"If you give someone a program, you will frustrate them for a day; if you teach them how to program, you will frustrate them for a lifetime."

Category: Internet

What Are Feeds?

GuidesInternet

Saturday 25th November 2006

Categories: Guides, Internet

Ever wondered what people meant when they said web feeds? Or RSS? Or Atom? Then read on.

Flash 9 On GNU/Linux

GNU/LinuxInternetOpinionProprietary Software

Saturday 30th September 2006

Categories: GNU/Linux, Internet, Opinion, Proprietary Software

Spurred by the recent articles and comments online, many of them complaining about the lack of a Flash Player 9 for GNU/Linux, I've decided to add my views about Adobe, formerly Macromedia, Flash to the pot.

CSS: Fonts

GuidesInternetCode

Sunday 14th May 2006

Categories: Guides, Internet, Code

As useful as the CSS for fonts can be, all too often it is misused - fonts are too small, or have poor colour choice, and so on. The aim of this article is to look at the problems, and what I consider the best way to avoid them, while making text more readable and more effective.

Why I Love Internet Explorer

InternetOpinionProprietary Software

Saturday 1st April 2006

Categories: Internet, Opinion, Proprietary Software

Different people love Internet Explorer for different reasons. Some like the fact that it allows you to install all sorts of fascinating software. Some like its stability. Some like the innovative interface. In fact, these are brilliant reasons to love what is surely one of the most inspired computing triumphs of the past twenty years.

Website Annoyances

InternetOpinion

Friday 10th February 2006 - Sunday 5th March 2006

Categories: Internet, Opinion

Over the years, we've seen the Internet move forward at an incredible pace - we now have XHTML, CSS, Flash, Java, Javascript, Perl, Python, PHP... along with thousands of downloads that enrich our computing experience. On the other hand, some websites just annoy us, or, worse, make us want to smash our keyboards in frustration. Here's the chance to have a good rant, and complain as much as you want about websites - whether it is Flash, slow speeds or navigation that is the problem.

Web Development Tips

GuidesInternetCode

Saturday 12th November 2005

Categories: Guides, Internet, Code

When you create a web page, there are various things to bear in mind - design, the underlying code, the tools you use, etc. Hopefully, this guide will help you to produce a better, cleaner web page with less confusion and more efficiency.

Writing An Atom Feed

GuidesInternetCode

Sunday 23rd October 2005

Categories: Guides, Internet, Code

This article is looking at Atom 1.0, which is the latest version of Atom. Atom has its strengths and weaknesses over RSS, but ultimately both are well suited to their purposes, and anybody that can write an RSS feed should easily be able to write an equivalent Atom feed.

Finding An Atom 1.0 Feed Reader

InternetOpinionFLOSS

Sunday 18th September 2005 - Saturday 24th September 2005

Categories: Internet, Opinion, FLOSS

While writing a guide for writing an Atom 1.0 feed, I found that my test news reader, Straw, couldn't read my Atom feed. At all. Mozilla Firefox could read the feed, but it only reads the title and the link - I wanted to check the many other details, such as the date and author, was working properly. And so began a long search...

Writing An RSS Feed

GuidesInternetCode

Friday 9th September 2005

Categories: Guides, Internet, Code

As you are probably aware, using feeds is increasingly popular on the internet. Almost any site could have a use for a feed, from the latest news to new articles. When we look at the benefits having a feed has, using a feed becomes very attractive. This article will explain how to create an RSS feed, and put it on your website.

What Is RSS?

GuidesInternet

Monday 29th August 2005 - Sunday 4th September 2005

Categories: Guides, Internet

Across the internet, there are thousands of websites. In the past, you would have to read each of these websites individually in order to check for updates, which can be laborious and slow. RSS solves this problem by providing the latest information from a website. Rather than providing the entire website, RSS provides summaries so that you can decide what content you want to read.

The Problem With PNGs

GuidesInternetCode

Friday 26th August 2005

Categories: Guides, Internet, Code

GIFs only support a limited number of colours - far less than is usually used on a standard computer. JPGs have the full range of colours, but make the image blurry. The solution? PNGs. They are lossless, support 24bit colour, as well as different levels of transparency. However, there is, as already said, a problem.

Why I Hate Internet Explorer

InternetOpinionProprietary Software

Thursday 23rd June 2005

Categories: Internet, Opinion, Proprietary Software

Different people don't like Internet Explorer for different reasons. Some don't like the fact that it allows far too much spyware and viruses through. Some don't like it's instability. Some don't like the lack of tabbed browsing. While all of these are good reasons to use something else, the reason I really hate Internet Explorer is that it does not follow standards.

Beginner's Guide to XHTML

GuidesInternetCode

Wednesday 22nd June 2005 - Saturday 7th January 2006

Categories: Guides, Internet, Code

If you want to design a website, there are various ways to do it. Although you can get programs to write the pages for you, you can get far more control if you decide to write the page yourself. This part of the guide will look at the bare essentials for building a website, including the structure of the page, headings and paragraphs. All you need is a text editor, such as Notepad or gedit, and you can start writing.

XHTML Conversion

GuidesInternetCode

Wednesday 22nd June 2005

Categories: Guides, Internet, Code

The main idea of XHTML is to make HTML cleaner - there are stricter rules, meaning that the look of webpages is more consistant, and the code is easier to edit and understand. The purpose of this guide is to help you learn XHTML and be able to convert existing web pages into XHTML.