Web Development London UK » General

Image corrupt or truncated:

Admin — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:09:27 +0000

What is “Image corrupt or truncated: ” and what does it mean?

This can often be seen while using Firebug in Firefox, but it actually has nothing to do with either and is just the error being reprinted in in firebug in most cases.

It comes from an image that has had it’s extension changed from say .gif to .png or .png to .ico. Eventhough .png and .ico file types are very similar, they are not the same, so an error occurs.

This will occur quite often when a website’s favicon was originally a .png and got changed to a .ico.

The image itself will in most cases still open and be visible in browsers etc but should be re-saved using an imaging program.

General Site Update

Admin — Mon, 16 May 2011 17:21:36 +0000

We are a Management Consultancy company and are split into IT and HR. Up until a short while ago our website had be quite general in it’s views to show the services of both divisions but we have decided to let our IT division take it’s own path so the website will be undergoing a transformation to show this.

This will not affect any of our customers’ services or packages.

What is xmlrpc.php?

Admin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:02:59 +0000

It is a script which allows clients to make procedural calls over the net.
As it says in the name, the encoding is XML and because it is used on websites we can make the fair assessment that it uses the HTTP protocol.

If we break the name down we get: XML transmition via Remote Procedure Calls.

So you are still not sure what this is all about? Read on..

xmlrpc.com has a very simple yet rather effective diagram which illustrates what’s going on with it all:

As we can see above, xmlrpc is basically a simple way of transporting data using a common protocol used on the web.

This file is usually added to the root of a domain when using packages such as WordPress, Drupal or similar.

XMLRPC.php only accepts POST requests so using the CURL library or similar would be the best option when interacting with it. The PHP source file is quite long so I will not include it here, as it is 3375lines long. But you can easily find it online using your favorite search engine!

Viva la 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!

Admin — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 08:49:38 +0000

You may see this around and not have a clue what the heck it is, weirdly enough, I did..
Why “weirdly” you ask, well, because, who would be looking for something like “09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0″.
Let me elaborate..

The Urban Dictionary says it like this:
“An alphanumeric string denoting a hack and insecurites in the HD-DVD coding.”

It is the string hack used to crack the HD-DVD encryption used to keep it oh-so-secure.

Some real nerds have even started using it as an outcry to their “digital revolution”

So, Viva la 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 everybody!

Ternary Operation

Admin — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:46:56 +0000

If you do not know what the Ternary operator is, or do not use it while you are coding, let me be the first to tell you how much you are missing out!

The Ternary operator looks like this: “?“, that’s right, it’s a question mark!

My favourite way of using it is to shorten Conditional If Statements, so let me show you what I’m on about.

The long way:

if ($someVariable==true) {
$someOtherVariable=1;
} else {
$someOtherVariable=2;
}

The slightly shorter way:

if ($someVariable==true) $someOtherVariable=1;
else $someOtherVariable=2;

The Ternary Operation way:

$someOtherVariable = ($someVariable) ? 1 : 2;

So this is how it works:

$result = ($condition) ? $ifTrue : $ifFalse;

This can also be used while outputting a string on runtime, I will show this using some javascript:

function aFunction(arg1,arg2) {
this.arg1 = arg1;
this.arg2 = arg2;
}
function printIt() { with (this) document.write(arg1+’ > arg2 ‘+(arg2?’isTrue’:'isFalse’)+’ arg2′); }
something=new aFunction(‘FooBar’,true);
something.printIt();

If you did not know this or were not sure how it worked, then I’m sure you will now start using it in your code, it really does save time and it looks quite snazzy too!

How to Write Unmaintainable Code

Admin — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:56:09 +0000

I have come across the following article before and again came across it today, after a revised browse through, I thought I may as well add another link to it on the web for whoever ends up clicking on it!

It really is a worthwhile (in a humor sort of way) read:

http://www.freevbcode.com/ShowCode.Asp?ID=2547

Captcha Fail!

Admin — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:34:56 +0000

Hey, thought I’d just post this one incase anybody else sees it and thinks it’s funny.

This is not really a very helpful post like most of the others on this site, but HEY! TOUGH!

So feel free to smile if you like..

What do you know, a snippet of helpful-ness is about to appear-> This issue is usually caused by an invalid referrer! HA!

What is utma, utmb, utmc, utmz ?

Admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:29:58 +0000

__utma, __utmb, __utmc and __utmz are 4 cookies created by Google Analytics, for a detailed and very informative read, go here and here.

How to Close Bandmix Account

Admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:12:37 +0000

If you want to close a Bandmix account, then:

Login to bandmix.co.uk
Go to Options – http://www.bandmix.co.uk/account/options/
Click Decline Service
Then click the button called Decline Service at the bottom.
Click “OK” to the verification popup.

Account closed!

Chromium Operating System

Admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:46:37 +0000

As many of you may know, Chromium is an opensource project that is basically an Operating System built on Linux and is just like working in Google’s Chrome web browser.

I decided to take a look at it today and went and downloaded the developer sneak release.

It came all boxed up in a 764,994KB (764MB) VMDK Virtual Machine Harddisk file.
When it finished downloading I was sadly quite excited as I love trying out new Operating Systems and goodies – being a geeky kind of guy like most guys out there – and after hardly any setup at all it started up.

You login directly using your Google Account username and password.

Imagine only being able to run Google’s Chrome web browser and not have anything else happening on your computer.

I suppose this sounds really fantastic to people who don’t use a computer for anything other than browsing the web, or those who are on netbooks. I suppose it is a great way to utilize all the power of those poor little hardware slugs.