Darryl Lyons' Blog

Google Maps adds Australia and New Zealand

2006-05-29T23:21:00.000+10:00

Can't remember if anyone has posted this, cause I read it somewhere, but Google Maps has released Australia and NZ. Anyway, here is where I work (the triangular building).

AJAX Diary: Use TABLEs instead of DIVs

2006-05-29T23:12:00.000+10:00

I've recently come the realisation that DIVs are just too much hard work when it comes to writing a stable, responsive and rapid user interface framework for AJAX-applications. Our large AJAX CRM application used DIVs and CSS Expressions heavily to achieve a "windows-like", fluid/scalable user interface. Each time a new pane was added, so were a bunch of CSS rules with expressions in them (

Using Java BufferedWriter to create CSV files

2006-02-19T13:12:00.000+10:00

Someone recently asked me to expand upon my previous post about generating CSV files, and in particular, to focus on the Java method. In my previous post, I concluded that using the Java BufferedWriter class is a much more scalable and stable solution than using the typical concatenate-and-write-once-done method. Step by Step There really isn't much to using Java to write to a file. Essentially,

AJAX Diary: Race conditions and using cflock

2006-02-18T17:00:00.000+10:00

Within traditional web applications, it is highly unlikely that you will come across a scenario where a race condition will ocurr in the current session, unless you are accessing shared scopes. However, within an AJAX application, which is more like a frame-based Web site (remember them?), they can occur only too often. Background In our CRM application, there is a method that returns a "client

Yahoo! User Interface Library

2006-02-15T21:35:00.000+10:00

Yahoo! have released a DHTML UI library for public consumption. Some pretty cool things in there like a calendar control, drag and drop, event management and DOM tools.

Google acquires Measure Map

2006-02-15T20:20:00.000+10:00

The blog statistics product I have been using since December 2005 has been acquired by Google. Measure Map, still in alpha, is a very easy to setup and use system, and I have been more than impressed by it over the last couple of months. Jeffery Veen, from the Measure Map team and Adaptive Path, had this to say on the Google Blog. Bringing Measure Map to Google is an exciting validation of the

RSS feeds can be funny - Goodbye Tim

2006-02-13T22:47:00.000+10:00

Quite a few blogs have been covering the fact that Tim Buntel is leaving Adobe. I was looking at my MXNA ColdFusion Live Bookmark tonight and I swear I saw these two items in the feed.

A new browser called Flock

2006-01-26T19:09:00.000+10:00

I just came across this new browser called Flock. It is open source software that is built upon the Mozilla code-base -- not as an extension, but as a stand alone product. It looks pretty cool, and they have changed a lot. The browser is currently in developer preview only (but everyone can still download it). Their main point of difference is the "community integration" they have built in.

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 screenshots

2006-01-23T21:17:00.000+10:00

ActiveWin.com have posted 50 high-resolution screen shots of Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. To be honest I wasn't that impressed with the interface at first glance, but I can see that there are a few cool features (like the blank tab). It appears as though IE now has a built-in RSS reader, and formats feeds when you are directly viewing them. I see they have also integrated the Firefox RSS icon.

gzip compression and IE do not mix

2006-01-23T19:00:00.000+10:00

We had a problem at work the other day where the CSS and HTML files were being returned from the server with no content. We restarted the development server, but the problem still persisted. ColdFusion templates were being returned, but the CSS files litterally had no content. So we fired up IE HTTP Analyzer, and the content was seen perfectly fine -- it was being retrieved from the server.

New design for a new year

2006-01-22T11:22:00.000+10:00

I've been meaning to change the design of my blog since the new year, but have only just gotten around it. Open Source Web Design is a great resource if you a looking for any free to use templates. I especially like the work of Andreas Viklund, whose design I have used here. There are a few kinks to iron out. One in particular is the white space above the header. I think Blogger is interfering

An Intel-powered iMac disassembled

2006-01-17T19:02:00.000+10:00

The guys over at Kodawarisan have disassembled one of the new Intel-powered iMacs. Now I'm a PC guy, but this is pretty cool none-the-less.

