How to make my brain melt…

Recently I ran across phpjs.org. Then I started to cry.  No, actually although I can’t currently use this to its full potential, this seems pretty cool.  During my most recent class (Advanced Web Authoring Languages) I was introduced to a little bit of PHP and thought it was fairly neat-o.

Php.js allows one to use PHP within JavaScript.  So if you are looking for a way to make your head hurt on a sunday afternoon, this would really help you out.

Upon inspecting the FAQ section, it seems like the folks at php.js admit that there may be certain functions that are better handled in JavaScript, but in some cases their use of PHP would be more semantic.  Php.js is a port of PHP functions into JavaScript for those who are more comfortable or familiar with working in PHP than JavaScript.

Quite a few different versions are available for download, with the option to compile your own version for no overhead.  Very interesting.  I’m not too sure that I’ll be actually using this any time soon, but I’ll keep it in mind.

If nothing else, it serves as a good example of what is possible with JavaScript and PHP.  I hope this post was a little informative and helpful to you.  Happy brain melting.

Until next time,

Cory

Workplace Ethics

Initially the topic of workplace ethics seems like a confusing one to me.  The concept of ethics seems like a personal-view, everybody-will-look-at-it-differently type of thing and when you try to implement that into a workplace, well that seems like it might be difficult.  I know of people who I have worked with in the past,  and some in the present,  who have very different ethics than I do…who I probably wouldn’t naturally hang out with outside of work.  But that’s just life. Everyone sees things differently and you have to learn to get along…well, you don’t have to, but it sure makes the ride more fun if you do!

When I think about the practicality of defining ethics in the workplace, it seems to me that it comes down to an individual thing.  Most of the time you don’t have a whole lot of say over what other people do, you can only control what you do.

If you are a business owner, CEO or such your individual ethics, and how you choose to implement them in the workplace, will have a huge effect on your company and your employees.  It will dictate who wants to work at your company,  who you hire, how long you tolerate bad employees and to what lengths you’ll go to keep the good ones, among many other things.

If you are a middle manager or supervisor, your personal ethics will dictate how you interact with your clients, underlings and “overlings”.  You potentially have the power to set a complimentary or contrasting tone to the rest of the company in you department.

If you are just an underling, your ethical beliefs will influence how you respond to your co-workers and your boss.  How hard you work and what you say, or don’t say, under your breath.

I’ll reiterate again that like most of the other topics on my blog, your “workplace ethics” aren’t something that you can just leave at work.  Your ethics are a direct reflection of your deeply held beliefs and personal world-view.  If you’re faking it for a little bit at work, you won’t be able to keep it up for long and yes, we all know you’re faking it.

Until next time,

Cory

 

 

 

Respect

Respect is another one of those essential values that I believe people take for granted far too often.

It’s easy to over-look when you may be disrespecting someone else.  However on the other side, it can be hard to work with or even have meaningful communication with someone who is disrespecting you.

When there is no respect, there’s no basis for trust, and when trust breaks down, watch out! Bad things will happen.

 

I think respect is important in everyday interactions with people that I may not ever see again, as well as with the people that I have long-term interaction and relationships with.  Respect is one of the first things I notice about a person.  Not necessarily if they happen to have respect for me (which may or may not be the case), but if they have a respectful demeanor in general.  I think a lot of the time that influences whether or not I think they are worth getting to know.

 

The effect respect can have on your professional life is immense. It can be win or lose, all or nothing!

If a client catches you DIS-respecting them or their product, company, policies or procedures you could very easily be taking the early flight home with nothing to show for it except a bad reputation.  Roll your eyes in the  video-teleconference with the boss (when you think he’s not looking)  and while he might not fire you on the spot,  he’ll have a good reason to not be merciful the next time you mess up on the job.

 

Conversely, being respectful can help to open doors for future opportunities, soothe frayed nerves and calm people who may be stressing.  Be respectful of people’s time, their way of doing things and their opinion.  You don’t have to agree with it, but at least respect that they have the right to do things differently than you do.

