Tried out our new Czech gas mask today for some lung conditioning, we also have to try stuff out before we offer it to our clients. There were a few times I felt pretty claustrophobic and wanted to rip the gas mask of my face, but I made it through the 8 minute round alive and kicking. I will be doing this more to get in better shape!

PS. my form sucks, shoulder injury and I was fatigued.
Watch this space www.gasmasktraining.com.au

OK, today was total panic mode when I logged in to my Google Webmaster Tools, here is was, a message from Google saying they were going to remove a website I work on from the index because its been hacked. So I go around the office “We’ve been hacked!”, everyone working on this now…

Until someone pointed out to me the date, the message was dated August 17…. Come on Google, why on earth would you put an old message in my Webmaster account as unread? If I add a new domain to my account today I do not expect an old message thats already been dealt with ages ago as unread in my inbox..

Removal from Google’s Index

August 17, 2009

Dear site owner or webmaster of xxxxxx.xx.xx,

While we were indexing your webpages, we detected that some of your pages were using techniques that are outside our quality guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769&hl=en. This appears to be because your site has been modified by a third party. Typically, the offending party gains access to an insecure directory that has open permissions. Many times, they will upload files or modify existing ones, which then show up as spam in our index.

The following is some example hidden text we found at http://www.xxxxx.xx.xx/:

crack music software downloads . free software cheap fax free ware software download fallsview casino hotel niagara falls cananda Online Casino gulfstream casino hollywood gun lake casino updated information hammond indiana casino hampton beach fantacy springs casino entertainment barcode software download download free tax software 20 . coolbits software downloads free software for mp3 files downloading Online Software Store – Buy Cheap Software Downloads free quilting software download small b

In order to preserve the quality of our search engine, pages from xxxxxx.xx.xx are scheduled to be removed temporarily from our search results for at least 30 days.

We would prefer to keep your pages in Google’s index. If you wish to be reconsidered, please correct or remove all pages (may not be limited to the examples provided) that are outside our quality guidelines. One potential remedy is to contact your web host technical support for assistance. For more information about security for webmasters, see http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-sites-been-hacked-now-what.html. When such changes have been made, please visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/reconsideration?hl=en to learn more and submit your site for reconsideration.

Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team

If you want to add social bookmarking links to your WordPress blog just simply paste the following HTML in your post and it will allow users to post your blog post to facebook, twitter, digg, reddit etc.

<div id=”social-bookmark-F5G6G2S3″><p>Put this on: <a href=”http://www.socialbookmarkinglinks.com/bookmark/facebook/”><span>Facebook</span></a> <a href=”http://www.socialbookmarkinglinks.com/bookmark/twitter/”><span>Twitter</span></a> <a href=”http://www.socialbookmarkinglinks.com/bookmark/digg/”><span>Digg</span></a> <a href=”http://www.socialbookmarkinglinks.com/bookmark/reddit/”><span>Reddit</span></a> <a href=”http://www.socialbookmarkinglinks.com/bookmark/technorati/”><span>Technorati</span></a> <a href=”http://www.socialbookmarkinglinks.com/bookmark/delicious/”><span>Delicious</span></a> <a href=”http://www.socialbookmarkinglinks.com/bookmark/stumbleupon/”><span>Stumbleupon</span></a></p></div>

There is also a better looking version with icons, but this requires JavaScript. I’m working on something more advanced, so stay tuned.

24 November another beautiful day in paradise waiting on the same bus I’ve been taking to work every day for the last one and a half year. I see the shimmering light of the bus’ window reflection on the top of the hill, I get in line to board, I hear the bus driver say “you cannot pay cash!” to the passenger in front of me, I quickly jump in thinking I can explain to him that he is wrong, after all, I received an email from Translink several days ago and it’s not till 2010 that you can’t pay cash anymore! He wouldn’t hear of it, so I ask “do you mean to say we need to get off the bus because you don’t accept cash!?” his short answer was “yes”, a few more unkind words were exchanged that I normally would not dare take in my mouth in public, but I can tell you that I was very displeased with the disorganized planning of Brisbane’s transport. I think I can also speak for the other countless people I saw still sitting and waiting at the bus stop (for a bus that does take cash) when I drove by in the car half an hour later than normal.