Science fiction or science fact?

2006-01-14T10:56:00.000+10:00

Lately I've been seeing quite a few articles about advances in science that have frankly left me amazed. It seems as though whatever we can conceive of, people will eventually find a way to make reality. The US has been researching beam weapons for the last 20 years, and it seems they are on the verge of creating weaponry, according to MSNBC. Also in research, although theoretical, are

Windows Vista and XP compared side-by-side

2006-01-13T21:02:00.000+10:00

BentUser has an interesting comparison of the new and enhanced features of Windows Vista and Windows XP. The screenshot of IE7 is particularly interesting.

Why the status bar keeps loading in Internet Explorer

2006-01-11T18:50:00.000+10:00

Have you ever had that problem where Internet Explorer appears to keep loading, even though all elements have been accounted for?! Well, a colleague of mine found the solution (well, one cause at least!). Apparently, the cause is dynamically loaded HTCs. In our AJAX application, we use the TableSort behaviour by WebFX. All you have to do is write something to the status bar straight after the

Project management using spreadsheets

2006-01-08T09:13:00.000+10:00

I've recently been given more responsibility for managing projects and people's time at work. In previous roles I've used Microsoft Project a fair bit, but unless you've got Project Server, then it is a little difficult to manage multiple projects across an enterprise. What I've come up with are a series of shared Excel spreadsheets. Project Summary and year planner: Lists all projects, current

AJAX Diary: Using JSON instead of XML

2006-01-01T10:46:00.000+10:00

In a follow up to my previous post, I am going to talk about the different ways to format data transferred from the server to the client - namely XML or JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). Most AJAX implementations focus soley on XML as the delivery mechanism for data. I think that XML is good for an envelope, but not necessarily the best choice for transmitting large amounts of data, as it is

IE7 to use Firefox RSS icon

2005-12-21T10:52:00.000+10:00

It has been announced that the forthcoming Internet Explorer 7 will use the RSS icon that is currently used in Firefox. From IEBlog: I’m excited to announce that we’re adopting the icon used in Firefox. John and Chris were very enthusiastic about allowing us (and anyone in the community) to use their icon. This isn’t the first time that we’ve worked with the Mozilla team to exchange ideas and

AJAX Diary: Our first 100% AJAX application

2005-12-21T08:55:00.000+10:00

We've just finished a complete rewrite of our CRM user interface using AJAX. The whole thing was written using Object-Orientated JavaScript, and has given us a 10 fold increase in responsiveness. As usual, we didn't use an existing framework, but rolled our own MVC framework. The backend business logic was left untouched, and a facade layer was created to translate client requests into calls to

Using setInterval() to populate tables in Internet Explorer

2005-11-27T17:28:00.000+10:00

I am sure most of you have seen how Internet Explorer renders tables, and how annoying it is to wait for them. It renders tables all at once. By that I mean that if you have a 1000 row table, it will not show anything on screen until it has appended the 1000 rows to the table. A work colleague showed me this technique. If you use the setInterval() method to create a timer that populates the

AJAX Patterns

2005-11-27T11:46:00.000+10:00

I found this site a little while ago called AJAX Patterns. A good resource. Apparently, my post about using dynamic SCRIPT tags for AJAX is actually a pattern called On-Demand JavaScript!

Microsoft's answer to AJAX - ASP.NET "Atlas"

2005-11-25T19:57:00.000+10:00

Microsoft have created a new web development technology called ASP.NET Atlas, a marriage of client-side JavaScript libraries and ASP.NET. They hope the extensions will enable developers to easily develop AJAX-style web applications without being DHTML gurus. ASP.NET “Atlas” is a package of new Web development technologies that integrates an extensive set of client script libraries with the rich,

I just got my Measure Map account!

