JC Web Concepts - Custom Web Developments

So I decided to look at Apple Scripting and I will tell you it is not that bad. I still have to kind the site that has all the built-in keywords but it works. Let me show you a little script I made that will prompt you to type in a PHP function name(mysql_connect) and it will open up your browser and take you to the PHP page with that function

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set phpfunction to text returned of (display dialog “Which PHP Function do you want to look up?” default answer “”)
 
open location “http://www.php.net/” & phpfunction

Let me explain what is going on here. The set phpfunction is creating a variable that will hold the text. Display dialog is setting up a prompt Window. The dialog has 2 parts. First part is what is text is going to display in the box. The second part is if you wanted some default text in the text box where the user would type in.

The open location is telling it to open your web browser. The & phpfunction is adding the function you typed in the box to the URL string. And that is it for some Apple Script.

Etherpad is an application that is based off java that allows multiple people at the same time to update multiple documents. Now I realize you might be thinking google docs does something like this. It is close but it is not the same. There is a delay in time that it updates on other persons screen. Also there is no support for syntax highlighting for web development.

It is a free service and they offer a paid solution if you want to host it on your internal network. My company I work for just bought some user licenses for it. So bookmark that link cause if you need to show someone else a document and be able to edit it at the same time, then etherpad is your solution.

Well today is the day we celebrate for our veterans who have died in war. My wife and I decided to have the picnic at our house. We are going to use are new grill to cook hamburgers and hotdogs. I am just glad that we can get family together and celebrate. I wish my family from Buffalo could be here.

Cooking on the grill was not too bad. The first time around I did not cook the hamburgers right. I think my issue is I have the flame on high and it burns the outside so I think they are done when they are not in the inside. Well everyone is still alive

 

Having Fun

 

After that we played some Lasso golf. I will tell you it is hard to setup but it is a fun game. Overall it was a good day

Well since I am no longer playing wow, what should be my next game? The only thing is it needs to be for Mac OS. So any ideas?

That is it. I am just dam tired of this game. I just went to WoW site and cancelled my service. Now this is not for the money. Please $15 USD is fine. What gets me is the time you have to invest in this game. It is way too much. I found myself trying to level up professions then actually playing to level. It just takes too long and I get bored. Then you get a quest and find people to do it. You die during the process they finish and guess what. You have to do it all over again. I had to stay dead till the guy is defeated then I would have gotten the quest. You know what. Screw that. Maybe if WoW would create servers that you double or quad the XP as the normal servers. Do not get me wrong I really like MMORPG’s but they need to make them so you need to have no live to be able to play them.¬†

Heck maybe they should let people use a BOT to play for you. This way with people who have lives can let the bot play for you and when you are ready to play you can stop it and continue where it left off. I know if I was a kid who lived at home this game would be no issue. But I do not live and home and I have a job with a wife and kids. I still play games but I do not have that much time to play. So for now I will quit and maybe some day I will go back. Who knows maybe I will find a better game.

So I have been thinking that it may be time for me to learn another programming language. I have thought for some time now and since I have switched to Mac I think it might be cool to program apps for it. I know what would I program? What would I get from learning it. Then I though what about Linux applications. I work in an environment that uses Linux computers. My knowledge of GUI programming is very slim. I took VB a long time ago. Lastly I thought about iPhone programming. The only issue here is that I would have to apply and pay for a developers kit and hope Apple would give it to me.

So this is what I ponder. What will I do. Do you guys have any thoughts?

At work today a colleague and I were talking about software for web development. He then asked me about an application called Aptana. I have heard about and tried it in the past. In the past I did not like it. I felt that it was too heavy for me at the time. I should explain back when I tried this I just did HTML work and nothing else. Now I do things like XHTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, BASH, and Flash. So now this IDE suite is something that I could really use.

Basically if you are a type that hits many programming languages this app is for you. If you have multiple websites that you manage then this app would be for you. They make many plugins for this suite that it is well worth it. Now before I started to use this I was a hugh fan of Adobe Dreamweaver. If anyone would try to tell me different I would tell them that they are nuts.

Now an app like Dreamweaver costs around $350.00 USD. Aptana is free but you can buy the professional version which gives you some more advance features. That would cost you $99.99 USD. I will give Aptana credit cause they do not cripple the free version like some others do. This app will run in Mac, Linux, and Windows. In the next day or two I am planning on making a tutorial on this app to give you a tour of it.

Well early this morning I finished the game on easy mode. Let me tell you that this was tuff. I am going to try the next difficulty level but I am not sure it is possible. The 2 ending levels were very difficult and I can only imagine on a hard level they will be worse

One of the things I looked at when I bought my first Mac, was Mobile Me. This is a service from Apple that helps you out. Are you the type of person with multiple computers? Or what about an iPhone/iPod Touch? If so then Mobile Me is for you. The feature I use the most is the contact and Calendar synchronized. So if I add a calendar event on my iPod Touch and go to my iMac, the event is there. If I edit it there and go to my iPod it is updated there. The sync is pretty instant. Only requirement is everything needs to be online. So both computers need to be online. If they are not they will not get the update till it does go online. This service is not limited to just Macs.

Now Mobile Me does more than just contacts and calendar events. It also works with emails, bookmarks, and even setups up a remote storage center. You can use this to get files while away from home. The last feature that you get with this is free web space with picture gallery support. With the gallery support if you own a Mac will allow you to upload your albums right from iPhoto. Now that is convenience. 

As far as price it is $99.99 USD for the year. This needs to be paid up front and needs to be renewed every year. Now if you look and your typical hosting accounts it is almost $10.00 USD a month. So it is not too expensive but well worth it. It was great when I reformatted my Mac. Once the OS was installed Mobile Me downloaded to my computer, e-mail, contacts, calendar, and bookmarks. I could even go into iPhoto and pull my albums down from the cloud.

Overall it is worth getting and you should not go with out it.

Well I have been looking at an application for the Mac call Xcode. With this application you can create applications for the Mac and the iPhone/iPod Touch. There might be more but at this time I am not aware since I am just starting. So the reason I want to get into this is cause I think it would be cool to make some of my webpages an app that can go on the iPhone or a my Macs. So I will post a part 2 of this with more information.

If anyone has any tips or good sites that can help me with this please post a comment. Thanks.