Caffeinated Coding RSS feed

Automatic Color Palette from an Image - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:26:28 GMT

I just came across this little jem.

http://www.pictaculous.com/

This site allows you to upload an image and then presents you with a color palette to use in coordination with the image.

This is useful for web design, but also photoshop.

Enjoy

0 Comments

Renaming Files with a Date - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:02:31 GMT

What makes many windows system admins cringe? BATCH FILES Well, truth is they are not for the faint of heart. But batch files are just way too handy.
I just was presented by a colleague a problem of renaming a file to incorporate the date in the filename. Kindof a handy thing to do in coordination with other batch type tasks. Well, I wish I'd figured this one out, but thanks to the internet I have a cute little command that can be added to batch files or run from the command prompt to incorporate the date into a filename.

Here are the pieces.

1. GET THE DATE - If you type "echo %date%" into a command prompt you will get a lovely presentation of the date. This is an environment variable. All environment variables are precedded and followed by a %. Today looks like "Thu 04/02/2009"

2. FORMAT THE DATE - This is what got me... the date has slashes in it. Pretty much a no no for a filename, so we need to strip out the important info from the %date%. Well, there is a convention for extracting bits of a blob of text. In the date environemet variable we can follow the word date with a colon (:) a tilde (~) and two numbers separated by a comma to indicate the start position and number characters to extract from the larger bit of text. For example: if we want just the month from the day ("Thu 04/02/2009") we type the following.
%date:~4,2

the result is...
04

This is the result of skipping 4 characters and capturing the next 2.
Yipee! we have the month... following the same idea we can get the day, and year also.
(come on you know you want to open up a command line and give it a try...)
Lots more information on this page...http://www.dostips.com/DtTipsStringManipulation.php

3. RENAME THINGS - The rename command is much simpler to deal with than the date formatting. All you need to do is type RENAME or REN followed by two parameters. First is the filename as it is currently, and then the filename you want it to be. Like this...

REN nate.txt sexy.txt

Ya, all of you reading this are having error messges flash in your brain. Remember to place each parameter in double quotes if there happen to be spaces in the file name or path to the file.

4. PUT IT ALL TOGHETHER - Ok well put all those pieces together and we now have the tools to rename a file called happy.txt to 2009-04-02happy.txt by using the folloing command...

REN happy.txt %date:~10%-%date:~4,2%-%date:~7,2%happy.txt

This works by concatenating the year, month, day, and other text in the target filename.
Year = %date:~10%
Month = %date:~4,2%
Day = %date:~7,2%

Give it a go!

3 Comments

Handy developer tools as browser plugins or add ins - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:44:15 GMT

I wanted to open this up, so please comment or email me (nmcclena@esu10.org) your favorite developer tool that is incorporated into a browser. I'm just playing with "web developer" tool bar for firefox from Chris Pederick (http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/) and it has some nice tools to help troubleshoot your web code.

Add your favorites here.

2 Comments

Printer-friendly websites with CSS - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Recently I did a little study to investigate options for a solid printing foundation from a website. I did a lot of research and had fun investigating the w3c's css standard for alternate media types. Although I came to the conclusion that for rock solid printing, there is no alternative to PDF, I learned that there is considerable browser support for print media. With that said. the most valuable concept I gathered from my research was that it is quite easy using css to make an entire site much more printer-friendly.
Let me give my definition of printer-friendly. The ultimate would be complete control of the margins on the page and placement of all objects on the page and meaningful page breaks. Because of different browser implementations of the print media standard, this is a complete pipe dream. With that said, I consider printer-friendly to be a way to print the main content of a web page without cluttering up the printed page with web navigation or cute stuff.
Ok, enough yacking...

There are several ways to accomplish a different css application to page elements based on the media type. One can actually make 2 distinct .css files, one for web and one for print. Then in the page head create the link to each one. Another method is to include a block of css in the existing css file and enclose it in a @media print{} style rule. Either way, browsers are smart enough to use the correct css for the media it is trying to present. I found the best way to test this is by using the print preview option available in most modern browsers.

Here is an example. For a simple page with a menu block on the left and a content area on the right, we might have an html block that looks like this...

<div class=page>
    <div class = menu> Menuy things </div>
    <div class = content> Content Stuff </div>
</div>

A typical css file might set the layout for the menu to be on the left and the content in the middle using a style like this...