2005-11-23T18:32:00.000+10:00

A new service is being offered by the guys that coined the term AJAX, Adaptive Path. Measure Map is a free blog statistics service that works with many of the online blogging services. Jeffrey Veen demonstrated the application at Web Essentials 05, and I signed up for an invite a little while ago. Well, I just got my account now, and it's pretty cool. It allows you to track in detail the

Google Analytics -- FREE Web statistics

2005-11-17T18:25:00.000+10:00

Google has released a FREE web analytics service called Google Analytics. A while ago they bought web statistics software company Urchin, and at the time I predicted they would do something like this. The service, of course, integrates with AdWords.

New Yahoo Maps takes aim at Google

2005-11-03T20:43:00.000+10:00

Yahoo have launched the beta of their new maps application. In contrast to Google, Yahoo have opted for Flash as their preferred UI delivery platform, no doubt further fueling the AJAX vs. Flash debate. The new system has some pretty cool features, like the ability to drag markers from the maps into the directions to / from place holders, instead of typing them in. Check out the Yahoo Maps.

Oracle to release free database

2005-10-31T19:42:00.000+10:00

It looks as though Oracle are going to release a free database platform called Oracle Database 10g Express Edition. Read about it here.

Google Maps Hacks

2005-10-02T21:02:00.000+10:00

I've been following Google Maps with great interest for some time now. The potential I saw was in the API, and the myriad of great things that could be done with it. I thought I'd start a list of sites that use the Google Maps API and combine it with their own or other people's data. Some excellent examples of Web 2.0. BlogFlux: A Web site statistics service that also uses Google Maps to plot

Using Arrays for String Concatenation

2005-09-15T18:44:00.000+10:00

In response to my previous post about using Java for String concatenation instead of ColdFusion’s concatenation operator, Greg has given me an interesting tip. It turns out that ArrayAppend() is a LOT quicker than regular concatenation, and the StringBuffer class! If you’re generating a CSV string, all you have to do is put each line into an array element using the ArrayAppend() method. Once all

My new baby girl...

2005-09-12T18:20:00.000+10:00

Eight weeks ago, my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby girl Tahni. She came in at 9 pounds 4 oz, so she was a big one! It’s been a big learning curve, hence why I haven’t posted in quite some time. I'll be doing some follow up posts to my concatenation post, and also some new stuff I've been doing in Java.

New Internet Explorer window -- new session?

2005-07-12T19:52:00.000+10:00

Has anyone noticed when you open a new instance of Internet Explorer (not by using CTRL-N, but clicking on the shortcut), that a completely new session is created? Now, I'm pretty sure this didn't happen with older versions of IE... SP2 change? A change for the better?

Java vs. ColdFusion: String Concatenation and CSV Generation

2005-07-02T20:02:00.000+10:00

For a little while now I've been playing around with Java, and trying to replicate some common ColdFusion concepts in the language. Recently I came across a problem where generating a CSV file was taking a very long time, often making the server unresponsive. The code in question built a large string using concatenation, and then wrote the string to a file. It occurred to me that in-line Java

Free SDLC Documentation Templates

2005-06-14T22:46:00.000+10:00

The ReadySet templates from Tigris.org are really a brilliant resource. I've started using ideas from them to document our existing systems, and future new developments. From the Web site: ReadySET is an open source project to produce and maintain a library of reusable software engineering document templates. These templates provide a ready starting point for the documents used in software

UML 2.0 for Visio

2005-06-11T17:59:00.000+10:00

I have been playing with UML recently, and evaluating some different tools for building UML 2.0 diagrams. I currently use Microsoft Visio for Entity Diagrams at work, and I have recently found some UML 2.0 shapes for Visio.

Google is biggest media company in the world

2005-06-09T19:55:00.000+10:00

Well, according to its stock price it certainly is. Google has now overtaken Time Warner, delegating it to 2nd spot on the ladder. As the BBC this news story states: After its shares hit an all-time high on the New York markets on Tuesday, Google is now worth $80bn (£44bn). This takes it ahead of media leviathan Time Warner, which is valued at $78bn.

Firefox wins product of the year

2005-06-06T20:38:00.000+10:00

Mozilla Firefox has won PC World's Product of the Year. Congrats to the developers.

