Friday, June 29, 2012

CSS for IE and non IE browsers

sorry, blog readers for missing for a long time. I just too lazy. :P


Due to my new job, I've been messing around with CSS a lot. CSS or Cascading Style Sheets 


are actually quite fun to play around with. It does simplifies the job styling a website when put those stylings in 1 external file, making it easy to migrate from server to server.


However, one major problem I've encountered with CSS is that not all browsers with the CSS 


styles that you use. Some styles might work, some won't.


So what do you do when you have that problem? One way is create a separate style sheet for this type of browser, 


For myself I've created an Internet Explorer specific CSS and non-Internet Explorer (eg. Firefox, Chrome, Safari)  CSS. 


How you go about doing that?


simple, do something like this :


  <!-- [if IE]>
  < link rel="stylesheet" href="login-ie.css" type="text/css">
  < link rel="stylesheet" href="footer-ie.css" type="text/css">
  < ![endif]-->


put it like so in between the <HEAD< and </HEAD> tags



  <HEAD>
  <!-- [if IE]>

  < link rel="stylesheet" href="login-ie.css" type="text/css">
  < link rel="stylesheet" href="footer-ie.css" type="text/css">
  < ![endif]-->
  </HEAD>





for non IE browsers you could do this,



<!--[if !IE] ><!-->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="login.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="footer.css" type="text/css">
<!--[endif]-->




same thing again put it between the  <HEAD< and </HEAD>  tags.



 <HEAD>
<!--[if !IE] ><!-->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="login.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="footer.css" type="text/css">
<!--[endif]-->
</HEAD>







Before you ask, there's no such thing as .  <!--[ELSE]-->


yea.. I know it's sad. anyway I'd like thank the author of css-tricks.com sharing these tips as 


well. 


More info on it, please click the link below.


http://css-tricks.com/how-to-create-an-ie-only-stylesheet/




On another note, it took me great pains to make it work on Smarty Template turns out you need to use {literal} {/literal} to make it work and make sure you're changing the right .tpl file .
(Note: I've wasting a lot of time changing the .tpl and realising I've changed the wrong .tpl file and that's why I didn't see the changes I wanted)


if you're using conditional statements on Smarty Templates, you should be using it like this

{literal}
 <!-- [if IE]>
  < link rel="stylesheet" href="{/literal}{$vir_lib}{literal}css/ie/login-ie.css" type="text/css">
  < link rel="stylesheet" href="{/literal}{$vir_lib}{literal}css/ie/footer-ie.css" type="text/css">
 < ![endif]-->
{literal}



Noticed that I've use {/literal} in front of {$vir_lib}. If I don't do that, 


the css file will be loaded from $vir_lib/css/not-ie folder, which is actually 


wrong and un-workable.




But applying {/literal} in front of {$vir_lib}, the css file will be properly 


loaded from folder ($vir_lib is scripts folder),  scripts/css/not-ie folder, 


which is the correct location.


If you have any comments, please feel free to share them in the comments section.















Sunday, November 06, 2011

Audio Technica CKF300 review

Ladies and gentlemen,
The review that you've been waiting for.  Knowing that my girlfriend's headphone was spoilt, I've decided to purchase a replacment for her. After some talking with my colleague, he recommended me to go for Audio Technica.(My colleague is using the Audio Technica SJ11) . So, I paid for RM99 , bought it from lowyat.net forums for this model ,  Audio-Technica ATH-CKF300 Bloom Inner Ear Earphones.
The is the box that houses the 

Audio-Technica ATH-CKF300 Bloom Inner Ear Earphones


After unboxing the Audio Technica CKF300, these are the contents.
The main star, which is the Audio Technica CKF300 earphones.


The instruction manual, which most of us including myself won't bother to read.


Different sized ear pieces.

After talking so much, let's start with the aesthetics of the earphones. These earphone is definitely more suitable for the ladies, because it's small and petite. There are a total of 8 attractive colours available for this model, the ATF-CKF300 series.There are also a few case designs for this model. The case here is to case for carrying the earphones. Design-wise, it provides a lot of variety. So that's a plus there. 

Now, to the important stuff, the sound quality, I don't much to compared to. I compared these headphones with the earphones that came with my Samsung Google Nexus S phone. When I used the Google Nexus S phone earphones (I'll call them Nexus S earphones for simplicity sake), even on the same volume level, the Nexus S earphones can produce a louder volume compared to the Audio Technica CKF300 series. I suspect these could Nexus earphone have larger ear pieces or longer ear pieces. I was able to achieve the same effect when I pushed the Audio Technica earphones closer into my ear.

So audio-volume wise, the Audio Technica CKF300 series does provide a softer volume, probably won't hurt your ear that much after prolonged use. But, if you're a person who likes to listen to heavy bass music, these earphones might not be suitable for you.

Listening to vocals, it seems that Audio Technica CKF300 is on par with my Nexus S earphones. Both earphones are hardly distinguishable from each other. So, both of them are even on vocals side.

