NetOffice 2.6.0b2 - and a few report mods

NetOffice recently released the Beta 2 version of 2.6.0 - with some nice additions. Milestones are the most useful new feature, and could be the basis of some useful (although not yet written) reports.

Whilst on the subject of reports, my only real gripe with NetOffice (and similar products) is resource management. So I've modified a couple of their reports to make that job a little easier.

Completed Tasks with Times

The first report changes the existing Completed Tasks report to also include both Estimated Time and Actual Time for each task. Useful for checking how good your estimating is! Also good for keeping a bit of an eye on how each employee or sub contractor is going.

Download Zip File (2160 bytes)
Simply unzip this file and save over the top of the old one in the reports folder in your NetOffice installation.

Tasks with Estimated Times

With NetOffice's inbuilt reporting, it's not hard to see all the tasks you have allocated to someone. (Just choose their username, and then 'open' and 'not started' from the status.) This report displays the estimated time for each task instead of whether the task is published or not, which from my point of view is far more useful.

Download Zip File (3564 bytes)
Simply unzip this file and save over the top of the old one in the reports folder in your NetOffice installation.

A word of warning...

Both these reports overwrite existing NetOffice reports, so back them both up first just in case you don't like what I've done. Both are tested with 2.6.0b2, I don't know how they'll work on other versions.

Cheers!

Form Validation With Class

Juicy Studios have written an intelligent way to validate forms: by using the DOM and simply applying a class to a form element based upon the validation rules you want to run on it.

So basically, using the script provided, you can validate an email address field by applying class="email" for the input field.

Read the full story...

Some Google Secrets Exposed

From the Virtual Handshake:

Intellectual property law is really screwy sometimes. In order to legally protect your IP, you have to make it public (eventually)

The good to come from this is that some of Google's ranking algorithm secrets have been revealed.

A few interesting points, including:

• Length of domain registration (longer is better)


• Speed with which links are acquired (slower is better)


• Frequency and amount of updates (again, neither extreme is good)

Much is common sense (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) but it's interesting that Google measures the speed at which you aquire inbound links. So any strategies involving aggressive link building may be best avoided. A longer-term plan might be best adopted, and this goes hand in hand with the frequency of updates. Looks like some things just can't be rushed.

Food for thought, anyway.

Modifying Styles with the DOM

Tony Aslett presented a tutorial at Brisbane's Web Standards Group meeting in April that very simply shows how to use the DOM (Document Object Model) to change classes and styles on the fly.

I wasn't at the meeting, but just the presentation on it's own is a useful resource.

Spyware in Acrobat Reader

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

A company called Remote Approach is using a feature in Adobe's PDF Reader to track how many times a PDF document has been accessed, according to a report in the Linux Weekly News.

For the feature to be used, a PDF had to be created, uploaded to the company's server to be tagged, and then distributed, the report said.

The tracking failed when the PDF was viewed by other readers such as Xpdf and Kpdf, and version 5 of Adobe Reader.

However, when the document was opened using Adobe Reader 7, Remote Approach began logging the number of times it was viewed from the IP address of the computer on which it was opened.

The information is submitted over port 80 using HTTP - the standard port for web servers - which no home or office firewall would normally block.

The tracking was being done using JavaScript, support for which had been added as a default setting to Adobe Reader 7 for Linux and since version 6 in versions for other platforms.

This one seems harmless enough, but opens the door for more dangerous things - time to disable JavaScript in newer versions of Adobe Reader?

Making IE behave a little better

Doxdesk.com has produced a JavaScript module so that min-height, max-height, min-width and max-width work on Internet Explorer for Windows..

I can hear Michael breathe a sigh of relief now...

From bits to a comp

Ever since I saw the concept of the Page Description Diagram I liked the idea. A simple way of sorting out what a page has to do without any other distractions.

Actually putting one together is a bit harder than I first thought. Where do you start?

Then Ryan Singer from 37 Signals penned An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design. Bingo - someone has joined the dots for me!

1. Make a list of your "bits"- everything on the page and anything that the visitor might have to do


2. Group them where they share some commonality


3. Prioritise them (Hey, the contents of a Page Description Diagram!)


4. Design each chunk, and then put those chunks together (Hey, a wireframe!)


5. Then design away (Hey, a comp!)

Following Ryan's steps would make it difficult to end up with a comp that didn't achieve what it was supposed to in terms of site goals.

Not impossible, mind you, but difficult.