I paid £190 for Office 2007 Professional when it was released six months ago. Now as a student you can buy it for £38.95. Grrrr. The Ultimate Steal.
Monthly Archive for September, 2007
What I want to know is, how do teams like Australia and New Zealand consistently manage to field good sides, when the likes of England and Ireland go through huge ups and downs..? Surely it isn't a population thing – New Zealand can't be much bigger than England, if at all – so what is it?
The same thing happens in cricket – Australia are always good. When we are better than them, it only ever lasts a year or two! Why can't we manage to compete (I mean really compete, with a genuine chance of winning) at the highest level?
I have just been reading some of the articles about Apple disabling iPhones via a software update. The phones in question have been hacked to work on networks other than AT&T, or have had third-party software installed on them. It is now virtually impossible to run any non-Apple software on iPhones.
These comments come at the end of the article in the New York Times:
J. Noah Funderburg, an assistant dean at the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa and a longtime Mac user, had little sympathy for iPhone hot-rodders.
"Anyone who hacks must know that they are taking certain risks," Mr. Funderburg said. "If they aren’t willing to assume the risks upfront – like a brick iPhone – then maybe they should not hack the device.
"We have a free marketplace," he said. "Buy a product, including using it on the terms accompanying the purchase, or don’t buy it. And learn to live with not always getting everything you want."
I agree with the first part of his statement. When you hack or alter a piece of software – either on a computer or on a phone – it is your fault if it stops working.
But I'm not so sure about the second part of his statement. Are the 'terms of use' an intrinsic part of any purchase? Is it the case that after you have purchased something, the company you bought it from has some say in how you use it? If something is mine, why can't I use it in whatever way I like, without breaking the law? Is Apple's restriction akin to Sainsbury's insisting that I grill my sausages rather than fry them?
To be honest, I would have to argue that it is – especially the restriction on third-party applications.
The next question is – and this one is more personal – does Microsoft have the right to insist I buy two copies of Windows XP if I want to set up my PC so I have one operating system for general use, and one for games? This is not installing it on two separate computers, where both can be used at the same time, it is installing Windows twice on one computer, where only one can be used at any one time. I argue that doing this does not break the law – it is like using a book as a doorstop, and then later reading it.
Part 1: Applications
Part 2: Code Libraries/Resources
6. Smarty
Separating form from content is a holy grail in web design – it allows you to update the user interface of a website without altering how it works. You can even have different colour schemes or skins. Smarty is a template engine for PHP which forces you to separate form and content. It is easy to use, quick to master, and has good documentation.
7. jQuery (not Prototype)
Writing JavaScript can be frustrating at best. Using a JavaScript framework (there are many available) makes things quicker and easier, and they often include simple to use Ajax funcionality. The most common (thanks to Scriptaculous) is Prototype, but I prefer jQuery. It is much smaller, and has similar effects to Scriptaculous (although, admittedly, not as many). It also (I think) has a more logical structure.
8. WYMeditor
WYSIWYG text editors are the scourge of web developers. They often create hideous code and don't work properly, no matter what they claim, and allow users to define what their text looks like, rather than your template. Cue WYMeditor, an What-You-See-Is-What-You-MEAN editor, which creates perfectly structured XHTML code. It allows the user basic formatting tools (bold, italic etc) but not font, size, colour etc. Instead, the user chooses a style type (heading, paragraph, list etc), which can fit into your template easily.
Added to that, it works extremely well, and uses jQuery. It's brilliant!
9. Behaviour
Adding JavaScript events to HTML is as simple as CSS with the Behaviour framework. It is faster than any full JavaScript framework, and works like a charm. I use it in all my projects, and highly recommend it. The script file is small as well, especially if you pack it.
10. JavaScript Packer
If you include JavaScript files in your websites, you'll want to reduce their size as much as possible. Enter Dean Edwards' JavaScript Packer. It hugely reduces the size of JavaScript files, without losing any functionality. I love it.
That's it for now – there may be a part 3, in which I will add any new tools. I hope that someone at least has found these two useful!
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