ATI Radeon HD 4870-X2 DDR5 2GB PCI-Express x16

This video card is smoking fast. Right now it’s the fastest card on the market. Pick up one of these, or two in crossfire mode and play Call of Duty 4 and feel like you’re right there in the action! I have one on my new rig and oh man does it make CoD4 look great!

Left 4 Dead

For starters it’s Valve. Not enough? Well you get to kill Zombies! That’s always fun. Lots and lots of zombies. And you can play in co-op mode with 3 of your buddies. Setting out to do for co-op gaming what Counter-Strike did for team combat, Left 4 Dead is an ambitious survival horror game. Running on the Source engine, Left 4 Dead leaves four armed survivors of a world overrun with zombies, and they must fight their way out to escape the outbreak. It’s a blast. It’s like I’m Will Smith in I am Legend.

Captain Kirk’s Replica Chair

“Kirk to bridge, someone………has…….stolen my……..chair.” And for the right price, that person can be you. Trekkies across the globe practically drowned in their own geekdom when it was first reported that Diamond Select, a popular sci-fi and comic toy store, was planning on releasing a life-sized Original Series captain’s chair for purchase.

Sony Photo Frame

Now you can display your digital photo collection in breathtakingly vivid color–on a Sony Digital Photo Frame. Choose from a variety of slide show options, and watch your photo memories come to life on this stylish frame. And when not displaying images, you can set it to one of its clock or calendar modes–making it a great addition to any home or office.

Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard

Good intel and proper gear are the keys to victory. With the Logitech G15 keyboard, you get both. Now you can easily discover on which server your friends are playing Battlefield 2142, be notified when your World of Warcraft battleground becomes available and know exactly who’s talking in Ventrilo with the Logitech G15 keyboard’s exclusive GamePanel LCD. You can also create useful macros on the fly that play back with a single press of one of the six G keys. As every key features illuminated characters, with three levels of brightness, you can keep playing late into the night.

Iron Man (Ultimate Two-Disc Edition Blu-ray)

While I don’t have a blu-ray player yet. If I did this would be the first movie that I pick up. This movie was so fun to watch and the effects were just perfect. I would love to watch this on a nice 1080p screen. Hint hint Santa…

Any word of The Avengers movie?

Band of Brothers (Blu-ray)

This is a movie series that everyone should own. It should be required viewing material for all. It leaves you humbled and grateful for the men and women who have sacrificed so that we may enjoy the freedoms that we have.

Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition Quad-Core Processor

Conquer the world of extreme gaming with the fastest performing processor on the planet: the Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition: 3.20 GHz core speed, 8 processing threads with Intel HT technology, 8 MB of Cache and 3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory. This is the fastest processor that money can buy. It’s not cheap, but with great power comes… a really big price tag.

iBUYPOWER Gamer Supreme 962i Intel Core i7 920(2.66GHz) 6GB DDR3 500GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

I just purchased a new computer from ibuypower and am loving it. They don’t have the best customer service, but they do build great computers and for great prices. The computer I got is smoking and for about half the price you would pay on Dell. If you’re in the market for a new gaming rig and you don’t feel like building it yourself, the take a look at ibuypower and see what you think.

I spoke to you back in January about Lijit. Remember I showed you that Lijit allows you to easily create your own search engine. One that searches your blog, bookmarks, photos, blogroll, and more.

I really liked Lijit then but I was disappointed that I couldn’t integrate the Lijit search functionality into WordPress. That is let Lijit take over my search box that was already there and is ALREADY there in just about every other blog too. Instead you had to put a widget on your page. I felt like this was such a mistake I actually went to visit Lijit in Boulder and told them so. Well I’m happy to say that they have listened and now allow you to let their search take over your search box. Here’s what they say:

Lijit’s integration with WordPress.org just keeps getting better! Now you can either install the Lijit Search widget OR have Lijit power your existing WordPress search box. As if that weren’t exciting enough, our Lijit stats will automatically display within your WordPress dashboard for one-stop stats viewing too.

Go ahead and have a look, try the search located in the top left corner….

If you like it you can find the Lijit WordPress plugin here.

Each sheet is done by a respected professional in that discipline — Jon Skeet, author of C# in Depth did the C# sheet and Molly Holzschlag, author of The Zen of CSS Design did the CSS sheet. Of course these sheets aren’t intended to teach you, but simply there to aid you in those things that you usually end up looking up.

