In my last post, I discussed the latest software and firmware updates for the Microsoft Zune. There are a few things I forgot to mention in that post, and in my initial review of the Microsoft Zune. One of those items was the fact that the player refuses to recognize DRM-protected audio files in your “watched folders”. I also neglected to discuss the options available in the Zune software for converting your audio files before adding them to your Zune. I also failed to mention the fact that the Zune software updates finally added the ability to tag your video files.

DRM Files

For me, the fact that the Zune software would not recognize DRM files was especially annoying, because the only DRM-protected files I had on my computer were ripped directly from CDs that I own.

I did not realize, however, that there was an easy solution to my particular problem. I must have initially ripped the files using the Gigabeat Room software that came with my old Toshiba Gigabeat, as all of the files in question were in WMA format.

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Usually I am quite skeptical when it comes to the types of books that claim to “teach you something in 24 hours”. SAMS Publishing hired a guru-like author to write this book. Kynn Bartlett is a participant in the W3C technical working group (http://www.w3c.org) and the infamous HTML Writers Guild.

“Teach Yourself CSS in 24 Hours”, starts off with the basics of CSS scripting. The book discusses what Cascading Style Sheets are, how they are supported among the different browsers (and platforms) and how they are used with HTML.

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About a week ago, Microsoft released Zune 2.5, the latest update for the Zune media management software.  Apparently this software update adds in some functionality that was previously removed (smart playlists) and adds quite a bit of new functions.

Other than the addition of smart playlists, Zune 2.5 didn’t really add any functionality that I envision myself using very often.  I found a very good, accurate review of the new software and firmware on Paul Thurrott’s Web site.

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First of all, to dispel any misinformation that is apparently still going around on the Internet (and, I, too, once believed this when I was first introduced to CSS), CSS is not capable of inserting content into your pages. CSS cannot be used to create headers and/or footers to be used on every page of your site.

For those of you looking for ways to use the same menu on every page of your site, and keep that menu in a single location so that it’s easy to update, CSS won’t do that for you. That’s what server side includes are for, actually. Server side includes can be used with pure HTML (provided that includes are enabled on your server), with PHP, Perl, ASP or basically any other server-side language.

In fact, CSS does almost the opposite. CSS is intended to separate the content from the design within a Web site. CSS is strictly intended to facilitate the “look” of the pages on your Web site. No content is interpreted from CSS.

Now, for the quick lesson on how CSS works.

First of all, we should examine the name. CSS is an abbreviation of the phrase “cascading style sheets”. Let’s pick that apart for a moment.

Cascading

items that overlap, with each new item taking precedence over the previous

Style

refers to the particular look or appearance of a specific item

Sheet

figuratively, this is intended to refer to a collection of items gathered together in a single location, like a sheet of music

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I just wanted to make a good, quick post about two good resources I find myself using quite a bit.  The first is an md5 encrypter.  It’s a very nice, simple tool that simply converts any string into an md5-encrypted string.

At work, I find myself making a lot of very simple scripts that require me to set up administration areas, but don’t really warrant taking the time to set up online registration, etc.  Instead, I simply use the md5 encrypter to encrypt the passwords I want to use, and then I enter those encrypted passwords directly into the database.

You can find that tool, along with quite a few others, at http://www.iwebtool.com/tools.  The link directly to the md5 encryption tool is http://www.iwebtool.com/md5.

The other tool I’ve found myself using quite a bit, for basically the same reasons listed above, is a random password generator.  The one I’ve been using the most is presented by PCTools.com.  It offers a lot of options, and does a very nice job of generating random, secure passwords.  You can find that tool at http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/.

The Pragmatic Programmers sent me the above titled book for review. My first initial take was that this book would bash India and the other countries who are leading the way in (stealing American’s jobs) offshore outsourcing. This topic has become literally the hottest discussion topic in the IT field. (see our sister site).

The subtitle for this book, “52 Ways to Save Your Job” is really more appropriate for the book. I guess Mr. Fowler threw in India for shock value.