The reason I was fuming with anger:

• never had I seen one sign saying “this bus is going to stop taking cash on ….. and you need to“, I have seen the ads for ice age 3 that clearly are more important than advertising something far more important
• if Translink thinks that getting the grumpy bus driver (who would rather be somewhere else) to mumble “this is a pre-paid service” is sufficient then they should seriously think about firing the person who came up with that idea, as only now do I realize what message he was TRYING to convey, but at the time it meant nothing to me, it certainly did not mean ‘from November 2009 we will stop accepting cash, you need to…’
• I came in two hours late at the job where I’m still on probation and had a very stressful morning
• when I called Translink on 13 12 30 at 8:06am 23 Nov I got to speak to John who was adamant that the bus service I’ve been taking had already stopped taking cash months ago “sorry John, but don’t tell me that I’ve not been paying cash up till today”, “John, let me speak to your supervisor”……. 6 minutes on hold, yes, six whole minutes, I assume he was hoping for me to hang up instead I was keeping track of time so I could include it in my complaint to Translink, again John came back on the phone repeating himself, not putting me through to his supervisor, I started wondering whether John could actually put me through since he sounded like he was in a country where the number one job is telephone customer disservice, you know what I mean, I gave up!

Let’s talk about this go card or (go kart as my wife understood I was needing to buy to get to work). First of all I don’t like to be forced into something, secondly I really hate it when a large organisation like Translink can’t plan something this important properly, thirdly, what in gods name am I going to do when circumstances arise where my go card credit plus topping has run out? Let’s say I can’t top up my card in time, don’t have access to the Internet or the time to do it, I certainly can’t pay with CASH! I guess I better train up to be Brisbane’s fittest so I can run to work.

Let’s have a look at some of the emails I received from Translink before the incident:

Friday 20 Nov 2009
“Single trip paper tickets will still be available under the new fare structure until they are removed in December 2010.” 2010 hence my surprise when being kicked out of the bus while still in 2009.

“go card users have realised how much easier travel is when not having to fumble through their bags looking for change, buying a ticket and putting away their change”, instead I now carry around two kilo’s in coins that I can’t spend on the bus anymore every day.

“With a pre-paid ticket or go card there is no need to look for change and fewer delays when boarding the bus, helping both passengers and drivers have a stress-free trip.” stress free!? You’ve just added to my already stressful day by having to think about touching off when exiting, not to mention all those times these go box gadgets on your buses don’t work, euh is it 20% of the time they don’t work or more? What about when you’re waiving it for 30 seconds only to find out the bus driver hasn’t turned it on yet.

Monday 23 Nov 2009
“There will be a two-week amnesty so passengers can still buy tickets if they need to on board buses until Friday, November 27.” I guess my bus must have been an exception to the rule, ooh and John, how can you say my bus has been paperless for months?

Yes I see the advantage of the go card, but don’t stop accepting cash and force me to use what YOU think is best.

PS. Thanks Translink for a great service and now not having to exchange any words at all anymore with the bus driver…

PPS. Is this part of a bigger conspiracy to phase cash out all together?

I’m looking to gather a resource of Brisbane Copywriters (copywriters based in Brisbane), if you know of anyone, or are a copywriter who is interested in being listed on http://www.clickfind.com.au/developers-directory/copywriters-brisbane.cfm and www.clickfind.com.au then please contact me to find out how you can get listed, get extra business and also receive additional SEO benefits (those that make your site rank better in Google).

In fact if your not based in Brisbane you can also be listed on our Australian Copywriters page.

My email is copywriters-listing@clickfind.com.au

I was working on a design the other day that only had text fields with no labels, the label was in the text field and would disappear when clicked on. Then I came to the password fields and was a little stumped as how to solve this, as any value in a password field is displayed as dots, not text.

I was thinking about using an overlay, but that got too complicated. I figured out a way to do this with JavaScript, basically write a function that on page load converts all password fields to text, but when they get focus they are cleared and the type is set back to type “password”. It worked like a charm.

The code I created is specific to the website I was working on, but I’m pasting it here anyway in case it might be some help to someone.

function doClear( o ) {
function setValue( o, myText ) {
if ( o.value == myText ) {
o.value = ”;
}
else if ( o.value == ” ) o.value = myText;
}
switch ( o.id ) {
case “username”: {
var myText = ‘Enter Username’;
break;
}
case “password”: {
var myText = ‘Enter Password’;
o.type = ‘password’;
break;
}
case “su_emailAddress”: {
var myText = ‘Your Email Address’;
break;
}
case “su_username”: {
var myText = ‘Choose a Username’;
break;
}
case “newsletterEmail”: {
var myText = ‘Enter Email Address’;
break;
}
case “su_password”: {
var myText = ‘Choose Password’;
o.type = ‘password’;
break;
}
case “su_passwordConfirm”: {
var myText = ‘Confirm Password’;
o.type = ‘password’;
break;
}
}
setValue( o, myText );
}

function displayPasswordValue( id ) {
var passwordElement = document.getElementById( id );
passwordElement.type = “text”;
}
function passwordInit() {
displayPasswordValue( ‘password’ );
displayPasswordValue( ’su_password’ );
displayPasswordValue( ’su_passwordConfirm’ );
}
YAHOO.util.Event.onDOMReady( passwordInit );

