Why You Should Code for the Unthinkable

Ok….here we go…..wow this is a great slide….holy snap…..that’s a freakin shark!!!!

I usually try to keep Friday’s posts pretty light-hearted, but still be relevant.  That’s why you’re going to get a post today that involves coding, web development, sharks, and the bahamas.  Now most of you are scratching your head going….”How are you going to do that?”.  Well here we go….

How to Code for the Unthinkable

Now a lot of times we’re constrained by budgets that we simply can’t put all of the dummy-proofing into a scenario. However, a good web development company….like Justice Solutions in Arizona, will usually coach their client into using a bit more of their funds to be used for some enhanced dummy proofing of the site.  If you ever get any push back from your client or if you yourself are looking for a web development company in Arizona or Florida, this is what we’d use as a light hearted example…

A Shark Would Never Do That

Imagine you are the designer of the very cool shark tank waterslide at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas.  You come up with this awesome slide that plunges about 4 stories straight down through a shark water tank and then into a nice refreshing pool below.  Now you’re coming up with some precautionary things to dummy proof your design and you suggest putting a plexi glass containment sheet so the sharks can’t jump from the pool on to the part of the slide where the people meet up with the tank.

Your client, the Atlantis, has some shark “experts” who say, “The sharks we will have in the tank would never do that.”  So the Atlantis doesn’t foot the bill for the unthinkable.  Well here’s the headlines from today on TMZ.com:

Shark Commits Suicide on Waterslide

Yep…that would never, ever happen in a million years.  Well, the shark decided to prove them all wrong by jumping from the tank on to the water slide and into the nice refreshing pool.  Fortunately it was early in the morning before the slide and pool had opened, but I’ll bet you that plexi glass is being cut and installed as we speak.

Clients….pay for a bit of dummy-proofing

We all want deals on our sites, we understand that.  But if you’re the type of company who wants to save a few bucks by not paying for another day’s worth of coding to dummy proof your site, you may find yourself with your own shark in your pool…in the form of a person who clicks the buy now 8 times and you don’t have them confirm the quantity of items in their cart, or the person who doesn’t read the click only once and not put in some dynamic ajax to remove that ability after they click it.  Just some thoughts.

So enjoy your Friday and this weekend and we’ll see you on Monday.  Until then…happy coding.

Doug

Experts in Data Mining, Screen Scraping, and Import to a Single Source

Ok, it’s time to toot our own horn today.  I’ve seen plenty of blogs on this where businesses and individuals are looking to grab data from multiple sources (that they are allowed to scrape mind you), and combine it all into one grand application or database…often to no avail and leave very frustrated comments about their trials and tribulations.

Well, we’ve been doing this for quite a while and I felt as though it was time to let other folks know about it since there are a lot of opportunities for businesses to save on some soft employee costs, reduce overhead, and increase productivity and data.

A Quick Word About Why You Should Hire a Web Development/Design Company
This is where web development companies are worth their weight in gold.  Yes, I know there’s plenty of cookie cutter do it yourself websites out there, and they are great and very affordable.  But when you have an idea that is unique, or a situation that is unique, you really don’t want what is out there available for everyone else.  I mean, honestly…if Dell used a cookie cutter build your own computer plugin, would they really be all that different from the other 100 web stores that offer the same thing at approximately the same cost?  No, you’d probably go to the place that was unique, professional looking, and looked as though they actually spent some money building a better mousetrap.  Ok…so there’s my two cents why you should actually use us….on to the good stuff.

Why You Would Need an Expert in Data Mining and Screen Scraping
Let’s say you are a company in Arizona who has an idea to put together a site that puts together all of the latest reduction in homes for sale prices.  Now there’s a bunch of websites out there that you’ve contacted and said you’re going to promote this site and obviously push the business to the various real estate agents involved.  Now comes the fun….gathering this data on a daily basis and putting it all into your application.  That’s where Justice Solutions comes in.

Grab Data, Massage Data, Import Data, Display Data
So now you hire Justice Solutions to do this seemingly impossible task.  We now take the web addresses of these various sites and create an application that will go out to each one, identify the way each site displays its data, grab it (even if it’s on multiple pages), and then perform some massaging scripts that will convert any text data into price data, etc.  We then import that data into your master database which will then be used to display the data to your website users in a unique format specific to your website.

Why It’s So Difficult
The reason this is usually such a daunting task is because if you’re not used to it, trying to identify data patterns and other things that go into dealing with data from multiple sources can be quite overwhelming.  Also, you have to be able to automate all of it so it happens quickly and without much user intervention.

We’ll Toot Today
So if you or a person you know has an idea like this, or an existing business that would benefit from this type of application, please refer them to us.  We gladly pay referral fees and would be happy to help in easing the fears of this commonly thought of, but rarely successful, business model.  Contact info@justicesolutionsllc.com for more information.

Until next time…happy coding…and mining….

