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HTML Forms

There are many significant improvements to html forms over the past few years. AJAX, CSS and XFORMS are a few of these. This article describes a nicely done tableless form layout. I was led to it by another article. These guys make me feel humbled, and somewhat a dinosaur as one who has been hacking away at this kind of stuff for nearly a decade.

By Roger Campbell at Oct 25 2005 - 8:08am

Drupal aggregator theme change

The challenge today was to cause the external links from the aggregator to open a new window rather than replace the current window. The current geek wisdom as I understand it is that this should not be done, because all browsers have this capability and users may not want this forced on them. On the other hand, some web designers and most sales/marketing types bristle at the thought of somebody leaving their site whether intentional or not.

Philosophy aside, that is the technical task at hand, and it is easily accomplished by inserting a target="_blank" attribute in the link. That is, it is easy if you know where to put it ;-)

By Roger Campbell at Oct 21 2005 - 1:10pm | Technical | read more

Software tools

Another list of free software available on the 'net from Andrew Kantor and USA Today. PDFCreator is one that I do not recall from when we last needed such a product. In the future, I'll probably try this one to see if it is an acceptable alternative to commercial ones. Same goes for antivirus tools.

By Roger Campbell at Oct 21 2005 - 9:46am

Projects in SugarCRM

Problems with the current release 3.5.1a that we have installed:

  1. Project name does not display in list of project tasks.
  2. Project List does not display at all, nothing shows below the search box.
  3. Project Task edit edit does not work, the form is cut off after Order field and the rest of the page fails to display.
  4. Project Task dates do not save properly (or maybe it is displaying that is a problem). Either way, sometimes the dates change from what was saved.
  5. Project Tasks do not display on the home page.
By Roger Campbell at Oct 20 2005 - 2:31pm | Business | read more

Fixed Plesk again

Current problem to fix is that the mysql version has reverted back to 3.23, making SugarCRM fail in many areas and the Plesk console not work at all (it gives a connection refused message). Plesk update seems to have been the culprit, although I specifically did not update anything related to mysql or plesk itself. Currently mysql is showing:


mysql> status
--------------
mysql Ver 11.18 Distrib 3.23.58, for redhat-linux-gnu (i386)

Connection id: 36326
Current database:
Current user: admin@localhost
Current pager: stdout
Using outfile: ''

By Roger Campbell at Oct 19 2005 - 5:45pm | Business | read more

New content added to personal blog

I have added a bunch of new pictures to my personal blog. Take a look if you are interested in family pics and what we are up to lately.

By Roger Campbell at Oct 16 2005 - 9:19pm

LearnCentrix site

We have this week, decided to make a significant philosophical shift in the new site. The idea of a dynamic site and tool like Drupal gives lots of exciting and new capabilities, but also can possibly lead a business toward emphasizing stuff that is possibly not in its best interests. After bouncing this back and forth a bit, the "Community" will not be the focus of the site, but rather a subsection (or area) of it. The difference is primarily that the goal of the site is to sell our service (LearnCentrix University application). To have the home page emphasize the interactive community rather than focus on the product seemed a mistake. The community will still exist, and we will encourage participation from any and all who are willing and interested.

By Roger Campbell at Oct 14 2005 - 2:15pm | read more

Domain names and urls

How to pick a domain name or choose a permalink? I have generally leaned toward not thinking about it too much and just pick whatever comes out of a quick brainstorming session with my partner. When focusing on SEO from the start, there is some wisdom in trying to get decent keywords into the domain name (and the path that comes after it). This is a challenge when trying to keep to a relatively short and memorable domain. I have never liked the look of urls with dashes and underscores in them, and while underscores are frowned on for several reasons, the dash generally has a positive effect when used sparingly and correctly. Consider these names:

By Roger Campbell at Oct 11 2005 - 3:31pm | Marketing | read more

SugarSuite-Patch-3.5.1a

Applied this one to fix some bugs, and I think that there seems to be no end to the problems with Sugar. The update applied without any difficulty, but I am seeing SQL errors and missing data. I hate to give up on this, but this seems to be a bug ridden exercise trying to get Sugar working consistently.

At the bottom of a newly imported contact:

Error running count query for Contact List: Query Failed:( SELECT count(*) FROM meetings INNER JOIN meetings_contacts ON (meetings.id=meetings_contacts.meeting_id AND meetings_contacts.contact_id='f0561b7c-19f8-8b2a-7c1a-4349cc074b86') where ( meetings_contacts.deleted=0 AND meetings.deleted=0 AND (meetings.status='Planned')) AND meetings.deleted=0 ) UNION ALL ( SELECT count(*) FROM tasks where ( tasks.contact_id= 'f0561b7c-19f8-8b2a-7c1a-4349cc074b86' AND tasks.deleted=0 AND (tasks.status='Not Started' OR tasks.status='In Progress' OR tasks.status='Pending Input')) AND tasks.deleted=0 ) UNION ALL ( SELECT count(*) FROM calls INNER JOIN calls_contacts ON (calls.id=calls_contacts.call_id AND calls_contacts.contact_id='f0561b7c-19f8-8b2a-7c1a-4349cc074b86') where ( calls_contacts.deleted=0 AND calls.deleted=0 AND (calls.status='Planned')) AND calls.deleted=0 )::MySQL error 1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax near '( SELECT count(*) FROM meetings INNER JOIN meetings_contacts ON (meetings.id=me' at line 1

By Roger Campbell at Oct 9 2005 - 8:01pm | read more

the LearnCentrix Community

Our LearnCentrix site is now active as the LearnCentrix Community using Drupal for blogging about online training as well as support and marketing information about LearnCentrix University (our online learning product). The LearnCentrix University is still active, of course, but at a different address. For more information, contact us.

By Roger Campbell at Oct 8 2005 - 11:58am