As most of you probably know, I’m associated with Executive Results a health and fitness business based in Brisbane and have recently placed first for Brisbane’s Fittest

It’s not as glamorous as it sounds, although I did beat two of the fittest personal trainers in brisbane I know there must be some seriously fit people in Brisbane who will beat my time by a mile. I pretty much poored everything in the challenge and although I did not puke as some of the others, I did almost pass out! I love it though, bring it on..

If you’re getting a “Connection Failure” error when using the ColdFusion CFHTTP tag and have absolutely no idea what the problem could be as surfing the page via the browser works, then the web server most likely compresses the content and ColdFusion can’t handle the output.

To fix this issue just add the following two cfhttpparam tags to the request, they will tell the remote web server not to return a compressed response.

<cfhttpparam type=”header” name=”accept-encoding” value=”deflate;q=0″>
<cfhttpparam type=”header” name=”te” value=”deflate;q=0″>

Why are custom Google Analytics settings defined in the client-side code?

I would think the most obvious place for these settings would be through the Google Analytics admin interface or an XML file that only needed to be downloaded once, not upon every page visit.

Would love to know more about the thinking behind this.

I passed my Google Analytics Qualification today and am now Google Analytics Qualified (yeah, if only it would make me more money~!).

You can take the certification at https://www.starttest.com/8.0.0.0/starttest.aspx?cmd=home

Why does Google Analytics not track a browser with JavaScript disabled? Surely a simple 1px transparent image would do the trick where JavaScript can’t?

This error is to do with the maximum file upload size allowed by ASP as global setting. By default the max size is set to 200KB.

To change this setting you need to edit the MetaBase.xml file located under c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\

1. Stop IIS
2. Open c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\MetaBase.xml
3. Search for “AspMaxRequestEntityAllowed”
4. Change the value to 1073741824 (one gigabyte) or some other maximum value that’s valid for your setup
5. Save and close the file
6. Start IIS

To check gmail with cfpop you need to use the following code before you make your cfpop call

<cfscript>
javaSystem = createObject( “java”, “java.lang.System” );
jProps = javaSystem.getProperties();
jProps.setProperty( “mail.pop3.socketFactory.class”, “javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory” );
jProps.setproperty( “mail.pop3.port”, 995 );
jProps.setProperty( “mail.pop3.socketFactory.port”, 995 );
</cfscript>

<cfpop action=”getheaderonly” name=”rsEmail” startrow=”1″ maxrows=”50″ server=”pop.gmail.com” port=”995″ username=”your@username.com.au” password=”yourpassword”>

If you want to delete some rows from a Query of Query with the DELETE statement you will most likely have encountered the error: Query Of Queries syntax error. Encountered “DELETE.

You can’t use the DELETE statementin QoQ.

Try the following instead

<cfquery
dbtype=”query”
name=”rsDelete”>
SELECT        expiryDateTime
, cacheHash
FROM        variables.instance.cacheCollection
WHERE        (expiryDateTime < <cfqueryparam value=”#now()#” cfsqltype=”CF_SQL_DATE”>)
</cfquery>
<cfloop query=”rsDelete”>
rsDelete.deleteRows( javaCast( “int”, (rsDelete.currentRow – 1) ), javaCast( “int”, 1 ) );
</cfloop>

Sometimes you get passed a string from XML and it can contain HTML entities like the following

&amp;
&lt;
&gt;
&quot;
&copy;
&reg;
&laquo;
&raquo;
&apos;

If you write the string with JavaScript then you get something like didn&apos;t instead of didn’t

I’ve searched around for a function that could handle this but could not find one, so I wrote my own. I thought I’d share it with the world!

The following will convert &amp; to &, convert &apos; to ‘ etc.

Following is the code, if you need help implementing it, I’m more than happy to explain how you install and run this function in return for a text link on your website, now that’s cheap as, considering I normally charge $140 an hour

String.prototype.trim = function () {
	return this.split( /\s/ ).join( " " );
}
String.prototype.convertHTMLEntity = function () {
	var myString = this;
	myString = myString.replace( /\&/g, '&' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&lt;/g, '<' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&quot;/g, '"' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&copy;/g, '©' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&reg;/g, '®' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&laquo;/g, '«' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&raqou;/g, '»' );
	myString = myString.replace( /\&apos;/g, "'" );
	return myString;
}

I’ve written a JavaScript function a while ago that converts Microsoft Word Characters (crap) to valid HTML characters. Till today I didn’t realize how valuable the function is, it could probably do with some expansion on what it converts so any help to improve is much appreciated.

