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HTML5 Problems with IE <= 8 on content retrieved via Ajax

2010-12-24T17:36:00.001-08:00

Trying to develop a site with the new HTML5, I had problems with block
elements for content served on Internet explorer browsers at most
version 8. Though haven't yet tested with version 9.
Different section on the page with tags; section, header, footer,
aside had background colours and other css styling. but my attention
was drawn to element positioning and background colours. When the page
was retrieved from the server without Ajax the boxes were positioned
as defined and background colours and background images were ok. But
when part of the content was retrieved from the server via Ajax, the
boxes were not accurately displayed on the page as the new HTML5 tags
were not recognised as block elements though I used Modernizr
JavaScript plug-in to fix the issues with HTML5 tag in IE.
As the site server with PHP and with smarty template, below was how
the issues was resolved having detected the browser and version the
content was requested from;

//the php file
<?php
// fix problems with tags HTML5 tags server via ajax
$tagIE['header'] = 'div';
$tagIE['aside'] = 'div';
$tagIE['section'] = 'div';
$tagIE['hgroup'] = 'div';
$tagIE['article'] = 'div';
$tagIE['footer'] = 'div';

$tagMain['header'] = 'header';
$tagMain['aside'] = 'aside';
$tagMain['section'] = 'section';
$tagMain['hgroup'] = 'hgroup';
$tagMain['article'] = 'article';
$tagMain['footer'] = 'footer';

//this was the way I had to detect the browser and version the content
was requested from.
if($REQ['browser'] == 'MSIE' && $REQ['browser_version'] <= 8){
$smarty->assign('html5',$tagIE);
}
else{
$smarty->assign('html5',$tagMain);
}
?>

//the template file powered by smarty
//instead of directly using
<section>
//your content here
</section>

//I rather used

<{$html5.section}>
//your content goes here
</{$html5.section}>

// the resulting html on IE browsers would be
<div>
//your content here
</div>

//and other browser including pages crawled by search engines would be seen as
<section>
//your content here
</section>

To get the tags for assign use {$html5.assign} for the opening and
closing tag of in your template file.

Though I never used it for all the html5 tags but I used them on
sections that needed to be position accurately and need to display
background images and colours to override the one defined in the
parent element.
I hope this helps those trying to develop sites with HTML5. Also, if
you have an easier way to this, your contribution would be
appreciated.

Blog now at MagnusLator.Com

2007-12-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

I have moved my blog to a new website at http://www.magnuslator.com/weblog I will be waiting to see you there.

Debit card and Credit card fraud

2007-10-02T03:41:00.001-07:00

Debit card and Credit card fraud is a problem that has grown over past few years, even though the vast majority of purchases go through without incident.

I once asked myself, how these thieves are able to get debit card information for their own use in draining their victim’s bank account, without them having your original card.
Thieves have used electronic skimming devices to copy debit and credit card data. They then capture the cardholder's PIN, typically with a hidden camera, and create duplicate cards to drain that person's bank account.

What do you think about this? How are you going to make your debit transactions more secure? As we all know financial institutions are working to eradicate the issue of debit card and credit card fraud so as transactions via credit card and debit card can be fraud free?

Google Sitemaps for Blogger

2007-09-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

Generating Google sitemaps for your blogger blog is not possible as you can do with your website hosted on a server that has Python 2.2 or later installed. Not submitting a sitemap for your blog makes it at times difficult for Google to index all posts on your blog.

The good news is that there is a way to get all this done.
Login to your blogger dashboard, navigate to Settings > Site Feed and set Allow Blog Feed to Full. After you have done this you can use the feed atom URL of your blog http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml (replacing blogname with your own blog name).
Login to your Google webmaster tools page https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ click on the site (blog) you want to add sitemap, click Sitemaps at the top navigation, click Add a sitemap, Choose type (Add General Web Sitemaps), type in atom.xml in the text input field where you have you blog URL which is on #3. If you don't have you blog URL close to the text input field, put your blog feed full URL (http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml) then click the button (Add Web Sitemap) and you get a confirmation that you have added a sitemap to http://blogname.blogspot.com/.
It will take some time before the sitemap status shows OK and the number of URLs submitted.

This is all you need. You can post a comment to this topic on what you think about this and also if you need more help on this.

Blogging Dark Sides

2007-08-23T03:28:00.000-07:00

It is no doubt that Blogging today has been embraced by many internet users in the world today. As blogging has great advantages so are its disadvantages.

From some articles I read on the internet today about some negative impact some blogs can have on a blogger which can even put the bloggers job in jeopardy.

