Feedback...?

Found the need to analyse some server stats. today and the hosting that I was using didn't have a package available so I googled and found Visitors which is damn fine. This all because of this post on Kiwi's Forums. Basically I'm after some testing of a site that I'm working on... well actually it's 2 pages on 1 site that I'm working on TBH. The 1st is a traditional web-based application the 2nd uses brand spanking new technologies (Well, they might be old but they're new to me ).

You might have already guessed it but it's part of my dissertation and I think that I'm there in terms of the software. Now if I could only get over this cold and feel like my brain isn't swimming in snot rather than cerebral spinal fluid I'd be sorted. Then I can go about improving Rodin a little bit more and the world'll be my winkle.

Anyway, back to visitor, it can output a file that Graphviz can turn into SVG... well, you know how much I love SVG so I just had to give it a go. This is primarily for my own reference TBH but the commands I use can be used by anyone:

To output all the data I'm likely to need as html:

% visitors -A [log name] --trails --prefix [domain name]
 > [name of file].html

To output a file ready for Graphviz and then run it to create an SVG image:

% visitors [log name] --prefix [domain name] --graphviz
 > [name of file].dot
% dot [name of file].dot -Tsvg > [name of file].svg

Boxer on mac

Well I've installed Boxer 7.5a on my mac. "How?", I hear you say. "Why?", I hear others say.

The "Why" is simple enough to answer; why does someone climb a mountain? Why does someone sail around the world single-handedly? Why, ohh why, does the butter always hit the lino instead of the bread landing butter side up? "Why?", is a damn fine question and I just wish I had an answer. I guess that it's partially because I've always loved Boxer. It was the first proper piece of software that I ever bought just for the sheer love of it. I tried the demo and I was hooked (Has anyone else pondered the possibility that shareware software is a little like the small taste of smack given to the kids as they leave school by the shady character with the pierced nose hanging around the gates? No? Must just be me then ).

I think it's also because I can install Boxer on a mac TBH, I shouldn't be able to but I can and I love it... though it's getting to be a pain to configure the bugger and the screen keeps losing focus and the short-cuts keep setting off things on the mac which I wish they wouldn't! I run it on my XP machine as well, Boxer I mean, both the latest version (11 I think) and the old 7.5a as well. I seem to remember it being the dog's danglies for working with Java (the DOS version that is)... but I upgraded didn't I? Glad I did like, but all the same... I can't help feeling a little nostalgic about the DOS version. Most everything I code ends up either being written on or edited on Boxer at one stage or another and my dissertation is making full use of the colour syntax highlighting in the Appedixes (Can never figure out how to spell that ) so I can print out the code with PDF Creator.

The "How?", now there is a question worthy of an in-depth howto but I can't be arsed TBH, suffice to say that the judicial use of DOSBox was involved. Still a wee buit flacky there as there isn't support for the %PATH% variable and such like but not all that bad at all really.

Also started a new site just for my dissertation which will allow me to develop both at home, at college and at work (If time allows while I'm on breaks and such). Actually I'm nearly there I think and I'll need to brush up on my Mellel skills in order to write the bugger up properly.

That's enough for now I think. Until next time, take care.

Before I go I'd best put this in though:

2nd Appendix

The second appendix is done.

I've also been a wee bit busy with my camera and these pictures are of the Cam during a lovely sunset a week or two ago:

I'm bloody lucky to live in such a gorgeous place TBH .

Slow going

Ajax is doing my poor likkle head in! I did loads of work last week on my days off and I tried, I really tried, to do some while at work - but I justcouldn't do it! Don't know what was the matter but it really did mess my poor head up a lot.

Decided to do some collation work instead and got the 1st Appendix in shape (Imaginatively called Appendix01.pdf). Basically it is all the old stuff to do with the dissertations development. Basically it is old and nasty and I don't like it - not least because it uses txtdb, which in and of itself isn't such a bad thing as it uses a .txt file as a database, but it is so very slow... of course my noobie knowledge of coding didn't help much in terms of making the programs run faster, I'm so much better now - yet I've still got such a long way to go (I even noticed that some of the html outputted by my early work isn't W3C compliant... now that simple wouldn't do today! I'm so happy that I then converted to MySQL and thence to SQLite... Just goes to show you ehh?

The 2nd Appendix still needs a little work as I've not quite sorted out the files that'll need to go in it. But I'm getting there slowly, I guess I'll stick that on when I'm at work next as I dare say I'll not feel up to working then either .

What else is happening? Not a lot really... coming up to January the 23rd, so look after yourself ehh? I'm not Catholic but that was about the best link I could find .

Rounded corners with tables

	This is a test of creating rounded corners using tables. It took me ages but I figured out that I needed to define the first row even if it was 7 repititions of a 1 pixels block of the same colour. Browsers use that as a starting point for the rest of the table. Basically what I've got here is a 3 by 3 table with each corner holding a 7 by 7 table with a nice progression that I worked out not so long ago whilst carrying out another project. I've put it beneath but I think you'll be able to see the progression as being nice and consistent. I think so anyway.

This is just a test of the onChange thing for drop-down lists. It seems to work so far .

Option1Option2Option3

This is another way of doing it, from here:

Simple Corners

Four walls makes a house, four corners makes a rounded rectangle. That's all there is in this example.

Cool buttons!

Created these with the amazing 80x15 Brilliant Button Maker. I had a nice txtdb one that is available on their site but I couldn't find one for MySQL, SQLite nor Ajax so I just had to make some. The MySQL one uses the colours from their logo. The SQLite one has the logos colour on the left and the default on the right. The Ajax one has the colour of the cleaning product logo, which is just red really ! Excuse the table but that's the colour scheme on the old page where they were displayed and I wanted to do a nice mock-up of what I think they should look like. Except that the real page is residing on the server on my mac and the hosting here doesn't support SQLite and txtdb was so slow on here that I had to take it off ...

The button maker is really cool and I'm well impressed. I found it as a result of messing around with the Stumbleupon plug-in for Firefox... I think that that is quite enough links for now!

I just couldn't resist this:

Slight Update

Updated Literature Review, (My tutor suggested that I password protect this, email me for access if you feel you really, really need to read it ) gone back to Mellel as NeoOffice/J was sooooo slooooow it was painful! Besides, I figured out how to do foot-notes! And it produces pdf files as well! Not sure that I like foot-notes but they're not too bad an idea really.

Couple of nice icons which I've come accross as well, think they were from dA:

Fairy	Squirt

Also been using Inkscape on the good old Mac and I'm generally impressed. I used it to create the figures in the literature review and I like the mix of freehand stuff and the ability to get to grips with the underlying XML as well... particularly useful when you need to place things exactly in line and such like. I used to use it on the PC and used Sodipodi prior to that (I think Inkscape is a branch of the Sodipodi stuff...?), but now that it's available for the Mac I'm not looking back! Did crash a couple of times but you gets what you pays for and it's free !