So far I have downloaded the C#, ASP.NET and jQuery sheets. They’re handy and they’re free, what else do you need to know than that. Enjoy.

The above photo is my stack of geek books from last Christmas. Yes, I love books — I love the way they smell, thumbing through the pages and oh yes, the wisdom they bestow. I admit, often times I don’t make it through the entire book. Sometimes just a handful of chapters. But every now and then you come across some great books that are gems. So I thought I would share a few of my favorite books from this year.

Head First C#

Each morning before work I stop and enjoy a latte or cappuccino. This is my book of choice to read while sipping down my caffeine kick-start. That’s because it’s not like your typical code book which can be pretty dry. This book is very visual, full of pictures and diagrams that help to illustrate and drive home key points. Often times it finishes the chapter with a crossword puzzle helping you to retain the points of the chapter. In fact those crossword puzzles inspired this post. It’s a great read for beginners and advanced users alike.

Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0

If you are just starting to learn Flash or Flex or ActionScript then this is the book for you. Actually, even if you are a seasoned pro this is still the book for you. Why? Because it teaches you the correct way to do things. It teaches you true object oriented programming in ActionScript. With topics like: Encapsulation, Classes, Inheritance, Polymorphism, Interfaces, and Design Patterns you will not only learn ActionScript, but also principles of OOP. If you wish to learn proper Flash/Flex development then this book is for you.

The ASP.NET Anthology

This book takes a problem solving approach to a handful of common everyday ASP.NET developer needs. Things like: form validation, membership and access control, working with email, rendering binary content, Ajax, handling errors and more. Sitepoint says this about the book, which I agree with: “Solve specific ASP.NET problems fast — without wading through mountains of reference material — and rest assured your code follows current best practices. For the serious ASP.NET coder, this book is a must-have.”

The Ultimate CSS Reference

Perhaps the last CSS book you’ll ever need. Written by our very own Paul O’Brien whom regulars to Search-This will know does an amazing job making sense of often tricky, finicky or strange CSS behaviors. Almost every web site created today is built using CSS, which is why a thorough knowledge of this technology is mandatory for every web designer. There are plenty of good resources to help you learn the basics, but if you’re ready to truly master the intricacies of CSS, this is the book you need.

ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed

Make no mistake about it, this is a reference book at almost 2,000 pages. But it may be the best ASP.NET reference book on the market. It covers everything: LINQ to SQL, ASP.NET AJAX, ListView and DataPager data access controls and all the rest. What’s especially nice is that you can tell the author, Stephen Walther, has spent time in the trenches. He knows best practices, like using CSS for all his layout work and having well-formed cross-browser friendly code all the while teaching you ASP.NET 3.5. This is a must-have book for all ASP.NET developers.

Well there you have it, five of my favorite geek books of 2008. Do you have a book that you read this year that you thought was a gem?

Here are mine:

• Operating System – XP
• Graphics Program – Adobe Fireworks
• Programming IDE – Visual Studio 2008
• Languages - ASP.NET, C#, JavaScript, CSS
Source Control – Subversion
• FTP - SmartFTP and FileZilla
• Browser - Firefox and IE7
• Mail Client – Gmail
• Anti-Virus – AVG Antivirus
• Firewall - ZoneAlarm
• Others - Firebug, Trillian

What are yours?

CSS Full Length Graphical Borders on Fluid Layout

It's quite easy to use graphical side borders on fixed width elements as you can simply repeat an appropriate sized image down the y-axis of the container and draw both edges at the same time. However, it is often not well understood how to achieve this effect with an element that has a fluid width especially in a 100% high environment.

We will first learn how to apply an image to both sides of a normal content height (but fluid width) container and then later on explore the possibilities of using this for a 100% (viewport high) container.

Normal Height Layout

Let's start with a simple example that has graphical borders on both sides of a fluid layout.

The technique is to repeat the left border down the left side of the first wrapper and then repeat the right border down the right side of an inner wrapper. You must be careful not to overwrite the first image when you overlay the second image so any background colours would need to be on the first element and not the nested element.

CSS:

The side image is 20px wide so the elements are nested allowing for a 20px gap using margins to keep the content away from the borders. We could have done the same thing with padding and saved ourselves an extra div.

The only thing to note in both the above snippets is the "haslayout" fix for IE. If you are not familiar with "haslayout" then I have a good explanation here.

