To Tri or Not Jun 29, 2008

Everyone needs to stay in shape, it's a fact. Otherwise our bodies start to slow down and soon even the smallest stress on the body results in pain.

Over the last couple of months I have been contemplating what my next fitness goal should be. I've discovered that I stick with a plan better than just working out for fun. I have ran two marathons and a few half-marathons.

I have always enjoyed running. Its always been my time to think things out and to destress. However, training for a marathon takes a certain stress on you and there's a significant amount of time that you have to commit to get across the finish line. I have also used bicycling and swimming in the past to help keep in shape.

Running has always been the easiest out of the three to do. Just walk out the front door and you're working out. Swimming involves going to a gym and biking requires a bike that can be an expensive startup. I've started my running again, slow as it may be. What I have to decide is what is my next goal.

I haven't gotten to that point, but I've been kicking around the idea of doing a triathlon. Triathlons are a combination of swimming, biking, and running all wrapped up into one event.

As a kid I remember watch the TV specials on the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon and thinking how cool it looked. Now I can understand the commitment that these athletes (elites and us common folk) take to not just get to the starting line, but to also try our luck.

So now at the age of 36, I am thinking of doing a sprint or olympic length triathlon. A sprint triathlon consist of approximately a 500 yard swim, 12 mile bike ride, and a 5k run. Olympic distances are about double that of the Sprint level.

Now the question is am I commited? Many things go into it, it's not just whether I want to do it or not. Buying a Triathlon bike will run me about $1500 after getting the bike, pedals, shoes, and at least a couple pairs of shorts. While most of my swimming will be in a pool, I'll have to rent a wetsuit for the actual open water swim. All of this adds up to a pretty penny

On top of that is the time commitment. I have been getting up earlier each week to get my running in. However, now it will be more like five to six times a week plus a couple of evening workouts. Add this to a schedule of full-time work, part-time college, family time, and professional development. That's a big load to add the time it take to train for a triathlon. That's a big load to carry.

But at the same time, the body has to be taken care of also. If you stay in shape you will be happier and healthier in everything else you do.

So again, the question is to Tri or not to try. I'm leaning more and more to tri-ing. I just need to ensure that I am ready for the commitment. I haven't decided on an event, but there are more than a couple Olympic length events that are held here in Columbia and in Annapolis, Maryland. So we will have to see.

Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP Jun 20, 2008

There are a number of books that have aided in the development of this site. This one played a major role because it transitioned me from typing all of the code by hand to using and modifying that same code in Dreamweaver. The program that I have used for assembling all of my web designs.

David Powers has but together a great book that does more than tell you how to use the program. Powers goes through all the new functions and abilities of Dreamweaver CS3. What's even better is he goes into the basics of PHP and MySQL. From there he takes you into adjusting the code and adding more security and function into your site.

Overall his tutorials are very thorough and gets your hands into modifying CSS and PHP. I haven't found a section yet that hasn't aided in my understanding of web design and programming.

Additionally it does a great job at combining the strengths of PHP and SPRY in helping you create exciting, dynamic content.

Overall this is a great addition to any bookshelf for those who use Dreamweaver to develop and design websites.

Second Date Jun 13, 2008

Earlier I wrote how it's not just important to develop a great design, but it's also important that it look accurate across the multitude of browsers that we use to view the same code.

Writing code that is compliant with XHTML and CSS standards takes us a great distance with getting the same look across different web browsers. Unfortunately you cannot rely on every user updating their favorite browser when the next version comes out. MSIE 7 has been out for about a year and W3Schools.com reports that about 28% of the visitors use MSIE 6 to view their site. A browser that's know not to support many CSS style attributes or natively supporting the PNG24 file format.

So, when I designed version 3.0 I wasn't shocked when I saw that my design was accurate across many new browsers. When it came to MSIE 6, 5.5, and 5.0, well, it wasn't pretty. The navigation bar was at the bottom of the page and I had the grey opaque borders that represented the alpha transparency of my PNG-24 files.

Now I don't have all the different browser programs loaded on my computer so I used Browsershots.org to view olveyphotodesign.com and that gave me a clear idea of how the site looked on different browsers and different operating systems. You can also specific if you what Flash, Java, JavaScript enabled or turned off. You can examine how different display resolutions may effect your liquid layouts. The biggest minus I can see is that you are making your work public as you develop a site. That may not be what you are looking for but if you don't have the resources, a site like this may be your best option. Just make sure to remove the files from your server until you are ready to go live.

First I tackled the positioning of the navigation bar. It's the standard unordered list tag that is set up to float across the width of the page. To place the bar at the top of the page and keep it there I assigned it the style attribute of position: fixed; z-index: 2;. This keeps in fixed in place and allows the page to fit underneath the bar as you scroll down the page.

MSIE 6 and below does not recognize position: fixed however it does properly place an element using the position: absolute. Changing this attribute corrected the issue I had with the navbar appearing at the bottom of the page. But this also makes the site navigation scroll with the rest of the page.

Tackling the second issue of the PNG transparency issue there are a couple different ways to address it. The first is by using the MSIE Alpha Image filter that only MSIE recognizes. It works but it makes for some nasty looking hacks and coding that doesn't validate to CSS standards. The second is to use either GIFs or JPEGs in place of the PNG files.

The fix to my design issue

Changing the style attribute from fixed to absolute removed the need to use PNG image files since the effect of scrolling underneath the navigation was gone. Therefore I switched the files over to JPEGs.

I chose to use a JavaScript file by Chad Lindstrom that detected the browser being used to view the page. If JavaScript recognized the browser as MSIE6 or eariler, it uses the document.write funtion to insert a link to my MSIE.css file containing the absolute attributes and JPEG images. Otherwise it writes the link to my global.css file that has the fixed positioning and PNG images. In case JavaScript is turned off, I have a noscript tag that links to the MSIE.css as a safety valve.

Many people feel that it's not reliable to run these scripts detecting browser verisons and having to update them when newer versions are released. Since I'm trying to detect a few older versions, I felt this was the best way to go. Additionally I was able to keep the design I orginally set out to develop.

So I would say on my second date I'm looking pretty good.