Blog

While working on the back-end Calcatraz management system, I came across a situation where I wanted to display strings, but if they were too long I wanted to truncate them and add three dots (ellipsis) to the end to show that this had occurred. I first got on Google and looked for a solution. The [...]

In Firefox, it is easy to create an inline div (i.e. a div which adjusts its width to fit its contents). You just do this: div#elemid { display: inline-block; } However, it doesn’t work in IE. It took me a while to figure out how to get it working, so here’s the solution: div#elemid { [...]

If your web pages have a large number of nested div and table tags you may end up wondering whether they are all really necessary, and whether you might not be able to get by with less. While you could run through your code and assess each one individually and decide if it can be [...]

I’m trying to implement a Getting Things Done (GTD) system which works for me and which I can stick at on an ongoing basis. I’ve tried various set-ups in the past but constantly find them becoming derailed and eventually abandoned. In the process, however, I’ve seen enough to know it is something I want to [...]

Recently I attempted to define in as objective a way as possible how much value my online calculator is providing to its users. The idea is to come up with an equation which gives me a ‘score’ of how much value has been provided to users. With this, it will then be possible to optimise [...]

Recently a number of changes I made to the calculator have been causing a bit of a performance hit. To counteract that I’ve been through and made a few simple changes: Removed some external file includes which were no longer needed Implemented better caching to prevent unnecessary re-requests Modified the core to minimise the amount [...]

Happy new year, everyone! 2009 was a very exciting year for me. The idea for an online calculator  has been kicking around my head for a few years, getting progressively refined. As of March 2009 I began work on turning it into more than an idea. The first few months were spent progressively refining the [...]

Looking for an online calculator? There are many web-based calculators around with different purposes and capabilities. I’ve sifted through the web to pick out some of the best calculators around. Here goes: General Calculators This section lists calculators which offer general calculation capabilities. These allow you to simply type any calculation into a free-form text box [...]

The qualities of a great web application I aim to make Calcatraz into a great web application. To do so effectively it is important to understand the qualities a great web application exhibits. So what are they? Here are a few things I have thought of: 1. Punctual A web application should be quick: quick [...]

As promised in my last post, I’ve now uploaded the latest version of Calcatraz to the live site. The main feature is a new, hopefully more intuitive and consistent user interface. There are also a number of behind the scenes improvements such as general code tidy-ups. One improvement I’m particularly happy with is the integration [...]