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Post by urbancinderella on Mar 2, 2006 7:45:57 GMT
Google defines RSS as an XML-based format- a language for representing information about resources in the World Wide Web that allows the syndication of lists of hyperlinks, along with other information, or metadata, that helps viewers decide whether they want to follow the link. RSS allows a person's computer to fetch and understand the information, so that all of the lists that person is interested in can be tracked and personalized for them. Since its release, Really Simple Syndication - RSS for short - has become more than several XML-based documents to a viable source for information. Used by both serious sites and non serious sites as a way for getting there messages across. News sites such as Neowin.net use their RSS feed to spread the news of the technological world, while programmers such as Messenger Plus! creator Patchou uses RSS to allow users to quickly see any news that he might have posted without having to visit the main site. While these small non profit making sites are using RSS for themselves, Google is embracing RSS as a part of its homepage. Since Google launched Google Interactive last year, Google users have been able to access their favourite RSS sites via their homepage without any work being needed. RSS is the future of the internet, it will just take the rest of the international super highways residents to come forward from the past to realise that.
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Post by urbancinderella on Mar 2, 2006 7:47:04 GMT
Last month, Shadow did an article on the Blu-Ray disc. One of the things that I found he neglected to write about was the competitor of the Blu-Ray disc, HD-DVD. Blu-RayThe Blu-Ray disc started before HD-DVD, so it has gotten more publicity. Alongside this, the Blu-Ray disc enjoys thirty percent more space and also it can playback data while data is being written to it. Sony is largest backer of Blu-Ray, and since Sony owns Columbia Pictures and MGM along with the Playstation 3, a lot of releases will be put out in Blu-Ray format. The largest disadvantage of the Blu-Ray disc is the price. Some reports say that that the price could be even as high as $17. Seventeen dollars is more than many dvd's with a movie already on it cost. HD-DVDFirst of all, HD-DVD makes a lot more sense to the average person than Blu-Ray does. You can tell that it is a dvd disc that is made for high definition picture without thinking twice. With Blu-Ray, it could be anything from a blue laser to a blue Ray Romano. HD-DVD is also much more price-effective. A blank HD-DVD would only cost 10% more than a current DVD and it is expected for this price to go down. Also, an HD-DVD uses the same architecture of current DVD's, so the transition would be much more appealing to smaller movie studios. The only downsides for the HD-DVD is the storage capacity and possibly a lack of support by some major studios. Fortunately, HD-DVD gained the support of many large companies, including Microsoft, Toshiba, Warner, Paramount, and Universal. PredictionsI personally feel that HD-DVD will come out on top because of its price advantages and practicality. You could compare it to the VHS vs. Betamax war where better technology was unable to compete against better and more feasible prices. Anyways, in bulk, an HD-DVD would cost less than 5% of Blu-Ray discs in bulk. I can't see many studios jumping on the Blu-Ray bandwagon with such a huge price ratio.
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Post by urbancinderella on Mar 2, 2006 7:48:46 GMT
How many of you find that your hard drive will get clogged up with unnecessary files - files that you don't know where they are coming from? If you do, then you will also know the dreaded thought of having to reformat your hard drive to get rid of that dreaded unwanted data. All of that however, has become a thing of the past with Crap Cleaner, CCleaner for short. Possibly the most helpful application circulating aroudn the internet at this time giving you the chance to delay that dreaded reformat. The download and install process is as easy as blinking, just simply click on the download link on the top toolbar and choose your desired site to download it from. Within moments after your installation of the program, you can clear hundreds of megabytes worth of data from you folders. The program is really easy to use- just tick/untick the desired boxes on data you want to delete and click "Analyze" to tell you how much space you will create. It is simple and easy-to-use; no experience is required to work it.
