08.01.2007

New Geniuses: angelIII became the fifth EE member to pick up his third Genius certificate, in MySQL. matthewspatrick and DatabaseMX both earned their 1,000,000th point in the Microsoft Access zone. Finally, EE veteran markgeer became the third Genius in Oracle. Outstanding work, folks!

New Online Staff: We are truly pleased to announce additions to the online staff at Experts Exchange. modus_operandi is our newest Moderator, and he is joined by a familiar face too long absent: ee_ai_construct. We would also like to welcome webtubbs to the list of Zone Advisors.

More MVPs: The list keeps getting longer. LeeTutor the Zone Advisor for Operating Systems, was notified last month that he is now a Microsoft "Most Valued Professional", and LauraEHunterMVP was named an awardee again. Congratulations to both!

Milestones:

• Anyone who has one Genius certificate knows how difficult it is. Anyone who has 2,000,000 points in one zone knows that's even more difficult. So when it comes to knowing his stuff, lrmoore is an Expert for the ages. He picked up his fifth Genius certificate before anyone else had four, and now he's added another first to his EE resume. After being the first member to have 2,000,000 points in two different zones, he is now the first to have 2,000,000 points in three different zones.
• As noted above, angelIII has earned his third Genius certificate. matthewspatrick's Genius certificate is his second.
• Sembee reached the 17 million point mark.
• war1 went over 11,000,000 points overall.
• TheLearnedOne is the ninth EE member to go over the 7,000,000 point level.
• Reaching the 6,000,000 point level were capricorn1, Idle_Mind and TechSoEasy.

Downtime:

We at Experts Exchange would like to apologize for the downtime that our website experienced during the morning and early afternoon of Friday, July 29th. Our primary bandwidth provider, Level3, caused our bandwidth connection to go down for unknown reasons, and they were not able to fix their issue until the early afternoon on Friday Pacific Daylight time.

From our understanding, the problem has been fixed and will not be an ongoing issue.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and assure you that we are doing everything we can to make sure that your experience with Experts Exchange is the best that it can be.

From the Inbox: williamjacobs has been keeping up with the ongoing discussion of lightbulbs (whodathunkit?). He writes:

Take your hard earned Experts Exchange credentials everywhere you browse. Experts Exchange is pleased to launch the Expert Signatures program, available exclusively to certified Experts. Certified Experts can now customize their own, unique signatures for use in emails (where supported), blogs, social networks, internet forums outside of Experts Exchange and anywhere else HTML is supported.

To create your custom Expert Signature, head on over to the Expert Signatures creation interface within the "For Experts" tab of "Edit My Account." Its right next those other geeky-cool Expert features, Expert Certificates and Expert Shirts! Creating your signature is easy:

• Step 1 - Type in the name you would like displayed on the signature and click "Add."
• Step 2 - Select the rank you would like to appear on the signature using the drop down. No need to be modest, go ahead and pick the highest one you've got! Based on the rank you select, the Zones in which you have achieved that rank will appear for you to use in your signature in the next step.
• Step 3 - Add the zones you would like to your signature by checking the box next to their names.
• When your signature is so perfect that you just can't wait any longer to put it to use, complete your signature using the "Create Certified Expert Signature" button.
• Your HTML code for your signature will be generated in the box below. Just highlight, copy and paste it into your email client's signature template or at the end of your forum post.

Use your signature in your emails, blogs, social networks and forum posts outside of EE to ensure that you're recognized for the Certified Expert that you are. You'll be building your reputation and the reputation of Experts Exchange. The more widely EE is recognized, the more your certifications will mean.

Feedback regarding Expert Signatures may be sent to expertcare@experts-exchange.com

lherrou is the Zone Advisor for the Digital Living and Graphics zones, whose time with the National Institute of Mental Health contributed to his training as a web designer. Now the owner of a web development company in Florida, he has been hand-coding HTML since 1994.