.page {width:500px; }
.menu {width:200px; float:left; }
.content { width:300px; }

But by adding another set of styles we can hide the menu for print media like this...

@media print
{
.page {width:7in; }
.menu {display:none; }
.content { width:7in; }
}

This style will only be applied for printing. The main differences are that the menu class has display:none; which hides that block and I use inches as units rather than pixels. I like to specify the width to avoid things that extend off the right hand of the printed page. Again, double check by using the print preview feature in your browser.

Try it out yourself with this code.

Enjoy

1 Comments

BBPS Website & Professional Pages (bye-bye Manila) - Jim Ingram

Jim Ingram — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:26:28 GMT

With the demise of Manila, Broken Bow is looking for a different way to provide teachers with a professional web presence. The probable adoption of web apps like Blackboard and the move toward Web 2.0 apps parcels out many of the reasons for a professional web page to a collection of more specialized systems. As a result, the ubiquitous "professional web page (every teacher should have one)" is being gradually eviscerated. There are already schools in Nebraska that are using one-to-one and have completely dropped the use of individual teacher professional web pages. Our approach will probably be to drop back from "every teacher must have one" to "teachers who want one in addition to what's on Blackboard and Infinite Campus already can have one."

Manila's exit from the scene has a bearing on the development of a different approach. First, it is driving the timeline for adoption. It's our intent to drop Manila as of the end of the 2009 Spring semester, and a replacement solution must be in place before then. Second, Manila's long use in the District has a host of difficulties and complaints that we think can be corrected in a new system. (It's not that we don't like WordPress, it's just that we don't necessarily agree that every computer user and their dog must blog and that the jury's still out for us.) Complaints include:

I have to remember a separate login ID and password
Pages have to be created in Manila, so I have to learn a whole different editing system
Drag and drop from Microsoft Word doesn't work, so I wind up having to type things twice
Keeping up my web pages is always an additional task, and I don't have the time

Local resources may lend themselves to an elegant solution. (1) Microsoft IIS is capable of serving out pages from "webshare" folders located in teachers' network home directories, and we are already using it for many other purposes. (2) Microsoft Office (the District's standard application software platform) is capable of producing robust static web pages to put in the webshare folders. Links between pages would have to be managed manually, but the effort to do so is no greater than the effort to do so in Manila -- maybe less. (3) I'm functionally fluent in ASP (including ADSI interface access to Active Directory), HTML, CSS and SQL, and somewhat less fluent in PHP. I certainly don't consider myself to be anything close to "expert." (4) We have Sharepoint installed, and are considering that as part of the local mix.

Having said all that, here's the vision and the problem:

Professional pages should be created and maintained in Word 2007, and stored/served from a webshare subfolder in the individual's home directory. Security permissions for editing vs. reading should be controlled by NTFS/Active Directory. A Microsoft SQL 2000 Desktop instance has been created on the IIS server to support the website, but no tables have been created yet.

Somewhere somehow the professional pages need to be encapsulated in a template wrapper (the template is already fully developed using CSS floated boxes, and can be seen at http://services.bbps.org/theme3/index.asp). The Word-created HTML pages should appear in the large white section to the right of the navigation menu.

The problem so far has been that Word-created HTML pages include their own styles, fonts, and tags. If the file is simply imported into it's proper sequence in the template, you have nested <HTML>, <META>, <HEAD>, <STYLE> and <BODY> tags that are consequently misinterpreted. I'm in the process of experimenting with framesets, but understand that frames have been deprecated. If I store the Word-created pages as BLOBs in the SQL database, it's still not a matter of just adding the template segments around them -- the nested tags still exist. Of course, Manila accomplished this by requiring use of their own HTML editor that couldn't understand the complex markup in Word documents. And storing them in SQL implies a two-step update process: (1) open the document in Word and make the change, then (2) upload it to SQL again. Ideally, it should be enough to just open it in Word, make the changes, and save it again, just like any other document.

So what I really need to do is display NESTED web pages (a web page inside another web page), where both the inner and outer pages are fully independent and standards-compliant.

So... any ideas?

2 Comments

Fun Little Word Puzzle Game - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

I've had fun making dumb little programs for fun. The inspiration for this came from the need to host a gathering where some group games were to be played. So knowing that I could project my screen from my laptop I created this game to have a little fun. It is a very basic version of hangman or Wheel of Fortune. I've zipped up the source code and exe in this attached file. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

WordPuzzle.zip

Note: Requires .NET Framework 2.0 or greater.

