redbullmarky

[quote author=SemiApocalyptic link=topic=107252.msg430589#msg430589 date=1157725998] ... What are those blue and pink things? [/quote] empty packets of crisps, Tesco's own brand. one prawn cocktail, the other salt and vinegar.

failing that, you could always use frames *eugh*. have your left frame hold the menu, the right frame hold your content, then page refreshes of the menu aren't sooo bad. failing that, use javascript and be done with it. it'll save you the headache that comes with trying to please a few people at the expense of the majority.

haha mine is a cross between an office, recording studio and a brewery. [img]http://crashandburn.co.uk/images/pictures/office_big.jpg[/img] but it's mine, and i like it :)

i'd like to try and clear something up here. plenty of recent posts say along the lines of "i looked at xxxxx language. Is there anything that xxxxx can do that yyyyy can't do?" would it be fair to say there are two answers to ANY question like this, depending on the person asking, who might be: 1. the coder that wants to know what the limitations of their final site would be. 2, the coder that wants to know what little tricks the language can show off from a developer point of view. in terms of the first point, i'd say there are no limitations as HTML is very basic in comparison to serverside languages so its unlikely there's anything HTML the server side lang couldnt tackle with ease. as for the second, surely it's a matter of taste and preference. obviously, i've based both my points on the fact of using perl/PHP for Web stuff. But i'm quite adament on the point that when I hit a wall with PHP as far as web design goes, then i may look elsewhere. otherwise, what's the point?

ran the same results without defining $value1, on both 4.3.10 and 5.0.5. got BBB and CCC, as you wanted.

works ok for me. i'm on PHP 4.3.10 here [b]edit[/b]: gave it a blast on 5.0.5 too, works fine there too.

also. if i was to quote £1600, and the client says "no, can you do under a grand", then: 1) his budget is a grand 2) you charge a grand. or £999 if you want to be nice. you're already saving them £600. so where the 650 and 900 (or 6500/9000 if you actually DID mean that, in which case i still want to move there) i don't know. [b]edit[/b]: something for others to clarify. surely the 'developer' of a site has nothing to do with any legalities once a site's ownership has been handed over?

you quoted him 1600 and he said it was out of his price range and said he wants under 1000. so you are now charging either 6500 or 9000? tell me where you live. i want to move there. [b]edit[/b]: the question of whether you take it should really depend on your schedule, and whether you can afford NOT to take it. going by what your website claims you understand and what you can do, there's nothing in there that should really tax you at all. from the details you've given, i'd prob guess a weeks graft (40-60hrs), but i'd look at your $30/$60 per hour normal rate, based solely on examples you've shown so far. i don't know if this idea is unique - but based on the fact that you've posted the brief (and his idea) on a site for all to see, before you've even agreed, i'd go elsewhere just off the back of that if i was him.

[quote author=AndyB link=topic=103885.msg415073#msg415073 date=1155495016] Statistics - quote attributed variously: [quote]There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics[/quote] [/quote] and 75.128% of statistics are made up on the spot. don't trust stats as anything more than a rough guide. 800x600 is good enough for most sites, if properly planned and thought out, and considering that would get pretty much ALL people on board, instead of just 70%, i think that's worth it. consider also that the "old fogey" 30% could be quite enthusiastic about telling friends and family, etc so you'd be getting good word of mouth which you wouldn't otherwise get.

[quote author=MaaSTaaR link=topic=101004.msg429758#msg429758 date=1157624596] i know a very very bit of assembly , and i plan to be good in it but it think it will need very long time . [/quote] you're right about the long time. even once you've grasped the basic concepts, it can still be quite tricky - the biggest reason being the fact that it's not an easily readable language - so you have keywords like 'int' (interrupt) and 'mov' (move) instead of C or PHP which have more descriptive function names. if doing things byte by byte flicks your bean, then assembly is for you. i remember studying viruses when i was at college, most of which were purely written in assembly and tought me quite a bit about the hows and whys. Also the Wolfenstein and Doom source code was a good learning point for the hows and whys, although it was written in C with assembly used for GFX/lighting routines, etc. essentially though, the bare bones of assembly is just setting and moving 'bytes' around in memory, adding, subtracting, etc and using the chip's internal procedures to act on it. things were easier then though, when it was just a case of using 'int' to switch a screen mode and using 'mov' to move a coloured pixel to somewhere on the screen. nowadays things are far more complex. if low level is what you're after, i'd still suggest C++ or similar higher level languages, as most (if not all) C++ compilers allow you to also put assembly directly into the code for when it's essential to optimise, but without having the headache of going 'right down' to system level.