An article on about.com posted by Alison Doyle to Blog or Not to Blog and another from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else) What do you think about this? I would be happy to know.

Wireless Networking

2007-08-20T20:54:00.000-07:00

Wireless network connection also know referred to as Wi-Fi network or wireles lan WLAN

More on Wi-Fi network and setting up a wireless network Wireless Network Setup

Setting up a Wireless Network Connection.

2007-08-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

Browsing the internet from a wireless network is very alluring where you can access the internet from anywhere within the range of Wi-Fi Network connection without have wires around the place. Setting up a wireless network is not that expensive you will know all you need to have your wireless network setup as you keep on reading..

Building a Wireless Network

If you already have several computers networked in your home, you can create a wireless network with a wireless access point. If you have several computers that are not networked, or if you want to replace your Ethernet network, you'll need a wireless router. This is a single unit that contains:

A port to connect to your cable or DSL modem
A router
An Ethernet hub
A firewall
A wireless access point

A wireless router allows you to use wireless signals or Ethernet cables to connect your computers to one another, to a printer and to the Internet. Most routers provide coverage for about 100 feet (30.5 meters) in all directions, although walls and doors can block the signal. If your home is very large, you can buy inexpensive range extenders or repeaters to increase your router's range.

Photo courtesy Consumer Guide Products A wireless router uses an antenna to send signals to wireless devices and a wire to send signals to the Internet.
As with wireless adapters, many routers can use more than one 802.11 standard. 802.11b routers are slightly less expensive, but they're slower than 802.11a or 802.11g routers. Most people select the 802.11g option for its speed and reliability.

Once you plug in your router, it should start working at its default settings. Most routers let you use a Web interface to change your settings. You can select:

The name of the network, known as its service set identifier (SSID) -- The default setting is usually the manufacturer's name.

The channel that the router uses -- Most routers use channel 6 by default. If you live in an apartment and your neighbors are also using channel 6, you may experience interference. Switching to a different channel should eliminate the problem.

Your router's security options -- Many routers use a standard, publicly-available sign-on, so it's a good idea to set your own username and password.

Security is an important part of a home wireless network, as well as public WiFi hotspots. If you set your router to create an open hotspot, anyone who has a wireless card will be able to use your signal. Most people would rather keep strangers out of their network, though. Doing so requires you to take a few security precautions.

To keep your network private, you can use one of the following methods:

Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) uses 64-bit or 128-bit encryption. 128-bit encryption is the more secure option. Anyone who wants to use a WEP-enabled network has to know the WEP key, which is usually a numerical password.

WiFi Protected Access (WPA) is a step up from WEP and is now part of the 802.11i wireless network security protocol. It uses temporal key integrity protocol encryption. As with WEP, WPA security involves signing on with a password. Most public hotspots are either open or use WPA or 128-bit WEP technology.

Media Access Control (MAC) address filtering is a little different from WEP or WPA. It doesn't use a password to authenticate users -- it uses a computer's physical hardware. Each computer has its own unique MAC address. MAC address filtering allows only machines with specific MAC addresses to access the network. You must specify which addresses are allowed when you set up your router. This method is very secure, but if you buy a new computer or if visitors to your home want to use your network, you'll need to add the new machines' MAC addresses to the list of approved addresses.

Wireless networks are easy and inexpensive to set up, and most routers' Web interfaces are virtually self-explanatory.

This topic was made possible courtesy How Stuff Works you can view more of this topic on their website here.

Protecting your blog

2007-08-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

If you do not know what a blog is, a blog is a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences and hobbies. It might interest you to know that blog readers, blog owners and internet users should be precausious about splog. Below is an email newsletter from "Club Symantec" reading it will be of help protecting you or your computer.

What is a splog?
One of the great things about a blog is that it's a living document. Bloggers write a journal about what matters to them, and readers with similar interests respond. But what if someone who doesn't care at all about what you have to say, co-opts your blog site, and uses it for advertising or malicious activity?

How can this happen? The attacker, or splogger, uses automated tools to manipulate a blogger service to create thousands of fake blogs. The sploggers load these phony blogs with links to specific Web sites, like home mortgage, poker, and tobacco sites. By fooling the search-engine spiders that crawl the Web looking for commonly linked-to destinations, the sploggers manipulate search results, and boost traffic to their ads through the fake blog sites. And all those sites look like yours.

But there are ways to find out if you're being splogged and steps you can take.

Be proactive
Splogs and abused page rankings waste Internet users' time by directing them to web pages that have nothing to do with the words they're searching for. Sploggers make accessing information more difficult, saturate the hosting platforms, and discredit blogs.

