Stumbled across this code to generate PDF’s clientside using Javascript.
It works, although it didn’t work in Firefox 3 correctly, perfectly in Google Chrome though. The idea is pretty awesome though, I wonder what other formats could be created this way… Going to keep an eye on this project and see how it develops, could be useful perhaps for a site where server side PDF generation is not available or not possible?
If you visit Google Labs often, then you’ve probably seen the new Similar Images Image Search entry.
I use Google Image Search alot, normally to find an image of something quickly or to see what a person, car, item etc looks like. The new Similar Image search is a step in the right direction, although there are alot of things they could do to improve it.
I would love to find out if they’re comparing the images or if they’re comparing the surrounding META data? Or is it a combination of both? I don’t think its based purely on the image, because occasionally a false positive shows up that doesn’t match the other images at all.
The similar image search is a step in the right direction, but I think they could improve the image search function alot more. It would be cool if I could upload my own image for them to search for, but of course the problem with that is if they’re using the surrounding meta data the uploaded image wouldn’t have that.
I was reading this article from Slate about user generated content and the cost of running “social” sites or other sites that contain user generated content. I’ve always wondered about the costs of running something like YouTube or Facebook and how exactly do they pay the costs of running the site.
A fun exercise is to take the content that you generate and cost it out, obviously we’re buying bandwidth in small quantities so its going to be expensive, but think about the costs.
I’ve been reading up about Google App Engine, which sounds interesting. It sounds like yet another “cloud” computer although one of the advantages is that this one is free, or at least some of the services are free and it integrates with the rest of the Google services which could be rather nice.
Of course there are disadvantages as its tied into Google which some people think is evil and your code could end up only being able to run on there platform and not others.
Has anyone used it? What do you think of it? Anyone done anything more than a quick look at the introduction page?
I recently had to get some data out of a .db file from an Adobe Air application, a few quick searches on Google turned up that the file is, as I suspected, a SQLite database. (Way to go Adobe!)
A few searches later and I had found this neat little application called SQLite2009 Pro its a free download and works pretty well. It allows you to view the database structure and import/export data as well as run SQL queries against it. It also comes with a ODBC driver but I haven’t gotten that to work, but admittedly I haven’t read any of the docs yet.
For those of you wondering, the file I was reading is the database file for the SARS (South African Revenue Service) E@syFile software.
I thought I would list a bunch of Open Source / Free utils and applications that I use almost every day. I’m excluding the obvious ones like Linux (in my case Ubuntu).
The list below is what I use in my day to day job, normally on my laptop running Windows Vista, the order really doesn’t matter its just as I thought about them. Everything listed below is available for Windows and most are also available for Linux and other OS’s. I’m a programmer, web developer and computer geek so I’m sure the list of software below reflects that, but no matter what you do there is probably at least one application that might be handy.
If you have a favourite please add a comment and share it with us. Continue reading
Anyone have any experience using CSLA.Net ? I’ve seen it being used in the past but more as a Data Access Layer, which is not exactly what it was designed for.
I’m working on a project that would basically envolve creating a bunch of “Business Objects” that do all the heavy lifting that can easily be bound to an user interface. These business objects are not going to be using SQL based data though but rather be talking to an ERP system via a COM/Webservice interface in an xml format.
I want something that allows me to creat an object that I can then define how it should be loaded, saved etc. I would also ideally like to be able to put in validation rules on the properties of the object.
If you have any ideas of frameworks other than CSLA let me know too. Ideally it must support WPF and if at all possible Silverlight.
To the web developers out there… I was reading this article about Sprite Optimization which is basically about creating a big image with all the graphical bits of your interface on it and then using css to clip and display only the relevant pieces.
In theory (and jundging by what I read.. in practice too) this makes your site load faster. I know that WordPress does this in places in thier admin interface.
Although reading the article, they do point out that for somethings doing it this way massively complicates matters.
I think I would split things up a bit, have one file for icons and perhaps another for borders and UI elements and maybe another for buttons or something like that.
I’m not sure if you got an email too from Apple about the Red iPod and how its the perfect gift for Valentines day, I’ve included the letter that they sent with the add in this post below. (If I’m not allowed to post it please let me know.) It’s an awesome piece of writing, had me laughing every second.
Although I do think I would have to give my girlfriend alot more than a red iPod to get her to allow me to replace the sofa and sell her car…
When “ajaxyfying” (my new word for when you add AJAX to a site) a website do you code all the java script your self or do you go use one of the many AJAX libraries/frameworks?
I’m currently working on something that has lots of forms for inputing values and tables for viewing the values, and I would like to make the interface a little snappier by adding some AJAX to update things without reloading the entire page. Obviously this is relatively simple to do and can be done without a fancy library by coding things myself… but is it actually worth it? I realise that knowing how AJAX works “under the hood” is a good idea, and the ability to actually code that yourself is an important skill, but other than a simple test app is it actually worth doing it yourself?
At the moment I’m playing with Prototype, it wasn’t chosen through some kind of scientific process it was just the first tab I happened to open in Firefox. I’m trying to make the webpage more responsive, not “flashy” so I don’t need any fancy visual effects just want to limit the amount of times a page loads when things are clicked on.
Any opions? let me know below.
Edit: After writing this I took alook at the WordPress code and found out it uses jQuery, so I’ve downloaded that and gonna have a go with that too.