[quote]I am just wondering how can I use ruby on rails with php, what can it do that php can't[/quote] IMO, I doubt that it can do anything that PHP cant. I think the way it's structured is what makes it so unique. Same goes for ASP - nothing it can do that Ruby can't, it's just the syntax and structure of the language that make it different. At the end of the day, all you got to remember is the OUTPUT of all of these programs is just HTML, which all of them can do with ease. I have no experience with Ruby apart from watching clips like emehrkay posted, but it seems its strength is in the way it promotes seperation & structure and its ease of database management. However, with good working habits, these things can easily be addressed in PHP/etc too. I prefer languages like PHP as sometimes (in the case of testing things out, etc) I like to just throw something together in the 'wrong' way. I don't like the idea of being somewhat forced into doing things a particular way. The only limitation with PHP is how much you know it.

colours - yeah, definitely different to php.net now. its a coincidence i see a lot, as they're fairly common colours. i just think that php.net have used them so much that its hard to use them and not have more than a passing similarity. ok, so the average joe won't really know much about PHP.net, but loads will. pills - yeah, they're much better and 'passable' - however, my original comment about pills in general still stands - not because of yours, but just cos i don't like them in general. maybe you could [i]try[/i] lopping the bottom of the pills, and see how they look as tabs? i dunno. either way, much better. only prob now is it makes the links in the very top seem a little bit out on a limb... cheers Mark

stick to what you know. if you know coding (PHP, CSS, HTML, etc) but suck at drawing, etc, then you can create a perfectly good site without even using photoshop or such like, just using CSS. As for planning it out, there's nothing wrong with a good old pen and paper. Look at the 'resources' section pinned at the top of the website critique forum, ESPECIALLY the cssplay.co.uk and the colour scheme one. Leave photoshop (IMO) to an expert, else you'll be in serious danger of being a jack of all trades & master of none. deja vu.... cheers Mark

Ditto with jcombs to an extent, although I (almost) like the site. I think it's more a case of minor improvements rather than anything major. I won't comment on the content, as (as jcombs mentioned) I have no idea what it's for - your immediate goal is not obvious, even if you read it a few times. I think there's only a few things that stood out for me. 1, The top banner part's colours. those shades of blue/purple almost go hand in hand with php.net site - almost as if they own them. as a result, it looks a bit naff compared to other areas. 2, your site doesn't seem to know whether to be 'boxed' or 'curvy'. you curved the navigation 'pills' at the top, but everything else is very square. maybe take a look at http://www.lookitsme.co.uk/ as they seem to share a similar style to you 3, your navigation in general could use some work. i can't put my finger on it, but i'm not keen on pills in any way shape or form. it kinda reminds me of 90's sites. again, look at the site i just gave you and see how they do it. curvy tabs, i think - just not pills. otherwise, i think it's very tidy and with a bit of work (and a clearer goal) it could work very well. cheers Mark

yeah. at 26, i've not grown out of it yet  ;D WWE is always good for amusement and the main events, but i kinda like UFC too.

whilst i understand templates are available for a reason, my impression is that they're there for people who aren't as experienced who want to put up a site of their own - not for people who are coding sites for other people or are marketing themselves as a web designer/coder. sure, so it takes less time to make a site using templates - but at least you can say you've done it yourself. I'd feel very cheated if i asked you to do me a project, payed you £15 an hour or whatever you charge, and found out you'd almost completely used templates and 3rd party scripts and then had to litter my site with credit for other people. Current site: 1, the colours you have going on in your site are awful - especially the gray backdrop. 2, gradients are hard to use without looking rubbish. 3, you have far too much text. KISS 4, the varied use of whitespace makes things look odd. look at the spacing between the items on your left nav, compared with the spacing elsewhere. 5, random selection of spelling mistakes throughout. Good points? your section about swapping web design for dental work made me chuckle. It used to take me weeks to put up fairly simple sites, and not just because my knowledge was limited but also because of the way I kept myself organised. Now, I have set libraries of functions and reusable code,  set ways of structuring a site (custom templating engine, seperating presentation/business, etc) and I admit I'm not very strong on design at all and it's probably my weakest point, so I don't even waste all of my time trying. I just set myself a few guidelines (spacing, number of colours, font, basic layout) and stick to them, and it just kinda works. Take a look at them and you'll see what I mean. http://www.crashandburn.co.uk/portfolio.php

thanks Barand I've looked a couple of CVS systems. They all strike me as a little complex tbh (unless I'm just looking at them from the wrong point of view). Are there any really (really) simple versions out there that Dreamweaver would co-operate with? Cheers Mark

Hi all Quick question. How do you lot (lone users as opposed to team members) manage your libraries of code throughout each project? I currently use Dreamweaver for development, and increasingly I find it difficult to keep track on certain libraries of code. As I write, I find certain changes that need to be made to a particular library - only changes that are made are kept confined to a project, as that's where all the files are. When it comes to a new project, I sometimes find it hard to remember which version of the code was the latest I updated, etc, etc. Surely there's a better way of keeping a library together, without resorting to saving the script "locally" (ie, for the project) and also in a seperate code library? Just after some thoughts, especially from lone developers that use Dreamweaver. Any other tools you'd recommend to help keep my re-usable code organised and up to date? Cheers Mark

