Parallels Experience

July 27th, 2010 -- 1 Comment

I was asked to write my experiences when using Parallels on my Mac. So I thought I would make a blog post about this at the same time to share my thoughts on this topic. If you own a Mac, Parallels is a purchase that is a must. It makes your life easier. So let me get onto my experiences.

Windows at work

At my work most computers are running Windows XP. When I decided to use a Mac instead of a Windows computers, I came into some issues. There are tools that only have Windows applications and I thought I would be in trouble. I ended up installing XP in Parallels and I was able to install the applications I needed. I needed access to internet explorer to run my automation scripts against website in internet explorer. The company runs some web applications that will only work in internet explorer and Parallels run these applications seamlessly. No issues at all, I do not even know that I am running a virtual machine.

Linux servers

Another thing that Parallels help me with is being able to setup Linux virtual machines. I create a lot of how-to tutorials and I use these virtual machines for them. Installing Linux in Parallels is easy and I do not run into many issues. Setting up and compiling kernels are easy to do. My Gentoo and Ubuntu distros find all the parallels drivers and it makes it so much easier.

The bad

The only bad thing I can say is gaming. I do understand that this is not easy but it is getting closer.

Conclusion

I thank the Parallels team and hope you guys and gals keep improving and keep bring in new features for your product.

Bluefish IDE Editor

July 26th, 2010 -- No Comments

Well as a PHP, HTML, CSS, and jQuery designer one of the things I have been looking for is a good lightweight text editor. I have used many different types of editors and not found the right one. When I programmed in Windows I loved Notepad++, but there is no Mac/Linux equivalent. The editors that I have used in the past are as follows:

The last editor I was and still will use is VIM. There is times I just want to click somewhere to move my cursor, I.E. Being lazy. I really like bluefish cause it is very lightweight and fast. Eclipse and Dreamweaver just are too slow for me. Bluefish will work in Mac, Linux, and Windows. The best thing I like about it, is it is free. So take a look at them, post some comments about what you think is the best. Maybe you have one that I just have not seen.

jQuery Basics Tutorial

July 10th, 2010 -- No Comments

jQuery is an upcoming/hot thing right now when it comes to web development. To me jQuery is slowly taking over flash. There are lots of things I can do in jQuery that I would have programmed in flash for. Before you kill the messenger there are things out there that flash can do that jQuery can’t. So let me post the source code for the tutorial and below that you can watch in video as I explain.

<html>
	<head>
    	<title>jQuery Basics Tutorial</title>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript">
        	$(document).ready(function() {
        		$('#employees tbody tr:odd').addClass('alternaterow');
        		$('#employees tbody tr:odd').removeClass('alternaterow');
 
        		$('#hideButton').click(function() {
        			$('#employees').hide();
        		});
 
        		$('#toggleButton').click(function() {
        			$('#employees').toggle();
        		})
        	});
        </script>
        <style type="text/css">
        	.alternaterow
        	{
        		background-color: #ccc;
        	}
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <input type="button" id="hideButton" value="Hide Table" />
        <input type="button" id="toggleButton" value="Hide / Show" />
        <table id="employees">
        	<tr>
            	<td>
                	John
                </td>
                <td>
                	Smith
                </td>
                <td>
                	Developer
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
            	<td>
                	Greg
                </td>
                <td>
                	Smith
                </td>
                <td>
                	Owner
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
            	<td>
                	Michelle
                </td>
                <td>
                	Smith
                </td>
                <td>
                	Web Developer
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
            	<td>
                	Scott
                </td>
                <td>
                	Smith
                </td>
                <td>
                	IT Administrator
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
            	<td>
                	Michelle
                </td>
                <td>
                	Smith
                </td>
                <td>
                	Web Developer
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
    </body>
</html>

Categories: Tutorials, jQuery

New site design

July 9th, 2010 -- No Comments

So with me the past few days learning jQuery, I thought I would redesign my site again. This time I have used jQuery in a few places to showcase some of my new things that I have learned. My twitter feed on the right sidebar is being loaded by jQuery. On the bottom of the page you see the link that says back to top, that link when click will slowly slide you back to the top of the page instead of just reloading the whole page. Even after this post I will still be adding more to it.

In the next few days I am hoping to write a tutorial on the basics of jQuery. So keep an eye out for that.

Sorry for being inactive

July 5th, 2010 -- No Comments

I am sorry for the people that do follow my blog here that I have not been active lately. I have started a new job that has been taking all my time and have just been too tired. I will be working on some more selenium and some jQuery tutorials.

Categories: General