Apple recently discontinued QuickTime for Windows after it was reported to have security issues. Here is a letter I wrote to Tim Cook.
My Personal Three S’s of Development
In the lead-up to Apple’s WWDC next week with the supposed focus on quality I thought this would be a timely topic.
Over the years I feel like I’ve learned a thing or two about building new systems. “New systems” is a generic term you can apply to just about anything you do. This could apply to adding a new feature to a car, or coming up with a new idea for an app, or anything in your field of interest or expertise. While the shiny and whiz-bang features get all the attention, none of it matters one bit if the development of this new thing doesn’t start with the following three S’s.
Smarty Strip
If you are a Smarty expert then this will be very dumb. I knew about the cool Smarty tag, strip, but hadn’t found a really good use for it. When you are using Smarty you are changing the how the HTML is created when the page is loaded. In some cases, how the code is formatted affects how the browser displays it, especially for IE. One of the most common areas I’ve seen this is when formatting using an indented structure and having an image at the end of a block. By having the closing block tag (/div, /td, etc.) on a new line an extra bit of space is added behind or below the image. This extra space is usually noticeable and causes page rendering differences among browsers. Here is an example of this piece of code:
<img src="myimage.gif" alt="" /> </div>
Sales Tax
Yeah, I said it. Sales tax. It has to be one of the uglier sides of configuring online shopping carts. Now there are rumblings that some states are going to require that tax be collected by e-tailers for each state, county, city, or municipality. That is a lot of tax. No one seems to really know how it’s supposed to work. Everyone seems to have a different opinion, including accountants. I’m not a tax expert, and work hard at keeping it that way, but I still have to work with it here and there.
My New Blog
A look-at-my-new-blog post is pretty typical for a first post, but I really do want you to look at mine. It’s because my awesome wife designed it as a surprise just for me! I had mentioned wanting to start a blog and she came up with this design. It’s just another excellent example of her great sense of design and ability. Thanks Cherie!