tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678496115926038832011-11-28T00:56:17.888ZRamblings of a Freelance Web Developer in Dublin, IrelandJoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.comBlogger221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-29911433414776090342010-05-13T01:30:00.004+01:002010-05-13T01:58:22.744+01:00

So now that I have my shiny new Ubuntu installation customised like I want it with various apps, the most important being Aptana for its robust support of FTP in PHP development, I wanted to have a look at Maemo development and make some simple widgets for my Nokia N900.I knew the Nokia SDK only runs natively on Debian based systems like Ubuntu. Sadly, what I didn't know is while Scratchbox

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-71491948958197113842010-05-03T18:41:00.002+01:002010-05-04T01:17:44.380+01:00

I've been watching the development of Linux on the Desktop since '99 like an expectant chef stands over a big ol' pot of gumbo - occasionally dipping for a quick taste to see if it was 'just right' yet. Confident of the ingredients, I knew all it needed was time.With the catalyst of the surge in popularity of Linux as an OS on various other devices such as netbooks and phones, I believe we

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-42904666496213734632009-08-11T01:18:00.002+01:002009-08-11T01:24:16.763+01:00

Having very strange issues with Bing Webmaster Central today.Some of my sites are reported as failing authentication even though they were previously via the XML file and I have checked that the authentication files are still in place and crawlable.On another site http://www.lostandfoundpets.ie, I can not view any information on the status screeen - just seeing N/A for date last crawled, number

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-50668783315035969152009-06-05T15:29:00.007+01:002009-06-05T17:50:26.394+01:00

Quick update on this. The tooltip stealing behaviour I have observed seems to happen in Firefox 3 on Vista, in IE 7 on XP and IE 8 on Vista, the tooltips are left intact. Those who have checked other platforms may add their findings to the comments.Well I have been looking into this issue over the last couple of days and I am surprised that more web developers aren't voicing their displeasure

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-85324355530864233582009-06-05T01:23:00.003+01:002009-06-05T10:18:52.250+01:00

I've had a pretty rocky relationship with telco 3 Ireland over the past couple of years. Their customer service is appalling so even getting the simplest things done can be a nightmare but their data packages are second to none in terms of value and their 3 like home 'promotion' is unrivaled in the current Irish market.Yesterday, I discovered that they are now offering 333 free webtexts per month

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-80159862643152640052009-05-26T13:47:00.004+01:002009-05-26T14:57:58.637+01:00

OK, so normally I wouldn't be seen dead running PHP on Windows but I'm currently doing some odds and ends for MiCandidate and one of the things they needed was to run some PHP code in their otherwise ASP.NET based site.One of the ASP.NET developers attempted to install the current release of PHP (5.2.9-2), first from the MSI and then using the ZIP package but in the end failed to get their

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-89612213621309585952009-05-22T11:48:00.007+01:002009-05-22T12:34:02.683+01:00

Anyone who has taken the time to look at Twitter can not fail to be struck by its potential for humanising business and the marketing opportunities inherent therein - (FreelanceWebDev).One thing that has surprised me though, is how little work organisations and professionals in Ireland have put into their branding there. Even those in the business of offering branding as part of their service

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-42909904732673814872009-05-20T15:39:00.001+01:002009-05-20T15:39:00.990+01:00

New Site Launched | BeesWax Europe Multilingual Recruitment AgencyPosted using ShareThis

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-56225817134654911362009-05-18T11:00:00.004+01:002009-05-18T11:32:29.267+01:00

I've been using JQuery on my new pet project (excuse the pun) and having tried a few of the modal content plugins available, I have settled on NyroModal, a very compact, flexible and elegant solution.Yesterday though, I ran into a small issue with the plugin. I am using a base href tag on the site so that I can use URL rewriting but still use relative links in my content. When trying to load a

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-63484731661447265452009-05-16T23:46:00.003+01:002009-05-16T23:56:27.460+01:00

Ah, another weekend and another foray into troubleshooting issues with my recently acquired Blacknight hosting. For the past few weeks I had been using PHP4 but decided today that I should really move to PHP5 for my new personal project. After some head scratching, it seems that I can not override the display_errors setting in the pho.ini file for PHP5 which by default is set to Off via the .

