In this post we’re going to use jQuery UI to create a slider which will update a value in a text box. You may have already seen this concept in action on websites like confused.com

In a previous post we have discussed the benefits of using a hosted version of jQuery, in this example we will use the Google hosted version of jQuery and jQuery UI.

To begin, create a new html document using your favourite HTML editor like Dreamweaver.

Link to the hosted UI style sheet, this is required in the head section of you code:

<link href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8/themes/base/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

To improve page load performance the JavaScript can be placed just before the body tag in your html:

<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>

Next create a .js file which will contain the JavaScript to run once the webpage has loaded. The code below outlines two examples of sliders. A “slide” event is used to update the ID of a text input on form.

The second example illustrates some of the options available to sliders. Further details of option and events can be found on http://jqueryui.com/demos/slider/.

  $(document).ready(function() {
    //slider example 1: a default slider
    $("#slider1").slider({
    	slide: function(event, ui) {
			$("#value1").val(ui.value);
    		}
    	});
  	$("#value1").val($("#slider1").slider("value"));
	//slider example 2
	$("#slider2").slider({
    	min: 1, //minimum value
		max: 10, //maximum value
		value: 2, //default value
		slide: function(event, ui) {
			$("#value2").val(ui.value);
    		}
    	});
  	$("#value2").val($("#slider2").slider("value"));
  });

Don’t forget to include your .js file before the in your html.
Back to the html, as explained above our JavaScript updates a Text field on form. Below is the required html:

<form action="" method="get">
<input type="text" id="value1" />
<div id="slider1"></div>
<br />
<input type="text" id="value2" />
<div id="slider2"></div>
</form>

Styling considerations: You want to hide the textboxes to visitors using JavaScript or this can be achieved using CSS.

The Apple iPhone is currently the best selling mobile in the world, it is estimated that the UK has 2 million iPhone users alone. There are a growing number of people who are using their iPhone or mobile to browse the web.  Should you make provisions for your website to be mobile friendly? This post outlines some ideas to create an iPhone friendly website or “web app”.

Image credit

There are two methods of developing web apps for the iPhone, the first way is by creating dedicated web pages for use by the iPhone.  The other way is to utilise a JavaScript framework plugin like JQTouch (http://www.jqtouch.com/).  JQTouch is a plugin for the popular JQuery JavaScript framework.

Which method that you use depends on your overall goal, if you are looking to create a website that mimics a native app, for example, that emulates the iOS user interface or even supports gesturing then I would be recommended  using the JQTouch project, doing this cut down on the required development time.

If your requirement is for just an iPhone friendly website then developing a mobile version of website using HTML5 and CSS3 maybe the best solution. This solution may also mean that you can allow for cross-browser compatible and make you website “work” with other mobile device like Android or Black Berry.

Why not take a look at http://www.mobileawesomeness.com/ this website good source of inspiration when designing site for mobile visitors. Also example of iPhone web apps can be found on Apple’s website .

Safari the iPhone’s default web browser uses the Webkit as it’s rendering engine, this displays most web page and website very well, even those sites that have not been design with the iPhone in mind look good. As you may have heard there is an on-going disagreement between Apple and Adobe over Flash, the iPhone does not support Adobe Flash.  Normally webmasters would use Flash when integrating video into their site, as the iPhone does not support flash then HTML5 need to be used to embed videos. In fact HTML5 and CSS3 provide a powerful duo, Apple have create this mini-site: www.apple.com/html5 to demonstrate the features of Safari (Webkit), HTML5 and CSS3 – please note that it is blocked to non-Safari browsers. The battle between Apple and Adobe over Flash has meant that Silverlight support has been overlooked, like Flash, Silverlight is not support by the iPhone.

Developing a iPhone friendly website using the JQTouch project are the outside scope of this post, however if this something that appeals to you but you do not have the in-house expertise then please feel free to get in touch to discuss your individual requirements. As discussed, we will however demonstrate some simple ideas and provide some sample code on how to make your website more interesting and friendly for your iPhone visitors.

For your iPhone visitors, you may decide to use smaller images – so they loaded quicker if they are using a mobile connection, larger fonts – so that the content is easier to read with needing to zoom in, or even make allowances for device orientation. In order to this you first need to detect if your visitor is using a iPhone, this can achieved by using the code below:

PHP

<?php
$browser = strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],"iPhone");
if ($browser == true)
{
echo 'You are using an iPhone';
}

?>

JavaScript

if ( (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('iPhone') != -1) ) {
document.location = "iphone.html";
}

Most webmasters and developer choose to re-direct iPhone visitors to a different page or area of their site. Some people set up a dedicated sub-domain for mobile visitors (www.m.domain.co.uk) others create a sub folder for all mobile content (www.domain.co.uk/mobile). It all depends on personal preference or the facilities offered by your hosting provider.

