Essential Tools for the Beginning Web Developer
I’ve been doing some Javascript tutoring this term and I realized that there are a few indispensable utilities that any budding web developer should know about. Text Editor The first thing you need is a good text editor. You can code anything in Microsoft’s Notepad or Apple’s Text Editor, but you won’t have any fun, that’s for sure. A good text editor is like a Swiss...
Read MoreFirefox 3.0.8 Prints Garbage Fixed-Width Text [Courier]
Apparently Firefox has developed sporadic issues with with the Courier font-family on Windows computers. If you print the following fixed-width text examples and are using Firefox 3, then chances are you’ll see garbage text for the Courier block. Default <pre> Font $ whoami $ ls -al $ echo "hai world!" Courier $ whoami $ ls -al $ echo "hai world!" Courier New $ whoami $ ls -al $...
Read More[Best Practices] Web Accessability Standards
About a week ago I launched a new website for the AccessABILITY Student Union at the University of Oregon (with a kickass CMS built on the jQuery UI). Coding the new site meant paying extra-special attention to web accessibility standards. So I thought I’d share some tips with you for making your websites more accessible to your visitors. Web accessibility also benefits people without...
Read MoreGenerating useful error pages with Pound
We use Pound as a reverse-proxy and loud-balancing frontend to our web cluster here in the office. Today we had some NAT problems with our proxy server and ended up with some server downtime. Pound defaults to outputting a cryptic error message when it can’t reach a valid host: The service is not available. Please try again later. This isn’t very helpful to clients who probably have...
Read MoreThe Buzz on Netbooks
Netbooks have existed for some time now, but have just recently become popular. A type of sub-notebook computer, netbooks are small, light and inexpensive. Originally, netbooks almost exclusively ran Linux operating systems due to performance and price benefits over Windows. Now many netbooks offer a choice between a Windows or Linux based operating system. Although not as powerful as...
Read MoreWindows 7: The Favored Son?
Well I hate to say it, but I’m excited for Windows 7. I downloaded the beta the other day and burned it to a DVD that is now sitting on my desk taunting me. I was going to write a blog post about my experience with the beta, but since I haven’t had time to install it yet it’ll have to wait. Then I started wondering, “why am I excited for Windows 7?” I wasn’t...
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