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21 Jul, 2010
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Wow! +1 for Kohana and scalability.
My old, abandoned, learning-kohana website had 0 visitors yesterday - today: over 4000.
Y'all have really screwed up my google analytics. As I fade back in to obscurity my normal 1-3 visitors will look like nothing on a graph with 4000.
This site is written in Kohana 2.3.4. I have since moved on to Kohana 3.0 - a super-cool php framework. It rocks. Check it out. http://kohanaframework.org/
30 Sep, 2009
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The .htaccess file that work with my webhost for Kohana version 3.0
# Turn on URL rewriting RewriteEngine On # Installation directory #RewriteBase / # Protect hidden files from being viewedOrder Deny,Allow Deny From All # Protect application and system files from being viewed RewriteRule ^(application|modules|system)/ - [F,L] # Allow any files or directories that exist to be displayed directly RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d # Rewrite all other URLs to index.php/URL RewriteRule .* index.php [L]
The differences from the example.htaccess from the Kohana v3.0 download are:
RewriteRule ^(application|modules|system)/ - [F,L]
instead of
RewriteRule ^(?:application|modules|system)\b - [F,L]
which gives an Internal Server Error and
RewriteRule .* index.php [L]
instead of
RewriteRule .* index.php/$0 [PT]
which gives a No input file specified message.
22 Mar, 2009
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Grunge started as the de facto web design for skateboard punks and garage bands. Gritty or dirty backgrounds, subdued colors, rough textures, torn edges and graffiti-like text define the grunge look.
Like every web trend, grunge has its place. When used for the right website, it evokes a raw, edgy, urban feeling. When used for "Grandma's Homemade Cookies" there is a definite disconnect.
15 Mar, 2009
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First came dark,then came dark and glowy. The dark backgrounds and light text were a welcome change from the cotton candy colors of Web 2.0. "Stunning" is the word most used to describe well-done dark websites. They have a sophisticated feel that screams, "I am an artist and a damn good one!"
11 Mar, 2009
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Being clear and concise is the most important thing in any type of communication. If people have to decipher your clever sentences, they will not stay on your website, read your email, or listen as you are droning on.
Here is an example of unclear communication from my daughter's soccer coach:
You will note I have added guidance principles for each of the key positions on the field in the interest of girls learning their tactical roles in supporting one another to ultimately score more goals than the other teams. Please share these expectations with the girls.
After applying Krug's third law of usability*, we end up with 15 words instead of 47.
Please review the following position responsibilities with the girls so we can win some games.
Less is more.
*Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left.
Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
03 Mar, 2009
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Like everything in web development, flash has its place. But like almost everything in web development, it is overused.
Clients love flash. It gives them the "Wow!" they are looking for in a website. Unfortunately, flash is usually thrown in to be flashy without any thought to how it relates to the website, how long it takes to load, or SEO considerations.
I once had a boss show me the new flash for our website. It had over 60 seconds of a golf putt circling before sinking in the hole. When I expressed my confusion on how that related to web development, I was told I didn't understand because I was not the target audience. Okay...whatever.
People come to websites for information. They don't want to wait for flash to load or to have to download the newest flash plug-in. Most people don't like the distraction of moving animations when they are trying to scan a website.
28 Feb, 2009
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Textured sites are a designer's dream. They get to pull out all their tricks and fancy Photoshop brushes. When done well, the sites are beautiful where the sum of the parts equals more than the whole. Like a symphony performed by a professional orchestra.
When they are done poorly, they are a hot mess. Think three-man band of five year olds — all banging pots and hooting kazoos.
Most textured sites have drop shadows dropping every which direction, an overabundance of patterns that don't match and make the eyes cross, and teeny tiny text in fixed size boxes that break when the font size is increased.
I once had a boss who never met a drop shadow he didn't like. Our websites all "popped off the page" and were quite visually disturbing. I asked him, "How many suns are on your planet?" but he didn't seem to think drop-shadow-reality should be a concern. I do.
Please join me in my "Save Our Perspective!" campaign.
18 Feb, 2009
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[web too point oh]
-adjective
The term Web 2.0 was coined in early 2004 by O'Reilly and MediaLive International. They noted that even after the burst of the dot-com bubble, new websites and applications were popping up rapidly. Most of the successful companies used the web as a platform and provided web services with dynamic content derived from the users of the website. Web 1.0 was defined as sites that contain static content provided by one source.
