Everything you need to know about the latest codeworks office chatter is in this window. You'll find out about the latest technology news, tutorials, suggestions and helpful hints as well as our latest news and company announcements. Each one of our team have the freedom to post whatever they feel might be useful to our friends and customers. Use the tags and archive on the right hand side to filter through all the posts.
I recently noticed a spout of emails coming into my inbox that have background images!? As many developers know background images in outlook are non existant, unheard of, a miricle!
So as any self respecting developer would do i jumped straight onto google with the string of keywords "when did outlook start supporting background images". Well, as it turns out a backround *image* does work, its background *images* that do not.
I came accross a blog that then explains that background images do not work in Outlook (thank goodness im not going crazy!) - but what will work is one single background image that sits in the body tag! There is one little snag that you will need to deal with (as if a Microsoft product would just work!). While every other client seems to gracefully assume no-repeat for the second part of the repeat line, Outlook does not. Take a look at the css code below and boom, you'll have body background images working.
OK, maybe not. But I did do a little happy dance when I started my job here at codeworks as a Junior Developer. My name's Sarah and I've recently moved from Oxford since graduating from Oxford Brookes.
For the last few years I've worked as a projectionist and have witnessed first hand the digitisation of cinemas from 35mm. I now cannot wait to begin my career in what is the exciting world of software development with such a fantastic team :D
I love festivals and have rocked-out at Wacken, Amphi, Sonisphere, Mera Luna and Download with many more planned on the horizon.
I also hold the official* record for the "biggest baked bean found in a tin". Picture of proof to follow....
*official in the sense I googled it and couldn't find any pictures of large singular baked beans
Here's another top tip from the Codeworks camp. Often Jquery is used to animate a particular element on a page after the user has clicked on something. For example, a news box could slide open if you click a certain link.
Problems can often occur if a user is a bit keen on clicking, or impatient, and ends up clicking the link repeatedly, before the animation has taken place. Browsers can often 'queue' a backlog of clicks so that things keep happening long after they should have ended! This can also cause unexpected behaviour which can make the user think that the website is 'broken'.
But fear not, there is a simple solution:
At the start of any click event in jquery, which may look like this:
$('.element').click(function() { ....
Simply add the following:
$('.animatedelement').is(":animated")){
return;
}
This will check if an animation is running, and if it is, put the brakes on any other events until it is finished.
Hey presto!
We're on the look out for a talented PHP developer who is confident in HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, JavaScript and jQuery and preferably also has experience with Photoshop.
Codeworks is a small software development company who specialise in creating organisation systems for businesses through web applications, this is your chance to join a fun vibrant team of developers with a company that is progressing fast.
Your role would include the development of tools within systems we've already created and creating new ones from a specification. You'll also be expected to help answer office calls, support clients with problems and get involved with new client projects.
Do not apply if you are not confident in PHP as this is vital to the role.
For more information visit our vacancies page: click here
Everyone loves a good sweet, especially the classics like the drumstick lolly, the small foam mushrooms, gobstoppers and toffee bon bons! We love making people happy, especially our developers; which is why there is always a handful of sweets at hand in the office for anyone to dip into if they're feeling peckish.
We decided last week to extend this to our fans, clients and friends of the world; we're giving away hundreds of sweets to a selection of our fans who decide to follow us on facebook and twitter. We need more than 1,000 followers by the end of August, and if we reach our target we'll be selecting 100 lucky random winners to receive sweets! You could win anything* from a drumstick lolly to a big bag of rasberry millions! In order for this to happen though we need to reach our target! Simply retweet our tweets, @codeworks mention us and share the love with your friends, the more you share the more chance you have of winning. We'd also love to hear what your favourite past time sweets are! We'll keep you updated with progress!
@codeworks - twitter.com/codeworks
We've made a little progress bar to see far we are away from our target, it updates once every 24 hours!
Well the Barry and District ‘summer’ league is truly in full swing and the team are enjoying playing so close to home. The Bridgend ‘Winter’ league has finally finished, however, the ladies are STILL waiting to receive information about what position they finished from the Bridgend officials.
Westend Ladies are still as dedicated as ever and have expanded since the winter months.
Since we began sponsoring the ladies they have grown in size (numbers not physically). There is talk amongst captains and coach that trials for the A and B team will be taking place this autumn. So watch this SPACE.... New players to join are Abi Ladner, Nina Huggett, Emma Hughes and Stephanie Lima.
The Barry league has started well for both teams and they are preparing for the Annual Versatility Tournament held on Sunday 24th July.
The A team have lost their centre court player Stacey Brown due to an injury. Stacey is currently in plaster and will miss the rest of the summer league. We wish her a speedy recovery and hope she is back fit for the start of the winter league. We also say congratulations to Rebecca Haysom who is expecting her first child, we know she is missed on court and will be welcomed on her return.
If anyone is interested in joining Westend Ladies, contact jenna@codeworks.org.uk.
Shw mae Hello
Its Jenna here, Codeworks’ latest person to fill a desk. Just writing to say a BIG hello to you all and to let you know that I will be working here this summer doing all the donkey work that Kev no longer has time for. I am sure I will get the opportunity to speak to you lovely people at some point, as my role is customer service based mixed in with a spoonful of design and marketing, sprinkled with a smile.
So who is this Jenna?
Well I have just finished studying at UWIC and graduate this coming July with a BA (Hons) in Graphic Communication. (I am now ready for the big, wide world).
Some of you may be aware that Codeworks’ sponsor a ladies netball team, Westend Ladies...well I play WD for them and it is a great way to socialise with friends as well as keeping fit. I am quite competitive however, and Kevin has already challenged me to a game of squash. (Have to confess, I have never played it).