Oxygen XML Editor 6.0 released

2005-05-18T18:50:00.000+10:00

Oxygen XML Editor 6.0 is now out, as is the companion Eclipse plugin. We use this invaluable tool at work. Seems to work fine with Eclipse 3.1 M7, although I had a small issue with the Visual XSD Editor.

DBedit plugin for Eclipse

2005-05-18T18:42:00.000+10:00

A few people were talking about database plugins for Eclipse today, and DBEdit was mentioned. I can't believe I haven't found this plugin before -- it's really awesome. DbEdit is a set of plugins for the Eclipse Platform that provide viewing, editing and designing capabilities using the JDBCTM API. It is not intended to replace any proprietary database management tool because it surely cannot

Rich Internet Applications using BackBase

2005-05-18T18:34:00.000+10:00

Scott Barnes sent me this link today to BackBase. BackBase is a presentation-tier technology that uses an XML language to define DHTML-based RIAs. Backbase provides Rich Internet Application software that radically improves the usability and effectiveness of online applications, and increases developer productivity. With Backbase you can build web applications with a richer and more responsive

AJAX example using jsonencode() UDF

2005-05-17T20:57:00.000+10:00

A little while ago I put up a post about using CFWDDX to generate JavaScript code, and using dynamic script tags as a mechanism to transfer the JavaScript data from the server to the client. I thought it would be a good idea to redo the example code using Jehiah Czebotar's jsonencode() UDF, which creates valid lighweight JSON encoded data. If you're still wondering what JSON is, here is a quick

XML Parsers: DOM vs. SAX

2005-05-16T21:38:00.000+10:00

I've been tinkering with Java lately, and I've been starting to playwith XML parsing. I'll have a post up soon on comparing DOM parsing with ColdFusion (I don't suspect too many!). I found this good article on devx, about the top-level differences between DOM and SAX specifications. The W3C DOM specification provides a very rich and intuitive structure for housing the XML data, but can be quite

JSON encoder for ColdFusion

2005-05-13T19:19:00.000+10:00

Jehiah Czebotar has just released a JSON encoder for ColdFusion, which is great news for those wanting a light-weight data interchange format (AJAX apps for instance). CFJSON is a ColdFusion implementation of the JSON data format. JSON is a lightweight replacement for xml which translates (or serializes if you like) native datatypes into across languages. While xml is great for storing data, it

Google Web Accelerator prefetching problems

2005-05-10T20:04:00.000+10:00

A lot of people have discovered problems with the prefetching features in Google's Web Accelerator. Because it pretty much "clicks" on all of the links on a page, if you have prefetching enabled when viewing a Web application, it will probably start "clicking" on the "delete item" links! I've heard about this before, when people were complaining about web crawlers doing a similar thing. This

Firefox hits 50,000,000 download mark

2005-05-06T20:03:00.000+10:00

Found a great article about Firefox reaching the 50,000,000 download mark. It goes into detail about Microsoft's next moves, and describes some of the history behind the browser. Also, a Spread Firefox member states how they will be distributing Firefox to 3,500,000 users in India soon.

FOP documentation is hard to find!

2005-05-06T19:56:00.000+10:00

I've been mucking around with generating PDF documents on the fly with FOP. I inherited the code from one of my co-workers, just to add some styling and layout elements. Is it just me, or is FOP one of the worst documented libraries out there? It is really, really hard to find good, practical information on how to do some pretty simple things. You would think they would have more information on

Phishers using keystroke loggers

2005-05-06T19:46:00.000+10:00

Just saw this article on Slashdot about the growing trend in phishers using keystroke loggers to more easily gain access to sensitive information. This blows me away. I've been frustrated about my bank using an image-based keypad for me to "type" my password in with. Sure it's a pain in the ass, but it makes my online transactions a little safer (especially given one person's comments). Every

My workplace blocks informative blogs!