Doug.

Bake a Birthday Cake for Jesus This Christmas

I do love celebrating Christmas.  I grew up with Christmas being a very special time of year at my house, and certainly want to continue that tradition and feeling in my own home with my family.  Now you’re wondering why I’m blogging about this on our Web Development and Design website?  The reason is because I believe it is important for people you either do business with, or who would like to do business with you, to know what your spiritual base is.  It also is a great family activity if you celebrate Christmas.

I certainly welcome any posts from any of my blog followers to share their Christmas or their important holiday celebration activities with us all, since this time of year is about coming together in the world, and not tearing us apart.

Here’s a new one I just found out about that I think we’re going to do at our house this week or next.  It’s a birthday cake for Jesus which of course is the reason Christmas is the holiday it is.  I don’t know who came up with this recipe, but would like to thank them for not only coming up with a yummy desert, but the thought that went into the significance of each part of it.

This photo isn’t what it’s supposed to look like as this recipe calls for the cake layers to be solid red and solid green, but once we make it, I’ll post the picture up here.  But this photo gives you an idea of what it kind of looks like.

Recipe for Jesus’ Birthday Cake

1 WHITE CAKE MIX
1/2 CUP CHOCOLATE CHIPS, MELTED
1 TSP VEGETABLE OIL
RED & GREEN FOOD COLORING
2 16 OZ CANS WHITE FROSTING
RED JELLY HEART CANDIES
1 TUBE YELLOW DECORATING GEL
3 8″ ROUND CAKE PANS, (greased & floured)
1 RED VOTIVE CANDLE AND SMALLER GREEN BIRTHDAY CAKE CANDLES (for each child participating)
1 PIECE POSTERBOARD
* you can replace the one chocolate layer with cake brownie if you would like…yummy

Preparing/Baking the Cake

• Make cake as directed, pour 1/3 into 3 bowls. (if you are making a cake brownie layer just 1/2 it for the other two layers.)
• Bottom layer (black) combine into one bowl with melted chocolate & oil, stir.( only if you are using 1/3 of the batter)
• Center layer (red) add 10 drops of red coloring & stir.
• Top layer (green) add 10 drops of green & stir.
• Pour each into separate pan & bake 17-22 minutes @ 350 degrees. Remove from pans & cool.

Fixed CSS Positioning in IE6, IE7, etc.

See The Float In Action Here

You know, nothing is more frustrating when you hear that something has been fixed in a particular software update, and then you find out that it really hasn’t. I ran into this today when I was trying to do some fixed positioning of a new web host that needed to be affixed to the bottom of the browser and to the right at all times. I heard that fixed positioning in IE7 was now possible, so like an idiot I went ahead and placed just position: fixed; into my CSS and uploaded it for testing.

Of course in Firefox it looked and reacted fantastic. Then I opened IE7 and whoa……it was all the way shifted down at the bottom of my page like it never even looked at the CSS to position it. I’m not here to debate whether your version of IE7 works with this or not, but I can help you keep the IE6 and possibly some IE7 users who have messed up versions happy with your site design.

The Fix
Ok, short, simple sweet. That’s the way all web developers like it right? Well you’re gonna love this one then. First thing…add the following into your .css file or in your head tags of your page…it’ll work either way:


* {
margin: 0;
}
html, body {
height: 100%;
overflow: auto;
}
.wrapper {
position: relative;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
overflow: auto;
}


With me so far? Ok, next go ahead and create 2 more entries in your CSS substituting whatever name you are going to call the div that will contain your desired “floating” layer. In this case I’m calling it floatHer.


#floatHer {
position:fixed;
bottom:0;
right:0;
width:720px;
height:480px;
z-index:7;
}
* html #floatHer {
position: absolute;
}

Finally….and this is the cool part…just put

around the code of the page that IS NOT SUPPOSED TO FLOAT. Keep the div that you are wanting to float outside of this tag since this is part of the magic that happens when all of this comes together on your page.

Now upload/test your page in any browser you’d like and you’ll find your floating layer reacting just fine in IE6, Your screwed up version of IE7 like mine, Firefox, Safari, etc. Now obviously there’s some issues when it comes to scroll bars, etc., but for the basic ad you want to float on top of the web page (that’s why you googled this right?) this will work just fine.

Until next time…happy coding!

Doug.

Parsing Email List in ASP.NET

I’ve had this question asked of me several times and I thought it would be a nice little snippet of code to provide to my colleagues today.  The issue is how to parse or separate out a text field or text area which contains a bunch of emails separated by a delimiter of some type.

It’s actually not as hard as it seems, and I’ll even show you in this example how to add them to the CC portion of your email.  So here we go.


// You'll need to put in your server name in place of the DEDM101
Dim obj As System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient = New System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient("DEDM101")
Dim Mailmsg As New System.Net.Mail.MailMessage
Mailmsg.To.Clear()