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Post by urbancinderella on Mar 2, 2006 7:50:01 GMT
An important part of running your own website is taking advantage of the resources that you are given. Some webhosts supply ASP, some others include PHP and MySQL, while some only provide HTML and images. This month we will learn about a different and relatively new application, Ruby on Rails. Ruby is a programming language like any other; the main difference is how it is an object oriented language. The language was built around classes and objects and almost everything is a class. It was built because of Perl's lack of a good OOP system. Lucky enough for the creator, Matz, Ruby is the birthstone after Perl. One of the best things about Ruby is that it is -literally- plain English. To print text a certain number of times, you would simply do: n.times { print "ACoolie!" }Ruby On Rails was created while the developers at 37signals were developing an application named Basecamp, a project collaboration utility for groups. The framework was extracted from the source and made openly available to the public. Ruby On Rails is a full-featured application that helps people build their own applications. It uses ActiveRecord for simple database use and scaffolds are automatically generated for each controller. When you add a page to your application, a class is written which can write, update, delete, list, and display the data from the database. Many Web 2.0 developers use Ruby On Rails to create faster, better applications. Some of the most popular Ruby On Rails applications include BackPack, an organization utility, A List Apart, 43Things, and Penny Arcade. All of these are extremely fast websites which are streamlined to make it exceptionally simple for the user to interact with. For even more applications, look here and here. The worst thing about Ruby On Rails is that there is no documentation. The closest is either the Wiki, or the API. The Wiki is not complete and the API is extremely difficult to navigate and use. At Ruby On Rails' hompage, there are links to some pretty good tutorials (my personal favorite is the one with the talking foxes) and also some great screencasts. One of the most famous screencasts is the one on Creating a weblog in 15 minutes. With Ruby On Rails, he created a simple blog with comments and administration panel in fifteen minutes and only 58 lines of code! The Ruby On Rails community is one of the best communities out there with constant support and help. Ruby could become the next PHP if Rails continues at the success it is currently having. For Rails hosting, TextDrive is the official Ruby On Rails host, although it is quite expensive. My personal favorite is AbitiousLemon, but its rules are quite strict, not allowing for profit websites or websites which provide Windows applications (while Linux is fine). For a list of more Rails hosts, consult the official Ruby On Rails webpage.
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Post by urbancinderella on Mar 2, 2006 7:51:09 GMT
One of the best and most organized thing about programming is Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). OOP is the most extensible code in all programming and is used in almost every language. Unfortunately, Javascript is one language that has limited OOP support. Yes, there are objects and yes, you can have classes with methods and properties, but it still isn't quite the same as a truly objective language. Object-Oriented Programming is widely used in programming because of its ability to expand into further code. Classes are often faster when writing large amounts of code and protect you from having to write the same text over and over again. It is extremely easy to extend a class into more classes to improve its functionality. If you use a class as the base for your script, writing the rest can be done quickly and easily because of a class' potential. Let's start with a little code. This is showing how an object can be made with a hashtable. var myClass = { creator: 'ACoolie', getCreator: function() { return this.creator; } };Basically, this code defines the class myClass, but does not initiate it. This class has a property, creator, and a method, getCreator. To initiate this class, you would do this: var myObj = new myClass;Unlike most other objective-based languages, Javascript has a way to initiate and define a class at the same time. To do this, javascript uses the new keyword with a function. var myObj = new function() { this.creator = 'ACoolie'; this.getCreator = function() { return this.creator; } }This does the exact same thing as the above class, except myObj is instantly populated with an instance of the class. If you want to have more than one instance of the class, just name the function and you can call it later in the code. function myClass() { this.creator = 'ACoolie'; this.getCreator = function() { return this.creator; } } var myObj = new myClass(); var anotherObj = new myClass();
