Posts Tagged ‘jQuery’

Do spam bots use mice?

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

The typical solution to avoiding spam bots from abusing your online forms is to use a CAPTCHA test. You know – the hard to read, wavy text that you must type in correctly to prove to the web page that you are human and capable of making sense out of the non-sense. Well, spammers have used OCR (optical character recognition) algorithms to have their bots read the messy text and complete the test. Since then, there have been lots of alternatives to the text CAPTCHA test. Some involve selecting an image from a list given its name or description, or answering simple math problems. However, I didn’t find one that I really liked. So we started to build our own on the assumption that spam bots don’t use mice.
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Utilizing Google AJAX APIs CDN

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

jqueryWhen using JavaScript libraries to perform a function on a public-facing web site, the traditional way of referencing your library is using something like this:

<script src="/js/jQuery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Here, we are loading a jQuery library in to the HTML header for future use on the web page.  This means each time you want to use the jQuery library (or any other JavaScript library) on your new web site, you must download the latest version, upload it to your server, and then reference it here.  This technique works well enough, but lets explore a better way to perform this same library load.  We’ll do it in a way which will help us with version control, decreased latency, and better caching. How? By utilizing a CDN (content delivery network).

Below is an example on how to go about using the Google AJAX Libraries CDN, using jQuery as the library to load. (more…)

Build A Better Dialog Box With jQuery

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

dialogboxfailLet’s face it…  JavaScript “alert” notifications are boring and can be annoying.  They are ugly and make ding-y sounds when appearing. However, you still need to notify the user upon certain events.  What is a better way to display a dialog box to web users?  Using  jQuery, of course!

EXAMPLES:

First, let’s have an example of the “old” way of doing things with an alert box.  Click Here

Now, the new hotness example:  Click Here

The script is fairly simple, and requires very little code to implement.  No additional images are required, although they can be added on the DIV for an even more-stylized look. The effect is very smooth in comparison to the traditional alert box.  Also, this event can be applied to nearly any HTML element, including links, divs, images, buttons, etc. (more…)

Back to the Basics

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

iStock_000005624791XSmallWe have an intern coming in next week to hang out with us nerds. He’s a highschool student that would like to see what the day to day tasks of a web programmer are. I’ve talked to him about what he will be doing and what to brush up on. Here are a list of sites that I recommended him click through to brush up on some of the basics of the tools that we use. These are in no particular order.

  • HTML Goodies – This site was one of the first that I used to help me understand HTML and JavaScript. A little outdated, but still great for fundamental learning.
  • Tizag PHP Tutorial – Basics of PHP. This website does an amazing job of putting complex concepts into words that everyone can understand.
  • MySQL Introduction – From the MySQL website, an introduction.
  • W3Schools – Straight from the people who make the standards we love and use, you can learn a bunch on their site about the RIGHT way to do things. Topics in PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, jQuery, CSS and XHTML are where you can learn the tools we use.
  • PHP Screncasts – Some good free video screencasts that show you some of the basic aspects of PHP. Buy it for the advanced videos.

There are more places online that can teach you our toolset. Google is great if you know what you are searching for. The internet is a great thing, and can teach you just about anything you want, especially if it relates to computers and programming.

Guess Those Beaver Biceps

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Guess Those Beaver BicepsWe’d like to spotlight a site that we finished recently. Beaver Biceps is a web site sponsored by the Dairy Farmers of Oregon and Oregon State University. It’s a game where any Oregon resident can play a guessing game trying to match different pictures of OSU Football Alumni to their biceps. The prize is a year’s supply of dairy products, so why not give it a try? If we weren’t already non-eligible, we’d have entered.

So what are you waiting for? Head over to Beaver Biceps and guess. It won’t take longer than a few minutes, and it’s stimulating for your brain.

Oh, and while you are there, feel free to take a look at some of the code. We have some fancy jQuery stuff going on there for some fun pop-up action. Just make sure you disable No-Script or none of the game will work.