0 Comments

JavaScript (part 2 of 2) - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: Part 1

Hey TECHS students! Here's the second half of chapter 53: Javascript. There aren't any videos in this part as I'm wanting to clean them up and make them a bit easier. But here's the source files used as you'll see in the video on myelearning.org. These videos assume you've already been through the first half of the chapter, and are a continuation of how to use javascript in an HTML document.

There are currently three videos in the second half of this chapter:

Functions 9:40
Parameters 8:30
Events 8:05

You may download the initial document as it appears at the beginning of the first video to get started. You may also download each document as it appears at the end of each video and test them out on your own!

For more info and training on JavaScript, visit http://www.w3schools.com/JS/. You will find plenty of easy and straight-forward examples of functionality in JavaScript, with an easy-to-find index and even a how-to page for each that allows you to test changes to their example code! If you want to read some more, start at Wikipedia's JavaScript page.

If you have any questions, drop us a comment below--we'd love to hear from you! Happy JavaScripting! :)

2.1 Functions 9:40

html document

2.2 Parameters 8:30

html document

2.3 Events 8:05

html document

0 Comments

Lesson 1 - HTML - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Below are the videos for the HTML portion of the techs class.

Segment 1 - Tools

Visual Studio - https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/
Edit Plus - http://www.editplus.com/
Eclipse - http://www.eclipse.org/

Segment 2 - HTML intro

Segment 3 - Class project

Nate's Sample Project - http://www.caffeinatedcoding.org/examples/todo/todo.htm
Brian's Sample Project - http://www.caffeinatedcoding.org/examples/ilikeswitchfoot/index.html
Adam's Sample Project - http://www.caffeinatedcoding.org/examples/rockpaperscissors/index.html

Segment 4 - Headings

Segment 5 - Attributes

Segment 6 - Lists

Segment 7 - Breaks

Segment 8 - HTML Origins - Who came up with all this anyway?

W3C - World wide web consortium - http://www.w3.org/

Segment 9 - Links

Segment 10 - Images

There are lots more things to explore in HTML, but the previous vidoes cover the most common things.

0 Comments

JavaScript (part 1 of 2) - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: Part 2

Hey TECHS students! Here's the first half of chapter 53: Javascript. These videos assume you've already been through the HTML (1) and CSS (1,2,3,4) lessons, and are an introduction to using JavaScript and how to add it to an HTML document. If you've already been through this part, you may continue on to the second half of the chapter.

There are six videos in the first half of this chapter:

Intorduction 4:27
Changing Style 5:33
Changing Content 6:11
Branching 6:21
Looping 7:37
Comments 5:42

If you have trouble watching the videos on this page, you can also find them on youtube. After each video is a link to youtube as well as the final HTML document as shown in the video. Feel free to create the document yourself as you follow along, or download each document and test them out on your own!

You may download the initial document as it appears at the beginning of the first video to get started.

For more info and training on JavaScript, visit http://www.w3schools.com/JS/. You will find plenty of easy and straight-forward examples of functionality in JavaScript, with an easy-to-find index and even a how-to page for each that allows you to test changes to their example code! If you want to read some more, start at Wikipedia's JavaScript page.

If you have any questions, drop us a comment below--we'd love to hear from you! Happy JavaScripting! :)

Introduction 4:27 (1 of 6)

youtube link
html document

Changing Style 5:33 (2 of 6)

youtube link
html document

Changing Content 6:11 (3 of 6)

youtube link
html document

Branching 6:21 (4 of 6)

youtube link
html document

Looping 7:37 (5 of 6)

youtube link
html document

Comments 5:42 (6 of 6)

youtube link
html document

0 Comments

CSS Lesson 1 of 4: What’s CSS and Why Do We Need It? - Adam Griebel

Adam Griebel — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:00:00 GMT

CSS Lesson 1 of 4: What’s CSS and Why Do We Need It?

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a powerful way to add styling and to control a web site’s appearance.

CSS was created to work along side HTML, however it is a different language compared to HTML. You can use CSS to control everything from the color of your text to how far apart elements are spaced on your page. CSS will also let you change the color and background of an element as well as adding borders to an element. It will even allow you to do more advanced stuff like popup windows. One of the real benefits of CSS is it allows web designers to separate the content from the presentation and have all of a site’s presentational information in one location.