So I will let you all know the outcome via twitter.
My role here in The Coach House is to make sure that you, (our customers) are happy with us, (the company)...So if you have any issues feel free to send me an email. jenna@codeworks.org.uk.
Chow for now
In short, no. The cookie EU law that was set to start on May 26th 2011 has been deferred for an extra year because many companies are not ready to implement the measures required to inform users visiting their website. Which i have to admit, includes us. This new law requires a user's consent before using cookies. (not the edible crumbly kind)
Cookies are text files stored on your computer while your browsing the internet, they store snippets of information. An example could be a welcome message when you first visit a site, after you close it a cookie is stored so that you don't have to keep clicking the x to remove it every time you re-visit the site. For more information about cookies click here.
The changes are demanded by the European e-Privacy directive.
The section of the directive dealing with cookies was drawn up in an attempt to protect privacy and, in particular, limit how much use could be made of behavioural advertising. This form of marketing involves people being tracked across websites, with their behaviour used to create a profile that dictates the type of adverts they see.
The directive demands that users be fully informed about the information being stored in cookies and told why they see particular adverts. However, the directive is likely to have an impact on the more general use of cookies that remember login details and enable people to speed up their use of sites they visit regularly.
It could mean that once this new law does come into effect, users see many more pop-up windows and dialogue boxes asking them to let sites gather data. It just depends how each company decides how to tackle the issue. I found a really good example of how companies could approach this task on the new Alpha UK Government Website.
For now though, we have another year to come up with solutions that comply with the law but don't make it annoying for the user, personally i believe a browser approach would be a much better way forward as i can guarantee even after another year a lot of companies still won't be ready.
As a client and friend of ours (sam clarke) has already learnt earlier this year, "a downside of freely sharing on the net is that not everyone will play fair."
Another one of our clients (designdough) experienced the same situation this week after their entire concept, design and code was stolen and replicated by a local! competitor who states "Cardiff's most established graphic design studios with over 20 years experience delivering effective, original graphic design solutions for a wide range of applications and clients".
I'm all for developers jumping in and seeing how things are done, It's interesting, a fast way to learn and a good way to improve your skills for later projects. But plagiarism is something everyone at codeworks strongly disagree on.
The company in question was contacted by our friends at designdough and after a few hours of discussion what was firstly changed, was then taken down. Rightly so! Now i personally can't comment on the circumstances of who was responsible for copying ours and designdough's hard work, but i can comment on the fact a company who states they deliver original content need to have a serious look at how they operate.
Personally, we would like to see an apology from designworld for stealing our code and an explanation as to how this happened and what they're going to do to make sure it doesn't happen again. Our intentions here are not to slander this company for a mistake, but highlight the important issue that if you outsource your work make sure you trust who you're working with.
It's also worth mentioning as much as we're annoyed we're also flattered that the design together with the code was that good, they felt the need to steal it, so together with designdough we must be doing something right!
Update: We've since had a response from the company; "we gave the brief to a freelancer which was 'big image, couple of panels of text' and what we were presented with we liked so it went straight up. Obviously though the buck ultimately stops with the Partners, so I can only apologise again for this incident and rest-assured that we will tighten up our procedures from now on and ensure that everything is checked in much more detail. We will obviously not be using that supplier again ..... Apologies again for this incident and I hope this puts your mind at rest regarding our intentions and integrity."
We're glad to hear from the company and consider the matter resolved, we hope that other companies can learn from this and get to know their suppliers a little better.
At the beginning of this academic year the hot topic in university was 'cloud computing'. Put simply, as you may or may not know, cloud computing is the ability to access everything you could possibly need (software, documents etc.) via an internet browser. The general consensus was that it would take a number of years for this idea to become a true, fully-functioning reality.
Google has released news about its Chrome OS, a computer system for people that don’t like computers. So what is it? Based on the Google Chrome web browser, Chrome OS is a fully-fledged operating system that operates solely online. There is no software running on the local computer except the browser, not even an anti-virus program. As such the whole thing operates a lot quicker than traditional computers that are running other well known operating systems.
It is reported that the operating system takes approximately seven seconds to start and can offer up to 10 hours of battery life if being run on a laptop similar to the ‘Chromebook’ that was revealed a few days ago. Every time the system is switched on it will automatically check online for updates and update itself if necessary. If it develops a problem it will simply re-install itself without any need to hassle the user and ask for permission. Is this really a good thing though? I know I certainly wouldn’t want my computer making decisions for itself!
The Chrome OS makes it easy for the user to access and edit his/her documents with ‘Google Docs’ as well as allowing them to read their email, edit photos and many other features that can be performed on a traditional PC. The obvious problem is that not everybody as a Wi-Fi or 3G connection all of the time, you cannot access the internet from just anywhere. Does this mean the whole concept is flawed? Google argues that it’s not. The argument is that as more and more developers take part in the project this issue will be resolved. The New York Times app that is available for the new operating system has resolved this issue by downloading the latest news items while the device is connected to the internet so that they can be browsed while the user is offline.
So to answer the original question, ‘True cloud computing - Is it finally here?’... Well, kind of. It seems that in the past eight months since the original debate started in university that the world of cloud computing has advanced greatly, but the idea isn’t exactly as we envisaged due to the fact that online applications and documents cannot be accessed from anywhere, anytime. If Google gets the developers that it needs onboard to help it solve this issue we could well see the cloud computing dream becoming a reality and if anyone can achieve this goal Google can!
For more information on the Google Chrome OS take a look here http://www.google.com/chromebook/features.html#
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