What's worse, these fake blogs, created by unscrupulous authors, can contain links contaminated by spyware, Trojans, or even viruses. The risk of coming across an infected blog is still minimal, but there have already been reports of emails inviting the reader to click on a link to an infected blog.

If you have your own blog, subscribe to news feeds at search engines like Technorati, IceRocket, and PubSub that are designed to track blogs, Most bloggers use these services to track what other blogs say about them, but the search engine will also detect splogs lifting your content. Type in search terms that are similar to your name, your site's name, or your site's URL. You'll recognize a splog by the unusual number of buzzwords in the main content area. And splogs often redirect visitors to an entirely different site.

If you use the Internet, make sure you have installed a reliable firewall and anti-virus tool to protect your data from hackers, viruses, worms, and Trojan horses.

Internet users should be just as vigilant as they are about emails and all web sites in general. Don't click suspicious links or objects, and make sure to update your anti-virus and other software.

Be a good blog citizen
While splogs may seem like a minor annoyance to the individual blogger, the overall effect of splogs is far-reaching. What happens when all the search terms become infested with these splogs? It makes it that much harder to find the stuff you really want to look for. So for the blog and Internet community's sake, when you notice a splog—report it.

On some blogging sites, there is a flag or button you can click to report a splog for objectionable content. Blogger administrators will then investigate the site.

If there is no button, flag, or link, you may have to contact the blog host directly.

You could report the splog to the new, grass-roots service Splog Reporter. Splog Reporter relies on a special splog-identification system that analyzes a blog's URL for suspicious keywords and punctuation like hyphens --. For some reason, most splogs are hyphenated. Splog Reporter adds suspect sites to its database, alerting search engines to remove them from their indexes.

If the splog has Google ads on it, the site can be reported to Google's AdSense program, and the account could be revoked.

One of the best ways to fight splogs is to be vocal about them. Demand accountability and diligence from hosting providers, and demand additional barriers in the blog-creation process. In addition to speaking out, security software like Norton Internet Security from Symantec can help protect your identity and guard against destructive viruses, worms, and Trojan horses.

Conclusion
Right now, splogs are more annoying than dangerous, but sploggers are getting more sophisticated and malicious. Whether you have your own blog site, read blogs, or just use the Internet, take the simple precautions outlined in this article to access the Internet freely, and secure your computer. Be sure to visit ClubSymantec and Symantec Security Response regularly to get the latest Internet security information.

Wireless Access Point or Router Optimization

2007-08-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

I use a Wi-Fi home network connection to network 2 laptops and I desktop computer to the internet. At times I browse with my mobile phone Wi-Fi connection. What you are about to read below was helpful in my Wi-Fi connection . It is an article from about.com. And authors content not changed.

Topic: Maximize home network performance
Author: Bradley Mitchell,

The performance of a Wi-Fi home network greatly depends on signal strength of the wireless router or wireless access point (base station).

If a given wireless client falls out of range of the base station signal, obviously that network connection will fail or "drop." Clients situated near the edge of the network range will likely experience intermittent dropped connections. But even when a wireless client stays within range consistently, its network performance can still be adversely affected by distance, obstructions, or interference.

To position your wireless equipment for optimal network performance, follow these guidelines:
First and foremost, don't settle prematurely on a location for the wireless access point or router. Experiment; try placing the device in several different promising locations. While trial-and-error may not be the most scientific way to find a good spot for your equipment, it is often the only practical way to assure the best possible Wi-Fi performance.

Strive to install the wireless access point or router in a central location. If you have only one wireless client, installing the base station near this client is best. For WLANs with multiple wireless clients, find a good compromise position. Clients too far away from the base station will manage only 10% - 50% the bandwidth of clients nearby to it. You might need to sacrifice the network performance of one client for the good of the others.

Next, avoid physical obstructions whenever possible. Any barriers along the "line of sight" between client and base station will degrade a Wi-Fi radio signal. Plaster or brick walls tend to have the most negative impact, but really any obstruction including cabinets or furniture will weaken the signal to some degree. Obstructions tend to reside closer to floor level; therefore, some folks prefer to install their wireless access point / router on or near the ceiling.

Avoid reflective surfaces whenever possible. Some Wi-Fi signals literally bounce off of windows, mirrors, metal file cabinets and stainless steel countertops, lessening both network range and performance.