The "cascading" in "cascading style sheets" is basically the order of precedence that the browser uses to apply style rules. If there are any conflicting declarations, the cascade is the process that sorts it all out and determines which rule will finally win. In other words, the style rule with the highest precedence is the one that is used. One of the simplest forms of precedence is that the style that has been declared last on the page is the one that will be applied – that is, if all other things are equal.

Now that I have given you a brief synopsis of what CSS is, let’s talk about why we need it. In the beginning, well before CSS at least, HTML was used to control the presentational aspects of a page. With web sites becoming increasingly complex, a majority of the code merely determined the appearance of a web site. While this did not create any problems for the end user, it made web site maintenance especially difficult and time-consuming. For example, to change the color of your links, you would need to go to each and every link and change it manually.

So in 1995, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) began working on a solution. By 1996, the W3C came up with, you guessed it, CSS. Using CSS to move the presentational information out of the HTML document not only makes web sites easier to update and maintain, but it also has several other benefits, such as cleaning up the code, making the web sites easier to be indexed by search engines, and making websites more compatible with screen readers. CSS also gives you more options and can make a much richer looking web page than HTML ever could.

Resources for CSS Class
Rock Paper Scissors Demo
RockPaperScissors.zip
lesson4.zip
Pixie (Windows Only)

Notes for Mac Users: If you are having trouble using "TextEdit" to view the code of the HTML files, open up the preferences of TextEdit and under "Open and Save" make sure "Ignore rich text commands in HTML files" is checked.

Instead of using Pixie to grab the hex value of a color you can use the Digital Color Meter in the Utilities folder in Applications. Select "RGB As Hex Value, 8-bit" from the drop down list in Digital Color Meter and when you are over a color you like do a shift-comand-c to copy the value to the clipboard. For some reason when you paste the hex value it has quotation marks around it so don't forget to remove them.

Some Great Websites to Learn More About CSS
The W3C CSS Home Page
W3Schools CSS Tutorial
Zen Garden

1 Comments

CSS Lesson 2 of 4: CSS Placement - Adam Griebel

Adam Griebel — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:00:00 GMT

CSS Lesson 2 of 4: CSS Placement

CSS can be placed in three different places in your web site. First, it can be placed in-line within an individual element. Second, it can be inserted at the top of a single web site page. Lastly, it can be in an external CSS file.

In-Line Style
The easiest way, although probably not the most recommended way, to add a CSS style to an element is to put it directly in the tag. You can add an in-line style to any HTML tag as long as it is within the BODY tags of your page. For example, if you wanted to make all of the text within a div tag red, you would do the following:

<div style="color:Red;">Hello there.</div>

You just want to make sure that you do not forget your semi-colons and quotation marks. One thing to note here is that in-line style declarations will get the highest precedence in the cascade and will be applied over any other conflicting rules. Like I said, this is not considered the best way to set a CSS style to a tag. It is little better than the old way of just using basic HTML. Setting all of your styles this way would make your code harder to read and even harder to maintain. But there are times when it can be very handy, especially when creating a web site and you are troubleshooting a particular CSS error or when you want to apply a style quickly so you can see how it looks.

CSS for One Page
If you just want your CSS rules to affect one web page, you can put your CSS all in one location in the HEAD of your document. All you need to do is use the style tag in the head of your web page. The following example tells the browser to show any text within an element that has the class "blue-text" with a blue color and to show any text within an element that has the class "red-text" with a red color.

<head>
    <title>my awesome webpage</title>
    <style type="text/css">
        .blue-text { color:Blue; }
        .red-text { color:Red; }
    </style>
</head>

Site-Wide Style Sheets
The third and most common way to add CSS to your web page is to use an external file with all your CSS rules in it. There is nothing really all that special about the CSS file itself. It is just a plain text file with an extension of .css. You just need to make sure you remember to tell your web page where the CSS file is by adding a link tag in the HEAD of your web page. In your link tag, just make sure you include rel="stylesheet". By the way, "rel" stands for relation. Make sure to set the type to text/css. This is very important because it tells the browser how to import the data.

