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Archive for the ‘InterWebNet’ Category

Greenshot – free screenshot tool

July 13th, 2010 Eric Silva No comments

After using SnagIt for several years with my old company, I was in need of an open source replacement.  After using everyone’s favorite research assistant, I found Greenshot.  It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that SnagIt has, but it has the basics which is what you use 80% of the time anyway.

So far, so good.  If you are need of a good screenshot/capture tool, and don’t feel like forking over $50 for a SnagIt license, check out Greenshot.

Simple Calendar Control for Web Application

March 19th, 2010 Eric Silva No comments

I originally did this back in 2007, but did not want to lose the content, so I decided to put it up here.

I found a robust and relatively simple calendar control to use for web UIs. It can use a pop-up window or a floating <div> tag. I prefer the latter as it makes the page look good and avoids a pop-up.

To use the control simply put the CalendarPopup.js file in your application’s “scripts” directory and be sure to include it in your JSP. (I used this in a Java app, but you can apply it to any language.)

Download the and put it in your images directory.

Add the following lines to your application’s JavaScript file (or include on the same page if you don’t have an external JS file):

// Set up Calendar control
var calObj = new CalendarPopup("calDiv");
calObj.showNavigationDropdowns();
calObj.setMonthNames('JAN','FEB','MAR','APR','MAY','JUN','JUL','AUG','SEP','OCT','NOV','DEC');

// Handle the Calendar control
function doCalendar(destObjId, srcObj) {
    calObj.select(document.getElementById(destObjId),srcObj.id,'dd-MMM-yyyy');
}

Then add the following lines to your JSP:

<script>document.write(getCalendarStyles());</script>

In your JSP, add the following HTML code where you want your date field and calendar control:

<input id="dateField" style="width: auto;" maxlength="11" name="actualDate" size="25" type="text" />
<img id="imgCal" onclick="doCalendar('dateField',this);return false;" src="cal.gif" border="0" alt="" />

That’s it!

In order to workaround IE 6′s inability to recognize the z-index attribute on the tag, I made some modifications to the original JavaScript code. You will need to pass the an ID value to be used for the hidden that will overlay the box.

var calObj = new CalendarPopup("calDiv", "calFrame");

You will also need to specify the following styles in a stylesheet. The ID values in the stylesheet must match the names of your DIV and IFRAME IDs on your page.

div#calDiv {
    position:absolute; visibility:hidden;
    background-color:white;
    layer-background-color:white;
}
.select-free {
    position:absolute; z-index:10;/*any value*/
    overflow:hidden;/*must have*/
    width:152px;/*do not change value for calendar control */;
}
.select-free iframe#calFrame {
    display:none;/*sorry for IE5*/
    display:block;/*sorry for IE5*/
    position:absolute;/*must have*/
    top:0;/*must have*/
    left:0;/*must have*/
    z-index:-1;/*must have*/
    filter:mask();/*must have*/
    width:3000px;/*must have for any big value*/
    height:3000px/*must have for any big value*/;
}

Your JSP now needs the following line:

<div id="calDiv" class="select-free"></div>

Funniest Thing on the Twitter All Day

January 13th, 2010 Eric Silva 3 comments

A conversation between @cwgabriel from Penny Arcade and @pvponline from PVP.

Brought a tear to my eye after @wilw got involved.

gabriel_pvp_tweets

Categories: Humor, InterWebNet Tags: , ,

Google Chrome Frame

November 25th, 2009 Eric Silva No comments

I installed Google Chrome Frame about a month ago, and I am very impressed with how responsive and quick Internet Explorer is with JavaScript intensive web pages now.  If you use a lot of JavaScript intensive websites, e.g., Facebook, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar, etc., you will notice a significant improvement in performance when using IE with the Chome plug-in.

I was also interested to find out that the new Google Wave application only works with IE if you have the plug-in installed.

The plug-in works in Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8, and requires you to have Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7.

PyXML for Python 2.5

October 30th, 2009 Eric Silva No comments

I was looking for a version of PyXML for Python 2.5 and had some difficulty due to the project being unmaintained.  I was able to find someone that compiled PyXML 0.8.4 for Python 2.5.  You can find it here.

Categories: InterWebNet, Programming Tags: ,

Can’t Find Shit on Oracle’s Website

October 21st, 2009 Eric Silva 1 comment

When Oracle first announced that they were acquiring BEA, the first thought that went through my head wasn’t “I wonder if Oracle AS will be dropped in favor of WebLogic.”; it was “Oh great! Now I won’t be able to find shit on the WebLogic forums too.”

It’s been several months since the acquisition, but today I got fed up.  BEA used to have a website, dev2dev.bea.com, where they would post clever tips, tricks, etc. about the WebLogic platform.  I would have thought that Oracle would have kept all of this “useful” content alive after the website consolidation, but I was wrong.  It wasn’t bad enough they killed the forums at BEA, which has since caused all Google searches to come up with a plethora of dead links since the BEA URLs no longer exist.  Links from other forums to BEA listings are now worthless as well.

But hey, I can always go over to the forums at Oracle’s website and search there right?  One would think that was a logical solution, that is until they found out the honest truth:  Oracle’s search engine is powered by the Total Perspective Vortex.  At least that is what it feel’s like each time I attempt to find any God-damned thing on their site.

All I wanted was the article about the Thread Dump Analyser (TDan) tool that was written a while back.  It’s the best tool out there IMHO for performing thread dump analysis and being able to represent the output in a visual way.  It’s a good thing I keep a backup copy of the tool available.

Good Night.

Google Calendar now has Sports Schedules

September 3rd, 2009 Eric Silva No comments

Just noticed today that Google Calendar now has built in sports schedules so that you can be sure you never miss out on a game.  Pretty sweet feature for the sports fanatics out there.

image

Categories: InterWebNet, Sports Tags: , ,

Creately.com: Online Diagramming and Design

September 3rd, 2009 Eric Silva No comments

Pretty neat application that just went public.  In was in beta for several weeks and is a nice replacement for Microsoft Visio if you need to share and collaborate on a diagram with remote users.

http://creately.com

I Just Won a Rock Band 2 Bundle from Pepsi

August 31st, 2009 Eric Silva No comments

Drinking Diet Pepsi just paid off.  I just won a Rock Band 2 Bundle for the Wii from Pepsi.

We should be having some fun in 8-10 weeks.

image

Categories: InterWebNet Tags:

DiggBar Sucks

April 14th, 2009 Eric Silva No comments

Hey Digg,

1995 called and they want their stupid <frameset> tag back.  This site now blocks that hack attempt at marketing.  Thanks to Daring Fireball and Phil Nelson for the idea and plug-in to prevent the DiggBar from framing this site.

Here’s a good article on the whole matter.

If you use WordPress and would like the plug-in, click on Phil Nelson’s name above.

Categories: InterWebNet Tags: ,