Figure 1 shows the result of the above code.

Figure 1

If you have a little imagination you can improve the look -- here is another example as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

All that was needed was to change the image slightly and give the background a colour that merges in with the image.

The simple change above gives the layout a nice torn look down each side.

100% Height Borders

So far we have established that it is easy to place a repeating graphic on each side of a normal height layout, but what about 100% high layouts where the layout stretches from the top of the viewport to the bottom of the viewport?

This is more complicated because 100% height is a tricky subject at the best of times. In effect you can only ever have one 100% high element to play with and therefore with a fluid width element you can't tile both edges of the element in one go with a background image.

100% Height Explained

I suppose I should explain why you cannot have more than one 100% high element!

In order to achieve an initial 100% high container the html and body elements are first set to 100% height. This allows us to use the main-container on the page and to give it min-height:100%. We use min-height because we want a minimum of 100% height but we also want the height to expand should content exceed the viewport height. If we had used height:100% for the main container then the container would never expand past the viewport and content would just spill out. Therefore we use min-height:100% to get our initial 100% height.

However, because we must use min-height on the main container we cannot nest another element inside that container and use min-height again.

Why Not?

The reason is that a percentage height of an element must be based on the parent's height. If the parent is defined as height:auto (the default) then the child has no height to base its measurements on and the height collapses to auto (for both height and min-height) which is effectively content height. This is an impossible conundrum and the reason is that in most cases you can only ever work with one 100% high container and that must be the first container on the page.

I should point out that IE6 and under do not understand min-height but treat height as a minimum anyway so that is the reason you will see the IE hacks for this. In some cases IE6 will allow you to nest successive 100% high elements but other browsers will not so it's best avoided.

Now with the 100% height issue explained we can set about creating our 100% high borders. Let's start with the basic page.

Here is a live page using the above code. Simple stuff so far with the 100% height routine as mentioned earlier. Now we need a method of painting both edges with our repeating graphics. We can't nest any inner elements because they will only be content height and will look bad.

Therefore we are going to use a technique I devised for making equal columns and will apply it to make our borders. You should read the article for the full details but briefly the idea goes like this...

An absolute element is placed using top and bottom properties at the same time to hold it in tune with the outer parent. The outer parent has position:relative applied and this keeps the inner absolute element relative to itself at all times. By specifying top and bottom properties at the same time the absolute element will keep its top and bottom in place with the top and bottom of the parent always creating a 100% high element.

Unfortunately IE6 and under don't understand it when you use top and bottom together so instead for IE6 and under only we place the absolute element at the bottom of the element and give it a height that will be bigger than we ever need. It doesn't matter that the height is too big because it will simply disappear through the top of the viewport without any ill-effects.

In fact, for other browsers we don't need to use top and bottom properties at the same time. We can simply give the element a top position and then specify 100%:height. Unlike static elements, absolute elements will keep track of an auto height container.

Time for a demonstration.

The css we add to the snippet above is as follows.

The html is simple also:

The two extra divs that we are utilizing for the borders are shoved to the bottom of the current stacking context and kept nicely out of the way. This method is so simple and the extra mark-up is minimal as only one extra div than the normal height method.

Adding Transparent Shadows

A lot of sites like to have their main page bordered down the side with a transparent shadow effect. In order to do this properly transparent pngs need to be used so that the body background isn't rubbed out and can still be seen below the shadow. This is especially important if the body background has a gradient effect or has fixed images that need to be visible under the shadow.

Unfortunately IE6 (and older) don't understand how to use transparent pngs and you lose any opacity with horrible effect. Fortunately we can use the proprietary alpha image loader filter to provide IE6 and 5.5 with some sort of fix. As the filter is a Microsoft extension it's best to feed it to only IE6/5.5 (preferably via Conditional comments). For ease I have used the star selector hack to target IE6 and 5.5. I am ignoring IE5.0 as it doesn't understand the filter but you may wish to supply alternative non-transparent images to IE5 only using conditional comments.

For all other browsers we can simply use the code as shown above and instead of the border images we will use transparent pngs for the borders. For IE5.5/6 we need to add the filter which will make the relevant code look like this.

The image gets supplied to IE6 using the star selector hack but an important point to note is that you must remove the original image because it would conflict with the filter image and ruin the effect. That is the reason for the "background:none" in the IE hack.