<link href="/default.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

0 Comments

CSS Lesson 3 of 4: CSS Structure - Adam Griebel

Adam Griebel — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:00:00 GMT

CSS Lesson 3 of 4: CSS Structure: Part 1

CSS Lesson 3 of 4: CSS Structure: Part 2

A CSS statement or “rule” has two main parts: the selector and the declaration. Let's take a look at the selector first.

Element Selectors
There are several different types of selectors. The most basic type of selector is the HTML element itself. This allows you to easily apply a set of rules to a certain element type all at once. For example, if you wanted to make all of the text within a H1 blue, you would do the following:

h1 { color:Blue; }

You can even use two or more elements at the same time as the selector. You just need to separate them with a comma. There is really no limit on how many selectors you can have.

h1, h2, h3 { color:Blue; }

Class Selectors
Another way to apply styles to elements is to use the class selector. Instead of having an element name as a selector, you use a class name preceded by a period. The period must always be used before the class name because that is what marks it as a class selector. Using a class selector is probably the most common and beneficial way to add styles to a web site as it enables you to be more selective on which elements the style is applied to. To use a class with a certain element, simply set its class attribute to the name of the class. In fact, you can even set several classes to a single element. Just make sure you have a space between the different class names. And don't forget that CSS class names are case sensitive.

<html>
   <head>
       <style type="text/css">
           .blue-text { color:Blue; }
       </style>
   </head>
   <body>
       <div class="blue-text">
           This text is blue.
       </div>
   </body>
</html>

ID Selectors
ID Selectors are used a lot like the class selectors but there are a few differences. Instead of using a period like with the class selectors, you need to use a pound (#) sign, or as I like to call it, the little itty-bitty tic-tac-toe sign. To use an ID selector, you use the ID attribute of the element. Unlike classes, IDs can only be used once per page since IDs have to be unique for that HTML page. Also, don’t forget that just like classes, ID selectors are also case sensitive.

<html>
   <head>
       <style type="text/css">
           #blue-div { color:Blue; }
       </style>
   </head>
   <body>
       <div id="blue-div">
           This text is blue.
       </div>
   </body>
</html>

The Declaration
The correct syntax for a declaration is a property followed by a colon and then a value followed by a semicolon.

h1 { color:Blue; }

In this example "h1" is the selector, "color" is the property, and "Blue" is the value.

One thing to note is that syntax is very important when writing out your declarations. If you make a mistake or have an invalid declaration or keyword, then the whole rule will just be ignored.

Just like you can group selectors together to make a single rule, you can also group declarations together into a single rule.

h1 { color:Blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; }

This is definitely the preferred way of defining multiple styles for a single selector. Just remember to put a semicolon after each declaration. While it might be valid CSS to leave a semicolon after your last declaration, it is generally not considered good practice and I wouldn’t recommend it.

0 Comments

CSS Lesson 4 of 4: Let's Write Some CSS Already! - Adam Griebel

Adam Griebel — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:00:00 GMT

In this lesson we will write a simple 2 column layout using CSS.

Here is the source code for the demo: lesson4.zip
Here is a link to the color picker program (Windows only): Pixie

Mac users: instead of using Pixie to grab the hex value of a color you can use the Digital Color Meter in the Utilities folder in Applications. Start it up and select "RGB As Hex Value, 8-bit" from the drop down list. Then when you are over a color you like do a shift-comand-c to copy the value to the clipboard. For some reason when you paste the value it has quotation marks around them so don't forget to remove them.

CSS Lesson 4 of 4: Let's Write Some CSS Already!: Part 1

CSS Lesson 4 of 4: Let's Write Some CSS Already!: Part 2

CSS Lesson 4 of 4: Let's Write Some CSS Already!: Part 3

CSS Lesson 4 of 4: Let's Write Some CSS Already!: Part 4

CSS Lesson 4 of 4: Let's Write Some CSS Already!: Part 5

0 Comments

Adam Griebel's Unauthorized Autobiography - Adam Griebel

Adam Griebel — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 05:00:00 GMT

While growing up in the small town of Sargent, Nebraska, I knew early on that I wanted to be a programmer and spent most of my free time working on computers and electronics. In fact, the first computer I ever programmed on was an Apple IIe using BASIC. It wasn't easy being the smartest kid in school, but I really think it prepared me for working with my co-workers, Nate and Brian. It taught me patience in dealing with those less gifted intellectually. My current position as one of the three .NET programmers at ESU 10 has afforded me the opportunity to work on a variety of websites, which have been challenging each in their own way. Whenever I have free time, I enjoy photography, reading, gaming, programming, creating and maintaining websites, and spending time with my wife Janae and our son Aiden.

