MARVEL and SPIDER-MAN: TM & © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. Motion Picture © 2007 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved. © 2007 Sony Pictures Digital Inc. All rights reserved.
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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I found a couple more of the more popular portal web sites (CMS), and I found using Google Trends that DotNetNuke is still at the bottom of the "trends" shown on Google. Hmmm... I then took DotNetNuke out of the trend and here are the results.
Google Trend Results for Popular Portals World-Wide
If this is data that we can rely on, then this shows some interesting "trends". :)
What will continue to baffle me for some time is the fact that so many people are intent on spending money on a CMS like Websphere or SharePoint when there are low or no cost solutions out there that are just as good or better (with a few exceptions, such as MS Office integration).
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Interesting! Google Trends... What EXACTLY is it telling us?
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I found out about Google Trends some time ago and I briefly played with its features, but I had forgotten about it until today when I read about it again in my current issue of Maximum PC. In reading it, I finally thought of a good reason for me to use it.
If you don't already know, Google Trends allows you to see near real-time search term popularity and compare search terms.
If you do not already know, I am a DotNetNuke Portal supporter. I use it for nearly all web projects that I have. I won't go into why right now. That could be for another posting. However, I did want to try and judge the popularity of the DotNetNuke project compared to other popular portals. I used Google Trends to test this out. See the results below.
Portal Search Popularity in the United States
Portal Search Popularity in the World
I expected the PHP portal results to be at least somewhat high. This was not surprising at all. However, I am no longer as savvy on the most popular PHP portals right now. Performing a search, I found quote a few out there. I at first also included Xoops, but its results were quote low. You may have better luck if you know of other PHP portals that are more popular.
The trend results were very interesting and somewhat concerning for me. I cannot believe how much more SharePoint and Websphere are searched for on Google. Especially when you consider the different in costs! One could speculate on this "trend" in many different ways, but I will allow you to draw your own conclusion.
posted by The Mighty Will @
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Leadership Lost and Found
Friday, January 19, 2007
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We have all noticed in our places of employment times when we look at the actions of a manager, director, or officer within the organization and thought something like "what are they thinking?" At worse times, this supervisor may be your own. Experiencing this from your own supervisor firsthand will indeed have a lasting effect on your life. If you have ever had any leadership training, this impact would likely be multiplied several times over.
If you are lucky, the worst leadership that you experience will be a short project that you have to do that is destined to fail. At worst, a poor leader will force your daily professional life to be something you dread. This can often be border-line harassment. However, even a dumb leader will know enough to keep this sort of harassment legal.
You will immediately notice the effects that a bad leader. The most obvious symptom is the lunch-time confessions and ventings of co-workers about how much they hate something that was said or done by the supervisor. Some signs could include senior or highly respected supervisors being relieved of responsibilities and consequently resigning. You see, such a leader will not be able to stay under poor leadership. The moral of an entire department or company can easily show numerous other signs within days or weeks.
How can you spot such a poor leader? First, if your supervisor is constantly talking about themselves, or telling you about things that are important to them - BEWARE! This is a clear indication that they are not interested in anything than what will benefit them. Even if they put you on a project, should it be successful, they will take full credit. It will be as if you had not existed, and they did all the work themselves.
A good leader instead will constantly be showing concern and curiosity about you and your interests. They would be picking your brain to find out what you need in order to be successful. The reality is that a good leader will know well enough that the kudos will come to them if their employees are successful. There would be no need of seeking out the recognition.
These were only a few examples of what to expect. I could easily write a book on this chock-full of examples of good and bad leadership situations.
If you are in fact a leader and you are reading this right now, I want to pay very close attention to the text below. I have adapted the leadership principles and traits to reflect the very same things we want in the non-military professions. I not only use these because I am a former Marine, but also because this is a proven formula on how a leader should act.
Leadership Principles- know yourself and seek self-improvement
- be technically and tactically proficient
- develop a sense of responsibility among your subordinates
- make sound and timely decisions
- set the example
- know your employees and look out for their welfare
- keep your employees informed
- seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions
- ensure assigned tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished
- train your employees as a team
- employ your command in accordance with its capabilities
If you are a leader and you are not employing each of these principles, then you can pretty much guarantee all of your employees probably dislike you at varying levels (except for the suck-ups and "buddies" of course). (I can also explain the "suck-ups" and "buddies" in more detail at a late time if you wish.)
If you are not yet in a leadership position, know that is never too early to begin to use these principles. Everyone is capable of being a leader, even if the only person you are leading is yourself. Who knows? Perhaps your own supervisor will notice what you are doing and give you that over-due promotion.
I plan to make this an ongoing post. In future posts about leadership, I will explain each of these principles in more detail and also introduce the leadership traits.Labels: leadership, professional, work
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Using JavaScript to change the image on a page
Friday, January 12, 2007
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I recently had a project where the home page for a web site called for an image that loaded randomly each time the page is loaded. For example, the first time you viewed the home page, you might be looking at monkeys, the next time a llama, and so on.
This worked fine for a while, but as most ideas do, this grew to where the clients wanted to see the image reload frequently on the homepage while viewing it as well. That is fine, but what is the easiest way to do it?
Most of you probably already know that there are probably 100 different ways to do any single task when it comes to web design. In knowing this, I normally try a new way every time it comes to doing something. I like this approach to design because I feel it keeps me well-rounded and open to new ideas.
One script that I have come to use somewhat frequently is the xGetElementById script from Cross-Browser.com. This is a very easy, fast, and dependable way of using JavaScript to work work with HTML objects on your web page.
