The Dreamweaver team has been hard at work since the launch of CS3 to bring you…drum roll please…CS4!

View full entry »

Here’s a scenario: your client is hosted on a shared or dedicated server and is running their domain’s email through Postfix and Spam Assassin or, worse, the built-in email provided by the host. Your client complains constantly about the amount of spam that they get even though you put all that gee-whiz email address obfuscation code on their site.

What’s a neck-bearded web developer to do? Well, did you know you can run your domain’s email through Gmail for free? That’s free as in beer, kids.

View full entry »

Update: As of Mar. 21, 2008, Google has rolled out a fix to this problem. If you see the “Older Version” hyperlink in the upper-right corner of your Gmail window, you are using v2 of the Gmail app and should no longer experience the Shift Key problem on Safari 3.1.

Safari 3.1 and Gmail do not appear to be working and playing well together. This widely reported problem [link 1, link 2, link 3] seems to have reared its ugly head with the release of Safari 3.1 on Tuesday, and affects users who are using either v1 of Gmail or the version of Gmail that is hosted with Google Apps (when you host your domain on Google Apps [read my previous post on this useful and free-as-in-beer service]).

If you are one of The Affected, you probably have a nice dent in your desk where you’ve been banging your forehead repeatedly. Specifically, the symptom is that hitting a modifier key like Shift, Cmd, Option, etc. will jump you to the “to” field or will otherwise try to activate some keyboard shortcut even if keyboard shortcuts are disabled. This bug is enough to drive any normal human being to murder.

The Work-Around

If you’re on the standard version of Gmail, ensure that you have the “newer version” selected. This is a hyperlink that appears in the upper-right corner of your Gmail screen. If you see the link “older version,” you’re theoretically are good to go.

If you’re using the version of Gmail hosted by Google apps, the only published work-around I’ve come across is provided by the Gmail team itself: switch to plain-text formatting; the problem is specific to rich-text editing.

Of course, you can always type like ee cummings and avoid the use of capitals or punctuation. Oh, and the obvious solution is to slum it over in Firefox for the interim.

Safari 3.1 has been released for both the Mac and the Windows. The update is available via the automatic Software Update on the Mac, or via a manual update on Windows. Of course, you can download a fresh clean install here.

Included in the update is a new Develop menu which contains various web development features, allows access to the web inspector and the network time line, allows CSS editing in the web inspector, and allows user agent spoofing.

On the standards side, Safari 3.1 adds support for CSS 3 web fonts, CSS transforms and transitions, HTML 5 <video> and <audio> elements, offline storage for Web applications in SQL databases, SVG images in <img> elements and CSS images, and SVG advanced text. (Ironically, none of these things are standards yet, but whatever.)

The full release notes can be read here.

Since the launch of Leopard and Safari 3, I’ve been using Safari as my primary development browser. The only thing I miss from firefox is the ability to view the source code on selected text. Other than that, Safari 3 with the debug menu enabled has been the best browser for development on the market, hands-down. With 3.1’s update, this will only improve.

I was kindly informed by Microtek that I’m screwed. My s400 flatbed scanner that is barely more than a year old has been bricked since my October upgrade to Leopard. I’ve been patient for months now, and finally wrote them a kind letter. I got this in response:

Dear Mr. Stringer,Please be advised that the ScanMaker s400 scanner is not supported on Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. We regret to inform you that Microtek will not be releasing software drivers for the ScanMaker s400 scanner to support this new operating system. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you.

<rant>

Microtek just made my infamous Dead-to-Me list with Sony, the Microsoft Operating System, and the Republican Party. Congratulations guys. I’ve got your prize right >here<.

Look for an mint s400 on eBay soon.

</rant>

Update:
The item is up for sale on ebay. Check it out here.

If you create any sort of training videos for your clients, then you’ve most likely been using Ambrosia’s excellent SnapzPro. Now, we have ScreenFlow from Vara Software. This $99 Leopard-only app lets you capture your desktop just like SnapzPro, but it does a whole lot more.

Read the full post for details…

View full entry »

A very good (and brief) blog post over at Signal vs. Noise [link]. Some choice quotes:

“Programmers often have difficulty going back to older code bases because they don’t reflect the latest, greatest idioms.”

“Even if you take that project from three years ago and scrub it clean as can be today, it’s still going to drift from the best practices of two years from now.”

“Here’s something I don’t say often: Suck It Up. If you work on more than a few projects, they can’t all smell like today’s fresh linens.”

I definitely recommend reading the whole post.

Okay, I’m a little late to this party. Back in mid-December, the fine folks at Coffee Cup released the audio from the various (and excellent) sessions from the WJS2k7.

The sessions were unusually good for a conference–assuming you’re either a web developer or a designer (or a slashie, I suppose). The audio versions are very helpful and informative.

For details on the WJS conference, check this archived post: “Webmaster Jam Session 2007 Wrap-Up.”

Also be sure to visit the Webmaster Jam Session site itself for updates on next year’s conference.

Subscribe to the Webmaster Jam Session 2007 Audio Podcast feed here.

Unobtrusive Javascript (UJS) is defined in Wikipedia is the practice of abstracting Javascript code to separate function from presentation. To grossly simplify things, it means completely replacing all in-line and page-embedded JS with header or externalized code that uses the DOM to access elements by reference.

That said, use of UJS isn’t without controversy. Specifically, it’s consideration as a “best practice” is not agreed upon by many. While the benefits of abstracting JS code make sense in certain cases, some argue that the overhead associated with UJS makes ongoing maintenance more difficult, and the time to implement the initial code take longer.

In this article, I’m trying a little experiment. Rather than sit here and pontificate on what I think, I thought I would invite some “guest speakers” to weigh in and provide varying points of view. My goal is to let you, the reader, decide if UJS is a practice you should adopt.

View full entry »

Apple announced today the introduction of the iPhone SDK and the iPhone Developer Program.

The iPhone SDK is free and includes the Xcode IDE, Instruments, iPhone simulator, frameworks and samples, compilers, Shark analysis tool, and more. This will let you tinker and develop.

However, if you want to sell or distribute your app, you will have to shell out $99 to become a member of the iPhone Developer Program.

The iPhone Developer Program provides a complete and integrated process for developing, debugging, and distributing your free, commercial, or in-house applications for iPhone and iPod touch. Complete with development resources, real-world testing on iPhone, and distribution on the App Store, you have everything you need to go from code to customer.

The Developer Program comes in two flavors: 1) the Standard Program for $99 is for developers who are creating free and commercial applications for iPhone and iPod touch. 2) the Enterprise Program for $299 is for developers who are creating proprietary, in-house applications for iPhone and iPod touch.

More details here:

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/