9th june 2006

a cracking read

never thought i'd be making a post about safe cracking, but i've just read a really, really interesting article on howstuffworks about... well, safe cracking.

the page on "safe manipulation" was fascinating - determining your contact points, parking the wheels, graphing the results. at the risk of alerting the metropolitan police force, i'd love to give it a go.

and here's something you'd never pick up from watching heist movies - "knowing the combination is the most common way safecrackers open safes". not exactly sexy though is it?

take five minutes out of your day, read the article, and learn something new.

related:

blog,

sites

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/06/09/a-cra...

5th june 2006

oh lordy, it's the scrutinizer

the scrutinizer has 'bookmark' written all over it. it's a home for all of the tests that we - developers - should be doing on everything we build. these tests include code validation tests, accessibility, search engine optimization and browser compatibility. very, very handy.

just try to ignore the design as it screams "web2.0!!!" at you continuously.

visit the scrutinizer.

related:

accessibility,

css,

standards,

web dev

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/06/05/oh-lo...

10th april 2006

w3c taming the xmlhttprequest animal

missed this last week - you may have noticed i haven't posted for a while as i've been soooo busy - but the standardisation of ajax seems to be on it's way.

the w3c kids published their first working draft on, my friend and yours, the xmlhttprequest object on wednesday. they're aiming to provide more interoperability between the various implementations of the object, so i guess no more new ActiveXObject / new XMLHttpRequest browser sniffing type code.

no doubt this will take a long, long time, but it's nice to know that they're making a start.

you can read the whole w3c working draft if you want to.

related:

ajax,

standards,

web dev

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/04/10/w3c-t...

4th february 2006

ie6 and ie7, sitting in a tree...

i'll skip over the "internet explorer 7 beta has been released" announcement as, unless you've been locked in a cell (without internet access) for a couple of days, you already know that. however, being a developer, these types of announcements are a double edged sword. on the one hand, it's exciting to see what we can do with this new browser, but on the other hand, we can't really install it as we still need to test in ie6.

so i started looking around for a standalone version 7 straight away, and immediately found a way to localise the release; a method involving deleting most of the install files, and then creating a text file called 'iexplore.exe.local'. without a second thought, i gave it a go and was really happy when i was able to use ie7, and still open ie6. but, yes 'but', a strange thing happened. typing an address into ie6 caused the requested page to open in firefox (my default browser). as firefox was open when i tried this, i closed it down and typed another address into ie6. it opened up firefox and loaded the page. not happy, and my advice is stay away from this method.

but fear not, like a certain bank’s advertising slogan in the uk, 'there is another way'. rather than having the full ie6 version and running ie7 as a standalone app, it seems that it is possible to install ie7 over the top of ie6, and run ie6 as a standalone. just install ie7 in the normal way, then grab the internet explorer 6.0 eolas (xp).zip from skyzyx downloads, extract the files, and run iexplorer.exe. done and done.

related:

web dev

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/02/04/ie6-a...

27th january 2006

:-o and :o !!

cingular, the states' largest mobile phone network, have to be applauded for their balls this week. they have only gone and applied to patent smileys (or emoticons as they're known on phones)! how on earth can they do this? of course, stupid thing is, they'll probably be successful.

i remember first reading that now infamous joke thread from the early 80's where, The Register now reminds me, Scott Fahlman innocently wrote the line "I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: :-)", not knowing that he had invented a language that would be used - incessantly - in decades time by giggling office workers and pubescent instant messenger users. if only he had applied for a patent then! (of course there are now claims that they - smilies - were around a lot longer than that).

whenever they were 'invented', i think it's ridiculous that cingular are doing this, but you've got to admire them for trying.

source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/...

related:

laugh

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/01/27/-o-an...

26th january 2006

ouch

apologies if you've already seen this, but web 2.0 folk look away now: http://www.parm.net/web2.0/

related:

laugh

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/01/26/ouch/...

23rd january 2006

"you still going on about that google earth game thing!?"

following on from my post about the great google earth game thing on flickr last week, i've gone and 'had a go'. they're not the greatest, but i've done a few from my trips to the states. you can see them here if you really want to. incidentally, i do have many other pics on my flickr 'area', but i like to keep them for friends and family only. if you ask nicely, you can be a 'friend'.

as for the christmas tree, don't ask.

related:

blog

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/01/23/you-s...

17th january 2006

google earth game

i thought this was pretty cool. someone has set up a group on the brilliant flickr for pictures showing photographs of locations alongside what that same place looks like from the also brilliant google earth. there is only a couple of examples up there at the moment, but this could become really interesting.

visit the google earth game.

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/01/17/googl...

16th january 2006

insert swear words here

so the student who came up with arguably the greatest internet money making scheme of all time - in my opinion - has done it. the guy who thought up the brillianty mad idea of selling one million pixels for advertising space, at one dollar a pixel, has got rid of every last one of them. that's about ?600,000. half of me wants to shake his hand for being so bloody clever; the other half wants to kill him for being so bloody clever. why can't i come up with something like that? the best idea i've had this year was having a sliced banana on my cornflakes this morning.

you can see his site here, unless he's now going to take it down while he spends all his cash.

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/01/16/inser...