 

In my experience, a disrespectful comment or action can negate an awful lot of respectful ones.

Respect can win the day, and help you land your next contract!

 

Until next time,

 

Cory

Positive Attitude

This is a tough one for me. The topic of “positive attitude” really hits close to home. I think that this is something that I’ve always struggled with. I’ve learned through my 32 years that it really helps to surround yourself with positive people who have a “mostly sunny” outlook on life.  I think I tend to be “mostly cloudy” with the sun peeking through in a few spots. Some people call it pessimism, I usually call it “realism” (be it good or bad). I need to work on that. I always need to work on that.

Who wouldn't want this?

I do think that there’s a balance to be struck between “pie in the sky” totally unrealistic “everyone-gets-a-pony-for-their-birthday-go-ahead-and-ask-the-boss-for-a-raise-you-deserve-it” syndrome and being “peter-party-pooper”. There needs to be an element of reality and context in optimism, but life sure feels better when you can find joy in the little things; when you can get to the point of being able to let things truly roll off your back because you have things in perspective and can really comprehend on a daily basis what’s important and what isn’t. We need to learn to extend grace and mercy to those around us.

Like almost every other topic assigned for us to discuss, a positive attitude really can’t be faked. (For those of you faking it and thinking you’re fooling everyone. You’re not. WE CAN TELL YOU’RE FAKING.) Seriously, having a positive attitude will help carry you along through tough times and through hard decisions. We’re all only human and can only do the best we can with what we’ve got. Make the best of it! Things may not always go right (gasp!), things break and wear out (shocker!), you won’t always have the things you want (horror!). As best summed up by the Eagles: Get over it!

However, being positive doesn’t mean taking hardships lightly or dismissing other people’s concerns or issues. I think to be truly, honestly positive you should stop and listen. Try to understand the other persons perspective and then try to lovingly communicate yours. You don’t always have to solve the problem or have the right answer, sometimes just listening is more than enough.

A positive team player can be invaluable, especially in times of craziness and high stress. Someone who can remain positive and help think of solutions instead of constantly complaining or pointing out the obvious problems can be the hero.

I think we also need to be mindful of how sarcastic we are. Sarcasm is caustic and will eat away at your outlook on life. Be careful of how poorly you speak of others, whether you’re by yourself or not. You might start to really believe what you’re constantly saying.

Well, enough stream-of-consciousness for one post.  Be positive! Otherwise the stress will kill you.

But don’t let that stress you out.

Until next time,

Cory

Communication

Communication is a critically important factor in living life in general, but is very often over-looked and taken for granted.  I think your communication ability, or at least your awareness of the importance of good and accurate communication,  is a mark of maturity.

Good communication is two-way.  Your transmitter should be transmitting and your receiver should be receiving. Pretty basic huh? Yes, but this is a lot easier said than done! It’s all too easy (and common) to walk into a conversation or situation “knowing” that you are right and that you need to convince the other person of your viewpoint so you can go on with your day.

Stop!

Collaborate and listen.

Ice is back with a brand new invention…

Sorry. What can I say, I got caught up in some Vanilla Ice.

Where was I?  Oh, instead of just vomiting out your idea with no thought of what is running through the other persons head. LISTEN to them! There have been so many times where I’ve made a fool out of myself, assuming that I knew all the details of a situation or what someone else was thinking that it finally sunk in:  Maybe I should listen to what other people say!

As with most of these topics in general, they are good principles for life and for business.  As applied to the business realm, communication includes everything from returning a phone call or email promptly, to your body language and tone of voice when you meet face to face with a client.  Especially in our end of the tech-universe the way we communicate through Twitter, Facebook and other social networks is very important.  Once you post something on the ol’ interweb, consider it there for all time.

I think that good communication is a vital skill to have.  Both in listening and in speaking.  Whether you’re quiet or the life of the party, timid or “Type-A”, you can still have good communication skills.  Keep working on it. I know I will.

