Maurice Snip

Since half an hour all of the Google search results are considered harmful for your computer. It looks like someone over at Google updated their search engine to a wrong untested version. I’m sure Google is already working hard to getting this fixed as soon as possible.

Google considering all websites to be harmful

Update 16:25 GMT+1: It looks like Google fixed the rather annoying bug, happy Googling!

Update 2: As all of you might know, it wasn’t Google’s fault. The problem started after an update of Google’s website blacklist which is provided by StopBadware.org. This non-profit company mistakenly added root (”/”) to their blacklist, which Google blindly copied to their server. For more information, read the full story of Google.

Since I’m enjoying my Christmas holidays, I thought I’d do a couple of things I should have done ages ago. One of them is upgrading WordPress. When I read about the new admin interface in WordPress 2.7, I couldn’t resist to upgrade right away. I have to say, WordPress did a really nice job on the new interface. It’s so much better than the old version. If you’re still running an older version, I recommend to upgrade to WordPress 2.7, it only takes a few minutes. Be sure to read the Upgrading WordPress and WordPress Backups guides at the WordPress codex pages.

As you might have noticed, I also installed a new WordPress theme. This time by the guys of LetsEat.at, thanks!

In a recent project I needed a way to manually fire an event that works in all major browsers on the market today. Since Internet Explorer and Firefox, Safari use a different event model, feature detection is needed. Where the document.createEvent block executes the code for Firefox, Safari, etc, the document.createEventObject executes the code for Internet Explorer. The function:

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/**
 * Manually fires the given event
 * 
 * @param {Mixed} el The element object or element ID that has to fire the event
 * @param {String} set The event set used, eg. HTMLEvents or MouseEvents
 * @param {String} type The event type to fire, eg. change or click
 */
function fireEventXB(el, set, type) {
	if(typeof el == 'string') {
		el = document.getElementById(el);
	}
	if(document.createEvent) {
		var evObj = document.createEvent(set);
		evObj.initEvent(type, true, false);
		el.dispatchEvent(evObj);
	}
	else if(document.createEventObject) {
		el.fireEvent('on' + type);
	}
}

Since I didn’t make a Wordpress template so far, I decided to go with a free template I found at Smashing Magazine a while ago. I have to thank Igor Penjivrag for offering this template, called Cubismo, for free! So, this is going to be the look of my weblog till I’ve designed and developed my own template.

In other news, I recently bought a 15″ Macbook Pro for primarily web development, but also for a whole new user experience in operating systems. I have to admit, Mac OS X works like a charm! A great variaty of (third-party) applications which work like they should and have even better user interfaces. Talking about Mac applications, check back soon for a list of 5 Mac applications worth buying! Sorry!

I know, one and a half month later and still no Wordpress theme. It’s hard to find time to write new articles and design an entirely new Wordpress theme when you’re studying at a full-time basis. Lately, me and my project team have been working on our final assessment, a community driven recommender system based on relations between items. My task is to design and develop the web based administration back-end of the system, with which you can manage the items, tags and relations. Here are two mock-ups of the layout:

The login page uses the final color palette, which is a bit friendlier for the eyes. Knowing myself, I’m sure I’ll tweak the layout here and there to make it look good. If you have any comments, please feel free to post them here.

We’re developing the entire application using the CodeIgniter PHP framework. The Model View Controller (MVC) pattern, also used by CakePHP and Ruby on Rails, makes it easy to rapidly design and develop a web application.

Last month I decided it was time to get a weblog and a portfolio, since companies in the web development branch often ask for your references. And hey, what’s a web developer without a weblog these days? So, here it is, brand new and shiny, the weblog of Maurice Snip. You can read more about me here.

As you can see, a lot of work has to be done before this website is completely finished. First of all I need to make a user interface, and mold it into a WordPress theme. As I’ve read so far, it’s fairly simple to make one, I expect it to be online hopefully within a month. Second, I need to install or make my own portfolio plugin, so i can show you all my latest projects. Time will tell!

What subjects can you expect on my weblog? Well, mainly my experiences in web development, some daily life stuff, and maybe even software updates. When I think it’s worth mentioning, I post it.

As all good things come to an end, so is this very first post on my new weblog. More posts to come!