2005-05-03T19:24:00.000+10:00

Is it just me, or is more and more content being published on blogs these days? Especially cutting edge stuff, new discoveries and problems people are experiencing... What gets my goat is that my workplace blocks pretty much all web traffic, and I continually get "Web site blocked" messages when I am trying to actually do my job. Do other people experience this? Surely, a lot of big companies in

Use example.com for documentation and testing

2005-04-24T17:13:00.000+10:00

Always try to use something@example.com instead of something@test.com in your testing and documentation. The domain example.com is set aside for documenation purposes. They must get enormous amounts of email "spam" at test.com (which is a real domain)... :) Try putting www.example.com into your browser, you'll get this: You have reached this web page by typing "example.com", "example.net", or

ColdFusion vs. Java: Connecting to ODBC database

2005-04-20T20:52:00.000+10:00

In my last post, I was replicating an ColdFusion array of structures in Java. This time around, I thought I would compare connecting to an Access database, executing a query, and then outputting the resultset to screen. The main thing to appreciate is how much ColdFusion does behind the scenes. You really don't have to do much, whereas in Java there is a little more to it. The tag syntax for

Finally finished KOTOR2!

2005-04-19T19:07:00.000+10:00

After 30 something hours of play (not all at once!), I've clocked Knights of the Old Republic II. It was actually pretty easy. Must play it on hard now using the Dark Side.

Adobe to acquire Macromedia - can they use tabs?

2005-04-18T19:08:00.000+10:00

Yes, it's real! Here's the press release. Does this mean that the next version Studio will have the tabbed panels? :)

AJAX with dynamic SCRIPT tags -- revised

2005-04-18T17:15:00.000+10:00

At work we have been experimenting with various methods of retrieving data from the server-side. The most traditional AJAX approach is by using the XMLHTTPRequest object (asynchronous or synchronous) as the transfer mechanism and XML to describe the data. Another method is using JavaScript SCRIPT tags as the transfer mechanism, and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) or regular JavaScript syntax

ColdFusion vs. Java: Creating an Array of Structures

2005-04-17T13:12:00.000+10:00

As I've stated before, I am starting to learn Java. After having read a few chapters on variable types (simple vs. complex), I decided to see if I can create an Array of Structures in Java. I already know that a Structure in ColdFusion is represented as a HashTable in Java, so I thought I'd start there. It didn't take long to learn that a HashMap is now considered the replacement of the

Firefox article - Australian IT

2005-04-12T19:02:00.000+10:00

Australian IT are running an article on Firefox, and how it is grabbing market share from Microsoft. I love this quote: Firefox has to move from "evangelising to the sandals and start evangelising to the suits" to sustain growth, Ovum's Barnett says.

Google Maps and Real Estate listings

2005-04-12T18:58:00.000+10:00

Paul Rademacher has created an example web application that overlays real estate listings over Google Maps. Very cool indeed. This of course opens up all sorts of possibilities for "store locator" style applications on the Web now.

Firefox Link Prefetching

2005-04-07T19:16:00.000+10:00

Just saw a post on Pete Freitag's blog about Mozilla/Firefox prefetching. Apparently, you can prefetch URLs during browser idle time. From the Mozilla site: Link prefetching is a browser mechanism, which utilizes browser idle time to download or prefetch documents that the user might visit in the near future. A web page provides a set of prefetching hints to the browser, and after the browser is

Time to learn other languages...

2005-04-06T23:09:00.000+10:00

I've often been of the belief that it is good as a developer wear a few hats. I feel that I have been wearing the ColdFusion (CFML) hat for too long, to the point were it is all that I am doing. Here is my plan. Get back into Java. I've dabbled in Java a bit, having built a few CFX tags that talk to external systems. I also studied Java at University. I haven't touched it in quite some time

Gmail now offering 2GB of storage

2005-04-01T19:18:00.000+10:00

Google is now offering another gigabyte of storage for Gmail users. Google is obviously reacting from recent moves from Yahoo, who also started offering 1GB of storage. Google posted the following on the Gmail site: Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn't mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we're giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why

OPTGROUP most unused tag?

2005-04-01T19:15:00.000+10:00

I can't believe I've never used the OPTGROUP HTML tag before. It allows you to quickly group together items within a select list, and the groups themselves are non-selectable.