While coughing and sneezing because the flu has me again I've been browsing through the latest submissions on the Typo theme contest. I don't think I've ever worked harder on a templating job than I did on my own contest entry. No matter who will win the contest I'm happy I participated and produced such a nice theme. In the future I'll definitely port it to Pivot and WordPress.

But who else submitted a theme that's worthy of winning a Powerbook? (continue reading...)

It's been quite a month, this November 2005. An awful lot has happened. I've finished teaching a Linux system administration course. Luckily all my students passed the exam. Congratulations to all of them. The next shift has already started so the Linux teaching isn't quite over yet. I've done a presentation on PHP and Ajax which was received rather well. Ha! something Ajax but NOT Ruby on Rails related for a change. Then there was my site being accepted to the 9rules network which is a very nice cherry on the pie that this blog is to me. And finally, a couple of days before the closing date my Typo Contest entry theme named Lush has been released. I don't think I've ever worked for so many hours on a weblog design. Not even on this site's design which took quite a lot of time as well. I guess Typo has a shiny handsome new suit now! After the 28th of November, four highly respected gentlemen (John Hicks, Shaun Inman, Jake Tracey and Justin Palmer) will decide which entry is going to be rewarded with a shiny new Apple Powerbook. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! I dedicate my theme to my lovely girlfriend Renie. After all she's the one who had to deal with a guy obsessed with photoshop and terminal windows with vi editor sessions for a whole month. Thank God it's over!

With Lush being available for download and submitted to the contest I figured it would be an excellent idea to take a break. No designing, no programming and no blogging for a weekend. I guess I deserved it and... so does my girlfriend.

See you after the weekend!

Today is the day my website will be officially announced on the 9rules blog so I figured it would be nice to have some sort of welcome message for everyone who's never been here before. Hopefully it won't be a one time visit.

This weblog is about just about everything related to internet, technology, development and design and net culture. Occasionally there's a (semi) political rant on either Dutch or world politics as well as well as some assorted personal messages. The mainstream however is internet technology and ongoings in cyberspace. I've been blogging on this website for about 13 months now and it's been a great year. I've written a lot of articles I'm still proud of, I released a nice collection of plugins for Pivot and WordPress and some design templates as well. A new advanced design template for Typo will be released this weekend. Let's hope next year will be an even better blogging year.

I have quite extensive knowledge on the fields of PHP, CSS, Ajax, and software engineering. If you have any suggestions on topics that you feel it would be nice for me to write about on this site then by all means drop me a line!

Enjoy your stay on “The Net is Dead” ^* !

^* this article explains what made me pick the name for this weblog.

I guess every programmer was once told to use meaningful variable names in whatever code they are writing. If we add meaning to our variable names we can greatly improve readability and make our code easier to understand for fellow developers and for ourselves in case we end up looking at code we've written quite a while ago. Adding meaning to variables by means of using descriptive names is one thing but we can quite easily take this a significant step further. A small essay on how to make variables tell something about their nature with the names we assign to them.

The discussed method of variable naming is not my invention. It's known as the Hungarian Notation. What you'll learn in this article is my personal interpretation of this notation. It's the way I use it. Other developers may use slightly different interpretations. The philosophy behind it however remains the same.

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After a month of hard work consuming almost ALL my free time it's time to show my latest baby to the world. Don't ask me how but after a whole morning of tinkering, configuring and some occasional episodes of heavy cursing and ranting I managed to get Rails and Typo running on my Dreamhost account. 'Lush' will be my entry to the Typo Theme Contest in a serious attempt to win the Powerbook they have as a first prize. Whether I'll succeed? I don't know yet. What I do know is that this is the most advanced and feature-rich freeware weblog theme I've ever created. Yes that's right, next week you'll all be able to download it and do with it whatever you please. If you want to use it you'll have to use Typo or.... (dare I suggest it?) port it to WordPress, Pivot or another weblogtool you might be using.

For now I've installed it on one of my new domains in order to show the theme to the world. It has everything I could think of. It's valid XHTML Strict, it even works in MSIE 5 and 5.5, there's a nice print stylesheet, Ajax and script.acio.us enhancements and a huge load of other features. Since I still have one week for some final tweaking I figured it might be nice to post it here in order to get some feedback. Therefore, if you have any ideas / suggestion on how I can make this contest entry even better, please go ahead and let me know! This month is already great because I've been accepted for the 9rules network. I'm trying to make it even better by taking a shot at winning that gorgeous Powerbook! I hope almost 100 hours of hard work are going to pay off.