Install the wireless access point or router at least 1 m (3 feet) away from other home appliances that send wireless signals in the same frequency range. Such appliances include some microwave ovens, cordless telephones, baby monitors, and home automation equipment like X-10 devices. Any appliance that transmits in the same general range as 802.11b or 802.11g (2.4 GHz) can generate interference.

Likewise, install the unit away from electrical equipment that also generates interference. Avoid electric fans, other motors, and flourescent lighting.

If the best location you find is only marginally acceptable, consider adjusting the base station antennas to improve performance. Antennas on wireless access points and routers can usually be rotated or otherwise re-pointed to "fine tune" Wi-Fi signalling. Follow the specific manufacturer's recommendations for best results.

If using these guidelines you still cannot find a suitable location for your wireless gear, there are alternatives. You can, for example, replace and upgrade the base station antenna. You can also install a Wi-Fi repeater (often called a "range extender" or "signal booster.") Finally, in extreme cases, you may need to configure a second base station to extend the range of your WLAN.

Web Site Design for Newbie

2007-08-19T06:42:00.001-07:00

In the world today, websites are considered as one of the most important media resource available to the public for easy communication with one another. The Internet has become a global market and this is made possible with websites. There are two main types of site on the internet, ecommerce sites and content-driven sites. Content-driven sites can be in the following;

Online Magazines sites
Blogs sites
Reference & Resource sites
Community sites
Entertainment Sites
Service sites.

Before you begin with building a website, you need to have some essential phraseology required for a website and some information you need, as a beginner.

First: a list of some important vocabulary associated with the web:

Intranet: A restricted computer network confined to an organization, company or institution computer's network for data exchange and transmission between networked computers. These data cannot be accessed over the World Wide Web (WWW).

Internet: A computer network consisting of a worldwide network of computer networks that use the TCP/IP network protocol to facilitate data transmission and exchange.

Domain: this is the name that you type into the address bar to reach the desired web site. Example of a domain is www.google.com

Web Server: Computer used to store files and make them available to other computers over the internet of intranet. These files are accessed through the host computer's IP of a domain name via Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) e.g. http:// 66.249.67.132, http://www.yahoo.com or File Transfer Protocol (FTP) for an ftp enabled server. ftp://ftp.yahoo.com

FTP: Protocol used to transfer files between TCP/IP connected computers on the Internet or Intranet.

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language - a Markup language which includes set of codes (or tags) attached to text for creating sites content E.G:
<html> <head> <title>My Site</title> </head><body> My Website Content goes between the body opening and closing tag. </body></html>

CSS: Cascading Style Sheet- A styling sheet used to create layout for our HTML content. Website layout can be done with HTML table. Creating layout with html tables has become a thing of the old and CSS has come to play which gives you more power to control your web site layout. It is better to learn designing websites layouts with CSS.

Server-side Scripting: A server-side programming language like PHP, ASP, Cold fusion, e.t.c. run on the web server and is being executed on the web server by the engine (e.g. PHP engine, ASP engine or whatever server-side language engine) due to the users request and sends it to the clients browser as HTML. Server-side scripts are used to create dynamic websites.

Client-Side Scripting: Scripting language like JavaScript is a client-side scripting language. It runs on the client (JavaScript enabled browser). The code of client-side scripts can be viewed from the webpage source code but for a server-side script on the client it is pure HTML code.

JavaScript: A client-side scripting language embedded to your webpage to introduce an added layer of interactivity and dynamic behavior to your website, which will make the site easier to use in browsers equipped with JavaScript.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor Language - a programming language used for designing interactive websites.

To start building your own website you have to learn how to use one of the website programming languages such as HTML or PHP. You can do this by searching the web for sites that give lessons and tutorials for these languages. For example www.w3scholes.com is one of the best sites that teaches the HTML language, and more over, it provides tests to show if you understood the concepts or not. It also includes many other features. Alternatively, if you don't want to learn these languages you can simply use some helpful web design programs such as Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver or some WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor available on the internet to design your website.

Specialization
Many websites are not specialized in a specific field, and this is one of the most important reasons for web site failure. For example, there are thousands of Arabic websites that only contain chatting and repeated scripts and forums for everything. Specialization is what really makes a website unique, for example: there is africanzone.com a community website which specializes in discussion forum, ebay.com an e-commerce web site which specializes buying and selling of products and services electronically. There are many other examples of successful websites. However, for every person there is a specialized field in which he can be productive. To get started you have to identify your area of specialization, develop a business plan, and identify your competitive advantages before you can start building your website.

The First Step to Creating Your Website
After you have identified the area that you want to specialize in, and developed your business plan, start gathering all the information that you may need for your website such as pictures, clips, articles, etc.

