Category: Hints

General hints I think might help others that I have come across over the years.

Hints Javascript Web Development

Jappler Recommends: Smooth Gallery

I have needed a good solution for a “cool” image gallery/slideshow for a few clients and have been very happy with Smooth Gallery. Why do I like this over something else from YUI or jQuery? I think this is by far the most easy to use and customize gallery/slide show. The documentation is clear and […]

Hints HOWTOs

How To Easily Keep Up To Date With Recalls

After having a kid recalls became more important to me, but I felt overwhelmed with trying to stay on top of all the recalls. Do I go to the toy store and spend a few minutes in front of their recall board and try to decipher what big had lead in it? Did I get […]

CSS Hints Web Development

CSS Checker

What do you do when you have thousands of lines of CSS and probably have hundreds of lines within the thousands that are no longer used…but you have no idea because multiple people have contributed? You use the CSS Redundancy Checker.

Hints HOWTOs UNIX

Nano Tip

I have been doing a lot of work recently on a remote server and have needed to use a text editor – so I decided to use the ever-so-easy nano. Problem is – the files I am working on are very long and editing them is not fun. I finally decided to look through the […]

Hints Web Development

w3c link checker.

I have been working on a project with a few clients where they are moving all their static content (as well as creating some dynamic content) into a CMS. They have about fifty pages done and wanted to check the links on their site to see what was broken so I directed them to the […]

Hints HOWTOs Web Development

Find Your Location

If you ever are not sure of the path to one of your scripts of files (.htpasswd), you can easily find out by creating a new PHP file, and then copying the following code into the file: After you save the file, view it in your browser and you will see the location of your […]

Hints Hosting

jappler recommends: do not use godaddy.com for hosting.

Over the past few months I have had the chance to look at a number of hosting companies and their “control panels” by working with a number of clients. It seems as a number of people flock to godaddy.com because of it’s price (really cheap), but I have learned – once again – that you […]

Hints HOWTOs

Get Serious About Backups

If there is one thing I cannot stand more than anything when it comes to computer support – it is failure to have a backup strategy. If you have pictures, email, documents, music, videos, etc that you consider valuable – do something about it. There are many ways to easily backup your personal data and […]

CSS Hints HOWTOs Web Development

CSS and z-index.

I have been busy working on an excited project that uses some pretty complicated layouts. I was originally hired to optimize and clean up the XHTML/CSS so it would work in IE 6, IE 7, Safari, and Firefox, but now am busy working on producing the clean XHTML/CSS from the start. I needed to brush […]

Business Hints HOWTOs

Work Smarter

When every hour you spend impacts your bottom line, I have learned a few tricks to working smarter. Do not be a slave to email. When I am working on projects, email can be a continuous distraction. “I will just see what x client wants really quick” can easily turn into a mental distraction as […]