The notion of developing a platform is highly addictive for technology founders. It ticks every “this is awesome” box and its drawbacks do not become evident until after you’ve already overcommitted.When you’re sunk deep in your idea, you start seeing the infinite number of directions it might go. It could be used for creativity or education or advertising or television or personal productivity or anything.Possibilities are exciting.You soon realise you can’t make good on them all yourself, but it’s a shame not to make a possibility… well, pos...

The responsive design revolution is upon us. With tablet and smartphone use soaring and changing our media habits, Web publishers no longer have a choice but to build designs that work properly on any device or screen size.The hard-working Silicon Valley design firm ZURB has recently released version 2.0 of its responsive design boilerplate kit called Foundation, which is a fundamental framework for a one-size-fits all Web project.Foundation is a CSS and Javascript framework that comes with a boilerplate and the necessary plug-ins. It uses a 12-column grid that is both "fluid and responsi...

No, it’s not Knuth’s “The Art of Programming”. I’m talking about quite an easy-to-read (compared to TAoP) book, which, in fact, does not require any engineering or mathematical background from the reader.I am talking about C. Petzold’s “CODE”. It is a truly remarkable book about how computers work. Let me explain why I think this book is so awesome.The book starts from the very beginning, from explaining what code is, bringing several examples, like Morse code and Braille’s system. It then goes on to explain how ele...

By default remote access to MySQL database server is disabled for security reasons. However, some time you need to provide remote access to database server from home or a web server. If you want to remotely access to the database server from the web server or home, follow this quick tutorial.MySQL Remote AccessYou need type the following commands which will allow remote connections.Step # 1: Login Using SSH (if server is outside your data center)First, login over ssh to remote MySQL database server:ssh user@mysql.nixcraft.iStep # 2: Edit my.cnf FileOnce connected you need to edit the MySQL ser...

Now that Conrad Barski's Land of Lisp (see my review on Slashdot) has come out, I definitely think Common Lisp is the best language for kids (or anyone else) to start learning computer programming.Between Land of Lisp, David Touretzky's Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation (really great book for people new to programming, available for free) and The Little LISPer (3rd edition, editions four and up use Scheme) you have three really great resources to get started.Lisp's syntax is a great advantage because it is so simple to learn and has so few special cases. The interactiv...

Experts often end up where they started as beginners.If you’ve never seen the word valet, you might pronounce it like VAL-it. If you realize the word has a French origin, you would pronounce it val-A. But the preferred pronunciation is actually VAL-it.Beginning musicians play by ear, to the extent that they can play at all. Then they learn to read music. Eventually, maybe years later, they realize that music really is about what you hear and not what you see.Beginning computer science students think that computer science is all about programming. Then they learn that computer science is...

Update #3: Using the techniques outlined in this article I have rolled out and initial release of imgscalr.com.Feel free to download the JS source (it is heavily commented) and take a look at how it was rolled out. Unfortunately the required File API support is only in Chrome and Firefox currently, Safari gets it in version 6, Opera possibly in version 11 and possibly IE 10 (9 has no support).IntroductionOver the last day I’ve been trying to learn how to use the new HTML5 Drag and Drop API as well as the new File API. I want to create a really nice drag-and-drop...

In my previous posts, we discovered How to Use HTML5 File Drag & Drop, and Open Files Using HTML5 and JavaScript. Now we have a valid set of files, it possible to upload each one to the server. The process occurs asynchronously in the background so the user can complete other on-page tasks while it occurs.The HTMLLet’s examine our HTML form again:view plainprint?<form id="upload" action="upload.php" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">  <fieldset>  <legend>HTML File Upload</legend>  ...