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-4019356138852918022009-05-15T12:12:00.004+01:002009-05-15T12:25:30.144+01:00

I have just been spammed at my personal email address by the popular Irish insurance website, 123.ie. I really have to wonder what goes through the minds of those involved in the production of these mailouts risking the integrity of their entire list by including addresses they shouldn't.To the best of my knowledge, I have never given any email address to this site. The email I received was

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-38037037973035071052009-05-12T14:55:00.003+01:002009-05-12T15:20:56.674+01:00

Reading on Boards.ie that the telco 3 is to axe its 3 like home service which basically meant that a 3 customer was charged abroad exactly as they would be at home for voice and data as long as they roamed on another 3 network.One of the reasons being proffered for this move is the new reduced EU roaming rates which will, allegedly, deprive 3 of the revenue to support this service. In essence it

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-43340646156079346722009-05-12T12:46:00.005+01:002009-05-12T13:19:40.818+01:00

I am a big fan of the open source CMS ModX which uses the rich text editor TinyMCE by default. While, like most developers, I have moved away for table based layouts for my sites, there are times when the CMS users need to enter tabulated data and doing this is somewhat less than user friendly.Working on my latest ModX based site for a mutltilingual recruitment agency this morning I've come

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-27182263473272155022009-05-08T11:55:00.004+01:002009-05-08T12:51:51.149+01:00

There is an interesting article and discussion going on at Slashdot on the current Broadcasting Bill wending its way through the system here. Essentially it would seem that under the new legislation, owning an internet connected multimedia PC would be enough to trigger the requirement to pay a TV license.I can see the need for such legislation amending the licensing law to cater for all the new

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-13964464277180070232009-05-08T11:10:00.002+01:002009-05-08T11:27:23.033+01:00

So this morning I logged into my iGoogle page only to discover that, as written about it several blogs the past few days that the GMail gadget no longer works as I have the 'use https' setting switched on in my GMail.So as directed I then tried to visit GMail directly at www.gmail.com (using both a http and https connection) and got:It seems that POP3 access is down at the moment too.Doesn't seem

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-15385135787878797342009-05-05T16:25:00.006+01:002009-05-08T12:41:49.605+01:00

UpdateI've just got a mail from the Technical Director at Blacknight pointing me to a post regarding PEAR availability on their shared hosting packages. However, it seems I am still having issues with the paths I was given for PEAR originally so am awaiting clarification.End of UpdateUpdate 2Just got a mail from frontline tech support pointing me at the original paths. Not overly helpful given

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-77072223948943265832009-04-21T01:09:00.004+01:002009-04-21T01:44:42.665+01:00

I'm a big fan of Apache's Mod_Rewrite module. One of its benefits is that it allows me to take quite complex, user and search engine unfriendly URL's and have them mapped to ones which are easier to remember and more search engine friendly.On a personal project I'm working on currently (I'll write more about it later), I wanted to implement a shortcode system similar to the one used for

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-64895490585988215102009-04-15T15:39:00.002+01:002009-04-15T16:02:52.725+01:00

Well, once again Register365 (now Namesco) were experiencing difficulties again this morning, this time with one of the machines providing MySQL services. This outage basically brought down any site using either sql4.hosting365.ie or sql6.hosting365.ie including 4 of mine.This was particularly annoying as, as back as far as last September while I was working on the Industry Research & Development

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-13123524287909678752009-04-01T16:34:00.004+01:002009-04-01T17:06:00.800+01:00

I've been trying hard today to explain to a client in non-techy terms why it is less than ideal to have someone who mainly does print design work on the look & feel for their website update.Now don't get me wrong here, I think the designer does good work in the print medium and actually I quite like their aesthetic but, when asked by my client how we might go about cutting costs for the site

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-84179522273276128882009-04-01T15:41:00.006+01:002009-04-01T16:32:51.919+01:00

Why is a freelance web developer setting up a NAS in the course of his work you might ask? Well, basically because I am freelance and my SME clients frequently mistake me for their goto I.T. tech support, sys admin, and spiritual guide when I build a site for them.Anyway, I have just completed the setup of a QNAP TS-209 Pro II for a client which is a great piece of kit, featuring a file server

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-74984620301817592392009-03-18T14:35:00.001Z2009-03-21T18:44:16.552Z

At first it wasn't obvious to me how to add icons for custom applications (ones that don't automatically install their own launchers) to the excellent Linux4One launcher interface on my Acer Aspire One.Basically, the launcher uses the underlying main application menu in Ubuntu to populate itself so all you have to do is add your custom launchers to the main menu to have them display in the

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167849611592603883.post-18136204419285346252009-03-18T10:55:00.004Z2009-10-05T10:44:09.564+01:00

It struck me that it would be really great to be able to use my Slingbox from my Acer Aspire One when on the road. Slingplayer on Linux has been covered quite comprehensively in other places at this stage but I just wanted to let those interested know that it runs without any real issue on the Acer Aspire One 8GB running Linux4One under the Windows emulation software Wine.Note: In the commands

Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04487503363280993173noreply@blogger.com8