The first chapter of the book explains the author’s journey to India to create a “seed team” for offshore development. He looks to hire 25 initially with an ultimate goal of hiring 250.

After the initial chapter the balance of the book focuses on the subtitle above. It is the balance of the book that has led me to share this book with my entire team at work. It describes in detail what I have been teaching my people for years now, its not about the hands-down work, it is about marketing, learning the business and selling yourself. Or, as our CIO puts it, being employable versus being employed.

The chapters I found most interesting are:

• Supply and Demand — you can/t compete on price
• Coding don’t cut it anymore — learning the business is what keeps your job, your job
• Love it or leave it — find your passion
• Understand business basics — this allows you to create value for yourself
• Mind reader — think ahead, think way ahead
• Marketing perceptions — perception is reality
• Being present — clients want to see you — this is something the offshore worker cannot provide (yes I know there is video conferencing but its not the same)
• Lead ‘em — lead the offshore workers
• Manage /em — manage the offshore workers

My conclusion is that this book is an absolutely essential read for all levels of IT workers. The book is a short read at 185 pages and is easy to read as well. The book is priced a little higher than I would like; it should be priced in the $15 range. The only negative is that some of the chapters are too light in actionable steps. Consider this an intro and then go research the topics that you find interesting and rewarding.

Product Rating:

Company:
The Pragmatic Programmers

Requirements:
N/A

Pricing:
19.95

Reviewed by:
Allen

Competition:
N/A

Pros:
Excellent book for keeping your job.

Cons:
A little pricey, could go more indepth on some topics.

Bottom Line:
Absolutely worth a read for any IT worker.

I am basically posting this here as a reference for myself, but I’m sure the information will be helpful to other people out there, as well.

Occasionally, when working on my Web server, I need to create a new user on the server and grant one or more other users permission to view and edit files within the new user’s home directory. This task, in itself, does not seem all that difficult on the surface. However, because most Unix servers are set up (and rightfully so, for security purposes) not to allow most users to navigate outside of their own home directories, it becomes a problem.

Let’s say, for example, that you have two users on your Web server that you want to allow permissions to view and edit each other’s home directories, but you don’t want them to have access to any other files and folders on the Web server.

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Apparently, Microsoft released the public version of the first service pack for Windows Vista about two weeks ago (it seems a beta was initially released in August or September of last year). Although I have my computer set to automatically check for and install updates every night, my box, for some reason, did not pick this one up on its own.

Instead, when I came home from work the other day, I found that my computer had “recovered from an unexpected shutdown”. When I clicked on the link to check for solutions, I was informed that the problem should be fixed with Vista Service Pack 1.

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As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently went through the trouble of restoring our family computer to its original factory settings in order to try to get a little better performance out of it. However, even after all of that work, the computer is still performing fairly poorly.

Therefore, I went to the Web to look for some fairly inexpensive options to upgrade the computer. I happened upon crucial.com. Now, I’ve heard the name of that Web site thrown around on a lot of forums, but I have never bothered to visit. In the past, it was fairly easy to purchase memory upgrades, because there were only a handful of different kinds, and every memory stick worked on every motherboard.

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The NY Times Design Manager Khoi Vinh has been answering a variety of questions over the past week from readers. Today’s question was most interesting:

Q: Regardless of platform or browser, NYTimes.com looks the same. This is not an easy feat to accomplish because of inconsistencies between browsers and how they handle HTML and CSS. How do you do it and with which tools?

— Neil Mansilla

A: It’s our preference to use a text editor, like HomeSite, TextPad or TextMate, to “hand code” everything, rather than to use a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) HTML and CSS authoring program, like Dreamweaver. We just find it yields better and faster results.

But really the browser-to-browser consistency that you see (and I have to admit, it’s far from perfect) is the result of a vigilant collaboration between many different groups — the visual designers and technologists in the design team that I lead, their counterparts in our technology staff, and the many, many detail-oriented people who come together to make the site a reality every hour of every day.