Some example Web 2.0 applications are:
The world of Web 2.0 is also the world of what Dan Gillmor calls "we, the media," a world in which "the former audience", not a few people in a back room, decides what's important.1
Somehow Web 2.0 became synonymous with the design trend of shiny buttons, reflections, and huge font. Web designers used it as a marketing buzzword to woo their clients. Who wants to be stuck in Web 1.0? Web 2.0 became a bandwagon and everybody jumped on it.
Come on people, as far as design trends go, I think it is time to move on. This trend is the Hillary Duff and Hannah Montana of web design. My 12 year old daughter loves Web 2.0 sites...nuff said.
16 Feb, 2009
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My town just started online registration for their parks and rec department. This should be a great convenience for signing up for town programs. Unfortunately, it is not. After trying three times to sign up my son for baseball, I gave up, printed out the form and hand-delivered it to town hall.
Inconsistency is the root of all evil in forms - whether it's inconsistency with previous forms users have filled out on other websites or inconsistencies within the form itself.
Why is it important to have a consistent form?
It inspires confidence. By my third time filling out the form, I was wondering, "Is this registration going to work?", "Is he going to be signed up three times?" and "Do I really want to give these people my credit card number?" I printed out the form but if it had been an e-commerce site, I would have taken my business elsewhere.
Any time somebody has a question about part of the form or has to stop and think, they lose trust in the site. If they lose trust in a site, they won't buy what you are selling, stick around to read what you wrote or ever come back.
Above the form is the information about the baseball program. The information is good but the images are huge - 2307x3072 and over 3MB each. They take a long time to download.
This pagination says there are 21 results and page '1 of 1' is displayed. What results is it talking about? Forms? There's only one. Form fields? There are more than 21.
This makes me wonder about the developer's attention to detail.
See #2.
Large font. Blue text. Is it a link or just some information?
What does * mean? Usually it means required field but that is not specified.
All input fields, including radio buttons and check boxes, should have their left edge lined up along an invisible, vertical line.
Why is this input field styled differently? Does it mean something?
Pity the parent who volunteers to be head coach and then changes his or her mind. There is no way to unselect a radio button.
None of these fields are marked with an *. Are any required? Does * mean required or something else?
People expect forms to be in a certain order - name, address, city, state, zip code, phone number. Any deviation from that standard stops the flow of filling out the form, makes people have to think and, frankly, is quite irritating.
When the zip code is filled and the field loses focus, the city, state and country are automatically filled in. Typing is faster than waiting for the ajax (with a 'loading' indicator) to fill in the fields. Also those fields are editable, letting the user change them to invalid values.
The phone number field is expecting the format 919-555-1212 but does not indicate that anywhere. When the field loses focus, '555-1212' turns into '555-121-1'. The field is not marked invalid until the 'Next' button is clicked - leaving people to wonder, "Why is my phone number invalid? How the hell did that dash get in there?"
The date format is not specified. When '04/28/00' is entered, it is correctly formatted to '4/28/2000'. However the age field is filled in with '108'. Unlike the other auto-filled fields, the age field is not editable.
The required fields are not marked until 'Next' is clicked. Then a red * is put next to any required but empty fields. The top form has an always present black * to mark required field.
The 'Required' or 'Invalid' text is placed under the invalid field instead of beside it like in the top form. This causes the form fields to jump as the 'Required' disappears once the field is filled in.
There is no indication on how the Grade should be entered - '3' or '3rd' or 'third'? A dropdown list would have been a better choice here.
The Father's Day Phone, Mother's Day Phone and Physician Phone fields accept phone numbers in the format of 555-1212. All other phone number fields require the format 919-555-1212.
The phone number is automatically formatted and is now invalid. It is especially confusing in this section because the other phone numbers do not need the area code.
The check box should be to the left of the label.
The first image with buttons has 'Cancel' on the left and 'Save' on the right. The form for changing the Account information has 'Save' on the left and 'Cancel' on the right. Considering 'Cancel' causes you to lose all information, it should be in the same place on each form.
Forms need to inspire confidence. They do that by being consistent with themselves and other forms. Forms should be easy to fill out. The user should not have to think. They need to be able to trust that if they fill out the form, you will receive the information and do the right thing with it.