One of the holy grails that web designers seek is being able to display text in something other than the slim selection of cross-browser fonts. This became somewhat easier with CSS, but site visitors who do not have a selected font installed will not be able to see the text in that face. There's no easy way around this. Microsoft tinkered with WEFT (Web Embedding Fonts Tool) but development of that stalled a few years ago, and it was never was a reliable solution for most sites. The other common option is to render the text as an image.

However, there is a fairly new technique to replace short sections of plain text by displaying in the font YOU select, using a combination of Javascript, CSS, and Flash (which can embed fonts). The technique is called sIFR (scalable Inman Flash Replacement). The official page, with more information, how-to's, and links, can be found at http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr/.

There are some drawbacks, although none of them are show-stoppers, just tradeoffs to consider when designing web pages:

1. To see the text in the specified font, the user must have a browser which supports CSS and has Javascript (JS) turned on. However, when this technique is used, users who do not have JS on still get the text specified by HTML (and styled using CSS) prior to replacement.
2. Font size does not dynamically scale - page must be reloaded if page size is changed, and this may also limit accessibility if a user tries to re-size the font for readability (although there may be workarounds link: http://projects.forkandspoonhelmet.com/ontextresize/).
3. Flash areas can be "sticky" and not allow scrolling via mouse wheel (which can be a user annoyance factor).
4. Text cannot be selected (for copy and paste, for example). This may not always be a bad thing.
5. Loading times in the font-replaced areas may be increased. The more you use it in a page, the more of an issue this can become.
6. The sIFR conversion does not preserve clickable links.

The good news is that accessibility and SEO are preserved, since the text is styled with CSS and then replaced using the sIFR technique. Overall, this is a promising new approach, which is likely to be further refined as it becomes more commonplace.

graudo, AKA Derik Whittaker, writes on his blog about using a variety of Microsoft technologies. The following is used with permission.

For the latest thing I am doing at work I need to be able to grab some data from Sharepoint. I have chosen to do this by consuming SPServices.asmx server that is available. Because I was not able to find a decent post on the net on how to use/consume this service, I thought I would create my own. For this post I am going to walk though using the QueryDocuments method. As I use/consume more methods, I will try to post on those as well.

Before you get started working with the Sharepoint Web Services, I would recommend you download the SDK. I would then suggest you install it and poke around the CHM file.

Service Location
FYI, if you download the SDK, this will NOT install any assemblies on your drive (see my rant about this here). You will be able to find the ASMX files on the box with Sharepoint install in the following location:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\ISAPI

You will be able to find the ASMX interface via a browser at

http://servername/_vti_bin/SPServices.asmx

All the web services can also be found under each and every sub-site that is created.

http://servername/subsitename/_vti_bin/SPServices.asmx

Consuming the service
The purpose of this post is to not teach you how to consume the post, however you will only need to open up VS2005 and do an add Web Reference and you will be all set.

CAML
The different Sharepoint Web services make have use of CAML (Collaborative Application Markup Language). CAML is an XML-based language that is used in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services to define the fields and views used sites and lists. CAML is also used to define tables in the Windows SharePoint Services database during site provisioning.

Resources on CAML

1. SDK - Within the SDK, there are is a good section on CAML. Go to the index tab and search on CAML.
2. How to use CAML here
3. CAML query builder tool here

Writing code to consume the service
Once you have consumed the service, it is time to start coding against it. In order to successfully call the QueryDocuments method you will need to know a few things.

1. What site/sub-site you are trying to query data from
2. What library (assuming here document library)
3. What field you are using in your query.

Once you know the following, you are pretty much set. Below is sample code that should help you connect and query data. (BTW, this is NOT production code, but simple a dumping into one method for sake of this post.)

An editor by trade, a writer by avocation and an Expert by happenstance, ericpete is the person who puts together the newsletter for Experts Exchange.

