Simon Dvorak.com

I just finished a site for a friend’s wholesale carpet business. I’ve been working on it pro-bono and have been anything but prompt it getting it done. However, the main site layout is now complete and we’ve begun putting content into it. Check out SacFloorStore.com.

I’m using Google Maps on their ‘Directions’ page to provide customized driving directions from the customer’s location to Floor Store. I’m using javascript to asemble the url based on form input. If the user has javascript disabled, the form submits to a map view of Floor Store’s location. Not too bad.

I just had to write a short post about Backpackit. It really is an awsome service. I’ve been using it for some time now and have really enjoyed it. Now, I’ve gotten my boss to start using it to submit trouble tickets on the software we are working on. It really makes hunting down bugs and fixing much faster as there is a simple list to run through now.

Some of the javascript techniques they are using are really slick (the ability to reorder your list items by dragging and dropping them into place comes to mind). They really are a great example of the current state of web apps. We’ve come a long way, baby!

This topic has been discussed everywhere. However, some of the solutions aren’t much better than a table. Such as:


<div class="row">
<div class="left">
<label for="fname">First Name</label>
</div>
<div class="right">
<input name="fname" id="fname" type="text" />
</div>
</div>

Which is then styled with something like:

.row{
clear:both;
width:300px;
}
.left{
display:block;
float:left;
width:100px;
text-align:right;
}
.right{
display:block;
float:right;
width:180px;
text-align:left;
}


Looks like a table in disguise to me.

So what’s another option? Well, I use something very similar, however I choose to use the elements that are already available. Using the form element in place of the row class used above and seperating form inputs by <p> tags we end up with something like this for the CSS…

And this for XHTML…

<form name="myform" id="myform" action="submitpage.htm" method="post">
<p>
<label for="fname">First Name</label>
<input name="fname" type="text" id="fname" size="20" />
</p>
<p>
<label for="lname">Last Name</label>
<input name="lname" id="lname" type="text" />
</p>
<p id="controls">
<input name="Reset" id="submit" type="reset" value="Reset" />
<input name="submit" id="submit" type="submit" value="submit" />
</p>
</form>


I threw in an extra class for the last paragraph to make the buttons line up on the right side of the form. Works for me. How about you?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. If you are in the position of needing to reference the National Do Not Call List and really hate having to download flat text files for each area code Strikeiron has a web service that allows you to run phone numbers against the database.

Now run and go make unsolicited phone calls to the poor folks who haven’t put their names on the list.

Because I’m cheap I am using my hosting companies free PHP/MySql support instead of Coldfusion for server-side scripting. However, my side loads soooo slow. Is it my hosting companies fault or are MySql and PHP just really dogs in comparison? Other sites that are on their servers and use Coldfusion (and MSSQL) do not have this problem.