We’ve just heard that a new malware (software designed to infiltrate and/or damage a computer) is spreading like wildfire through MSN Messenger.

The Trojan is an IRC bot which sends itself in a .zip file, either as a file including the word ‘pics’ with a double extension executable (DSC00432.jpg.exe) or with the name ‘images’ as a .pif executable (IMG34814.pif).

It was first detected on Sunday 18th November - and was found to be spreading at the rate of several hundred machines per hour. As well as being spread by unknown users, the Trojan is also able to pass itself on as if being sent by known contacts.

You can read more about it here.

Just found this simple but effective javascript code, utilising the invaluable jquery library to create linked select lists. You select the first list and it magically goes off and generates the options in the 2nd and 3rd lists. This in itself isn’t anything particularly ground breaking, but this code connects to the database on-demand, then generates the menu options via a JSON response. I’ve just downloaded the code and at first glance it looks very tidy.

I’m not sure where I’ll manage to build this into a site just yet, but it’s nice to know if I ever do need it, there is a solution out there.
Maybe it could be used on registration forms where you want people to specify where they live… Getting the data itself could be tricky. Or maybe selecting categories/sub categories for a search. If only they had UK counties and cities in the attached db file too, now that would be handy!

Anyway here’s the code

It occurred to me the other day, just how much affiliate marketing is like playing monopoly! It’s probably the reason I like it so much. Everyone trying to make it around the board, picking up as many properties as they can, in the hope that some will make decent returns.

Trying to decide whether to split investments and grab as many cheap properties as possible, or spend time and hold out for the major cash collectors of Mayfair and Park Lane… Of course we all pay for the privilege of playing, some of us have even sacrificed daylight to carry on the game. Social lives certainly go out the window for the dedicated affiliate gamer. All in the hope that don’t go bankrupt before passing go and collecting our £200. Every now and then we might strike it lucky and land on Free Parking, or win the occasional beauty contest… a trip to Las Vegas perhaps… And sometimes we get stung with ‘building repairs’ in the form of a lawsuit, unpaid commissions, untracked sales, or some other freeloading corporation who grow thanks to our efforts, then dump us at the first opportunity.

Then again maybe it’s more like snakes and ladders, it certainly feels like that at times, and anyone who’s run an SEO site I’m sure will agree! Just when you think it’s safe to relax, the SERPs are turned upside down and you have to start all over again…

I think some people definitely like playing Snap, when it comes to thinking of new ideas and even site designs…

But at the end of the day, it’s all fun and games!

I’m always looking for cool new effects to build into our sites. It can be tricky to balance out supporting older browsers and keeping things interesting, not only for our visitors/clients, but also for myself! I’ve been experimenting with a few cool CSS effects and AJAX widgetty things lately, including editinplace functionality and a very cool AJAX image uploading feature, both of which I’m building into our new small business website software. I’m sure I’ll blog about that some time soon, but for now here’s a link to another cool effect I’ve discovered. Infact it isn’t anything particularly new really. The technology has been around for a while! It uses opacity filters to dim out the background of the page, while highlighting the all important popup information in the middle. I’ve not used this before on any sites as yet, but assuming IE6 supports it I have the perfect application for it in a project I’m working on at the moment… Again, more details to follow!

http://dbachrach.com/blog/2006/10/09/a-cool-css-effect-dashboard/

Some great links to resources for design tutorials, inspiration, tools, code libraries, browser bugs, galleries, templates, articles and web forums.

http://www.softwaredeveloper.com

Anyone who has ever made a website, then tried to make it look the same for everyone will have come up against the nightmare that is cross-browser compatibility. Things are no doubt easier than they used to be. Back in the days of ie4/5 and Netscape you practically had to have different versions of your website, or atleast different javascript files. Nowadays the main issues tend to be around CSS and often relate to IE’s inability to abide by the rules. Much of this has been fixed in IE7, infact off the top of my head I can’t think of any issues I’ve personally had with IE7, but unfortunately there are still bazillions of IE6 infected computers which the poor web designer is obliged to support.

In the past I’ve used many a hack to get the job done, but a ‘nicer’ way of doing things is to use conditional comments. Why not take a look for yourself on Bruce’s website.

http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/index.php/2005/future-proof-your-css-with-conditional-comments/