In our high school days, we were cautioned about using Time magazine as a source, not because it was unreliable, but because its reporting was somewhat superficial, due to the contstraints of its format (lots of little articles about lots of things) and frequency (it is a weekly). The translation of the magazine to the web hasn't really changed matters much, but every once in a while, they hit a home run, even if it's not what they intended.

Such was the case recently when Time listed its five worst websites. We can't find any reason to disagree with their choices or their complaints, but what was just as interesting were their choices for the 25 sites they can't live without. It isn't the choices themselves that got our attention, but rather one commmonality among them.

The sites all work. For each and every one of them, it doesn't take an advanced degree in quantum mechanics to figure out what the site is all about, or how you're supposed to do whatever you're supposed to do.

The five worst all have similar issues. For one, you pay for the privilege of filling out a survey 436 questions long. Another doesn't allow for a variety of content. Two others require that you install software in order to use them. And then there's MySpace, about which the complaints are legion. The common thread: they're slow to load, there's too much junk, and getting them to deliver on their promises requires far more work than they're worth.

You can decide for yourself whether you can live without some of the sites; we really don't have a lot of use for del.icio.us or Digg (we can't help but thinking "so what?"), and while have no quarrel with the idea of people sharing their photos and diaries with their friends and relatives, there's something mildly parasitic about websites that exist to feed on the self-indulgent whims of people -- especially when their ability to keep those photos and diaries from becoming public information is subject to question.

Nonetheless, Time's list is compelling. The best sites on the list -- Google, the Internet Movie Database, Craig's List and even the BBC and Kayak are all easy to use, easy to figure out, and unencumbered by a lot of irrelevant stuff that has nothing to do with what the site is all about.

Even Yahoo got the message; they recently redesigned their home page to make it actually usable. Yes, there's always going to be at least one animated ad, and their logo is currently animated as well -- but their engineers had the grace to load everything else first, so what you get is small images you don't have to wait for. And there is no mystery; everything makes sense.

Over the years, we have touted the virtues of the people at 37signals. Their mantra: "Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there." It looks like a few people are starting to get it right.

We usually get one of the Moderators to come up with an idea or two for this section, but this time, an email from vallis pretty much summed it up:

We're not in the habit of identifying the specific question he wrote in about, if only to save a member a little embarrassment. But trying to read over some questions is like reading On Liberty, or worse, the classified ads in the Los Angeles Times from 15 feet away. Paragraphs should be two or three sentences -- about ten lines on your screen. Any more than that and readers' eyes will begin to glaze over.

Another kind of question that makes Experts' blood collectively boil -- or at least, keeps them from offering any responses beyond the text/l33t-speak equivalent of "Huh?" -- is the question in which the punctuation and shift keys are completely unused. We know that people are sending text messages all over the place, but it's not an appropriate means of communication when you're describing what happens when you try to open a Word document sent to you by a colleague whose native tongue -- and keyboard -- are not the same as yours. Use simple, declarative sentences, and be complete in your descriptions. "It doesn't work" doesn't mean a thing; "I get error message 12345 when I click on the BlanketyBlank button" says a lot more. And stick to the subject; it's not likely that your video card or version number of Office is relevant to dropping an Internet connection.

We know your problem is urgent -- at least to you. But without all of the pertinent information, written so it's understandable, the Experts can't really do much more than guess. So can your cousin Willy -- but he isn't as good as the Experts are.

$683 mill? That's chump change: A year ago, the European Union slapped a $357 million fine on Microsoft -- a figure that has now swelled to over $680 million as the matter winds its way through the EU courts -- but that pales compared to what the EU wants out of Intel. The fine is ten per cent of its worldwide revenues since 2004, and last year's revenues were in the $36 billion range.

That's because they're still using dialup: AOL is reporting that Americans are more addicted than ever to email. That's because it takes hours to download 483 (we made up that number) pieces of spam at 56k.