Frequent website visitors may decide to bookmark your site or even add a shortcut to their home screen. The code below is used to create a custom home screen icon:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/apple-touch-icon.png"/>

As discussed earlier the iPhone uses a Webkit browser this allows you to easy style web forms to look like native iPhone apps. Below is an example image of what can be achieved. Take a look at http://lipidity.com/apple/iphone-webkit-css-3 for some more examples.

The iPhone screen is 320 x 480 pixels. If you do not want people to have to use the zoom function in order to read text or view an entire picture, consider restricting your pages to the limitations of the iPhone’s screen size. The code below prevents the visitor from being able to zoom in and out.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0; maximum-scale=1.0; user-scalable=0;" />

Use of separate style sheets for different orientation can also benefit user experience. Below is an example of how to use different style sheet:

<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (orientation:portrait)" href="portrait.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (orientation:landscape)" href="landscape.css">

Native apps often take longer to load but are much more responsive once loaded. To emulate this behaviour, you could use anchors in a single HTML or PHP file. A JavaScript framework like JQuery and jQuery UI will allow you hide or unhide content as required. A good example of this would to be use Accordion which can be found here.

I hope this post has given you a flavour of whats required when developing web apps for the iPhone or other mobile devices. In a upcoming post we intend to expanded on the techniques outlined here.

New websites don’t automatically appear in search engines like Google. They only get “found” when another website link to them or the site is added using Webmaster Tools.

To use Google’s Webmaster tools, you need to have a Google Account (same as Gmail).

Once you have your Google Account, use this link to use Webmaster tools.

Once you have logged in, choose the Add a site button at the bottom.  Enter your website address and choose continue. Follow the on screen instructions, or additional help is available from Google here.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34592

Depending on the size of your website, Google may not index the whole site in one hit. Sometime it is useful to be alerted when Google first indexes your site. This can be achieved using Google Alerts

Go to Google alerts and create a new alter.

http://www.google.com/alerts

In the Search terms field, input a keyword that appears on every page on you website, something like you company name. Enclose you keyword in quotes and then limit the search to your website domain. For example:  “keyword” -site:yoursite.co.uk

The type field is not important and be left as Everthing.

Change How often field to as-it-happens.

Leave Email length to up to 20 results

Input your email in the Your email field and then choose Create Alert.

You should then receive an to confirm that you wish to receive alerts.

When the website is first crawled (indexed) by Google you should receive an email message. You may then want to log-in to Google Webmaster tools and check that the site has not got any Crawl errors (under Diagnostics on the left-hand side).  Crawl errors are details of any problems that the GoogleBot has encounter when indexing your site. You will need to address these errors in order for you website to be completely indexed by Google.

Web developers are often faced with the problems associated with developing a cross-browser website or application, those developers planning to use new HTML5 and CSS3 mark-up will also have to ensure that they cater for different rending/layout engines like Webkit (Safari, Chrome) or Gecko (Firefox).

Here are a few CCS examples:

/*gradients*/

/*Firefox*/
-moz-linear-gradient (left, red, silver); 

/*Safari/Chrome*/
webkit-gradient (linear, left center, right center, from(red), to(silver));

/*shadow*/

/*Firefox*/
-moz-box-shadow: 5px 5px #818181;

/*Safari/Chrome*/
-webkit-box-shadow: 5px 5px #818181;

/*Border corners*/

/*Firefox*/
-moz-border-radius: 9px 3px 9px 3px;

/*Safari/Chrome*/
-webkit-border-radius: 3px;
-webkit-border-top-left-radius: 9px;
-webkit-border-bottom-right-radius: 9px;

Below is a screen shot from my iPhone which is on the T-Mobile network.

APN: general.t-mobile.uk
Username: user
Password: one2one
MMS: http:/mmsc.t-mobile.co.uk:8002/
MMS Proxy: 149.254.201.135:8080

Voicemail

T-Mobile’s voicemail setup is a little different from other networks: in addition to your mobile number you are also assigned another unique number for voicemail.

If you don’t already know your voicemail number, do the following:

Dial: *#67#

The iPhone uses push voicemail, in order to “re-program” it for T-Mobile, you need to do the following replace 123456789 with your unique number as obtained above.

Call: *5005*86*123456789#

We were asked by a client to write a simple batch program that tests if a server is alive by using ping.

Below is a sample of the script that we created. The client used it in a Formscape project to ensure that a server was available before writting a record to a database using ODBC.

