Tech Stuff - Web

As we started to develop our new web site (in 1997) we just kept running into problems trying to find the right information. Its all out there .. but sometimes just too much of it. When we found something we tried to document it so we would not have the same problem in the future. Hope it may be of some use to you and save you some time (check our links pages for all the primary references).

HTML5 Conversion	We recently (late 2013) started progresively publishing (includes W3C validation) new and updated pages under HML5. For us it was mostly a CSS exercise and HTML elimination. Frankly, not much fun. But, do we feel a sense of warm, righteous fuzziness? Meh.
Web Pages	Beware: This is an opinion piece: Our view of building web pages that kinda work in a world of multiple browsers which vary wildly in terms of their implementation of W3C standards or lack thereof. We wrote it because we get occasional mail - not always very pleasant - about the effects of some of our technical policy decisions. As we start to think about the next generation of upgrades we are considering whether Web 2.0/AJAX has any role to play in the kind of material and experience we provide on this site.
Pop-Out menus	We started with javascript pop-ups in 1997. In 2003 we moved to pure CSS for pop-up/pop-down muli-level menus for W3C compliant (Gecko only) and in 2006 for MSIE6 browsers so we now cover Gecko, MSIE 6/7 (single-level only and not all pages) & Opera v.7.4+. For historical interest we continue to document our our Lightweight (< 2K) version of those javascript pop-out windows which we still use for most MSIE pages. We chose to use a combination of Javascript and SSIs to save (we think) about 27K per page. Updated for the W3C'ish DOM and now with Vertical, Horizontal and tertiary menus.
Rails	We've used Ruby for scripting, application development and web work since 2004. We avoided Rails because we are naturally suspicious about super-hyped technologies. The ideas seemed sound but opinionated software - not so much. Then we wanted some blogging software and in keeping with our preferred Ruby strategy decided to implement Typo, a Rails based system. We were kinda hopeful that it would go like a breeze and we could avoid learning about Rails. The Typo install did not go well, in fact it was a disaster so we got to know Rails much better than we wanted to. Maybe that was a good thing. Didn't feel like it at the time.
Browser IDs	List of Browser ID (user-agent) strings (used in Apache environmental variable HTTTP_USER_AGENT). You can also check the string your browser outputs with a 'mouse click' and add to the worlds knowledge in this area. This page started with 4 strings and now contains a few more. Many thanks to the folks that have helped built it into a into serious resource.
Mobile Browser IDs	List of Browser ID (user-agent) strings used by Mobile devices - well, by our definition of mobile devices. Many thanks to the folks that have helped built it up into serious resource.
Server Sniffing	No - not an exotic substance abuse tutorial. We use a very simple approach to generate browser specific pages using Apache SSI and server side browser detection.
W3C DOM	Collection of W3C DOM material. Explore the W3C DOM for V5+ browsers only just now. Point and right click an object to get a full blow-by-blow of its properties. Beginning of our reference on the W3C DOM.
CSS2	We've used style sheets for years. But we missed the point. These pages document our pathetic attempts to understand what CSS is really about.
Apache Variables	List of Standard and Extended (SSI) Variables set by Apache e.g.HTTP_USER_AGENT.
Regular Expressions	Regular expressions as used in Apache, SSIs, grep, egrep, sed, GNU tools, Visual Studio and a host of other places. Includes a nifty little in-browser tester to let you fool around with these horrible things which are, unfortunately, essential.
Oh Really!	You spend hours - in some case weeks (well maybe not full-time) - trying to find a solution to a problem and then either you stumble on it or some blinding flash occurs and - Lo! its not a problem anymore. This is our list of some things we never want to have to think about ever again.
PHP4	PHP - some information on mixing SSI and PHP, our 'Mail this Page' feature and our PHP based 'Cool Tools' a real rag-bag of stuff that we use for web publishing and fixing screw-ups on hundreds of files.
Server Side Includes	Server Side Includes including (harumphhh!!) using browser variables, configuring Apache, Apache and SSI Environmental Variables and nesting. Relative and absolute page addressing.
HTML Encodings	Tables of HTML/XML encodings and entities - all that &, © stuff that we can never find when we want it.
Web Fonts	A demo page that displays a bunch of popular fonts in various styles and sizes to show your browser's font support and rendering characteristics - don't even ask why we did this.
OnePage Web	Yeah well... We get tired wading through tons of stuff every time we want a short answer. This is our pathetic attempt to summarise CSS, HTML, DHTL, DOMs, Event models and XHTML on a single page. In what's left of the page we provide a history of the world as well (highlights only just now). Very much a work in progress. We add to it as we need to understand something. Like, daily man! Well we don't add to it daily but we don't understand stuff daily, if you get our drift.

Problems, comments, suggestions, corrections (including broken links) or something to add? Please take the time from a busy life to 'mail us' (at top of screen), the webmaster (below) or info-support at zytrax. You will have a warm inner glow for the rest of the day.

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