about.
Here's some practical advice:
Read some decent books. "The Zen of CSS Design" is an excellent book to get started, touching the surface of design in a web design context.
Read some tutorials. There's a series of design tutorials here:
http://www.digital-web.com/types/design_in...y_and_practice/
Every day or week have a look at the various CSS gallery sites (see webdesigner's references sticky in this forum) and check the showcased websites. The more you see, the more you'll understand why they look good. Try to diplicate some of the design elements or apply the design theory you learned in articles/books to understand the site's composition.
And last but not least: change your perception about design. As Morgan points out, it's all about sending out a message. If you start your design don't think "I'll put a navbar there, use some gradients there, etc." but you should think "Who will visit my site, what content will be shown, which part is important, where should the visitor look first, etc."
Hope this helps
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I've been doing some research and it really is a bug, it's a thrip walking inside the screen.
At this very moment one is walking on my desktop screen. Hopefully it'll go away since two screens ruined by these annoying things in one month is no fun.
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I'm not aware of any good ones. I used to read many when I didn't understand OO yet but that didn't really improve my skills. Most PHP tutorial authors are PHP programmers and they approach it from their PHP perspective so you'll only learn OO syntax, not what OO is really useful for or what the best practices (patterns) are.
There are some good resources however (check sitepoint.com forums, advanced PHP programming) teaching patterns and stuff, but that's only useful of you understand OO very well.
I did learn OO the good way when I started learning Java. So my suggestion is learning OO while learning some basic Java. When your friend got that far it should be quite easy (though frustrating considering the lack of OO features and referencing) to do it with PHP.
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Yeah, that's the strange thing, I have no idea how it could get in there since there's no way to access it. Perhaps maybe from inside the laptop?
Well I hope the warranty will cover this
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Yeah but I thought Vista will only be released early 2007? I'll buy an OEM copy of winxp since I'll probably need it the next years for college, but when Vista is released I'll get it for sure
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I decided to wait a few months to build this PC. I see there's a lot of talk about the new upcoming Intel CPU, Conroe or Intel 2 Duo. Apparently these things will be much faster, cooler and consume less power than the current desktop CPU's, and the price won't be higher than the Intel D CPU's. Next to that AMD will halve the price of its dual core CPU's next month.
I've also read some stuff about directx10. Anybody got an idea when Gfx cards supporting it will be available?
So I guess it's better to wait for Conroe (release is late July, but only available in September most people say).
I've ordered some extra memory for my old PC and a new screen though (the Samsung 215TW), so that should keep me happy until then
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Something strange happened to my laptop screen. It was as if a little bug (not software bug) was crawling under the TFT cover; a short black line (about 2-3px thick, 5-7px long) that slowly moved around to random spots, just like a little bug.
I gently touched it and now the black line just sits there, there's no way to remove it. It also shows up in outside win xp (eg when watching the BIOS), so I'm positive it's the screen itself, not software.
Anybody else ever heared of this? I'm aware of dead pixels, but AFAIK they don't move around and then stop, so no idea what this is.
Editors
in Computer Desk
Posted
For developing a website yes. If the coding involves structural stuff and positioning WYSYWIG editors produce horrible results.
But when for example posting to a blog or forums or editing an article writing and maintaining html gets quite cumbersome. I've been using TinyMCE for about 3 years now and it's pretty good for a javascript-based WYSIWYG. Saved me lots of time.