@echo off
CLS
:RETRYPING
echo Testing if 192.168.1.1 host is alive
ping 192.168.1.1 | find "Reply" > nul
if not errorlevel 1 (
echo Host is alive
) else (
echo host is down - retry in 30 Seconds
REM Poor man's sleep function - ping localhost
ping 1.0.0.0 -n 1 -w 30000 >NUL
echo Retry now
GOTO RETRYPING
)
:ENDPING

1. Use a USB extension lead – this it gives you the ability to move the dongle around to ensure you give the best signal.
2. Alternatively, it may be better to use your mobile as a modem and connect to it using Bluetooth. This gives you the ability to position the mobile in the best place to get optimum signal strength.
3. To avoid DNS issues, use a third part service like http://www.opendns.com/.
4. By a SIM-free device – This will give you the ability to chop and change providers and choose the best deals.
5. Consider opting for a paid contact – some providers give preferential service to customers with a contact.

This how to use PHP to code a dynamic copyright notice:

<p>
<?php
$firstyear = "2009";
$currentyear = date("Y");
if ($currentyear==$firstyear)
  echo "copyright © ".$firstyear." company Limited, all rights reserved.";
else
  echo "copyright © ".$firstyear."-".$currentyear." company Limited, all rights reserved.";
?>
<p>

This is a snippet of the CSS code I use when starting new project. The are not rquired and can be removed

body {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
}

/* I don't link the link styling defaults */
body a {
	text-decoration: none;
}

body a:hover {
	text-decoration: underline;
}

/* If I want a border I use my own style */
img{
	border: none;
}

.fltrt {
	float: right;
}

.fltlft {
	float: left;
}

.clrflt {
	clear:both;
	height:0;
	font-size: 1px;
	line-height: 0px;
}

/* Used for image Opacity / Transparency styling */
img.opacity {
	opacity:0.4;
	filter:alpha(opacity=40);
}

img.opacity:hover {
	opacity:1;
	filter:alpha(opacity=100);
}

/* My prefered forms style */
fieldset
{
	border: 1px solid #999999;
	background-color: #F4F4F4;
	margin-top: 25px;
	margin-right: auto;
	margin-bottom: 25px;
	margin-left: auto;
}

label{
	width: 200px;
	float: left;
	text-align: left;
	margin-right: 0.5em;
	display: block;

}

input{
	border-right: #999 1px solid;
	border-top: #999 1px solid;
	border-left: #999 1px solid;
	border-bottom: #999 1px solid;
}

textarea {
	border-right: #999 1px solid;
	border-top: #999 1px solid;
	border-left: #999 1px solid;
	border-bottom: #999 1px solid;
}

We recently completed a development project to create a .NET application to populate an iSeries file. The client required an audit trail to be setup, this is how to do it:

Firstly create an audit file, ensure that the file has all the fields you wish to audit.
The best way to achieve this is to copy the original source member and use an “A” suffix.
Then add three addition fields to the end of the file:

A            TIMESMP         Z         TEXT('AUDIT TIMESTAMP')
A            AUDTYP         1          TEXT('AUDIT TYPE')
A            AUDIMG         1          TEXT('AUDIT IMAGE')

To add SQL Triggers, use the STRSQL command. Copy the sample code below substituting library, file and fields for your own details.
For new records:

CREATE TRIGGER library.trigger_name
  AFTER INSERT ON library.file_name
  REFERENCING NEW AS new_row
  FOR EACH ROW MODE DB2ROW
BEGIN
  INSERT INTO library.audit_file(field1,field2,field3,field4, audtyp, audimg)  VALUES(new_row.field1, new_row.field2, new_row.field3, new_row.field4,’I’,’ A‘ );
END

For deletions:

CREATE TRIGGER library.trigger_name
  AFTER DELETE ON library.file_name
  REFERENCING OLD AS old_row
  FOR EACH ROW MODE DB2ROW
BEGIN
  INSERT INTO library.audit_file(field1,field2,field3,field4, audtyp, audimg)  VALUES(old_row.field1, old_row.field2, old_row.field3, old_row.field4,’D’,’B’ );
END

For record changes:

CREATE TRIGGER library.trigger_name
  AFTER UPDATE ON library.file_name
  REFERENCING OLD AS old_row
                            NEW AS new_row
  FOR EACH ROW MODE DB2ROW
BEGIN
  /* Before update*/
  INSERT INTO library.audit_file(field1,field2,field3,field4,audtyp,audimg)  VALUES(old_row.field1, old_row.field2, old_row.field3, old_row.field4 ,‘ U‘,’B’);
  /* After update*/
  INSERT INTO library.audit_file(field1,field2,field3,field4,audtyp,audimg)  VALUES(new_row.field1, new_row.field2, new_row.field3, new_row.field4,’U’,’A’ );
END

Removing triggers
You can remove triggers using the Remove Physical File Trigger (RMVPFTRG) command, the SQL DROP TRIGGER statement, and iSeries Navigator.