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Sausage Sizzler - Smooth Swap |
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| Editorial March 13th 2002 |
G'day Sizzlers!
Everything is rolling along nicely at Sausage and I am very busy getting ready for my trip downunder.
Brian Smith has Reptile 3 well under way and it is in early beta testing. Which leads me to this question and request. If you would like to be part of our quality control and iron out the bugs in our programs we would love to hear from you. Just send an e-mail to beta@sausage.com and you will get an automated reply telling you what you need to do. Basically all we require you to do is register with our forums as this is where the beta versions will be released in the future.
The new cobranded Lockergnome Webmaster Weekly (in HTML format) went off with a bang. Over eight thousand people have already made it part of their weekly Web diet!
And for a change let me leave you with a site to check out. Damian was nice enough to send me this link.
You really have to study the image for a few minutes. It's really freaky!
Keep on sizzling!
Nathan Allan
Sausage Sizzler Editor
editor@sausage.com
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A Simple Contact Manager
One of my problems when I was first learning PHP was a
complete lack of structured applications in tips like
these. I remember kind of understanding the basic concepts,
but not entirely sure where or how to use them. That is
something I hope to address with the next few PHP tips.
This week there's not going to be any PHP involved. We're
going to go over the structure of our simple application.
Planning everything out before beginning to code can save a
lot of time in the long run. I've chosen a contact manager
because I feel it can cover all of the material I've gone
over so far, while still being general enough that most of
the ideas can easily be reused for other purposes.
Since we're going for simplicity here, there's only two
kinds of data structures we need to be concerned with:
User Records
These will control access to our app. This will cover one
of the most often asked questions: "How do I make a login
screen?" Again, simplicity is key,so we'll only have four
columns (table definition below):
CREATE TABLE users (
userid INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
username VARCHAR(20),
password CHAR(32),
active TINYINT DEFAULT 1,
PRIMARY KEY (userid)
);
There are two notable columns above. First is the password
column, notice it is defined to only accept exactly 32
characters. The purpose of this is security. Instead of
storing the password in plain text, we store the md5 hash
of the password, which is always 32 characters. Also, I
have a column called active, this is so we can deactivate a
user without deleting the account. The valid values there
are either 1 or 0.
Contacts
These are the purpose of our app. Our contact records will
be very basic:
CREATE TABLE contacts (
contactid INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
companyname VARCHAR(75),
firstname VARCHAR(40),
lastname VARCHAR(40),
address1 VARCHAR(75),
address2 VARCHAR(75),
city VARCHAR(75),
state CHAR(2),
zip CHAR(5),
phone VARCHAR(14),
fax VARCHAR(14),
cell VARCHAR(14),
PRIMARY KEY (contactid)
);
There's nothing really notable in the table above. I've
just expanded on the contacts table from the previous tip.
Our contact manager will also have a total of seven pages:
- Login
- Contact List
- Create User
- Create Contact
- Edit Contact
- List Users
- Edit User
In the next issue we start building the pages. To save some
space and hopefully get some discussion going, the actual
PHP (in the next issue) will be posted to the Sizzler Forum
(
http://www.sizzlerforum.com/), so I suggest signing up
there and getting acquainted.
Tip by Rich Cavanaugh
From - EnFlyer: The Email Marketing Experts
Discuss it in Rich's PHP and MySQL Forum
Firstly let me add a useful tip sent in by Jim Haas to add to the topic of commenting your code:
"I also find it helpful to make my comments different bg and text colors from anything else in the code and insert a blank line before and after them. This makes them easy to spot as I scroll through the code, looking for a particular segment."
That should definitely make the comments even more useful and easy to find!
So this weeks item we are covering is the FONT tag. This will allow you to choose the font and size that the visitors to your site see your text in. Although superceded by Cascading Style Sheets the FONT tag will still do the job (and it cancels out CSS when applied to a page that uses CSS).
It looks like this:
<FONT FACE="arial" SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000">Text goes here</FONT>
So from this you can see you can choose the font (the visitor must have this on their system though) and you may choose multiple fonts by putting a comma in between your selections. You can also set the size of your text and color.