09 Feb, 2009
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After companies decided that teal backgrounds with blinking, scrolling purple text did not quite represent them the way they intended, the Business trend was born and it was all-business.
Dark corporate headers. White backgrounds. Black text.
Very few images were used. Usually just the logo and the obligatory photos of a good-looking, diverse group of people* staring intently into a computer monitor.
The text was filled with corporate-speak such as: mission statement, synergy, six-sigma, think outside the box, client-centered, rollout, best-in-class, commoditize, empower, facilitate, paradigm shift, push the envelope, proactive and deliverables.
For example:
We capture the synergy of six-sigma to think outside the box in a client-centered way as we rollout best-in-class solutions that commoditize, empower and facilitate the paradigm shift to push the envelope and enable us to be proactive in our deliverables.
This trend was blah, characterless, drab, dry, mundane, stodgy, trite, unexciting, and uninteresting. Thank goodness it is (mostly) over.
They are all white and all male and all not-so photogenic. You can find more diversity in the men's room at the local Southern Baptist College.
02 Feb, 2009
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In 1996, Microsoft released FrontPage 1.0. One of the first distributed web authoring tools, it let the users save their work directly to the HTTP server (if the server had the FrontPage extensions installed, of course.) This let authors work remotely instead of having to be connected to the LAN containing the physical storage.
Needless ot say, FrontPage became the darling of the early web. Its WYSIWYG editor let anybody — regardless of web knowledge, design ability or taste — publish websites.
Now the FrontPage web pages are like the old chain-smoking, whiskey-drinking, gaudy great-aunt who stays too long and talks too loud. She's fun to be around for about three minutes but after that she gets rather tiresome.
FrontPage produced an ugly mess of non-standard HTML sprinkled with IE specific tags. As you clicked save, you could almost hear Frontpage yell, "<BLINK> <MARQUEE> <O:P> Suck on that Netscape Navigator!"
As web developers wanted more control over their code, WYSIWYG editors became passe and now the hallmark of a "real" developer is hand-coded html.
30 Jan, 2009
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After installing Kohana v2.3 and following these instructions to remove index.php from the URL, a blank page with "No input file specified." is displayed.
The problem is some web hosting companies run PHP5 on Apache 2.2 as CGI mode as the default. If they do, Apache is not going to support 'PATH_INFO' inside Kohana. I found my information here although I had to rework the RewriteRule for Kohana 2.3.
To fix this, for Kohana 2.2.1 and earlier replace the last line in the .htaccess file with
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ index.php?/$1 [L]
Later versions need to use
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ index.php?kohana_uri=$1 [L]
For Kohana version 3.0 see my other post
29 Jan, 2009
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In the beginning the Internet was primarily used by researchers in universities. Enamored by this new form of communication, the university culture took to emails like ducks to water. The low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills made collaborative work much easier.
The term "Internet" originated in December 1974 in an RFC document describing a single global TCP/IP network.
In 1985, the United States' National Science Foundation commissioned the construction of a university 56 kilobit/second network backbone using computers. In 1988, the network was opened to commercial interests.
The slow computers of the age necessitated few if any graphics were used in web pages. The main focus was to distribute information without thought to how the websites looked.
20 Jan, 2009
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Not Internet per se but I have fond memories of the 3270 terminal from when I started working at IBM in 1989.
,.,
((())
(|o_o|)
()\=/()
()\_/()
,.,
(~ ~)
q:0 0:p
((_))
'u'
,oOOOo,
o(""")o
o|* *|o
C((_))C
'='
,
,.'` `'.,
|:o o:|
\(_)/
,
,iIi,
(((()))
))o_o((
'\=/'
Okay...so it wasn't all good and we were all anxiously awaiting our 386 machines with OS/2 so we could connect to the token ring and surf the real Internet.
10 Jan, 2009
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Web design trends have evolved over the years as html and other web languages matured, servers got faster and web browsers became standards compliant.
I started this site as a way to learn Kohana, show off my CSS skills, play around with JQuery and brush up on my Photoshop skills.
Doing a "history of web design" gave me the perfect opportunity to design many different looks.
All the different trends use the same html code. Only the CSS, images and some javascript is swapped out.
If there are any trends I have missed, send me an email or leave a comment here.