Ciss 232 Weblog for Jaime A.

Journal Entry - 10 part 2

2005-05-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

so, it seems as though we all took the same approach to doing the assignment, as far as seperating the project into smaller steps. I like pam's thoughts on "small victories". That is a real good way to think of it. While Rebecca went over the sample code, i did not and i'm not sure if pam did either. Also, while pam seemed to deal with the validation first, i think rebecca and I dealt with the post back conditions first. I'm not sure which would be the best approach, if either. I like the way i did it, and I think i would use this method for future projects. One thing I've been "urged" to do since I started working as a web developer is not only indenting the code (which i had a bad habit of not doing!), but also commenting the code before you actually start coding. This is very effective in the sense that it helps you sort out all of the sections of the code before you actually put in any code. Since I also have a pretty bad habit of not commenting my code too, it's somewhat of a struggle for me because I have a tendency to want to jump right in and start "making things happen". That's just something I need to work on.

Journal entry - 10

2005-04-24T18:02:00.001-07:00

My approach to the card activity was fairly straight forward. First, I dealt with the “post” code. This means I tried to associate where data will be depending on whether or not the page has been posted back. I did the whole assignment in parts. After separating the code, I started adding the content. I added the web form code to one area and the card to the other area. I then tested to make sure it was working right so far. After doing this, I started adding all of the code that makes the page dynamic, such as displaying the “to” and “from”, and the image of the occasion. I think I approached the assignment in a good way. I probably wouldn’t do it any differently if I had the chance, although the one thing I didn’t do was generate pseudo-code. Another good idea would be to outline the code with comments before actually coding. That helps out with complex problems, too.

Journal - 9

2005-04-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

For lab 2, an include file could have worked for the navigation and banner sections. I could also have used an include file for the content of the pages. I don’t really think it would be that practical, only because of the size of the “site”. If there was more content, more pages then maybe I would consider using include files for something like that.

Lab 3, I would say is pretty much the same thing. Possible include file for navigation, content, and header.

In lab 4, processing the data could be done in an include file.

Lab 5 could have been done exactly the same way we are doing lab 9 now. An include file would have worked great.

Lab 7 could also have been done with an include file when the data is processed.

Journal Entry - 8

2005-04-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

I think lab 3 would be practical to do server side. You could have the server generate the pages depending on what was clicked. I don’t think it would really be better to do server side, however only because of the size of the site

The processing of the data in lab 4 could be done server side. Since all it really did was display the name, I don’t really think it would be better to do server side, but it wouldn’t be much worse, either.

Lab 5 would be practical to do server-side and I believe it is better to do server side because you are doing calculations and processing the data.

Journal Entry - Week 7

2005-04-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

ASP
ASP benefits--
---Microsoft products are currently dominant in the world, which makes transactions between businesses using Microsoft products easier.
---Integration can be easier or more attractive in a merger or acquisition
---Larger companies already have Microsoft products and employees are trained to work with them.
PHP benefits--
---Php is easy to learn
---Better support
---Many web hosts are currently supporting PHP
---PHP is supported by many web servers, while ASP is supported by Microsoft servers(unless you use a third party utility)
Coldfusion
PHP has worked itself to become a standard server side scripting tool, making support for it more accesible. However, Coldfusion basically can do everything that PHP can. PHP tends to be a more friendly language to learn, use, and get assistance with though. PHP uses C/C++, Perl and Java style syntax.
The downside to using coldfusion is that some processes may take much more code than php. For example, here is some beginners code in CFML:
CODE
#AddTwoNumbers(2, 2)#
PHP:
CODE

Python
The biggest difference between Python and PHP is that in Python, indentation is used to mark out block structure rather than curly braces. This could be described as a disadvantage, but it would be a matter of opinion. Python has support for all major GUI frameworks and allows you to create to much more scalable applications -- importing modules is safer than in PHP Also, global variables are not used. PHP is a weakly typed language while Python is strongly typed. Also in Python, white space is significant. One of PHP’s biggest advantages is that it has better documentation

http://www.pointafter.com/Archives/nl0203.htm

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t302653.html

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3882

http://wiki.w4py.org/pythonvsphp.html?_action_=diff&version=1&compare_brief=yes&otherVersion=2

Journal Entry - Week 6

2005-02-26T10:58:00.000-08:00

Browser Detetion

I didn't know how easy it would be to find a javascript example, and then find a site that used it, so I went backwards. I went to sites that I go to fairly often, and then I found what I was looking for-Browser Detection. Gamepro.com uses browser detetion to tell whether the user is running a netscape navigator browser under version 5. If it is, then the user is redirected to the "lo-fi" page.