The Second Step
Next it will be the time to choose the name for your website which is the Domain to allocate your place on the Web. Always try to choose a short and easy name that can clearly illustrate your field or a short cut for your website name, and remember the shorter the better. Also, try to choose a unique name that can be recalled easily. You can visit www.register.com to help in choosing and registering your domain name and extension. For the extension try to use .com or .net because for most users other extensions may not be familiar.

The Third Step
After you've gathered all your information and chosen your Domain name you need to start searching for a company to host your website. First decide on the disk space that you think is enough for your website. If you are just beginning settle on 100 MB which is enough for a start. This gives you a chance to see if you are going to be able to keep going or not and if so you can increase the size later on as you need it. Remember, before choosing your company that there are important things that you have to consider. One of the most important ones is technical support, so try to choose a company that provides a proficient 24 hrs support service. Also try to get a sound price. Always ensure that your hosting company provides upgrade for your hosting service. This is important if your site grows bigger and web traffic exceeds your current hosting package. 5KHOST offers php and MySql hosting for free along with other professional hosting features. This is a good place to start.

The Fourth Step
After getting the host established, the website should be set up with a username and a password for the control panel for managing the website.

The Fifth Step
Next, design your web page, test it, and then upload it to the server using FTP. Now, you have finished the critical work, and everyone can browse your website.

Specialized Websites
There are a lot of websites that can be used as good examples for their design, publicity techniques and performance. These include: yahoo.com, an email services website, google.com, a website that focuses on enabling internet users search the internet for information. Look at these and search the web for more sites to give you ideas for designing your own website.

Note: If you have a website of a weblog (blog) and want to make money from your site, click this link the image on the right side of this page showing Google Adsense to reqister for an adsense account and start generating revenue from your site

References and Useful Sites to Help You Get Started
www.register.com
This site provides facilities for registering your Domain name and also a step by step guide to setting your own web site.
www.w3scholes.com
This site provides a tutorial and tests for learning how to use the HTML scripting language.
www.php.net
This site provides a tutorial and tests for learning how to use the PHP scripting language.

Multiple Internet Explorers

2007-08-10T20:15:00.001-07:00

As a web developer I always found it stressing testing web sites on different versions of internet explorers. I had the web browser in my notebook computer updated to the seventh version of internet explorer (Internet Explorer 7). When ever I build a website, I will have it tested on different computers with different versions of browsers to check if it meets the standard required by my clients and believe me this is always a difficult task.

I will not like you to go through the same stress as I did so I have decided to show you how you can have different versions of Internet explorers installed on one computer without having to get a new computer. Tredosoft has been able to work it out to enable the installation of internet explorer in standalone mode without overwriting your previous version of Internet Explorer. This can be found here Multiple IEs. Once downloaded and installed, you can have your different versions of internet explorer accessed from your quick lunch menu as in the diagram above.

Windows Server 2008

2007-07-21T17:20:00.000-07:00

With Windows server 2008 in its beta third evaluation. Windows server 2008 promises to be the next generation of windows server operating system providing all that is required for an Information technology (IT) Professionals. Windows Server 2008 delivers new value to organizations by ensuring all users regardless of location are able to get the full complement of services from the network.

You can have windows server 2008 installed if the computer to have the server installed, meets or exceeds the below requirements (minimum);

Processor: 1GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
Hard Disk: 8GB
Drive: DVD-ROM drive
Display: Super VGA (800 × 600)

More Information:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/sysreqs.mspx

Windows 2008 server Evaluation Editions;

Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition
Windows Web Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems.
NOTE: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems.

More Information:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/evaleditions.mspx

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 will be limited for evaluation and will expire on April 7, 2008. After then we either upgrade to a later version or go for a fully licensed version.

To have Windows server 2008 evaluated for the time-limit, visit

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/audsel.mspx

Windows 2008 server Home Page

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/default.mspx

PCMCIA Modem & Mobile Phones as Modem

2007-07-20T03:50:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get my notebook computer connected to the internet and I needed to use an ISP that will compromise the mobility of my computer so I opted for the service of a company offering GRPS. I used a PCMCIA modem and was able to browse the internet from my notebook computer from any where within range. I decided to try it out using my Nokia N91 as a Modem and dicsovered that I could browse faster using my Mobile Phone than the PCMCIA modem. I later discoverd that I was using a low PCMCIA modem though i purchased it recently (I had no knowledge on Modems). I will advise anyone to go for a fast PCMCIA modem if you would be using a SIM card from your service provider to connect the internet.