Note also that the sizingMethod attribute is set to scale so that the image is scaled to the full height of the element it sits in. This filter is not a substitute for the background property and has limited capabilities. Read more about it in the Ultimate CSS Reference.

Here is a live example with the changes recommended (view source for the full code).

Figure 3

If you want the main wrapper to have a background colour then you need to move the edges outside of the wrapper so that the transparency isn't affected. This can easily be done by adjusting the left and right positions of the absolute elements.

Here is another live example with the background color added and the edges moved outside the main background (view source for the full code).

Figure 4

That about wraps it up for today and I'm sure you can come up with some better examples than me. Hope you find it useful.

Introducing the Comment Info Tip Plugin

You asked for it - now you got it!

This WordPress plugin provides you and your commenter's a bit of information on their posting stats.

How It Works
When you mouseover a commenter's name you will see a tip appear displaying some information about that given commenter. The tip will display 1 of 4 results:

1. If the commenter has only posted once then it will say so in the tip (see number 1 in the legend below).
2. If the commenter has posted more than once we will look up the last three posts they have commented in and display links to those posts. This allows you to see which type of posts this user is interested in and easily navigate to those posts (see number 2 in the legend below).
3. If the commenter has posted more than once we will attempt to search their RSS feed and show an excerpt from their last post (see number 3 in the legend below).
4. If it's a pingback or trackback the tip will indicate so (see number 4 in the legend below).

DOWNLOAD THE PLUGIN HERE

* Please give it a shot and return here and tell us where you installed it. Let me know how it's working for you and of course if you have suggestions or advice please let me know.

One of the problems I had at Search-This was that I could never easily tell how many comments a given person contributed. It would be nice to know who our top commentators are, not just for a given month but overall.

In addition to satisfying my own curiosity, I thought you guys might also like to know how many comments total you have logged.

Now we both can tell!

Simply mouseover the dude representing you for your comment and it shows you your total comments. It also displays links to the last three posts you commented in. See the screenshot below:

Lijit allows you to easily create your own search engine. One that searches your blog, bookmarks, photos, blogroll, and more. By offering the Lijit Search Wijit on your blog, readers can search all of YOU. In turn, Lijit gives you detailed statistics about those searches, so you can better understand and serve your reader community.

Try It!

Notice the Lijit Search Wijit on the right (below the Blog Categories). Performing a search for digg will return blog posts from Search-This, as indexed by Google. See below:

It will also return results from social networking sites including: digg, del.icio.us, reddit, flickr, Stumble Upon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MyBlogLog, You Tube and many more.

And Stats Too!

In addition to performing cross-network searches it also does a nice job with stats tracking. Below are just a few of the stats tracking Lijit provides you, but there is more! Here's also a good article by Lijit's founder on its stats tracking.

Another neat feature is the Explore chart that shows who's a fan, friend and who you follow, although I don't truly understand how it works yet. Let me know if you do...

Looks like we only have two friends.
Come on people and add Search-This to your blogroll! It's not like Zeldman needs that link!

I really like Lijit, maybe you will too? Give it a try and see what you think.

If MySQL is not your DB of choice, there are other applications out there for interfacing the various other database platforms (such as phpMyAdmin's relative for PostgreSQL, phpPgAdmin), but MySQL is the most widely used and phpMyAdmin is often included or offered as a part of many basic hosting plans.

As of this writing, 2.11.3 is the most current version of phpMyAdmin. It can be downloaded at the main phpMyAdmin download page. Please follow the installation instructions found in the phpMyAdmin documentation. I'm going to show you how to use phpMyAdmin to create a new database, create tables, insert records, backup your data, and import data into your database. There are many, many other things you can do with this wonderful application, but I'll keep it simple.

Creating a new database

Now that we have phpMyAdmin installed and set up, the first thing we need to do is create a new database. Point your browser to your new phpMyAdmin install and log in using your MySQL username and password. The resulting screen should give you a dashboard overview of MySQL. Some of you using shared hosting may need to skip this step as you might only be allowed a single database that has already been created for you. To create a new database, find the "Create new database" option, type in the name of your new database in the text field below it, and click the "Create" button. You can ignore the dropdown with the value of "Collation" showing unless you have a specific character encoding you'd like to use.

Creating a table

Now that we have our database, we need to create some tables. This is where I find phpMyAdmin saves me the most time. Since I use PostgreSQL a lot as well, I often get some of the CREATE TABLE syntax differences mixed up. Using an interface to create tables saves me a lot of grief.

