Many still have the misconception that browsing the web with JavaScript on is somehow the same thing as driving around with your personal information pasted on the side of your car ready for all hackers to take. What is this 1995?….and um no its not that way at all……It is true that hackers can steal information about you without you knowing it but I highly doubt that JavaScript is the culprit. If you spend all of your time white listing your internet browsing sites by turning on or turning off depending on your trust factor, you are probably missing out on alot that some sites have to offer. Here is some evidence that may change your mind…..I have personally browsed thousands and thousands of sites and never turned my JavaScript setting off, and I’m still up and running and have not had any identity issues either.
I browse with JavaScript turned on because for one i use JavaScript in a lot of our designs and applications because it does very cool stuff on the user interface level. As a Web Developer, I wish the whole concept of “turning JavaScript off” would just vanish, because I really don’t want to design boringly degraded websites when JS opens up a whole world of possibilities that make the web what it is
A site that works well with JavaScript usually is designed very well and has a great design architecture. I’m not saying to rely on JS only when designing, that would be just lazy, but I fell that using it in certain aspects give the user the niceties and creates a web experience like no other. So leave JavaScript turned on, stay out of the Darker Side of the web and see what you have been missing out on.
They are getting thinner, faster, cheaper, and as an end result they are becoming the normal for people all over the globe. For the past few years there were the haves with disposable income, and have-nots on the border of carrying around a brick phone due to price restraints on smart phones. Technological analysts predict there will be over a billion smart phones in global circulation by 2011, and approximately 38% of all phones will be this type by 2012.[Source: LinuxDevices.com]. Apple reportedly has pre-sold 600,000 Iphone units in one day, and if that is any sign of what is to come these numbers will be far too low. Smart phones have made a real impact in the corporate business world, where execs transmit highly confidential information because they now can. One of the most important items on the design table is security issues, because this openness and configurability, comes with a downside which is vulnerability to viruses, and with users keeping there whole world all in one place, there are viruses which can actually lock the phone and erase all interior information. As it stands more security is enhanced for the operating system and behaviors rather than network security, and with all new blistering wifi speeds, there is just about no limit to what smart phones can do, and no limit to what hackers will come up with, but this is all changing with the open source developer involvement exploding into application development and security development that are being designed for these new devices. Mobile Smart Phone Technology is the fastest changing area due to no one company having a lock on designs or applications being designed for them, so what will the next phone look like? a small tablet? a new style of flip? one worn on the wrist? who knows, I guess we will all have to stay tuned to see and hope we will be able to upgrade the moment they are released!!
The “buzz” of the year is social media, and unless you’ve been hiding in a cave you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve probably been asking yourself “how do i cash in on it or get a piece of the action for my business?” Many business owners get a bit off track thinking that social media is about selling and nothing more, when in fact it is more about listening to customers and customer service in its own right. Potential customers just want to know that their concerns and wants are being listened to and that they are more than just a mere pocketbook to tidy up your cash register. If you work on building trusting relationships by showing client interest away from the sales counter, this will pay off ten fold in a more educated and loyal customer base, and that is the real money you can deposit in your business as well as a healthy branded business image overall.
So i’m sitting here at Mountain West Ruby Conf 2010, waiting for the show to start, and surfing the net. Like many of you i’m sure. I’m checking Skype for a morning conversation, i find nothing. I hop on the IRC, it seems like a ghost town. It’s Friday, so i have the newest Ruby5 podcast to listen to, but then, its only 5 minutes and i have a good 45 mins to kill, so i go to the bookmarks and start to comb over the various blog posts i have there.
One by one I check in and start to find no one has really updated anything since the end of last year. This leads me to a assumption. Maybe most developers, coders, designers etc… are so busy during the first part of the year, no one seems to have the time to blog. Either that or there is nothing going on that is cause for someone to blog. I highly doubt the second. Then i realize, man.. Ive been neglecting my own blog. So here i am.
The reality of 100Mbps internet speeds are just around the corner, so you will be able to have massive file transfer capabilities or be able to download an album in just under 5 seconds, a TV show in about 30 seconds, or a full HD movie in about 7 minutes, but this will not be a cheap investment by far. The FCC’s goal is to have this high speed to roughly 100 million homes by 2020!
Fact of it is these speeds are attainable today, companies such as Cablevision and Comcast have been offering this service to select business since the latter of 2009 for a price ranging from about $100 – $150. Speeds such as this opens the door for applications that haven’t even been invented yet.
So with Google’s fiber 1 GB per second speeds on the horizon, they are paving the way for the next generation of innovative web based applications and new infrastructure deployment techniques…..
Question is: How much would you pay?
With the uncertainty of the future of America, the last thing families need is the cantankerous attitude of 78 year old hall of fame pitcher and “should be retired” Senator Jim Bunning. It burns me and probably most of Americans that we can dump billions into foreign economies and billions into bailing out the “Banking System” which got us into this in the first place, but we can’t approve an extension of benefits for struggling families. This halting move by Mr Personality had forced 2,000 federal employees into unpaid situations, and instilled jeopardy for jobless benefits for millions not to mention halted more than 40 highway projects, but guaranteed Mr Bunning got his check on time. Since the Senator is retiring after this session, no one can control his ornery attitude and close minded thought processes…….Well hes almost gone, and maybe there is a few others that should take a permanent vacation from politics as well, then maybe we can get this country back on track eventually…….just my .02c!
