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Use JavaScript to set up Microsoft’s and the Mozilla-based browsers’ different request objects.

Browser compatibility is an important consideration. You have to make sure the “engine” behind Ajax’s server handshake is properly constructed, but you can never predict which browsers your users will favor.

The programming tool that allows Ajax applications to make HTTP requests to a server is an object that you can use from within JavaScript code. In the world of Firefox and Netscape (as well as Safari and Opera), this object is named XMLHttpRequest. However, continuing with the tradition established by IE 5.0, recent vintages of Internet Explorer implement the software as an ActiveX object named Microsoft.XMLHTTP or Msxml2.XMLHTTP.

Microsoft.XMLHTTP and Msxml2.XMLHTTP refer to different versions of software components that are a part of Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML). Here’s what our contributing IE expert says on this matter.

“If you use Microsoft.XMLHTTP, the ActiveXObject wrapper will try to initialize the last known good version of the object that has this program (or “prog”) ID. This object, in theory, could be MSXML 1.0, but almost no one these days has that version because it has been updated via Windows Update, IE 6, or another means. MSXML 1.0 was very short-lived. If you use MSXML2.XMLHTTP, that signifies to the wrapper to use at least MSXML 2.0 libraries. Most developers do not need to use a specific version of MSXML, such as MSXML2.XMLHTTP.4.0 or MSXML2.XMLHTTP.5.0.”

Although Microsoft and the engineers on the Mozilla project have chosen to implement this object differently, we will refer to the ActiveX and XMLHttpRequest objects simply as “request objects” throughout, because they have very similar functionality.

As a first step in using Ajax, you must check if the user’s browser supports either one of the Mozilla-based orActiveX-related request objects, and then properly initialize the object. Read more…

There was a simple solution to generating excel sheets using PHP. A friend of mine had created it using a simple code and without much formatting. Unfortunately, when it came to client side demands everything had to “LOOK” good.

This forced me to look for an alternate solution to the generation of fully formatted excel sheets. And then I found Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer. Well, this was class based and I had to include a lot of files (some of them weren’t even there in the package) but the final output was sweet and since it included formatting too, the clients were pretty happy with the stuff too.

Just to go thru the entire thing in basic details I’ll explain a pretty short example and hope that you’ll follow up on the stuff later.
Let’s start off then.

/*
*	Creating object of class
*	The second part within ()
*	indicates the save location
*	of the file
*/

$workbook = new Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer('../../../excelfiles/OnlineExcel.xls');

Read more…

There was a recent blog post which said that Opera study: only 4.13% of the web is standards-compliant.
The blog also included a small bit of extra info which said that of the web pages that were available on the sites, those made with Adobe Dreamweaver were less than 4% compliant with the standards whereas those made with Apple iWeb had a compliance rate of a whopping 84%.

This prompted me to do a bit of research on iWeb. Now since I’m a Windows user, I haven’t experienced any of the features that have been mentioned here but I have tried to mention those features which Dreamweaver (as far as my knowledge goes) does not automatically do.

Let’s begin then. Have fun reading it.

Web widgets

With iWeb, it’s easy to add live content from other websites — like videos, stock tickers, and news headlines — directly into your web pages. So you can create pages that are informative, interesting, or just plain fun. Read more…

We do Web browsers better than anyone

It’s a fact. Opera has been behind the majority of Web browsing innovations over the last decade. Why? It’s simple; we have an entire company of smart, dedicated people focused purely on creating the best Web experience on any device. Nothing more. Nothing less.

We ship proven products

With over 150 million downloads and 70 million device shipments since 1994, Opera products are tried, tested and proven. Our products are deployed with hundreds of operators, OEMs and Device Manufacturers worldwide and are field tested by millions of consumers everyday. Read more…