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Sausage Sizzler - Weird Weather |
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| Editorial March April 4th 2002 |
G'day Sizzlers!
It is strange getting use to Melbourne weather again. Hot then
cold, then raining, then hot again all in the space of an hour.
My body doesn't know what is going on!
Thanks to all the Aussie readers who have told me the swap to
Optus for cable internet will be a wise one. Currently the guy
from Optus is cabling my parents house for internet, tv and a
phone. In a few short hours I hope that my internet conenctivity
problems will be over! It is really quite amazing how I can no
longer function without a decent high speed conenction!
I have also noticed it is quite hard to keep everyone happy when
it comes to my spelling. Having grown up in Australia I am not
aware of all of the particularities of American English. So it
would be nice if you would all cut me some slack when it comes to
writing American style. As it is the readers of this newsletter
come from the four corners of the globe, and English for some may
be a second language as it is. I think if you at least get the
idea then that is great. I do make every effort to conform.
A few people have sent in some alternatives to ePrompter, which I
featured in last weeks SuperToolz section. Amongst them was
MailMagic and Mail Washer, although unlike ePrompter it does not
look like these programs support Web based email.
The Sizzler Forums are moving along very nicely now, with over 300
active members. If you haven't checked them out, and have a few
spare minutes, you should. You will realize that they are a
dynamic way of having your problems solved!
Do you remember that a couple of weeks ago I said Reptile 3 was
on its way? Well we are putting in the finishing touches as I
speak. You will be able to try it our very soon!
Keep on sizzling!
Nathan Allan
Sausage Sizzler Editor
editor@sausage.com
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Contact Manager - Authentication and Contact List
Now that we have the basic functionality to insert records into
our tables we'll start making use of that data. The first step
should be to make sure only people we want are seeing our data,
so we need to put the authentication in place.
prepend.php
This is an updated version of our require()d file. It adds 3
lines of very basic code to handle authentication.
login_1.php
This is the initial login page. Notice it does not use the
require()d file. There is only one very simple PHP statement in
it, which handles populating the username field after a failed
login.
login_2.php
This is the most important part of our authentication system.
It's what processes the login attempts. Again, it's very basic.
First, we prepare the submitted values to be used in the query.
Next, the database is queried for a matching entry, if one
matches we proceed into the system, otherwise we're sent back to
the login page.
With the ability to login in place we can start displaying our
contacts. This is also what the login_2.php redirects to on a
good login.
list_contacts.php
Very simple, we just display all the contacts in our database
order by the company name. Next time around the two options
"edit" and "del" will be written.
Error checking and the various possible improvements will be left
up to forum participation. Some obvious improvements:
- limit the number of login attempts allowed, and possibly disable an account
- contact searching
- contact list sorting
- multiple page list
Please direct all questions and comments to the
Sizzler Forums
for the benefit of everyone.
Tip by Rich Cavanaugh
From - EnFlyer: The Email Marketing Experts
Discuss it in Rich's PHP and MySQL Forum
In the past in this section I have always used uppercase
lettering for the tags. Mainly because it makes it easier to
follow in the text. However I have copped a bit of flack as this
would not be compliant with XHTML standards. So I thought I would
briefly talk about standards this week.
Similar to when you build a house and it has to adhere to
building regulations and standards, so too you can build a Web
site adhering to standards as well.
How carefully you adhere to the Web standards will depend on how
seriously you are taking your Web site. If your site is just
something you have thrown together for friends and family you may
not care if you have dotted every "i" and crossed every "t".
However if that site is critical for the revenue of a business
you will probably be more stringent on sticking to the rules.
Having said that it does not mean that all the browsers out there
will actually follow the standards exactly. Hence we have the
problems of the same Web page being rendered differently in
different browsers. In turn some Web developers will bend the
rules so that their pages look as good as possible on multiple
browsers.
You can find most standards at:
http://www.w3c.org
There are also some online services that will check your site to
see if it is compliant with the standards such as:
Bobby: http://www.cast.org/bobby/
WDG: http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/
Website Garage: http://websitegarage.netscape.com/
Tip by Nathan Allan
A little bit of fun
Ok, so maybe for some of you this will be A LOT of fun. There
are two fun things going on here. First, Sausage and the gang
are working on some new toolkit components. One product takes a
variety of images and sounds and allows you to create a real
flash image. It’s not as fully Flash animated as you might
expect but it DOES let you take, for example, an animated banner
and add sound to it, then save as a compact Flash .swf file.