For those needing the function, just send me an email or leave a comment.

/*
	‘ = 8216 convert to '
	’ = 8217 convert to '
	“ = 8220 convert to "
	” = 8221 convert to "

	bullet points from word: 61558, 8226, 61607
	convert them all to 111

	dash 8211 convert to -

	... 8230 convert to ...

	trademark symbol 8482 convert to TM

	copyright symbol 169 convert to (c)

	registered symbol 174 convert to (r)

	>> 187 convert to >>

	<< 171 convert to <<

/


function convertCharacter( obj ) {
	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 8216 )
 + "|" + String.fromCharCode( 8217 ), "g" );
	obj.value = obj.value.replace( myRegEx, "'" );
	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 8220 )
 + "|" + String.fromCharCode( 8221 ), "g" );
	obj.value = obj.value.replace( myRegEx, '"' );

	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 61558 )
 + "|" + String.fromCharCode( 8226 ) + "|"
+ String.fromCharCode( 61607 ), "g" );
	obj.value =
obj.value.replace( myRegEx, String.fromCharCode( 111 ) );

	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 8211 ), "g" );
	obj.value = obj.value.replace( myRegEx, "-" );

	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 8230 ), "g" );
	obj.value = obj.value.replace( myRegEx, "..." );

	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 8482 ), "g" );
	obj.value = obj.value.replace( myRegEx, "TM" );

	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 169 ), "g" );
	obj.value = obj.value.replace( myRegEx, "(c)" );

	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 174 ), "g" );
	obj.value = obj.value.replace( myRegEx, "(r)" );

	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 187 ), "g" );
	obj.value = obj.value.replace( myRegEx, ">>" );

	var myRegEx = new RegExp( String.fromCharCode( 171 ), "g" );
	obj.value = obj.value.replace( myRegEx, "<<" );
}

You can be sure that any user that completes a form will make some data entry mistake, mistakes you want to catch before submitting the data to the database server or other mechanism.

The validation of the data is up to the web programmer. Sometimes you need to make sure that there is a value in a required form field, a valid numerical range, valid characters or a valid format etc.

JavaScript Form Field Validation is used to enhance the user experience by not having the web form submit to the server before validating the user input, this reduces the users’ waiting time and also reduces load on the server.

It should be noted that JavaScript is not to be relied on solely for input validation as the user can turn JavaScript of and bypass the checks.

Why use this framework for Form Field Validation?

Generic form field validation is something that could take months to write, this framework has been written over a period of several years and has been tested on many websites.

Features
- Validates all form fields in one go instead of one at a time
- Checks for required input
- Checks for several (not just one) valid numerical ranges
- Checks for character ranges
- Checks for a valid format
- Checks whether a checkbox, radio button or dropdown selection is made
- Custom error messages
- Define validation scripts with XML
- Define custom error handlers
- Years of development

You can download the validation scripts that we use from here

Keeping in line with our new direction for clickfind #2 we are collecting information about environmental initiatives on this site that we can promote on clickfind. If you know of any that should be on this list please feel free to post a comment or email us.

The Equator Principles
www.equator-principles.com

A word of warning for everyone who watched Today Tonight and saw the Free TV Internet program – I tried it and its not what you expect, I have not been able to get the Movie channels I expected to see. I’ve only been able to get free informational and religous channels through the program.

http://au.todaytonight.yahoo.com/article/4821852/consumer/cut-price-pay-tv

Got lots of memory consumption and have no idea where it’s going? Thinking it might be a memory leak in ColdFusion MX?

One of the first things you should look at is the amount of session variables you set. If you have the session timeout set high and/or you create some large objects in the session scope, you_have_to_remember that these session variables are created for EACH request when a client does NOT accept cookies.

Why? Because upon each request ColdFusion thinks that it is a new client, it doesn’t see a cookie so it must be a new client.

Ways to overcome this are:

-         setting URL tokens; not recommended.

-         Store the IP in the application scope (you can create a hash of IP and USER AGENT as well) and keep track of the clients you cannot set a cookie for. Based upon this information you can decide whether to set the session variables again in following requests.

Situations where this will most likely occur are when bots or email harvesters spider the site without accepting cookies.

 You can put some of the logic in onSessionStart, this method is called each time a new session is created. If a client does not accept cookies, a new session will be created for each request.