0 Comments

XML Log file in a VB.Net Windows Forms Application - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:00:00 GMT

I figured out this way to implement a log file for an application by using an xml file and adding it to the final compliation.

In the solution add a new xml file.
In the properties of that file, there are 2 things to set, the build action and the copy to output direcotry.

Make sure the build action is Content
Make sure the Copy to Output Directory is Copy if newer

The settings for the "copy to output directory" are "Do not copy", "Copy Always" and "Copy if Newer"
The do not copy option doesn't put a file into the final build directory, and if this is selected, a relative reference to the file cannot be obtained. The copy always option copies the file as it exists to the build directory for every build, and therefore will delete any changes you made programmatically. This is not desirable when you are testing. The copy if newer allows for only copying the file over if the original file has changed and therefore has a newer timestamp.

These settings ensure that the file is copied to the bin/debug folder on a build. Then one can reference the xml file in a relative manner so the path need not be known.

Here is an example of a routine to open a log file and append an entry.

Public Shared Sub AddEntryToLog()
    Dim xmlDoc As New System.Xml.XmlDocument()
    xmlDoc.Load("Logs.xml")
    Dim objElement As Xml.XmlElement = xmlDoc.CreateElement("entry")
    objElement.InnerText = "Added a log entry."
    objElement.SetAttribute("date", "4/2/2008")
    xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("logs").AppendChild(objElement)
    xmlDoc.Save("Logs.xml")
End Sub

Here is the log file with the entry from above.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<logs>
<entry date="4/2/2008">Added a log entry.</entry>
</logs>

1 Comments

Sample Project: To Do List - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Here is a sample project that can be used as an example for the TECHS class.

http://www.caffeinatedcoding.org/examples/todo/todo.htm

When you enter text into the textbox and once you hit enter(firefox only) or tab, then the page starts a list with the text that was entered into the textbox. If you don't like the item in the list, click on the text and it is removed.

This is kindof a dumb thing, but it demonstrates how html, CSS, and Javascript can work together.
Below is the code...

For fun put it into a page on your computer and play with it. Who cares if you screw it up, you can always come back here and get it again.

          if (blnAlternate == true)
         {
                   lstItem.innerHTML= "<span class='listitem-alt' onclick=RemoveItem('" + txtItem.value + "')>" + txtItem.value + "</span>" ;
                         blnAlternate = false;
                        }
     else
         {
           lstItem.innerHTML= "<span class='listitem' onclick=RemoveItem('" + txtItem.value + "')>" + txtItem.value + "</span>" ;
                         blnAlternate = true;
                         };

           lstToDo.appendChild(lstItem);
            txtItem.value='';
           focus=txtAddItem;

       };

   };


  function RemoveItem(strItem)
  {
      var lstToDo = document.getElementById("lstToDo");
      for (index=0;index<= lstToDo.childNodes.length;index+=1)
      {
      var lstItem = document.createElement("li");
      lstItem = lstToDo.childNodes[index];

      if (lstItem.innerHTML.indexOf(strItem) > 0)
          {
              lstToDo.removeChild(lstItem);
          };
      };
  }
  //-->
    </script>

    <div id="divAddBox" class="inputbox">
    Build your own todo list<br />
    Enter items in the box below and they will appear in the todo list.
        <input type="text" id="txtAddItem" onchange="AddItem()" />
    </div>
    <div id="divList" class="listbox">
        <ol id="lstToDo" class="list"></ol>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

0 Comments

AT4All - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: www.at4all.com

AT4ALL (Assistive Technology for All) is a free service from the Assistive Technology Partnership. Once you have set up an account you can list your own assistive technology items for sale or giveaway.

AT4ALL has a variety of equipment available for all of your needs. Equipment available includes: computers, wheelchairs & scooters, walkers, personal care items, items for vision and hearing impairments, hospital beds, and adapted vehicles.

At AT4ALL you can find equipment for loan, for sale, or for giveaway. You can also find equipment from local lending programs to try out before you buy.