Here is what I did this time to accomplish this task... First I created the HTML and accompanying design as usual (HTML, CSS, etc.). Then, where I wanted the image to randomly change, I did not place the image. I instead used CSS to specify the background image for a table cell. In addition, the CSS specified other attributes to make sure that the image would be properly displayed.
Now, before you get started, you need to figure out the CORRECT size in pixels that you want or need your image to be and crop all of the images that will used to switch out to be the same dimensions.
Here is an example of the first CSS snippet. Notice the use of the number "01" in the class name. There should be a class for each image that you have. To keep things simple, it is normally best to name the image something similar to the class name.
.homepage_image_01{
background-image: url(homepage_images/homepage_img_01.jpg);
background-position: top left;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
}
This bit of CSS told the HTML to load the image named "homepage_img_01.jpg" into the background of the element that uses the class name "homepage_image_01".
The HTML where this class name is used, looks like so:
<tr>
<td id="cellImages">
<div id="divImages" class="homepage_image_01" style="width: 502px; height: 242px;" onclick="switchImage();"> </div>
</td>
</tr>
Notice the use of the class "cellImages". This class is telling the table cell to be a specific size - the same dimensions as the size of the images, in pixels. Next, there is a DIV with the name and dimensions of our images. Notice that the class name matches the example above. As an added bonus, I put the name of the JavaScript function in the ONCLICK tag (seen below). This will enable the web site visitor to change the image at will.
The JavaScript that wraps it all up with a neat little bow gets placed at the END OF THE PAGE. This code assumes that there are 10 images. There could be more or less images. You would need to adjust the JavaScript to account for more or less images though. Here is what the script looks like:
/*
(C) 2007 StrohlSiteDesign.com. All rights reserved.
This script and the rights to use it are protected by U.S. and Internationl copyright laws. Copying of any of this code is prohibted by law.
Written by : Will Strohl (wills-at-strohlsitedesign-dot-com)
Date Created : 02/08/2006
Date Last Modified : 01/10/2007
You are free to use this script as long as the above copyright statements are left intact.
*/
// number of miliseconds between each image load
// 7000 = 7 seconds
var numInterval = 7000;
// initialize the timeout object
var toImages = setTimeout('switchImage()',numInterval);
// perform the first 'switch'
switchImage();
// BEGIN xGetElementById
// (the following snippet requires its own copyright)
// xGetElementById, Copyright 2001-2007 Michael Foster (Cross-Browser.com)
// Part of X, a Cross-Browser Javascript Library, Distributed under the terms of the GNU LGPL
function xGetElementById(e)
{
if(typeof(e)=='string') {
if(document.getElementById) e=document.getElementById(e);
else if(document.all) e=document.all[e];
else e=null;
}
return e;
}
// END xGetElementById
function switchImage(){
// clear the original timeout so that there are not
// multiple timeouts running at the same time
clearTimeout(toImages);
var rn=Math.floor(Math.random()*10);
switch(rn){
case 0:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_01';
break;
case 1:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_02';
break;
case 2:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_03';
break;
case 3:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_04';
break;
case 4:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_05';
break;
case 5:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_06';
break;
case 6:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_07';
break;
case 7:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_08';
break;
case 8:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_09';
break;
case 9:
xGetElementById('divImages').className='homepage_image_10';
break;
}
// reset the time to call the switch again
toImages = setTimeout('switchImage()',numInterval);
}
Notice that all this script does is locate the DIV with the ID of "divImages" and then it changes the class name to the randomly chosen one.
If the visitor cannot use or has disabled JavaScript, the image used would be the one initially specified in the DIV tag.
Naturally, you could use a GIF animation or Flash to accomplish this. However, like I said before, I like to try different things whenever I can. Have fun!
posted by The Mighty Will @
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Thursday, January 11, 2007
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I just came across a topic that I know I MUST let you know about. I have blogged about parenting one time before. I am going to do so again. However, I should do it much more often. Watch any news program or playground and you will be slapped in the face with how obvious it is that the word parent is no longer applicable to most of todays "guardians".
Today we are being greeted more and more with parents who have split apart for various reasons. I am going to talk about the non-custodial parent today. Being the non-custodial parent is a highly risky proposition and this normally means that you are not living with your child. You run the risk of your child forgetting about you, calling another person their father/mother, and more. None of us are perfect, but there is no room for mistakes when you are the non-custodial parent.
No Excuses!
I am bring this up for two reasons. First, there should not be any excuse for a parent to not
regularly contact their child. Second, I know the person I am speaking about will eventually read this. The most recent excuse I heard for not contacting their children was from a father. He said that he did not contact the children more because he did not want to deal with the mother. The follow-up excuse was the person did not know how to be a father because he never had one. Whoa!
It should not matter how difficult or easy it is to speak to the other parent. If you love your child, nothing should stop you from at least calling them every once in a while to find out how school is going or to say happy birthday.
All it takes to be a good parent is to make sure your child is safe, they receive a good overall education, and speak to them regularly. Express interest in what the child likes to do. Find out what they are learning in school. Ask them about their friends. These are simple things that can be done that will let your child know that you care for them. Easy as pie...
The bottom line is that the only excuse in the world to not communicate with your child is if you are dead.
This post is not meant to raise ill will or challenge the pride or ego of anyone. It is meant to hopefully cause at least one person to make better decisions in the interest of being a better parent. If this post makes just one parent pick-up the phone to talk to their child, I have done my job.
Short and sweet... Think about it.Labels: parenting
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