Tip by Nathan Allan
Howdy, Neighbor - Community - Part II
This week, as with last, I'd like to focus on a large area of the forums rather than one single thread. The HTML section of the forums. There are lots of newbies out there as well as lots of vets. It's great to get everyone mingling. We all have a LOT to offer one another and we can all help each other.
Rather than ramble on about what's there, stop reading and GO GO GO!!
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=13
Review by Bram Leland Scolnick
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MAC or PC. That's the REAL question
Somewhere in time, the design world moved to MAC while the business world stayed with the PC. I'm sure there are some designers that still use a PC only and may likely be looked upon as non-designers for not using a MAC. Similarly, there may be some business folk that use a MAC and have worked out a way to trade documents with those on PC.
Many people know that MACs are fast, powerful and perhaps the ultimate designer's tool because of their ability to handle huge files quickly and small files even faster.
What do you do if you are a designer that also has the responsibility of running a business? What do you do if your job function includes design and business management? Do you stick with one over the other? Do you have 2 computers?
I have my own business (I've had a few). I do both design and business management. Most others that I deal with use PCs so I use one. I've also grown up with PCs though I truly admire the power, speed and other offerings I could have with a MAC. Other than additional money to be spent, I face a learning curve. As it stands now, I have little time to pick up new applications. I can't imagine getting used to OSX as well as applications based on the MAC style menu.
I have tones of thoughts on this topic, but I'd truly enjoy knowing yours. Please share them with others and myself.
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=139
Discuss your experiences with Bram Leland Scolnick
Colors, Colors, Colors
When you think of web design, what do you think of? Do you envision the most wildly designed, graphic or flash intensive site that just makes you think "how the hell am I gonna actually build it?" Or do you think along the age-old lines of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid)? It really depends on the subject matter, I suppose, but then again another adage that seems to apply everywhere is that "Less is More".
The simplest design can have the most elegant (or just completely horrendous) look and feel, depending on the colors used and how those colors get used. Color choice and color matching can be incredibly powerful aspects of design. Color choice can originate from a product, brand identity, target audience or anything else. Colors can have psychological effects, i.e.: Would you like to set a relaxing, soothing tone? Use soft, perhaps pastel colors. Wanna be high-tech or make a powerful impact? Maybe even create a feeling or urgency? Consider perhaps bright, strongly contrasting colors.
Just as important as choosing the right color is matching. An important aspect of design (to me at least) is not to use only one color, but a series of colors. Using only html, or html and some graphics, a very visually appealing site can be created. The key is to create or use the right match of colors.
I use 2 products, one of which a reader (Dan) recently noted he uses as well. First, there is Visibone (www.visibone.com). They sell a variety of charts including html and color. I have a few posters and some carry cards. I've also started using their free, downloadable, html color and html charts. Unzip into a local directory, place a link in your quick launch area (or other) and you have convenient access. Another tool that I use frequently is Color Schemer (www.colorschemer.com). This one costs money but its great. You select a main color and it then shows you colors of similar saturation. It helps remove some guesswork.
Here are psychological facts to think about when deciding on colors. Why did IBM choose blue? One possible reason: If you walk into a showroom and 2 salesmen approach you, one wearing a brown suit, the other wearing blue, which would you choose? Studies I've been told of say that most people choose blue.
What are your feelings on color?
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=138
Discuss with Bram Leland Scolnick
Name: Down2Home
Version: 1.1
Cost: Freeware
Website: http://www.jitserv.yucom.be/
Download: http://www.jitserv.yucom.be/download.htm
Note: There are different downloads for different Operating Systems
Ever wanted to know how much bandwidth you are chewing up on that DSL or Cable connection? On any connection for that matter (although we know you dial-up users aren't chewing through it like the rest of us!).
This handy app sits in your system tray and monitors what is going in and out of your system from a bandwidth perspective. Besides the graphs it provides, I thought that the best feature was the Volume Control. This option allows you to set a limit to the Mb you can download and it will warn you when you reach it! Ideal for those of us on fixed usage plans.
Review by Nathan Allan
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