Have you guys heard of this “Lightbox JS” yet? It’s pretty cool way of displaying images.
It’s really neat and compatible across all modern browsers.

Lightbox JS is a simple piece of JavaScript that allows you to place images above the page rather than within. A thumbnail image can be clicked on to show the full size image ontop of the page which remains darkened in the background. Closing the overlayed image brings the webpage back to normal, the user never leaves the current page.

I got an idea to use this lightbox in a new section that I’m planning to add here. At the moment I’m a bit lazy to test it yet but one of our very own developer has already used that in the new revamp of FijiTimes site and it’s working like a charm. You can have a look at in the story section. Click on the story image to enlarge and see how it go. Cool huh!

Benefits
Places images above your current page, not within. This frees you from the constraints of the layout, particularly column widths.

Keeps users on the same page. Clicking to view an image and then having to click the back button to return to your site is bad for continuity (and no fun!).

More info on what/how to use LightBox JS can be find as follows:
# Lightbox JS by Lokesh Dhakar
# LightBox Gone Wild at particletree
# Working Samples at FijiTimes.com

Technorati Tags: LightBox JS, Development, Scripts

The Problem:
WinForm application to create and populate the development database.
The generated data, scripts and permissions files+folders are to be copied from the project folder to debug/release folder on a successful build.
Uses a pre-build event from ‘Project properties > Common Properties > Build Events’ of VS.Net 2003.
Uses xcopy to copy files and directories.

The Test and Check :

• Worked fine on my system a few week back,
• Working fine in other developers’ systems.
• xcopy syntax and output directory seem alrite as well.

The (!@#$%*&) Error:

Performing Pre-Build Event…
‘xcopy’ is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Project error: A tool returned an error code from the build event

Pre-Build Event failed

The Solution:
After a bit of googling, I found out that I’ve messed up the "Path" variables from the registry while trying to install php manually a few week back. Because of it none of my basic command prompt were working and definitely pre-build xcopy would not work.
The reference article said,
"If commands don’t work, then, the first thing you should check is the contents of your Path variable. At a bare minimum, your Path should start with the following:"

PATH=%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\system32\Wbem

The system registry environment variable type should be REG_EXPAND_SZ, not REG_SZ.
You can find the path by: cmd > regedit > browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment.

So…
I’ve changed my mess up path:
;C:\php;;C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QTSystem\

To the correct path:
C:\PROGRAM FILES\THINKPAD\UTILITIES;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files\ATI

Server\80\Tools\Binn;C:\php;C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QTSystem\

Well you don’t need all those paths, I just added a few from my friends’ paths to make mine more complete.

Remark:
# 3 days to figure out,
# 10 min to search for the solution,
# 2 min to fix the problem.

You SUX May!

So how do you like my new template? Pretty slick huh! Since I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.0, me loving the blue and now I got this matching blue “Squible” theme.

I love everything about, especially the main page, three layer style with flickr images. Only one problem, it’s not valid Xhtml. Live Search causing some invalidities. Will try solve that later, cos those search codes give me headache just by looking at it.

Oh yah this one got ajex commenting system and I’ve added live archives plugin for my archives page. It’s really cool, I just need to edit style sheet to reduce the font size.

Hmm what else? Yah that’s about it, so what do you think? Tell me if any errors you find or suggestions to improve the style.
Enjoy browsing.

I’m glad to announce the release of my very first theme “Little-May”.
You can choose it from two different versions : Pink and Grey.
Due to a number of complaints from reviewers, I have added grey version to suit male users.

Download “Little-May Themes” Here.

These themes are released under creative common license share alike. You can use in any non commercial sites.
Please link back to me or give proper credit for your usage.

Technorati Tags: Themes, Template, Blogger, Blogspot, Little-May, FreeTemplates

After many headaches, my very first blogger design has been accomplished for my blogspot site “Little Mayvelous Things“. There are a lot need fixing yet it’s up and running as planned.
The first impressions I’ve got from some reviewers (very unfavorable reviewers: my bro and sis), it’s was “Eeeuu PINK!”, “Too Childish”, “Very girlie”, “Too flowery”, etc etc…I was pretty disappointed that they didn’t like my design.
Nevertheless, my siblings are always too much pain in the … that I’m so use to ignoring them.
Anyway it took me the whole day and night to think of the layout, color, font and design as I never been good with designing.

I’m trying my hand on site designing and hope to design this main site when I have time. Blogger template is easier to redesign than wordpress cos’ blogger has only one file to think of where else WP involve lots of template files. Another reason I’m very slow in rework of mayvelous.com is that I have no php/mysql experience and never build a site using those. So cracking each WP theme templates line by line is very painful process especially when you’re not familiar with php coding.
Anyway now my first step of cracking blogger template has been done, there’ll be only sometime I manage to crack WP as well.
May be next year… will put that in my new year resolution.

So please do visit my newly redesigned site and review how you like or hate about it. Any help or suggestions regarding accessibility issues/errors are most welcome and will try to fix them as I can.
The design is still in progress with a few layout adjustment to made. Anyway I had a busy xmas weekend with that.
Hope you enjoy browsing “Little Mayvelous Things“.

Technorati Tags: redesign, template, theme, blogging, blogspot, sitereview

Last week my blog was down with some bugs. Here are fixes and some resolutions for those bugs.
The main issue was all about incompatibility between WP 1.5.2 and MySql 5.0.1 on IIS 6. My blog being on windows server with IIS 6 and the server was on move, I had a bit of headache moving around my nameservers and this bug fixing. Hopefully those are the last bug to fix and my blog seem working fine now. Anyway I compiled the following notes for whoever faces the same kind of bugs would fix theirs easily.

Version 1.5.2 is incompatible with mysql version 5.0.15 when installed on a server runing IIS 6.0. This appears to be related to variable type mis-matches that are more strictly enforced by mysql 5 than 4.1.

Error: 1 (The whole blog down with only that message)

Fatal error: Only variables can be passed by reference in …/home/blog/wp-includes/gettext.php on line 66

Fix: Error on function array_shift
search function readint()
Replace line 66 from:

return array_shift(unpack('V', $this->STREAM->read(4)));

to the following:

$tmp = unpack('V', $this->STREAM->read(4));
return array_shift($tmp);

and on in other functions array_shift

Ref: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/39279
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/48398

Error: 2 (Categories down with this message)

Fatal error: Only variables can be passed by reference in …/wp-includes/classes.php on line 629

Fix: Changing line 629 from:

$category = &get_category($this->get('cat'));

to something like:

$crom = $this->get('cat');
$category = &get_category($crom);

Ref: http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1614
http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1808

Error: 3 (Cannot add comment if you’re not login)

WordPress database error: [Out of range value adjusted for column 'user_id' at row 1]

Fix: Remove STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION from the sql_mode of my.ini

Ref: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/48933
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/48940
forums.eqdkp.com
http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?100,51432,51523
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=32071
http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=14256

One of the most annoying things to face early in the morning is not being connected to one of the damn servers where all the main project source safe DBs are.

You want to start your work nice and easy especially on Monday morning but some freaking reasons, it never happens.
One way or another my Monday mornings are spoiled by this kind of annoyance.

I just hope the connection doesn’t lost or my project gonna be in hell lotta mess.
Where are the system guys when you need one.
Oh I forgot, they always come after 10/11am. Very hard working freaks!!

And where is my coffee? Crap, my laptop low on power, forgot the damn recharger!
I hate Mondays! x-( x-(