AT4All   www.at4all.com   (Nebraska)
ICAN   equipment.arkansas-ican.org   (Arkansas)
South Dakota At4All   www.sd.at4all.com   (South Dakota)
Idaho Assistive Technology for All   www.idaho.at4all.com   (Idaho)
Wyoming Assistive Technology for All   www.wy.at4all.com   (Wyoming)
INData   www.indata.at4all.com   (Indiana)

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DACS - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: www.dacspro.com

DACS (Documentation, Accountability, and Communications System) is a completely new system enhancing existing business processes. It is a system used by non-educational entities within city and county government offices.

Documentation

DACS records all conversations and items related to conversations allowing users to easily access historical information quickly.

Accountability

DACS stores information allowing manager to quickly see time spent on projects, key participants, and conversation response time.

Communication

DACS informs users of updates that require their attention via email and alarm. DACS allows for easy workgroup collaboration on distinct problems or tasks using work queues that the DACS support team assists you in building.

DACS current customers include:
Arapahoe Public Library
Buffalo County
Buffalo County Community Partners
Buffalo County EDC
Bush Family Dentistry
City of Kearney
Kearney Eye Institute
Kearney Family Practice
Techconnectors
The Tooth Fairy

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ESU 13 - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: www.esu13media.org

ESU 13 is the system we created for ESU 13 to use to manange their own information and communication. It is based on ODIE, but has been customized for their use.

ESU 13 has it's own accounts, separate from ODIE's accounts, as well as their own library available online.

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ESUPDO - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: www.esupdo.org

We created ESUPDO's website (Educational Service Unit Professional Development Organization), a cooperative effort by the ESUs across Nebraska. Below is the list of affiliates within ESUPDO that can manage their own publications, workshops, and registrations on the site.

ESUPDO Affiliates
SDA (Staff Development Affiliate)
NOC (Network Operations Committee)
TAG   (Technology Affiliate Group)
ESPD   (ESU Special Populations Directors Organization)
IMAT   (Instructional Materials)
Distance Education
ESUAA   (Educational Service Unit Administrators Affiliate)
PDO   (Professional Development Organization)

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ODIE - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: odie.esu10.org

ODIE (Open Door Information Exchange) is a comprehensive data warehouse that allows users to track information related to themselves and their school districts. Released in the fall of 2002, ODIE has since grown to manage all communication between ESU 10's Network and Information Services department and the school districts we serve. Information in ODIE falls under the following categories:

Accounts
ODIE manages the accounts of teachers and the school districts and buildings at which they are located. ODIE also manages the contracts between ESU 10 and the school districts we serve, as well as the billing statements that are created each month from the Network and Information Services department.

Helpdesk
ODIE allows teachers to request assistance with technological problems from their school district's Lan-Manager. ODIE also manages the issues for which the Lan-Managers request help from ESU 10's helpdesk. Each helpdesk ticket has a requesting account and building from which they come, a problem type to allow for easier searching, and the possibility of being associated with computers and other network devices. The helpdesk also includes standard solutions, which are documented problems and solutions that may occur frequently for easy reference.

Hardware
ODIE manages each school's computer and network inventory. ODIE also manages the computers and devices that are sent to ESU 10's computer repair department, allowing for a repair history to be tracked for each device.

Workshops
ODIE allows teachers to easily register for one of the many workshops offered by the Network and Information Services, Special Education, and Professional Development departments at ESU 10. ODIE tracks the registrants of each workshop as well as the training history for each teacher that has attended more than one of the workshops available.

Library
ODIE allows teachers access to ESU 10's media catalog, both to the videos that get sent to via the routes that ESU 10 runs to each school each week, as well as the digital content as it becomes available for streaming and download.

Miscellaneous
ODIE also tracks all the miscellaneous services that the Network and Information Services department provides for our school districts. These services include:

Binding
Cisco Academy Support
Contracted Services
E-Rate Consortium
Equipment Resale
Greater Nebraska Educational Network Consortium (formerly Project 42)
Infrastructure Support
Internet Filtering
Lamination
Materials
Standards Database
TECHS (Technology Education Challenges in High Schools)
Vendor Fees
Video Duplication
WebEvent Calendars

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ODIE Communities - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: communities.esu10.org

The ESU 10 Network & Information Services department staff has created an online community framework allowing groups of people, or communities, to stay in touch and share resources. This technology allows groups to collaborate, contribute information and ideas, participate in discussions, upload files, and other activities to the community. Not only will this be a repository and archive for such activities, this virtual environment will allow for collaboration when it is sometimes hard to meet face to face because of time and budget issues.