I was working on a project for a client when i came across a bug in IE dealing with absolutely positioned elements. I thought i had been down this road before, but apparently not. So i hope this helps others who have been given the task of making things work and coding things twice because they have people that use IE… Wait?… Thats probably all of us, at least in the real world. Everyday it seems my job is made more difficult because certain companies decide to build based on there own ideas vs the greater good of all.. Im not saying they dont have the right, but i can say Damn you Microsoft!!
So, you want to get in to web development, or you think you already are. You have you hack version of Dreamweaver and you can push things around in design view, or you downloaded some templates from somewhere and you figured out how to add your “bevel emboss” logo into it. You’re ready to start kickin ass and taking names! I was once like this like many others before me, but i met a seasoned Ruby developer through a project i was hired to do CSS work for and he showed me the true light of the web world. Im not saying that DW isnt good, i have just come to realize that to really have a grasp on the “true” web, you reallly need to dig into the guts of what your building and not just mash crap up in design view. so with that being said…
As a developer you’ll find that there are many many tools that can all get you where you need to be, and its a matter of taste and how comfortable these tools are to you. So if you’re a windows guy then you just have bad taste…j/k here are a few tools that we here at the cube prefer.
I actually have a Ubuntu box as well, but I am a Mac guy for life, not that you cant develop on other platforms, I just think that the Mac out performs any other machine on the planet and the last thing i want when im working is a box that craps out or hangs etc.. So i would suggest saving a few extra bucks and buying a MAC. Even the mac minis are a supreme machine
I do a lot of road traveling and I have noticed a trend of closing and abandoned restaurants that were once flourishing tourist stops for travelers and families, all along the interstates and highways. I can recall even as a child when we went on road trips as a family we would all look forward to the great food and experience from the new “food stop”. It seems that today, families don’t even talk in the car much less stop and enjoy some family time in a restaurant. I even have a really close friend that I recently visited who when traveling, wears headphones listening to an ipod, his wife listens to hers and the children both have on head sets watching a DVD movie. Most people don’t realize how short life is, and that the times they spend together are numbered and will soon pass before they know it and they will be wondering what happened. Technology is a good thing in certain terms, but with Ipods, laptops, in car dvd players, and video games, who needs conversation anyhow. I guess in short, my family and I have not fallen prey to the “Drive up and Drive on” mentality that fast food restaurants have ensued upon us, we still take time out to know what goes on in each others lives and show interest in them by making these stops at restaurants, but no longer will families and travelers be learning about each other and seeing the cultures of art that adorn the walls on these types of establishments and from here on out the booths will remain empty and the legacy’s will fade. I feel sorry for those that don’t know what I am talking about, and I guess the only question I have left to ask them (if they could remove their headphones long enough) is “Would you like to super size those fries with that order”?
This being the first post of the newly added DevEngine, I wanted to give an overview of what will be featured here. This blog is going to be geared towards the things we use the most here at C2M, namely Ruby, Rails, jQuery CSS and occasionally some other tools that we find very useful, simple, and solid. This blog will also be geared around the beginner.
When I was first starting i found that there are a lot of great resources (books, screencasts, podcasts etc..) out there for all these various frameworks and languages, but the one thing i found as a real beginner was most of these resources seemed to have this assumption that you had about 1 year under your belt. This can really cause a lot of frustration for those that maybe just don’t quite get the basics. To no fault of these many resources, I just think that after a while as you become more seasoned as a developer, you forget that there were those few moments where the light didnt shine as bright, therefore making what seems to be a simple tutorial, difficult. I’m hoping that as we post small segments here, that those just starting out will find this to be a great resource tp help them along their path to becoming Rockstar programmers.
Well everywhere you look or tune into now is just more bad economic news which seems to all hold the phrase “It’ll get worse before it gets better”……We are all hearing uncommon terms such as “billions” and “bailouts” but never hear “the little guy” or “small business America” ever mentioned when these terms are used. One guy has come up with a plan that will benefit all of us in “small world America” it is called the “JSA” or “Jump Start America Plan” that would benefit not only the little people, but the banking institutions and the Government entities as well…The beauty of this proposal is its simplicity and straightforwardness…Could it really be this simple? Many believe so including some politicians as well as banking officials that have read it. If we don’t do something, there will be billions passed out and probably nothing gained in the end, so lets see if we can help this country from falling into another Great Depression by educating ourselves and those around us. You can read the prosposed bill here. If you like what you read spread the word and maybe just maybe……
Well the inventors over at Katchum Alarm Systems have finally made their product a realization, they have devised a way to put a damper on all of the copper theft problems the nation has been experiencing since the economic downturn. Their system will detect the instant that the perpetrator tampers with any copper tubes or wires on just about any system, and a sensor will send a signal to a control panel which in turn will dial a series of programmed phone numbers or pagers, or can be routed to their main alarm call center. This system is a one of a kind alarm system unlike no other which also has the capability of not only saving taxpayers thousands on theft costs, but also can alarm you in the instance of a refrigerant loss on HVAC sytems which can save you money as well. So hats off to the guys at Katchum Alarm Systems!