JohnBs personal blog

Something I am presently looking at is connecting to Db’s without a DSN. Not something i’d ever practice but it seems to come up on the Macromedia CF forums quite a bit, doing:

I’m curious to hear reports from other people that have tried it. It seems like something the universities encourage so they don’t have to create DSNs on their app servers.

this will be my last entry for 2003 and am really excited looking forward to 2004 and what it has in store.

First off, todays wacky site is http://www.trudang.com/autopsy.html - all about faking alien autopsy’s, perfect for ending the year on.

I’d like to wish you all a very happy new year and good luck with everything in 2004, see you in 2004.

While reading some random blogs i came across a really cool use of flash com, check this site out http://faces.bascule.co.jp/remotedriver/ - it’s in Japan but you should get the idea, usually works best during the day (Japanese time).

is, http://www.website1.com/squeegee - don’t ask me! I just open the book!

First of all I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas.

Hopefully Santa was good to you - I got a number of great gifts including a coffee machine, micro rc tanks (see here) and even a Disgo 128Mb memory stick so all in all a great time. Something else i got was a little book entitled ‘500 of the weirdest and wackiest websites’ - a great gift i thought. So, i thought i’d give you my ‘weird site of the day’ link until i start getting bored - today’s link is www.zompist.com/kit.html (NOTE: I am not responsible for site contents, I opened the book and this is the first site i saw)

To show you the taste of things to come here’s another random site - http://www.flypower.com/. And if you’ve ever wondered where all the computers before the ‘PC’ have gone, look here.

After reading a blog entry on Sean C’s blog i decided to rework part of Ray’s blogging application that i’m using to give myself some sort of protection against blog spam - should i ever experience it.

Previously, logged comments didn’t include the IP address of the submitter - I’ve now edited the tblBlogComments table to include a remote_addr field for the IP of the submitter. I’ve also added a new table tblBannedIPs, so if a nasty comment is added i can click on a new link ‘Ban this IP’ on the comments page and the IP will be added to the table. Application.cfm now includes a test to see if cgi.remote_addr of the client is in the tblBannedIPs table and if so no further execution occurs. Mail informing me of a new comment added now has a one click link to remove the comment if i feel it neccessary.

I’ve just connected to my home wireless network for the first time and immediately noticed no longer is the system tray icon the two computer screens like before, now it shows one screen and an antenna. Upon double clicking a new network properties window is displayed but clearly showing which wireless network you are connected to along with a button ‘View Wireless Networks’. This opens up a really clean looking screen which alows you to change your preferred network, change network or modify settings of a certain network - in fact, here I’ll show you

Loveshack is my current network and ‘Guys’ is actually my next door neighbour - good job it’s locked huh?? There’s also a new option to allow Windows to connect to a network once it’s back in range, i think this defaulted to ’on’  pre sp2. Again, all these changes look like Microsoft are bringing the more techie’ features down to non technical level. The more features I find the more this feels like Windows XP v2.0

I’m not sure where i was or what i was doing but i came across an interesting link to a set of coding guidelines as used by Macromedia’s Web Technology Group (WTG) run by Sean Corfield (Sean, correct me if i’m wrong). I’ve only just started reading through it but it certainly raises some interesting points to consider and it’s nice to see the sort of techniques that Macromedia use behind their site and web applications.

You can find the document here

Both Macromedia and Microsoft have released the PetMarket application as the blueprint application for their corresponding technologies, but Qasim Rasheed, a member of fusebox.org decided to produce a Fusebox4 version of the same application - and I believe he’s working on a Mach II version too. You can grab the file here.

It would be nice to see the community grasp the opportunity to make a real blueprint application and ultimately have another article on the Macromedia Developer site. As Qasim says - he’s not an expert and figures there will be better ways to do what he’s done in places, his original post on the Fusebox.org forums is here.

Ok, so it’s not so bad. I just went to put files to my host in the USA and up popped an ICF (Internet Connection Firewall) window saying Dreamweaver was trying to access the internet and asking me to grant it permission - this reminds me of the days of early Zone Alarm, it could turn out to be a real pain - but only time will tell!