It doesn't matter what they mean -- they're still HUGE numbers: Don't believe the numbers you see about how well -- or poorly -- a website is rated. Turns out that the major providers of Internet numbers can't really tell you what they mean. Considering that the metrics provided by those number-crunchers are used to base advertising decisions, it turns out to be important. What happened to the days when you decided whether your advertising was working by looking at the cash register tape?

List of the week: CIO's list of companies and products that didn't deserve to die. At least one isn't dead -- but comatose might be an appropriate word.

The ANY key again: It's been a rough couple of weeks for the folks in Washington DC. First, they have somehow figured out a way to determine that peer-to-peer networks are a danger to national security. Huh? In fairness, at least one US Senator figured it out. That was offset by another piece of legislation that would outlaw dogfighting images -- which doesn't please the anti-dogfighting people much, because they would be barred from using the images to campaign against the practice. But at least it looks like there won't be fees for Internet access in November.

Thank the stars they're not Internet ready: We've always admired the One Laptop Per Child folks; bringing technology to children in underdeveloped parts of the world (now, no nasty comments about Congress, please) seems like a laudable thing to do, and now they've announced that the expect to start delivering computers this fall -- which is great news until you see that they're doing field testing in Nigeria.

Sites of the week: One suspects that every EE member has a website of some kind, so listing all of them is probably unrealistic. Nonetheless, DewaSoft has created a nice little site that keeps you from inadvertently revealing your password when you're using a public computer. Also, a world clock, and if you're into fun and games with Google, go to the search engine and type "google l33t" into the search field and click I Feel Lucky (thanks, Gerry!)

We're not talking about Barry's slump: A power failure hit San Francisco Tuesday, knocking sites from Craigslist to Technorati off line for around three hours.

Legal Notices:

• 25 people were arrested in China in connection with a counterfeiting ring, and software valued at $500 million was confiscated.
• If you're a blogger in Malaysia, be careful what you write. You could find yourself in violation of anti-terrorism laws if you insult the king. No doubt the legislation is being examined by government officials worldwide.
• A federal judge has banned Sanford Wallace from creating MySpace profiles and using them to spam other members.
• The owners of ConnectU have sued Facebook, claiming that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, stole their ideas. The judge in the case wants to see some evidence.

Signs of the Apocalypse: MySpace obituaries. Once can imagine the minds working overtime at Second Life. IBM has impemented guidelines for avatars its employees use. And prices at Starbucks are going up.

One of the newsletters I subscribe to had an item the other day about a "Robot" virus. It really isn't much different from others in a lot of ways; it uses simple psychology. You get an email telling you that "abnormal activity" has been noticed coming from your IP address, and because of that, you might have a virus. Nobody wants those, so you click on the link to get the patch, and in a couple of minutes, you have your very own trojan.

The people who send out the worm know that a healthy percentage of IT administrators are sometimes spelling-challenged (the email usually says "adress"), so people don't think twice. The virus is known by a number of names (Trojan.Packed.13 by Symantec, W32/Nuwar@MM by McAfee, Worm:Win32/Nuwar.JT by Microsoft and Mal/Dorf-A by Sophos), but they all say it loads a file named windev-72b5-203e.sys in your Windows system folder.

I just got a new laptop a couple of months ago, complete with Vista, and now I've found out that Microsoft is already planning on issuing "Windows 7" in three years. Personally, I think that's a little annoying. My trusty old desktop worked fine for about six years, but when I started having hard drive problems, my other half bought me a new one, which has XP on it -- but I'm still trying to get rid of all the shovelware (you probably have a more colorful term for it) that comes on a new computer. Now they're telling me that both of them are going to be out of date before the E wears off the keyboard.

It also gripes me that when the shovelware version of Symantec's software expired, I couldn't change over to the other software I wanted to use because it wasn't available (no names, but the editor had quite a rant about it a month ago). It is now, and the editor passed along a message he got from Ryan_R:

I know, I know. I should have had him get me a Mac, right?