Back in the saddle

My, how time flies when you're not having fun.

In April of last year, we got the news that our center was going to be shut down, so we all got laid off. Bummer. A fruitless job search in the region turned up zilch, nada, nothing, but fortunately, I was able to get a transfer 120 miles south. Same company, same job, different location.

Suffice it to say the last 9 months have been… interesting. Car died, other car is dying, at work I'm busier than a cat with nine tails in a room filled with rockin' chairs, the rent we pay for the hovel we live in is way too high (we should be paid to live here, really)… and despite an actual raise, we still live paycheck to paycheck.

on the bright side: my wife found another place to work (you know, eliminating the risk of getting laid of simultaneously again).

As far as work goes: man, it's a pain in the you-know-what. Our department lost a guy due to budget cuts, and the remaining five of us have to spread the workload, 7 days a week.

And finding another job out here in the Midwest is not as easy as one might think (unless you want to resort to uttering phrases like "want fries with that", because there's always place in the fast food industry, of course…), especially if all your experience and expertise have been created on the job, instead of by spending time in a world of make-believe and getting your certificates and degrees like a good boy slash girl. Never mind experience – that kid over there has a degree! Kay, thanks, bye!

So we just muddle along. I'm working on an actual program to be sent out to other centers, to be combined with a database system I've designed (myself – the backup of the old system couldn't be transferred), and I started work in my own time to create an ASP-based CMS, again. I'm actually making headway, this time, having learned a lot since I had to start from scratch with the web-app at work.

So, yeah, I'm still around. Cleaned up the ole blog a bit, removed the profanity (my, I was an angry little man!), and got ready to pick up the pieces.

Anyone want a website designed?

Adding user rights assignments using bitmasks

Geek content

So, for the longest time now, I've have had to deal with the legacy of a website that I didn't create, at work. It's like an online application for the management team and our employees, showing statistics, attendance and adherence data, and a bunch of other stuff.

It ain't bad, but it ain't good. The first incarnation I had nothing to do with, the second is only slightly better (and considering the guys who created the system started out with no knowledge of HTML whatsoever I have to admit they did a hell of a job), the third incarnation is better yet (DIVs and CSS instead of a table based layout), but it still uses the legacy access control system…

… are you ready? Sitting down?

"Singularly assigned user groups". Each group is assigned a number (1 through 8) which indicates what people can see and do…

… and each user can be assigned to one group. No overlaps. No sharing. Worst of all, if someone in a lower group needs access to a page that's restricted, his ID must be hard-coded into an exception list.

Yeah, *shudder*, right? Consider that the web server is an IIS 6.0 server using Classic ASP and .Net 2.5 installed, and it's a downright nightmare.

And for months, it got me stumped. Searching on the internet for better ACL systems or any other method to allow for a better definable user management system only led me to true nerdsites where they used magical terms like "bitmasking" and "user rights tables".

You'd think there were explanations, but if there were, you'd need a degree in advanced mathematical science to even remotely understand them.

Until I stopped looking for what I wanted, and focused on what I needed…

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Elegance

Because I have a thing for redheads, I'm a music lover, stop-motion is even more awesome with people, and this is done so perfectly…

From Form To Text To CSV, Part One

I keep my word. To those who requested and those who are just interested:

How to save form info to text files, and retrieve them in a single CSV file, using Classic ASP.

Coming soon (after we are done moving our home and all our lecktrickety is back up and running, and all that fun stuff): The PHP version of the same tutorial.

Keep watching this channel!

Biggest Crimes In Web Design – Epsiode One

This is the first of a series regarding the abuse of what otherwise would be an at least somewhat enjoyable medium (the interwebs, duh). Each part will address an often-made mistake, and go into detail about why certain things should be avoided like the plague.

We'll start with perhaps the most evil of 'em all:

THE BLINK TAG

Never include page elements that move incessantly. Moving images have an overpowering effect on the human peripheral vision. A web page should not emulate Times Square in New York City in its constant attack on the human senses: give your user some peace and quiet to actually read the text!

Of course, <BLINK> is simply evil. Enough said.

Jacob Nielsen, 1996

MySpace. Fundie sites (both the religious and political varieties). Knock-off product sites. What do they all have in common?

An incessant assault on the optic nerves, by means of animated GIFs, flash banners… and the <blink> tag.

An often asked question on Yahoo! Answers is about "how to make text blink". Sadly, there's always some ignorant dimwit that, instead of rightly berating the questioner, answers the question.

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