Communities use ODIE for authentication. That means you can use your existing ODIE account (email address and password), and not have to create another account for each community. If you don't have one, you may request a new ODIE account.

If you have any questions about your ODIE account, about what a community is, or anything else we might be able to assist you with, please let us know.

List of Communities

Caffeinated Coding www.caffeinatedcoding.org
Lan-Manager's Community lanman.communities.esu10.org

1 Comments

OTTER - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: otter.esu13.org

OTTER is the system we created for ESU 15 to use to manange their own information and communication. It is based on ODIE, but has been customized for their use.

OTTER has it's own accounts, separate from ODIE's accounts, as well as their own helpdesk tickets and standard solutions.

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Standards - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Link: standardsdata.esu10.org

The Standards Tracking Database was created to assist school districts in tracking the assessments and student's current levels required to report the appropriate information to the state department of education at the end of each school year.

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Embedding a google calendar - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

I just wanted to try this trick. I was looking at google calendar stuff...
http://code.google.com/apis/calendar/

So in there using the calendar helper, I'm putting my calendar onthis page...

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Brian Schanbacher's Life - Brian Schanbacher

Brian Schanbacher — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

I grew up in Clay Center before coming to Kearney to attend UNK. Currently, I program websites for ESU 10. I enjoy managing the data and trying to make it accessible through simple, intuitive web interfaces. I also enjoy the challenge of using an ever-changing set of tools to create and improve each website. My other hobbies include sports and outdoor activities, children’s ministry, spending quality time with family and friends, reading, and the internal combustion engine. :)

5 Comments

Coding Resources - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

"It's not what you know, its knowing where to find what you don't know" - Nate

Probably the most interesting thing about working in the computer industry in general is that you most of the time have to find what you need to know, not just take a class and be endowed with information to take you through. We have compiled a list of some resources that you may find helpful.

Suggested Text Editors for Web Development...

Visual Studio 2008 - https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/
Eclipse - http://www.eclipse.org/
Dream Weaver - http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/?ogn=EN_US-gntray_prod_dreamweaver_home
Edit Plus - http://www.editplus.com/
Notepad - Windows
TextEdit - Apple

Suggested Image Editors

Photoshop - http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/
Paint .NET - http://www.getpaint.net/

This is a list of some places we use for online reference when we are coding.

Coding for fun - http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/
    A place to see interesting projects that people have done as hobby coders.

W3Schools - http://www.w3schools.com/
    Excellent resource for many of the web technologies needed to build.

MS Visual Studio Express Beginner Developer Learning Center - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/default.aspx
    A nice place to get started for novice developers, or just the curious.

tlbox - http://www.tlbox.com/
    This site has many tools (little helps) in most common web languages that assist in web development.

Free programmer reference ebooks for many different languages.

Computer-Books.us - http://www.computer-books.us/
2020ok - http://2020ok.com/
TechToolBlog - http://www.techtoolblog.com/archives/195-free-online-programming-books
eBookLobby - http://www.ebooklobby.com/index.php?cid=6

Programmer Tutorials - http://www.programmertutorials.com/

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A place for coders - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Welcome to Caffeinated Coding.

We are a band of geeks in need of a place to congregate. We encourage consumption of coffee, diet Mt. Dew, or Dr. Pepper to make things more lively. We love geeky things... gadgets, toys, legos. We especially love coding. We specialize in ASP.NET web database programming, but like any true geek, we are not opposed to playing with any type of code. Coding is a passion for us because we like building things. There is always room to make things better and more precise. It allows us a world where there is beauty and elegance even in something as trivial as a user login screen. God has given man the ability to create. Some build magnificent buildings; some paint breathtaking images, some form scuptures; we create programs with ones and zeros and in so doing worship the God who gave us the passion to do so.

Enjoy the site, participate, join us in our passion and consumption of all things caffeinated.

The caffeinated coders - Adam, Brian, and Nate

2 Comments

Nathan McClenahan's Life - Nathan McClenahan

Nathan McClenahan — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Currently I’m a programmer for ESU 10 and IDES working with the best buds imaginable. I have 4 kids and an awesome wife who still loves me after 16 years of marriage. I like to geocache, code, build things with my hands and eat. Coffee is good. I like to be active in our church by helping with the kids programs. My favorite thing about coding is helping create a program that simplifies the user’s life.

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