Until next time,

Cory

PS – I don’t really like Vanilla Ice.  I’m more of a Cherry Coke type of guy.

WIA Activity Sheet 1: Photoshop Tutorial

For My Web Imaging Applications – Activity Sheet 1 (Photoshop Tutorial) assignment I chose a tutorial from PSD tuts+ (This one to be specific…)

First let me say this tutorial took a really long time for me to finish, as a lot of the links to images and resources were dead.  To download the full exercise file pack you have to be a paying “premium” member, so that was out of the question for me at this particular time.
For some of the resources (images, fonts and such) I tried to approximate the best I could.
In hind sight I probably should’ve chosen a different tutorial, but by the time I realized this I had already put too much time into the project to want to start over again.

I chose this tutorial because I like the grungy look and thought I could learn some good techniques.
It turned out that the tutorial wasn’t ground-breaking for me, but it did walk me through some good uses for options I don’t often use in Photoshop.  Specifically, the Pattern Overlay and Stroke layer styles.
I also liked the technique for getting a drop shadow at an angle to the original layer by making a layer copy and then turning it black and applying a blur…and then slightly moving and rotating it.  This is a technique that I think I will be able to use quite often, as I seem to see it in a lot of places and I think it looks good.

Some of the challenges I faced were in “reading between the lines” of the instructions.  While the author described this as an intermediate to advanced tutorial, I think he left out some key steps in order to obtain the desired result.

Over all this is a good tutorial, but it could be a bit clearer and the resource links need to be updated.

That being said, how cool is it that there are so many great resources available (for FREE!) on the internet!  Thank you interwebs.  Thank you very much.

Until next time,

Cory

Teamwork

As I have grown up and entered the workforce, I have desired to do a good job and to keep learning along the way. Mostly this revolved around the technological aspect of my job, staying up with current developments and trying to better understand concepts that I’d already learned. All of this was a solitary endeavor and I thought everything was fine and dandy…

In the past several years I have begun to really understand the strength and depth of a good team. I attribute this to a number of factors:

 

1. In my current job I work with a strong team, and have seen what we can accomplish when everyone knows and executes their roles properly and watches out for the interests of the other team members. The whole is   than sum of its parts.

2. I have learned a ton about being part of a team; about relying on each others strengths and moving forward together from my marriage. When we’re out of sync, it’s not a good thing.  When we’re functioning as a team everything is so much better! Now keep in mind that no team is perfect, so grace and understanding are requirements for a solid team, as are discipline and solid communication.

 

Team work as it applies to our chosen field of web design and development can have a huge impact on project planning and execution, employment opportunities, achieving goals efficiently and I would argue a more enjoyable and creativity-fostering work environment.  When you make the choice to invest in your team, you show that you are committed to success and that you take your job and responsibilities seriously.

 

As with life in general, you can’t control the things that happen to you or the people around you, but you can control how you act and react. Make the decision to learn how to be a good team member: you’ll go farther and just might find some friends along the way.

Until next time,
Cory

 

“Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with
them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one
another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another
achieve it.”
-Bill Bradley

Drupal 7

In learning more about Drupal’s current release (v.6) in my Database Development class I was curious to learn more about the upcoming release of version 7.  Currently v.7 is in beta release and available for download.

I’d like to cover some of the changes that are coming in Drupal version 7.

Minimum requirements include:

PHP 5.2

MySQL 5.0 or PostgreSQL 8.3

The Drupal 7 UX principles:

1. Make the most frequent tasks easy and less frequent tasks achievable.
2. Design for the 80%
3. Privilege the Content Creator
4. Make the default settings smart

Some of the new features/redesigns in version 7 include a new default front page and an extensive new help section along with users now being able to cancel their own accounts.  The administrative dashboard has been quite nicely redesigned with a drag and drop interface to change the placement of blocks.  Changes are automatically saved!

The content creation interface has a nice, clean look to it featuring overlays on a transparent grayed-out background that helps to focus your attention on the interface. Over all the look and feel of Drupal 7 seems much nicer and more modern with a lot of nice touches that make me want to use it more than Drupal 6.