My example of how to do this is at http://www.js-examples.com/javascript/?view=762
It's pretty overwhelming at first, but all it's really doing is just pointing out all of the different detections you can do including:
Browser name
Browser version
Operating System
Javascript version

This information can be real helpful, especially nowadays since browsers interpret CSS differently

Journal Entry - Week 6

2005-02-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

Browser Detetion

I actually did this assignment backwards. I didn't know how easy it would be to find a javascript example, and then find a site that used it, so I went backwards. I went to sites that I go to fairly often, and then I found what I was looking for-Browser Detection. Gamepro.com uses browser detetion to tell whether the user is running a netscape navigator browser under version 5. If it is, then the user is redirected to the "lo-fi" page. Here is the code:

if (navigator.appName == 'Netscape' && parseFloat(navigator.appVersion) < 5){
 alert('You are using ' + navigator.appName + ' ' + navigator.appVersion + '. \n GamePro.com no longer supports your browser. \n We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest upgrading your browser');
 window.location.href = 'http://www.gamepro.com/lofi/index.cfm';
}

//-->
adCall2( 'home', 'index' );
script>
I'm not exactly sure what the adCall funtion does, but it looks like it sets values by passing those 2 parameters. Since that function is not declared anywhere on the page, it must be an external function.
As you can see, the syntax is pretty simple. It's just navigator.appName and navigator.appVersioon

My example of how to do this is at http://www.js-examples.com/javascript/?view=762
It's pretty overwhelming at first, but all it's really doing is just pointing out all of the different detections you can do including:
Browser name
Browser version
Operating System
Javascript version

This information can be real helpful, especially nowadays since browsers interpret CSS differently

Journal Entry - Week 5

2005-02-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

Well first of all, I sort of feel bad because I already knew how to tackle the assignment this time. Usually I’m not that lucky, but this time I actually got to sit back and breathe a sigh of relief.

Anyway, after viewing Pamela’s last 2 postings I think one thing to keep in mind when doing web applications is that there is usually an easy way to do everything. I usually have the same problem with researching certain problems because the examples people do online are usually either too complex, don’t work the exact way you want them to, or just plain don’t work period. I think Pamela did a great job planning out what needed to be done, she just didn’t realize that the div tags are objects. That would definitely cause frustration. Also, I agree that testing pages in Mozilla or Netscape first instead of IE is a good idea because apparently the Mozilla and Netscape translate the box model differently. It seems like we need more webstandards hahahah.

Rebecca had some great resources, including www.webreference.com/js/column1/multiple.html. She did a great job researching. There were like ten links on her post. She definitely took some time to get a better understanding of what she was trying to do.

I like the way Mr. Zellers broke it down. Thinking about any problem as object oriented is a great idea. When I started programming back in 2002 (feels like so long ago), I first learned Visual Basic 6. VB6 is not object oriented, it is instead structured. It was sort of similar, as far as the conditional statements and functions are concerned, and I guess it could have been thought of as a little bit object oriented, but when I took the Java course, I was lost for a little while because I had to adapt to thinking about every entity as an object. After taking Java and then learning some javascript and Visual Studio.net (to an extent), I am positive about my O-O knowledge. I think that learning PHP also helps because it is VERY similar to javascript, except it’s server-side. The syntax is basically the same. I almost can’t wait to learn PHP in this class because I’ve already learned so much, but I started out doing really complex stuff so I’m sure I missed out on some of the basics.

Journal Entry - Week 4

2005-02-05T13:36:00.000-08:00

For the newest lab assignment, we are to make hiding submenus that become visible when the user puts the mouse over a main menu div. I've done this twice, once for ciss216 and once for the project I'm working on for work at LCCC that allows staff to submit computer problems and requests. This process is very similar to image swaps, except instead of changing the image when the mouse is over the object, you just set the visibility property of the invisible div to visible. You also have to set that property when the mouse is over the new div, too. Then,when the mouse moves out of the new div you set the visibility property of the new div to visible. If I have problems doing this, I'll look it up by doing a search on google for "hiding submenus" or something to that effect. I should't have any problems, though because I already have two examples of this lying around ;)

Journal Entry: Week 3

2005-01-31T07:51:00.000-08:00

A liquid layout is achieved by making all of the containers on the page percentage-based instead of fixed width. This allows the page to change as you size in and out, ensuring everyone has a comparable experience on the page

One site with a liquid layout is http://evolt.org/

If you would like to learn how to create a liquid layout, visit
mardiros.net/liquid-design.html

Journal Entry: Week 2

2005-01-26T07:41:00.000-08:00

The Web Standards Movement

The web standards movement is intended to make web design faster by using web standards. Design is faster because of the separation of content from the presentation and also by using Cascading Style Sheets.

Here is a site in favor of web standards:
http://www.webstandards.org/
Here is a site against web standards:
http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/A569C81864DC4F1BCA256E5F001A59C5

I think the movement is a good thing. It makes filesizes much smaller when you deal with web standards. Possibly more importantly, it speeds up the development process. I think that the one thingthat's not very good about it is the fact that not every browser supports every standard. That stresses the need to check for cross-browser compatibility.
To develop a site using web standards, view the checklist for webstandards at http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/checklist.cfm

Journal Entry: Week 1

2005-01-23T17:12:00.000-08:00

Here are my links:

Xhtml
http://www.w3schools.com/xhtml/default.asp
http://webdesign.about.com/od/htmlxhtmltutorials/
http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/xhtml/

javascript
http://javascript.internet.com/
http://www.webreference.com/js/
http://www.sbrady.com/hotsource/javascript/

CSS
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/
http://www.artypapers.com/csshelppile/
http://members.cox.net/bphowe1/webmates/css.html

web accessibility
http://diveintoaccessibility.org/
http://www.utexas.edu/web/guidelines/accessibility.html
http://www.jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm

Introduction

2005-01-23T17:03:00.000-08:00

My name is Jaime A.
I have a degree in software development and I'm trying to get another degree in e-business. I've worked for the LCCC business division as a lab technician since 2002.
I like computers, video games, and comic books.
My goals for the class include learning more javascript and I'm also interested in learning PHP.