[quote author=businessman332211 link=topic=107006.msg428815#msg428815 date=1157495021] I noticed that, I felt pretty stupid so I didn't say anything else in the post, I had it set to integer, instead of varchar [/quote] take a look at ip2long and long2ip functions. whilst it doesn't remove the need for thorough checking, i find it much safer and also takes less storage in your DB. It has been known (from my own experience) for people to be able to manipulate certain values that turn up in the $_SERVER array (by masking/altering, rather than any brute force), so best not to leave anything to chance.

with all due respect, i'm very very reluctant to be even replying here, mainly due to the fact that half the issues were addressed in previous requests for critique, where you state "yes, i'll do that in my next rewrite". just looking a jcombs's post, most of the stuff on there (for example, all the ethics stuff) has been addressed before several times, with extremely valid reasons as to why you should make the change. let me put this to you bluntly. the work you do for other people is a million times better than the (lets be frank) rubbish you churn out for your own site. not saying i do a much better job, but hey - are you asking for critique on the same issues every time until someone gets tired of it, gives in and says they like it? sorry for being so harsh, but please - at least show that you're listening+learning and prepared to actually put peoples suggestions into action. otherwise, you're pretty much wasting your time as well as everybody elses who bothers to critique. take a lead from the work you do for others, and work out why it looks so much better than the work you do for yourself. stop trying to justify yourself with "it was this, it was that, it was a free project" and take it on the chin.

Here here. The best thing to come out of Australia since Fosters. RIP Steve

It's been a while since I did anything in 'Assembly'. The only reason I see to use it is when you really need to optimise something or take complete control over the system. These days, it seems a little unnecessary when languages like C++ do a pretty strong job of optimising code. The only thing I ever used it for really was for graphics routines for games, where it was pretty essential to get things as fast as possible. I'd probably say that game development would be the only valid reason to learn/use it nowadays.

I used to work in door to door sales and worked a ridiculous amount of hours, drinking Redbull (illegal in some countries!) just to keep going. Redbull kinda became my 'quirk', and "Redbull Mark' kinda stuck when people were trying to distinguish between me and other Mark's. But when I used 'redbullmark' as a username once, it was taken, so i stuck a 'y' on the end. There you go! (interesting fact with regards to owning the names - I've not tested on anything else, but for anyone that has FF on the PC, type in 'redbullmarky' into your address bar...)

SA, I'd probably say I'd agree to the most part. I actually use Fireworks MX for GFX, etc, and I don't think they have a Linux version (closest being the Mac OSX version), so that would be a stumbling block for a full development system. I've installed a copy of Ubuntu on my system to try out properly, so I'll give gimp a go and look around at alternatives. However, I don't do much in terms of gfx so that's probably not such a big issue with me, but the fact that there's such an open-source community (meaning that i'm not gonna get hit in the pocket when using some of these packages) is an immediate plus. I think that the reputation of security/stability has been the biggest thing for me to make me consider a switch, along with the fact that I don't do anything "PC specific" on my machine anymore. Games are what my PS is for, work is what my PC is for. As for the rendering - I did notice that, but mainly in the way that it dealt with fonts. On one of my sites, I had 'Verdana' as the font, which on the Mac/PC is fine - but on Linux comes out as something totally different (nice, though!) - a totally OTT serif font. I dunno. It's not something I'm gonna rush into, but definitely something I want to consider - every day I seem to read about some security issue or other, patches, etc (for Windows), and considering the price of Windows/Dreamweaver/Fireworks when upgrading etc, the open-source road seems a very attractive one to consider. jcombs, i'll take a look at those. I'd heard of Bluefish, but not as yet taken a good look, so cheers for the tips! Cheers Mark

off the back of this article: http://www.massassi.com/php/articles/template_engines/ i created my own. the problem with templating engines is, whilst they offer plenty of other features, they're just ultimately a new set of syntax. people take the "seperation" a bit too far, when the actual idea is just to seperate your "business" logic from your "presentation" logic. no matter how hard you try, its not really possible to remove ALL of your code from the HTML - no matter how you dress it up, re-syntax it, etc. ok, so some people don't like using php short tags. but if they do, is typing <?=$name; ?> really that much harder than {name} ? and many of these 'Engine' templates also use similar methods for looping, whereas the 'foreach' in PHP is simple enough in itself, without the need to replace it with a new set of syntax. in terms of what i look for - just something lightweight and simple that keeps the bus/pres logic as seperate as possible. i literally have 3 main functions in my template class other than the constructor: 1. function to set a variable 2. function to load a (sub)template to a variable 3. function to output seriously, the link i posted above is definitely an excellent read which, in itself, covers most of your queries. hope that helps a bit Cheers Mark