V.7 is much more than just a cosmetic update, with a lot of new security and coding features that will surely be appreciated by developers, coders and designers all over the place.  While a lot of the changes are over my head, a few of the notable changes that I can comprehend are:

• PHP filter module global “kill-switch” for “enter some PHP here” functionality.
• Cron.php requires key in URL to be run.
• New permission for running site updates.
• Login attempts limited for better flood control.
• Stronger, pluggable password hashing algorithm

All told, Drupal 7 promises to be easier to get started, easier to build out, easier to develop and easier to integrate.  Check it out!

 

Thanks to code4lib.org for some great information!

 

 

 

Trustworthiness

This is another one of those topics that cannot be compartmentalized into just one aspect of life. I believe being found trustworthy is a crucial part of being a functional, competent part of society. Trust is something that takes time to establish and only a split-second to demolish.

Trust as it relates to the business world is vitally important because if a client, co-worker, vendor, supervisor or employer feels they cannot trust you, I would maintain that they have very little reason to continue to do business with you. I think the beginnings of trust in a relationship go back to the very beginning of the relationship itself; while I think it’s all too easy to stress yourself out over the importance of a good first impression, even the fact that you showed up on time to a job interview shows that you value doing what you say you will do.

I think that your “trust index” is displayed in little things you do all day long. Being the type of person that people are willing to trust with small and large things is closely tied to your integrity and how you handle responsibility. But it’s not about always having the right answer or not making mistakes. I think some of the times when your trustworthiness shines the brightest are when you own up to your mistakes and you work towards a positive resolution to a difficult situation.
To me it boils down to this:

• Do what you say you will do.
• Don’t take the easy way out and just do what you want to do.
• Do the right thing.

Being aware how your actions affect your trustworthiness is just one more block in the foundation of being a person of character. This is not a complex equation that is hard to figure out. It’s really very simple, but it’s not easy. Being a person of character and integrity that is worthy of trust is full of tough choices and self-sacrifice.

As I’ve previously stated,
the worthwhile things in life are never easy, but they are most definitely worth the effort required.

Until next time,
Cory

“Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong“
- Thomas Jefferson

Choices

The things that come to mind when I consider the choices that we face as web designers and developers include everything from choice of client to choice of CSS selectors; from cross-browser support to accessibility. But I think at this point in time, at least in my personal development, it’s important to look at the macro-level choices we make when it comes to how we handle ourselves as professionals and as members of the design community.

Currency

Today I was reading Designing with Web Standards by Jeffery Zeldman and saw that in his bio he was listed as one of the first web designers, bloggers, independent publishers and web design teachers.  I thought “wow, neat.” and kept reading.  After I read a few pages the thought occurred to me “He kept going!”.  He didn’t just sit on his laurels after he figured out how to code for Netscape Navigator and say “Well, I’ve done it. Guess I’m good to go, glad I figured that out!”. He made the choice to, at the very least, stay current with the technology and look for ways to change the things that were broken.

I truly respect how he made the CHOICE to keep learning, growing and innovating his chosen profession.  When things looked crazy and the future of the web design was in question, he spoke up and did something about it. He chose to be a voice and an influence for the good of the whole.  (Thanks Jeffrey. It’s much appreciated.)

Carry out

My take away from that is to stay current with the rapidly changing technology, to be innovative!
I don’t want to finish up my schooling only to say “whew, glad that’s done! Glad I won’t have to learn any more…”.  I want to master the technologies of my chosen field and then innovate, not only on the cutting edge of design and development, but in practical application.  I think that as designers and developers it’s easy to fall into creating sites that follow the latest design trend. Sites that WE would love to use and think are great looking, but until we truly understand how the UX translates to the target user, our efforts will fall short.

Bottom line

Never stop learning.  Be an innovator, but not just to the cool designer-types that you want to like you. Be an innovator to the average user on the internet. And for Pete’s sake, stop using the <blink> tag.

Until next time,

Cory

“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.”