IE7, xmlhttprequest, and 1223 status code

I’m working on a program that is fairly Ajax heavy right now. Several of the JS routines need to call for XML from the server, and when there is no data to parse I’m sending a 204 header (no content) so that the JS can know there’s no data without having to parse the XML.

But I’ve found a significant issue. Read the rest of this entry »

How to install WordPress 2.5.1

WordPress is a insanely popular blogging platform, and with every release it gets better. It’s also very easy to install, even for those who have never installed a CMS on their server before.

The first step is to head over to WordPress.org and download the WordPress file. Click on the Download button on the top right of the screen.

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Why is middle the default vertical align for a table cell?

A little bit of a rant here. Why do HTML table cells default to vertically centering the text? I have never done a design that it looked right for the cells to be vertically aligned to the middle. It seems that top aligned would be the most commonly used and for those times when middle or bottom aligned was the right look it would be pretty easy through CSS.

And so there is a little bit of value here is the code that I insert into pretty much every CSS style sheet that I do so that table cells will line up across the top.

CSS:
  1. td { vertical-align: top; }

Thoughts? Any thoughts on why middle is the default? Is it just a hold over from the older browsers?

DIY: Make your own ethernet loopback cable

Ever find yourself needing to know whether an ethernet port will light up without actually hooking it up to a switch? Have a hard time remembering which port on a switch a jack is plugged in to? Fortunately it’s pretty easy to make your own ethernet loopback cable.

To start you’ll need a couple of tools: Read the rest of this entry »

SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS - Is it faster?

Reading through a post on SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS actually being slower that running one query followed by a count query I decided I needed to do a little benchmarking on my own.

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