Blog
Posted by Jeremy on 8 March 2010
Working in my preferred "best-of-breed" environment (i.e.
the closest thing I can get to a completely CSS & XHTML
standards compliant browser...Chrome or Firefox) and then
working backwards, I noticed myself trowling the intertubes
for a CSS selector...and then getting totally hung up
(again...) on the nifty things CSS has in store for you IE
users, y'know, when Microsoft finally wraps it's noggin
around CSS3 - fully. My example is short and sweet, but
totally useless to the IE market. Basically, I have an
unordered list of items that I want to turn into an inline
footer navigation with pipes between each item.
SilverStripe's templating makes this a little difficult;
that's why I started playing with CSS. This is what I came
up with, and I'll be darned - like a sock, bwahaha - if it
didn't work in everything (but IE):
Upgrading SilverStripe Installation to 2.4b
Posted by Jeremy on 7 March 2010
Of the many things I've done this weekend, (lawn work,
fiddling with site optimizations[[sitetree_link id=101]],
packaging xulrunner applications for Macs[[sitetree_link
id=104]], saving the planet...y'know, nothing too difficult)
the thing that probably annoyed me the most, but had the
biggest payoff (SEO-wise) was updating the site to
SilverStripe 2.4. I apologize to anyone who may have stopped
by (yes, I did see a number of 404's in the logs when I
checked) this afternoon and gotten that message: my bad.
Mac SQLite Manager Standalone App
Posted by Jeremy on 6 March 2010
The nice folks from the sqlite-manager
project[http://code.google.com/p/sqlite-manager/] (of
the Firefox SQLite Manager
Plugin[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5817] fame)
were nice enough to grace us with a XULRunner version of the
addon. After much chagrin with having to launch this
WONDERFUL tool from the command line *every time I wanted to
run it*. Yes, I know I could have been a serious Mac user
and crated an Automator script or an AppleScript for
it...but I'm a little more hardcore (read: hard-headed) than
that. On top of everything else, this app kicks serious ass
when it comes to the world of SQLite on Macs. Everything
else out there (even the really expensive paid stuff) just
plain pales by comparison. Having this badboy as a
standalone app is what I needed to feed my obsession.
Social Engine Optimizations
Posted by Jeremy Edgell on 4 March 2010
So, you went and got yourself
a SocialEngine[social-engine-programmer/] site, huh? Built
that little online community you've been dreaming of for
years? Now you have more than 50 users and your VPS or Colo
can't keep up? You, my friend, need to learn some
SocialEngine optimization techniques.
Speed up your Joomla!
Posted by Jeremy on 26 February 2010
Wow...I didn't know that there were still PHP/MySQL sites
(let alone those powered by Joomla! 1.5) that were taking
*any* appreciable time to generate nowadays. Until a client
came to us saying that his Joomla! 1.5 powered news site was
taking 7 to 10 seconds, to generate a page, and up to 20
seconds to download the page.
Extending SilverStripe's SiteConfig
Posted by Jeremy on 22 January 2010
So, SilverStripe 2.4 (still in alpha at the time of this
post) has introduced a new feature (and class) called "Site
Config". This is huge, folks - on the level of discovering
XRays huge (except without the radiation poisoning part -
unless you're just that sloppy with your code, then, perhaps
you deserve it). My use for the SiteConfig class is to
level the playing field with other CMS offerings like
Joomla! and WordPress and allow users to change some (semi)
static content within their sites, without having to come to
me to update their templates.
A REALLY Good E-Commerce Question
Posted by Jeremy on 11 December 2009
I want to set up a website with a Content Management System
and an e-Commerce component. I've heard really good things
about Magento, WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal. My head is
spinning with all of my options. Which should I choose?
10,000 Friends vs. 1,000 Enthusiasts
Posted by Jeremy on 6 December 2009
Your business is considering a social media strategy and
your consultant keeps buzzing about ten thousand (or some
other ridiculously high number) of fans over night. You keep
thinking to yourself "This is too good to be true; sure,
he's done it for other people, but my brand?" You're
right. It is too good to be true, for a few reasons:
