Web Design and Optimisation

Whilst developing some view related material for a new project I’ve been working on I came across this rather puzzling that affects various types of input fields in Internet Explorer 7 (I haven’t checked to see if it occurs in lower versions of IE):

Basically, when an input tag is surrounded by a fieldset tag which is surrounded by a containing tag such as a div with a left margin, the input tag inherits the margin defined in the containing div. Here’s an example of what I mean:

If you try this in IE you’ll see that the file input box inherits the 50px margin. Very odd indeed!

Anyway, after a quick browse on the web I found the solution (and the cause of the problem):

Simply surround your input fields with a containing div (don’t use a p tag if it’s within a form tag as it will break page validation) and set the margin of that div to 0.

Teaming up with our good friends at Anderson Toomey, we now have our own box. With it, we are able to offer additional services including email accounts, hosting and remote backups.

Our hosting packs are formidable; we can develop web applications in any of the three main flavours of web technology - PHP, ASP.Net or J2EE - you don’t see that every day!

So, I have a friend who has a sister - imagine my surprise! - who just happens to be trying very hard to start her music career. To be honest, it’s already begun and she’s doing very well - which I’m not surprised about, because she’s really rather good!

The Secret Boy’s Club EP is her first release, primarily as a demo and also to supplement her touring activities, which have covered a good portion of the UK (although she hasn’t visited the motherland - Northern Ireland for those of you who don’t know where I’m from) and Sweden. My good friend Chris, her brother and my flat mate to be in a couple of weeks I might add, told me that she’s had a great reception from the Swedes and is now writing her very first full album. Yay!

You should definitely look out for this CD and her upcoming album. My personal recommendation is Fearsome Crowd. In fact, you can even hear some of her tracks on her MySpace account. Go there… now… and be happy

Now, this is quite an interesting little issue, and one which I discovered whilst trying to set up this very blog - the famous 5 minute install turned into a much less famous, though equally prolific I’m sure, 3 hour install - I’m used to it though, I’m a software developer afterall!

Anyway, the issue revolves around the MySQL client version that’s bundled with versions of PHP prior to 5.1 (I’m not sure if this version suffers from the same problem). The client version is 3.23.58 and it turns out that it doesn’t support the new password encryption format being used in MySQL versions 4.1 and above. What a pain.

“So what options does one have?” I hear you cry.

1. You can install MySQL v4.0.xx (I’ve invested enough time with v5.0 so not likely!)
2. Try upgrading to the very latest version of PHP hoping that their MySQL client is an updated (I’m not 100% if this will solve the problem - certainly I tried this and had no success. MySQL is also disabled by default in PHP 5 so there is an extra level of configurmuration)
3. Enable a flag telling MySQL to use the old password method (I chose this option in the end)

If you have MySQL Administrator GUI installed, you can use it to connect as ‘root’ and check the flag to use old password under the�server configuration tab. Alternatively, you can run mysql with the –old-passwords flag, which does exactly the same thing.

Deep joy!

Well, this is a new frontier for my business and I - it’s my first post to my first ever blog AND the main website has just had a face-lift. Times are a changing I tell ‘ya.

It’s an odd feeling, this blogging business, especially when you know few (or no) people are even reading the thing. Still, we all know the importance of a blog these days so here I am writing my first post.

Anyway, the new website has had a whole host of changes and improvements, most notably the overall look-and-feel, which has been left wanting for quite some time now. There’s a great deal more information available the services the business provides and its past clients - mostly folk like myself, struggling to make a little place for themselves in the world. If I were to be honest (which I am… always… honest), there are a great deal more pages making space for new information, with that information neatly printed in my head. I really must set some time aside so that I finish the damn thing!

OK, that’s enough for now. I don’t want to overdo it on my first post…