Top Ten of Programming Advice NOT to Follow

A top programmer examines a number of the top items of programming advice commonly given, and makes a great case for why they should NOT be followed. Some interesting food for thought for any programmer.

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Ten CSS tricks you may not know

Cascading Style Sheets are the foundation on which many of the best websites are built. Using CSS allows developers to describe the common style for the website, in terms of colours, fonts and layouts. In this tutorial, Trenton Moss of Webcredible shares some of his top tips to help you get the most from your CSS.

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Online JPG to HTML Converter

Probably how the "Crazy guy can draw using HTML!!!"A table is created which is filled with large numbers of 1x1 cells. Each cell has a background colour of the corresponding pixel in the image. That's all it is; just a massive grid of coloured table cells. View the source to see the details.

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Inspiration Package: 60+ Usable & Elegant Designs

Over 60 elegant, usable and impressive designs with a well thought-out color scheme, typography and visual structure. Their beauty lies in the way both information is presented. Their usability lies in the way they communicate presented data. That's what make them different.

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DTS -- My learnings today

Today I wanted to schedule a data update process to be processed every month for the table I created using DTS last month.

I wanted to populate a brand new database from an exisitng database. I thought I would just schedule a package with a few SQL queries to populate the different tables in the new database. But before I proceededI wantedto find out an efficient and best way to do it.

So I posted my questions in two forums. This is what I found out from the experts:

Before you decide on setting up the DTS package there are several aspects to consider.

Do you want to recover the database from a backup when something goes wrong?
Do you want to just reload everything when something fails?
Do you want to save logging information so that you can recover the database?

Based on the answers to these questions, the best way to create a DTS package for my scenario is to create the tables with the structure and then create the DTS package using many Data Driven Query Tasks that contains the SQL statemetns of select, Insert and Update depending on whatever the case may be.

DTS is an excellent tool to schedule population of data into a database.

SQL query to get Month Name for today

I wanted to insert the month name of the current date into a table using a SQL query.

I first thought that I could achieve this by simply using the monthname function. But when I typed that in the SQL Query analyser, the error made me realise that it is not that easy to get the result I want.

So in the end here is what I came up with:


select datename(month, getdate())+'-'+ convert(varchar,year(getdate())) as Month_

Automating the .NET Framework download and installation

Here's a script that automates the download and installation of the .NET 2.0 Framework prior to installing a .NET application, using all free tools including InnoSetup. If .NET is not installed on the target computer, then this script goes out and downloads it, showing a progress meter along the way, and then installs it on the target machine.



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Five ways to defeat blog trolls and cyberstalkers

Online harassment is going gangbusters in the blogosphere. With 70 million blogs in existence today there are a lot of nut jobs out there. From cyberstalkers and trolls to flamers and kooks, it's only a matter of time before some of them find their way to your blog. Here are five ways to make sure you don't become a victim.



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Top 17 Free Webmaster tools

A list of 17 Free webmaster tools. This list includes several HTML and CSS tools, SEO tools such as backlink checker, keyword density, and several other useful miscellaneous tools.



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Toolbox for Web Developers/Programmers (tlbox.com)

Add tools to your tool box that you can refer back to. Useful website listings for HTML, PHP, CSS, Images, Tutorials, Widgets, etc. Great links.



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What's Wrong With My Blog? Guide to common pitfalls & mistakes in blogging

Creating a blog is easy - but alas, building a readership is somewhat more difficult. So where do nascent bloggers most commonly go wrong?



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Dramatic Black and White photos using Photoshop

Converting photos from color to black and white can be done in a variety of ways in photoshop. The easiest way is just to convert your image to grayscale, but this usually leaves you with a rather flat and dull looking image. This article will show you how to convert color photos to dramatic looking black and white photographs in photoshop.



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Top developer tools of the month

A super top list with the best developer tools of the month



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Javascript and CSS Tutorial - How to make Sliding Panels

A step-by-step tutorial on how to create sliding panels using javascript and css. Included in the tutorial are good examples guiding you through each step.



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Test your Web Application’s Performance

A step by step tutorial on how to stress test your web application and your web server with proven Open Source software.



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10 CSS Tips to Make Your Life Easier

This article shares 10 CSS tips to help make your web development life easier.



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Data Transformation Services -- SQL Server

Today I used Data Transformation Services (DTS) of SQL Server 2000 to populate a table in the SQl Server database from an excel file. This was an easy way of creating a table on the fly without bothering to create the table structure first and then populate the table with the data.


Procedure I followed was as follows:

Right click on a table or a database in the SQL Server Enterprise manager.
select Import data
Select the source as an Excel driver
select the destination as the table to be created inthe database.
Click finish and your table is ready with the data populated

Yes, it is that simple.

15 Javascript Snippets You Can't Live Without

"You either love Javascript or you hate it. Either way it can provide great functionality that users love. And it doesn't have to affect usability. Here are the top 15 Javascript snippets for making great sites that bit extra special."



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How to make 'related articles' for your blog

If you operate or post for a blog of any kind (and chances are, you do), it's very useful to add a "Related articles" section to your blog so when somebody finds your article, the related articles will keep them on your site while keeping their interest in specific topics.



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View .psd's Thumbnail Previews In Windows Explorer

As of photoshop 7 you can no longer view your PSD files as thumbnail previews! Re-claim this great feature instantly with a quick registry edit.

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