SVG Helps Us Waste Even More Time

As if Flash games weren’t enough, Holger has released a new web-browser game written in SVG: Sokoban. This puzzle game is fun and challenging, but at 60 levels, it’s unlikely that anyone is going to sit through them all. It’s a shame that the game doesn’t save a cookie and remember which level you’ve made it to (hint hint, Holger).

To play the above, your browser needs to support SVG (a relatively new web-based graphics standard). Until Mozilla Firefox 1.1 is released, I recommend you download the Adobe SVG Viewer plugin. For Internet Explorer, click here. For Mozilla Firefox, follow the instructions at the bottom of this page.

§87 · April 27, 2005 · Entertainment, Games, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on SVG Helps Us Waste Even More Time ·

PHP Gotcha

After I wrote this entry, I knew I had forgotten one “gotcha” from my little Remote Scripting experience. I remembered it today. It involves PHP and the annoying aspect of having to declare within a function when you want to use a global variable:

$gSomeVariable = 5;
function somefunc() {
   printf(“%d”, gSomeVariable);
}

The above will not produce “5”. Without explicitly telling PHP that gSomeVariable is a global variable, it will assume it is a local variable and currently undefined.

Do you know how many time this has tripped me up? The correct PHP code is:

$gSomeVariable = 5;
function somefunc() {
   global $gSomeVariable;
   printf(“%d”, gSomeVariable);
}

For all the times I made this mistake: AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!

§86 · April 23, 2005 · PHP, Software, Technology, Tips, Web · Comments Off on PHP Gotcha ·

The Demise of Newspapers

Why are newspapers still around? Who buys newspapers these days? It certainly isn’t teenagers looking for a used car. As a family we certainly don’t buy newspapers, though we’ll occasionally check one out if we find one sitting (discarded and lonely and only slightly stained) in a coffee shop. Read the rest of this entry …

§85 · April 22, 2005 · Life, Technology, Web, XML · 3 comments ·

Ajax Gotchas

This is just a quick entry for me to jot down some caveats that I encountered while making a simple instant messaging application for the browser using Asynchronous JavaScript, XML and PHP. Read the rest of this entry …

§80 · April 21, 2005 · Ajax, JavaScript, PHP, Software, Technology, Tips, Web, XML · Comments Off on Ajax Gotchas ·

Oh SVG 1.2, Where Art Thou?

In the midst of Adobe purchasing Macromedia, thereby putting in question the Final Fate of Flash and the success of SVG, I decided to check out the W3C SVG site. No reaction yet there (and I guess there wouldn’t be, they are a standards body, not a bunch of gossip columnists/business theorists). However, I did notice that they put up a new Working Draft document for SVG 1.2 about a week ago. Read the rest of this entry …

§84 · April 19, 2005 · Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on Oh SVG 1.2, Where Art Thou? ·

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