Quite useful.
Doesn’t sound like that much fun yet? Well, for those of you NOT
from Australia (like me) an Australian accent is quite amusing.
I’m sure some of you have seen this guy:
http://www.crocodilehunter.com. What’s fun is hear the voice of
a person you’ve never met but have perhaps traded mail with or
read their forum postings. Not only do you get to hear the voice
of the editor, you also get to read the "ranting" of a native
staffer.
Here's the forum thread to read the replies.:
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=130
Ready for an authentic Australian accent? Here’s the link to
hear the voice:
http://www.netbloke.com/sausage.htm
Review by Bram Leland Scolnick
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From Scratch or Off The Shelf
Let’s say you have a project, for example a shopping cart. The
shopping cart must have an extensive feature list, must process
payments, require registration and have a database, offer a
newsletter (you need to get them to return).
What do you do? Do you find a programmer (or have one) to build
from scratch or do you search Google (www.google.com) or saved
links to find an off the shelf, ready to go option? I can think
of many reasons why off the shelf is great for any product, as
long as there is little or no custom programming needed. I can
also think of reasons why building from scratch is better.
If you're going to search, how to you narrow down the choices? If
you’re going to build from scratch, do you hire someone or contract
out? Let’s assume further that you're a business owner of design
company and you need to have a shopping cart for your customer.
If you're gonna build one, why not build it for resale? The big
issues now are time and money.
There are a plethora of sites to search through. One of my
favorites because of its great supply of quality listings is
HotScripts (www.hotscripts.com). They have TONS of things to
offer, ready made. Some of the products, especially the PHP
goodies, come with shell scripts that actually install the files
and create the database(s) that you need.
What about support? What about the products you just can’t find
off the shelf, or found but still need A LOT of work? If it
needs A LOT of work, does it make sense to buy off the shelf or
start from scratch?
What's your opinion?
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=238
Discuss your experiences with Bram Leland Scolnick
When is Flash to um...Flashy?
There are plenty of web sites out there that offer themselves up
as a Flash only site. There are just as many, if not more, that
offer both an "html only" as well as a Flash version of their
site. When is Flash to Flashy? When are Dhtml, JavaScript, or
just plain old animated gifs just too much?
Of course, a web site made using Flash is not going to be as
horrible to view a site made up of way too many animated gifs,
isn't it? All the sounds, the waiting for sites to load even
when your DSL or Cable connection is delivering close to T-1
speeds. When is it too much? When is it appropriate to use tons
of Flash?
As an entire web site, Flash can be truly annoying. I remember
when XBOX was just announced. Xbox.com was a VERY Flashy site
(pun intended). Now it has a rather blissful combination.
What about many of the new ads that are made using Flash? The
square ones maybe 250 pixels by 250 pixels, +/-; those work and
surely liven up a dull or static page. However, what about the
ads that are layered ON TOP of the page you are viewing? I’ve
seen them on a variety of sites. Are THOSE annoying? They bug
the hell out of me (although some are pretty darn cool). Are
they made in Flash? I dunno. Some may be Flash, some may be
Dhtml, but I really don’t recall.
When does Flash cross the line from enhancement to distraction or
intrusion or burden? What do YOU think?
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=239
Discuss with Bram Leland Scolnick
Name: Virtual Network Computing (VNC)
Version: 3.3.3
Cost: Freeware
Website: http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
Download: http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/download.html
This is the perfect little program that will allow you to
remotely administer another computer that has a fixed IP address.
If the computer you are administering is on a cable, dsl or some
other form of permenant connection (such as a server in a data
center) you should be able to contact it using VNC.
VNC will simple present you with a view of the desktop of the
remote PC. Then you can just use your own computer as if it was
the remote one. It is very simple to set-up.
Personally I have found it fantastic to make changes and fixes to
my parents computer in Australia from my computer in the USA.
Both my parents and I are lucky enough to have cable conenctions
so it works well.
Review by Nathan Allan
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