On the resulting screen after creating the database, there is a small form for creating a new table, with options for the table name and number of fields. If you are coming from the main dashboard page, just click on the name of your database in the left column. In this example, I'm going to create an 'entries' table for my blog database. I'm going to need to store an ID number, a title, the body of the entry, and a timestamp, so I need four fields.

After entering the name and number of fields, click the 'Go' button, and you'll be presented with a very large form with four rows. Enter the name of the field in first column, select the field type in second column, and enter the field length (if needed) into the third column. At a bare minimum, that is all you need. In my example, I want my ID field to automatically increment each time I save an entry and I want to use it as the primary key in my table, so I select 'auto_increment' in the 'Extra' dropdown and click the 'Primary Key' radio button.

Once the form is completed to your satisfaction, click the 'Save' button to create your new table. Complete information about table creation option can be found in the MySQL manual.

Inserting Records

Now that we have some tables, let's stick some data in there. To insert records into a table, you can either click on the name of your database in the left column, then click on the "Insert" icon corresponding to the table you wish to insert into, or click the table name in the left column and then click the "Insert" tab. Doing either will bring up a form where you can enter data.

In my example, I want to create some categories for my blog, but entering them in one at a time would be a pain. Luckily, phpMyAdmin has a second form so I can enter two records at once. It also gives me the option to save and insert again so I don't have to navigate back to the insert form.

Backing up your data (exporting)

Another great feature of phpMyAdmin is that it easily lets you back up an entire database with only a couple clicks. Click on the name of the database you want to back up in the left column, then click the 'Export' tab. The resulting screen will give you all kinds of different options, but the defaults should suffice. Make sure you check the "Save as File" checkbox, otherwise it will output all the data to your browser. If you have a fairly large database, you may want to select a "Compression" option ("zipped" will create a ZIP file). Click "Go" to generate and download your backed up data.

Importing data

A number of web applications may come with a SQL data file that you'll need to load into your database. A very easy way to do this in phpMyAdmin is to use the "Import" feature. Click the name of the database you want to import into in the left column, then click the "Import" tab.

All you have to do is find the SQL file on your local disk and use the Import interface to upload the file. phpMyAdmin will report any errors it encounters. You can also use the import feature to restore your database from one of the backups you've created.

I've only scratched the surface of what phpMyAdmin is capable of, but using it for even the simplest of tasks can save you time and effort in dealing with MySQL. phpMyAdmin is a great tool for both the database newbie and master DBA alike.

First up in this series is a tool that I find indispensable and use almost daily: the Web Developer Firefox extension.

The Web Developer Firefox extension adds a toolbar and context menu to the browser giving you a myriad of useful tools and shortcuts. These options are divided into twelve groups:

• Disable - disable various options in the browser (cache, JavaScript, Java, etc)
• Cookies - disable, view, add and delete various cookies
• CSS - disable, view, edit stylesheets, and use custom styles
• Forms - various form options (Auto-completion, translate POSTs to GETs, show passwords, etc)
• Images - disable, display, and manipulate images
• Information - view page and element metadata
• Miscellaneous - helpful tools such as displaying a pixel ruler and guidelines, clearing private data, showing hidden elements and comments, and toggling visited links status
• Outline - draw an outline around various page elements
• Resize - display the current window size and resize the browser window to a specific size
• Tools - shortcuts to validation and debugging tools
• View Source - view source and 'View Generated Source' options
• Options - setup and config options

The toolbar also displays a status of the page validation and if there are any JavaScript errors.

There are too many options to discuss in great detail, so here are my top 5:

Outline -> Outline Block Level Elements

This is my savior when dealing with positioning problems. Seeing an outline around all my DIVs is a huge help when fighting the CSS positioning battle. I also use the Outline Tables option for my table-based layouts (I know...leave me alone....)

Information -> View ID & Class Details

This shows me the ID and class names for each element on the page. Combined with the outlining tools, it's very powerful.

Cookes -> Delete Domain Cookies

I use this feature constantly when testing authentication code. It blows away all cookies for the current domain you are viewing. Saves me a lot of time to not have to logout over and over again or manually invalidate my session.

Cookies -> View Cookies

Shows detailed information for every cookie on the page that is currently being viewed.

CSS -> View CSS

Lists the contents of all external CSS files and any styles inside