vanderwal.net

GUI vs Hand Coding for HTML

Dori posts a matrix explaining how well GUI Web mark-up tools perform and it is not suprising that most do poorly. Dreamweaver MX does admirably, but the JavaScript is not up to par. The best coding is still hand coding. If you do not know how to hand code your job will never be done, it will not be right either. The tools have come a long way, but they are nto there yet.

Zoom Zoom

Ahhhh.... This past month has been horrible to be with out my own e-mail accounts and or broadband. I have more than a handful of digital friends I keep up with, e-mail, and chat with on-line and not really having access was no fun to say the least. I am behind on e-mail and other things I had taken on, accept heartfelt appologies and know I am doing what I can to catch-up.

I am really not understanding how folks use dial-up, particularly with Yahoo offering a $29 per month offering and Covad offering about the same price or less. I can understand not being DSL accessable, but if you are it is well worth the effort. Trying to read even CNN on line was painful. With broadband I can check local movie listings in Watson and see a clip (oh what a wonderful idea, I have not done this in months).

Apache 2.0 builds for OS X

Hmmm... Yesterday I was looking at Apache and the other two pieces of the triumvirate PHP and MySQL. Today I ran across what could be an improved option, Server Logistics' Apache 2.0 along with Perl, PHP, MySQL, and Postgres. Apache 2.0 provides multithreading and other improvements to the incredibly stable and supreme Web server All of this is set to build and run on Mac OX 10.

Found it in the paper

I learned another thing on vacation, The New York Times is a great paper. Yes, the NYTimes.com offers great news and all the content, but the actual paper is a great asset. I spent this past week reading the paper version of the Times and found great stories that informed and even entertained in each day's paper. I never see this in the digital version as it is not as easy to flip through the digital pages as it is the paper version. The Web version groups the information by like kind, but finding the nuggets is not as easy. I usually read the highlights using AvantGo, which may limit my closeness ot the nuggets I found I really miss. I subscribed to the paper version for years, but thought I found the digital version more streamlined, but now I realize what would make my morning coffee better.

Microsoft embraces Apache Web server

CNet News discusses Microsoft's .Net set to link to Apache, which is a great step as the Microsoft IIS web server is increasingly being dropped as a viable option because of never ending security problems. This would literally doom Microsoft's .Net initiative as it would not be usable on the Internet without their Microsoft Internet server. By moving the ability to run the .Net framework on an Apache server Microsoft not only extends their ability to run their services on a superior Web server with far fewer security problems, but Apache is now recognized as a viable Web server by Microsoft. Apache owns the majority share of the Web server business and those of use that have had the ability to use it prefer it hands down to Microsoft's IIS.

Film Strip Art

Film Strip art provided a great diversion. [hat tip Eric]

Baking versus frying CMS

Aaron discusses baking versus frying with content management and updates bake and fry CMS ideas. The idea is to bake content, which is using your content management system to produce static pages. The alternative is to fry from the CMS by providing truely dynamic content. There are a few reasons why one should choose the frying method:

• Frequent (hourly or semi-daily) updates of informaiton
• Multiple dependancies (information linking to and from many points)
• Unlimited resources
• Many variation of presentation of the data
• Providing user slicing and dicing of informaiton capabilities
• Many external content providers

This list does not capture everything, but also provides maleable guidelines. There are many advantages to baking (publishing static content pages) from a CMS:

• Speed of delivery
• Archievable version
• Ease of troubleshooting and maintenance
• Editable output pages
• Use templates to generate valid mark-up and perfect 508 compliant pages
• Using reusable content pieces that provide consistancy and accuracy of information on all presentation layers
• Keeping various application elements well maintained

Aaron provides good links for further discovery of your own.

Gold Box provides

The Amazon Gold Box provides a goodie to get. After watching the Gold Box for weeks, and wondering where it went for a week or so, the Gold Box had a solid offering. I found Memento on DVD popped up. I did not see the movie in the theater, but have had an interest. The 10 dollar plus price made it less than a movie out for two and the fancy tiles are not available at the rental joints. One thing I did not realize about the Gold Box is that if you select an item to buy before the final item you do not get the opportunity to see the remaining items.

Usability review of online mapping sites

The Wall Street Journal provides a review of online mapping directions and lists how helpful each of them were with regards to mapping, accuracy, and written directions. These applications are one service that blossomed on the Internet, but the usefullness of the sites and the usability of the sites varies. Reviewed are: AAA.com, MapBlast.com, MapQuest.com, RandMcNally.com, and Hertz NeverLost II GPS. The usability and accuracy of the online maps and their printout versions are key to how well the site gets you to where you are going. One of the items this review required was finding an exact restaurant by name, which there are other methods of finding a restaurant's address to look up on a map. Over all the review is a good read.

Spread the Dot

Digital Web needs your help

Are you looking for a great project to volunteer your time? Digital Web Magazine is still looking for people with the following skills to help with the redesign and weekly publication:

• graphic designer (print and web / Illustrator / Photoshop)
• information architect (site flow / Visio)
• logo designer (branding / Illustrator / Photoshop)
• web designer (layout / Photoshop)
• web developer (markup / hand-coding)
• web programmer (backend / SQL / PHP)
• writers (word or text)
• curators (linkbot, webtrends)
• editors (word or text)

Site map with Apple Script and OmniGraffle

A very nice approach to sitemap generator with Applescript and OmniGraffle. [hat tip Michael]

Meetup launches

I am very intrigued with Meetup, a new company/organization to bring people together face to face (f2f).

IIS on XP Home

Those who have XP Home and want to run IIS (perhaps to build and test ASP) should read 15 seconds IIS on XP Home hack. This is an inexpensive solution to Microsoft not stating anywhere in their marketing materials for XP Home, or in their early tech papers, there is no official way to run an IIS server on the box.

Domain follies

The move of vanderwal.net off of NetSol (Verisign) seems to have gone over with very few bumps, if any. Verisign sent a nice parting note, which stated they would love to have me back at any point in the future. We shall see over the next few days if the bumps stay away.

In the transition I picked up a couple other domain names, which I will work with in the coming months. One may possibly replace v-biz.net, which I do not have any of the valid contact information for it to tranfer that domain. I may have to say good bye to that one when it expires. One of the others is somethings I wished existed.