The problem with defining the methods and properties of a class when defining the class itself is a memory loss. Javascript wastes a bunch of memory processing this code and it can be optimized simply by using prototype. Prototype is a way of adding methods and properties to a class. var myClass = {}; var myObj = new myClass; alert(myObj.number); // Returns an error
myClass.prototype.number = 5; var anotherObj = new myClass; alert(anotherObj.number); // Alerts 5I'll end this tutorial with an example to get you started. function Company() { this.Employees = function() { this.employees = new Array(); // Array is a class too this.hire = function(name, job) { this.employees[name] = job; } this.promote = function(name, newjob) { this.employees[name] = newjob; } this.fire = function(name) { this.employees[name] = false; } } } var ACompany = new Company(); ACompany.Employees.hire('John Jackson', 'CEO'); ACompany.Employees.hire('Jack Johnson', 'President'); ACompany.Employees.hire('Jorge Sanchez', 'Manager'); ACompany.Employees.hire('Oliver', 'Janitor');
ACompany.fire('Jack Johnson'); // Jack Johnson screwed up ACompany.promote('Jorge Sanchez', 'President'); // Jorge Sanchez gets his job ACompany.fire('Oliver'); // Oliver spilled his cleaning liquid on boss
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Post by urbancinderella on Mar 2, 2006 7:52:38 GMT
This month, we welcome back an old SSD member, Orestes Zero (Crestfallen). Urban Cinderella has graciously let him back to SSD and, I personally appreciate him being back. Let's hope he gets a better start this time; I think this article will help him out. Name: Nathan R. Age: Sixteen. Sex: Male. Favorite Website: www.ultimate-guitar.comOk, let's start simple. What are your favorite things to do? Do you like to play sports?My bones are too frail to endure outdoor activities, which explains my frequent presence on the interweb. I play guitar and video games whenever I'm not losing brain cells on my computer. ... Good answer. What is the best thing about being home-schooled?No school? -shrug- It's not as fun for someone who is co-dependant on friends to stay sane, so I'm lonely all the time. Sounds lonely.... How much has being home-schooled affected your life? What about your online life?I met all my current friends and my girlfriend on the internet - she lives 10 miles away from me - so if I was kept in school, my life would be a lot different, because I obviously wouldn't have gone to the same sites as I did, and I would have friends at school rather than wanting to make ones on the internet. You better pray to God for Tim Berners. What programming language do you consider yourself most skilled in?CSS, as well as some knowledge in XHTML. I tried learning JS once, but I barely understood any of it. Of all of the things that you have coded, what do you think the best is?Maybe my old Halcyon skin. (http://visualode.com/halcyon/) It's not compatible in IE, but I like how I did the navigation and the rollovers. I understand that you and Xephra have a band. Could you explain how this works and what exactly it is?It's basically all done over the internet. I record guitar parts through Sound Recorder, send a rough mix to Shelby, he does some vocal work, sends me back a .wav and I sequence it in, along with mixing the rest of the track. We've done one song so far, but it was fun to do. We both agreed on making the band official when we're old enough to move out of our parents' houses. =P Could you explain the name? We're two states apart from each other. I'm in Illinois, he's in Texas. What would you suggest to new bands who just started working together?I don't know, Shelby and I haven't even done much for the band yet. =P Just stay the best of friends, because from past experience, the smallest grudges will tear a friendship apart. Has your regular life influenced your online life much? If so, how?I have depression/anger issues, probably due to not being around any people outside of my family for most of my life. (I'm not exactly sure, I've been wanting to see a doctor about it for a while now.) It's kind of stupid for me to get worked up on the internet and release my tension upon others through MSN or on forums, but it's just how I am, thus why I decided to stop changing my name and kept Crestfallen as my current alias. (Because it means "depressed." =P) Gosh I sound so emo in this interview. I thought this was for coding XD Shh! Has your online life influenced your regular life much? If so, how?As said before, I met my IRL friends on the internet, so it affected a lot. =P I try and bribe them to come see me all the time. It usually works. What would you suggest to young, hopeful coders?Code your asses off. It pays off to learn early and gravel a path to a future in web design. Thanks a bunch, OZ, good luck in the whole.. coming back to SSD thing.=D Just wait until I start an argument regarding why the grass is green and not purple. I'll be banned all over again. Either way, it's good to have ya back.
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