On to the songs / music that I've used for testing the earphones, 
I used Skrillex - Syndicate [HD] for heavy bass music.

For the vocals, I listened to Olivia. Sometimes When We Touch .


Samsung Google Nexus S headphones

Note:  
When my girlfriend put on the Audio Technica CKF300 on the first time and heard Olivia's Sometimes When We Touch . It sounded like the music is around her , almost she's there.


Overall, I still think the Audio Technica CKF300 is good earphone , for the ladies. It's not an earphone for heavy bass music. It's good for songs that emphasized on vocals. The soft volume shouldn't hurt your ears after prolonged use.


Conclusion
Since it's quite illogical to pay for RM1k++ to just to get Nexus S phones,
 I'd recommend Audio Technica CKF300 earphones to whomever who wish to have quality earphone without breaking the bank
 (at RM99 it's considered quite affordable, I bought earphones that costs RM20++ seriously it doesn't lasts) 
It makes a good gift for your girlfriend / wife or gal friends (make sure you get the right color).










Tuesday, October 18, 2011

KISS (Keep It Short & Simple)




KISS according to wikipedia , was coined by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works.
But Kelly Johnson translates it as "Keep it simple, stupid".


So why about talking about KISS? Because what happened last friday. An ex-colleague of mine asked for my help on something that I was supposed to finish (my bad..) before I left the company. An end user was asking for something to be done ASAP because it has been pending for 3~4 weeks before I left(?? can't remember)


The end user was asking it to be done on the same day she mentioned this request to my ex-colleague. My ex-colleague was searching high and low to solve this problem.


Let me explain what is the problem. The end user has an Excel files which stores the date of when the system (that should I've created..again.. my bad ) will email a handful of users that they should update a certain file. 


The dates are usually every 15th day in each month. So I suggested to my ex-colleague, that she should try to persuade the user, why not use Outlook instead to remind the users instead?


Why not just configure these users (probably around 6 persons) to have a reminder in their Outlook on these period that they should update this specific file. It's easy enough to be done in one day , since the users are probably in the same building. Furthermore, the users probably have VNC installed, so there's no need to go to their office to configure the reminders.It could be done remotely. 


But instead, the user still insists on creating a program / system for the purpose reminding these users via email.


aihh.......


Sometimes end users are just finicky.  


So far for KISS. Well , the next thing you want to complicate things on your hand, remember this, 
Keep it simple, stupid!

Friday, October 14, 2011

Audio Technica ATH-CKF300 and I'm back with it.

It's been a long time i've blog. Here I am again.

Just bought Audio Technica ATH-CKF300 from Edifier , lowyat.net forummer in
this forum.

A colleague of mine who is a Audio Technica fan, introduced Audio Technica products to me. He was using one of headphones,Audio Technica ATH SJ11.

Since my girlfriend's headphone is spoilt, I've decided bought a set for her, which is the Audio Technica ATH-CKF300 headphones.



Nicely packaged. Inside it contains extra earbuds, a small manual and basically that's all. I'll be doing a full review soon.

Stay tune for the review.


Sunday, October 17, 2010

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Squaresoft Enix should take a geography lesson?

I was invited for Final Fantasy 14 Beta test from Square Enix. was on my way to it, but run into a small "bump". I was asked to register my country of residence. So I searched HIGH AND LOW FOR "MALAYSIA" in Europe & Other Region.
(Note: There was 3 more categories
1) Europe & The Middle East
2) Africa
3) Oceania & Other Regions)
Since Malaysia does not belong in the category (1) and (2), category (3) should be the correct choice.

But HELL NO, there was no Malaysia and there wasn't even our closest neighbor, Singapore, not even Thailand or Indonesia.?

WTF?!@# Square Enix staff are either ignorant or they were just plain stupid to leave out countries like us.

According to the system, there is no way to change country of residence once I made the confirmation. So? what did I do? I emailed them 2 days ago, I still did not receive any reply regarding this. YOU TELL ME, SQUARESOFT ENIX. Should I still be excited about Final Fantasy XIV?!!


UPDATE:
I just checked the SQUARESOFT got my question answered.

Why is my country of residence not listed?

The list of countries provided are the countries that the Square Enix Account service is currently available in. If your country is not listed, then you will be unable to complete the Square Enix Account registration process.


Check the screenshot below to prove that I'm not lying.



WHAT THE HELL?! Isn't very discriminating to those people who are stayed outside Square Enix Account "coverage"?So, Squaresoft Enix, my opinion doesn't matter now?

I say let's all Singaporean, Malaysians, Indonesians gamers should rally up and boycott Squaresoft Enix games. [but I don't feel like boycotting Deus Ex : Human Revolution :( ]

Squaresoft Enix, if you're reading THIS. PLEASE JUST PUT THE GOD DAMN SQUARESOFT ENIX ACCOUNT in our COUNTRY or WHATEVER. JUST LET US PLAY FINAL FANTAST XIV BETA OK?!

Monday, July 12, 2010