So without further ado I hereby present my finest Design / XHTML / CSS contribution to the freeware world:

Visit the temporary 'Lush' demo site

An hour ago it happened, an email from Paul Scrivens dropped in to welcome me to the 9rules Network, the one and only network I really wanted to join. I'm extremely excited to become part of something great. For those who don't know what I'm talking about: The 9rules network is a blog network that focuses on high quality content on all possible subjects. Apart from this focus on excellent content there's also a superb community behind it which I'm happy to be joining.

So what will change here? Nothing much besides the 9rules logo which I will place in my sidebar tomorrow and there will probably (hopefully!) be some more people frequenting this site. What I will change? I'll continue focusing on writing high quality articles on technology and net culture for you all to enjoy. This is the best possible piece of recognition I could possibly receive after a year of avid blogging. Now let's move into the next year! I'm gonna make it rock, that's a promise!

It seems the 9rules network has started sending out acceptance emails. Via these comments I spotted some new members already:

• Matt Brett
• Paul Stamatiou

Congratulations to the new members! I myself am still hoping to get a mail somewhere between right now and the 28th of November. Fingers crossed for another while...

The project I've been working on for almost a month in almost all of my free time is almost done. The most advanced weblog theme I've ever created. It's also (at least I think so) the prettiest theme I've ever done. This theme represents my personal 'state of the art'. It's the very best I can do in terms of design, CSS and weblog development. It has everything. XHTML 1.0 Strict, packed with Ajax, lean and mean CSS and an ultra clean polished look. I can honestly say I'm damn proud of what I've got here. In a couple of days I'll set up a demo for the world to see. For a download you'll have to wait a while longer. It's a contest after all. Now let's hope and pray I will win that Powerbook with it in the Typo theme contest! This thing has totally consumed me. Let's hope it's been worth it!

A while ago I mentioned I was going to deliver a presentation on PHP and Ajax. The conference on which I delivered it took place last week on November 10. I also promised people I'd translate everything I prepared for the presentation for posting on my weblog. It took some time but here it is! If you're interested in diving into programming your own Ajax functionality with PHP this article might be a nice starter.

Together we'll take a look at the xajax class library for PHP. You'll be surprised how easy it really is to create the nifty stuff you'll find all over the internet lately. I have prepared four documented working examples on how to use xajax in real-world situations. You can study the sourcecode as well as download the whole set to do with it whatever you like. Let's dive into xajax!

Before you proceed: This tutorial is quite old and not based on the latest version of xajax. Because I'm not working with it at the moment I cannot guarantee how up-to-date this tutorial still is. Proceed at your own risk!

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It's finally happening. This monday the 9rules Network is having it's third 24h submission round. I've been wanting to join this network for a long time because I strongly believe it could take this weblog to a next level. However, I don't feel as confident they will actually accept me as I felt before. While I really think this site has what it takes to be a worthy 9rules member site there's one problem: There are quite some sites in the network already that cover subjects similar to the subjects I write about.

So what do you guys think? Should I apply or shouldn't I even bother trying? I'm interested in your opinions...

I know, I know... things are kinda slow here lately. The reason behind this is the fact that the Typo theme contest is currently devouring all my time. I really want to take a serious shot at that awesome first prize: a Powerbook. I've been missing mine ever since I sold it. PC notebooks just well ehm... suck... So just a quick posting to let you all know I'm still alive combined with a little teaser of what the theme is going to look like. It looks like this is going to be the very best theme I've ever done on any weblog system. So if I don't win... I know I tried as hard as I could!

Stay tuned...

Apparently this blog is worth over $100k. Anyone wanna buy? I'm throwing in a promotional 50% off, but only for this week! A (sort of, haha!) influential Dutch techblog can be yours for ONLY $50.000. A real bargain I'd say! BUY NOW!

This is just a short rant to voice my disgust on the current situation on internet domain names. If you ask me, things are completely screwed. I got to think of how bad things really are when I was thinking about helping a friend to setup his own website for a special purpose. While I already knew it was going to be useless, I took a shot anyway and checked out whether hans.com or hans.nl were still available. Of course they weren't. I could have known. Hans.nl holds a blank page. I'll give the owner the benefit of the doubt and just assume there'll be a really nice site on it eventually.

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