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Using JavaScript to create zoom to images

Interesting piece of javascript that enables you to zoom in an image.

http://valid.tjp.hu/zoom/index_en.html

posted by Sandy @ 12/05/2005 05:18:00 PM 0 comments

The Search for PHP Gallery

This sounds familiar somehow, that I am in search and in test drive for an online photo gallery. Yes, I did the same thing to choose blogware, wiki, and forum for my website. And now I am back to the game of searching. This process is time-consuming and exhausting; I like to install and play with every single piece of program I can get my dirty hands on.

I am currently using Coppermine and I simply love it (my gallery). It is powerful, skinable, customizable, and hackable. It has very rich feature sets and a pretty well done admin page. Overall, it is definitely a "A" product.

At the same time I am using Gallery (my test gallery), which has an optional java client that you can install on your desktop for easier upload and image resize. It has a simpler interface, less intuitive admin features. But all in all, it's more compact than Coppermine and best yet, it does not require a database.

The only complaint I have against Coppermine is how it consumes a lot of bandwidth comparing to the other programs I am evaluating now. At this point, I am playing with Simple PHP Gallery from the author of Relatively Absolute website, Enhanced Simple PHP Gallery, YaPig Image Gallery, phpAutoGallery.

I have a few objectives in mind for this time of searching: 1) simple and clean interface; 2) light and fast; 3) intuitive and easy to navigate; 4) some admin features; 5) skinable. If I have time, I will provide a bit of overview late for each one that I evaluate.

Link:
- I found this from Hostcripts.com, which gives me a list of galleries to consider from
- Google also gives quite some sources to look at. Google Directory on Image Gallery

posted by Sandy @ 3/31/2005 11:22:00 PM 0 comments

Toshiba Laptop Battery Nightmare

I have had my new baby Toshiba M35X-S349 for a bit over two months. I loved the size, the bright screen, and light weight. But I am fed up with its battery problems.

At the beginning for a week or so, it was all great. Then there was one day that I had to use it for 8 hours or more for work with AC adaptor plugged in. It got hot of course, but it shut down by itself all at a sudden--battery was out.

What dah? I had the AC adapter plugged in! The AC light was green, meaning yes the AC adapter was hooked up alright and there was current going in the laptop. It was then that I discovered that the laptop was running from battery at the end of that day even though it was plugged into to AC power.

It was weird. But I would assume that with the AC power intact, it should at least attempt to charge the battery if it was running off from it. But alright alright, it might be because the laptop got too hot after long hour of usage. I could understand...

Second time, I got shocked to find out that the battery was running low again with AC in. I unplugged the power and plugged it back in. Yeah? It started charging again. How strange...

Some time later it happened again. I found out that there must be some problems with the battery or power supply or the connector. The battery would charge alright for a while, then the status would change to Online, Discharging all at a sudden. Most of the time it would go back to Online, Charging if I re-plugged in the power. However, this was not the way I would like to behave for a $1500 laptop.

I looked up online for possible solutions. I could not find anything from Toshiba's website about this. Only a few forums had posts with similar problem, yet, no replies.

The problem got worse after a month. More than 50% of the time unplugging could not do the trick any more. What's worse was that the battery light started to disappear whenever I turned on the computer. It would turn amber when the laptop was off, yet automatically turned off when it was powered on. Although the battery light was amber, it was not charging at all.

I finally found one, only ONE, post, somewhere, that some nice folks were all having the same problem as I did. I was relieved a bit, knowing that I was not only imagining it for it was nearly driving me nuts at that time.

It appeared that this problem was not known to Toshiba technical support people, although it was common among many people. There could be a fix, but at that time, none of the tech people were helpful.

Now my baby got so "ill" that 95% of the time it would not charge at all no matter what I do. I did the BIOS-battery reset cycle. I secured the battery. I unplugged and plugged power. The battery light just wouldn't go on at all!!

Frustration kicked in... I wanted to cry.. :'S Why on earth did I choose Toshiba? Even the ill-famed Sony had less problems than this.

It was a nightmare. And it's continuing...

Somebody.. Help me..

posted by Sandy @ 2/26/2005 03:02:00 PM 5 comments

50 Gmail Invites

Either it's just a bug, or that I really do have 50 gmail invitations. I guess I do. ;p (after checking some forums and google group)


Gmail invites snapshot


Post comments here if you want an invite.

posted by Sandy @ 2/02/2005 10:22:00 AM 1 comments

From Blogware to Wiki

No. I am not changing from blogs to WiKi. This page stays. So are the rest of my blogs. They are my precious babies, each operating/surviving with its own conscious mind..

I didn't say "from blogging to WiKi." Rather, I said, "blogware". There is a difference there.

To cut that short, I have been looking for an appropriate Wiki engine for my website.

How that whole idea began was that I had been trying to study for job interviews. I haven't get my resume quite together yet. But I do have to multitasking quite a lot (work, friends, parents, job hunting, study for interview, and my precious never ending development website) to get everything going at the same time.

Then I realized, how little did I know about WiKi, and how difficult it is to choose the right one!

I once wrote a blog about choosing a blogware for my site. I read reviews, installed, played with, and uninstalled WordPress, b2, b2evolution, plog, TextPattern, Serendipity, and Nucleus. I finally settled with WordPress. No more hunting around. It's just too time and energy consuming.. Actually I much prefer plog and TextPattern, but I had quite some problems with plog's template installation and uninstallation because I do not have root privilege.. Long story.

I thought I had learned my lesson. Unfortunately, I didn't.

Wiki opened up another big knowledge hole in me. I got sucked in almost immediately,, digging and poking at different choices, looking for reviews and comparisons websites. What I found was:
A list of Wiki Engines, equivalent to 17 printed pages!

This sounds more dreadful than the experience of looking for a blogware!

So far I have tried DokuWiki. It has a very simple and nice interface, WYSIWYG for editing, backtrack, revision history, doesn't require a database. Only problem I have so far is making it to run under Linux when I do not have root privilege. Once again, I am stuck.

I am not going to list all the wikis that I am going to try this time. I have a few more in mind. Perhaps I will write a little review and comparison of the ones I try next time. =)

To be continued...

posted by Sandy @ 1/31/2005 01:08:00 PM 2 comments