If you work with Borland Delphi... then you probably would like to speed up your load time, your application's speed, and make everything faster.
Here's what to do. Use Application.ProcessMessages;
If you are using TwebBrowser, put this on OnProgressChange event. Makes web pages load instantly.
Use this command is your .EXE source, and it loads twice as fast. Use this in any loop. You'll thank yourself.
Back to coding.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Seagate Mirra - Annoyances - Annoying
Like all good developers, I have a backup system. As I have literally over a million file that I need to back up on a regular basis, I chose the Seagate Mirra. For its network functionality, local availability, and sleek design.
Now It's had a few issues that were recently corrected by a patch, but I'm talking about the specific issue of Mirra's apparent file locking.
For example: I'm running a program through my development environment. This program creates a temporary file, and the deletes this file (over and over and over) Now the problem with this scenario is that when this file gets locked by the Mirra, my application can't create it again, and therefore my app fails. Perhaps my app could work around this, but I hardly think that it's worth it to me to redesign my application, to take into account someone else's created annoyance. Perhaps I was ten minutes though a thirty minute process? It's quite a pain in my ***.
Now every time I am working on a program that creates a temporary file in a folder being backed up by the Seagate Mirra, I have to disable the Mirra. Otherwise, I lose countless minutes and ever hours of productivity daily.
Perhaps Seagate can look into the way they process files. Like check to see if the file is in use, or has been created with the last .xxx seconds? Anyway that's my gripe for the day!
Now It's had a few issues that were recently corrected by a patch, but I'm talking about the specific issue of Mirra's apparent file locking.
For example: I'm running a program through my development environment. This program creates a temporary file, and the deletes this file (over and over and over) Now the problem with this scenario is that when this file gets locked by the Mirra, my application can't create it again, and therefore my app fails. Perhaps my app could work around this, but I hardly think that it's worth it to me to redesign my application, to take into account someone else's created annoyance. Perhaps I was ten minutes though a thirty minute process? It's quite a pain in my ***.
Now every time I am working on a program that creates a temporary file in a folder being backed up by the Seagate Mirra, I have to disable the Mirra. Otherwise, I lose countless minutes and ever hours of productivity daily.
Perhaps Seagate can look into the way they process files. Like check to see if the file is in use, or has been created with the last .xxx seconds? Anyway that's my gripe for the day!
Monday, August 6, 2007
Best Free Directories
Here are some of the best free directories on the net. Use them to add your website link for free. Enjoy...
- Directory Archives
- Turnpike Emporium Directory
- Windows Live Search Submit Page
- Yahoo Site Submit
- Submit Express - Free Search Engine Submission
- Web World Index
- iMegaMall Directory
- Link Centre
- SoMuch
- SEO King
- Ranking WebSite Directory
- PortalIT Web Gallery
- Net Insert - Must Add A Custom Meta-Tag To Page To Get In!
- NeoRunner
County, City, State, Zip Code Data
Hello, and here's some important news from Twilight Surfers Development.
We just finished a new website that will help the public find any information related to any city, state or county in America. We feature links, latitudes, longitudes, time zones, area codes, and of course, targeted ads from Google. We think it's laid out real nice, for to make it easy for surfers to find the city data that they're searching for. check it out. The link is in the title.
We just finished a new website that will help the public find any information related to any city, state or county in America. We feature links, latitudes, longitudes, time zones, area codes, and of course, targeted ads from Google. We think it's laid out real nice, for to make it easy for surfers to find the city data that they're searching for. check it out. The link is in the title.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
The Music City Madman - A novel of terror & suspense
A new project for me, I am publishing my 1st novel online for the world to read for free. I would rather some get to enjoy the book for what it has to offer than let it collect dust. This book took me seven years to write, and although it was a great learning experience for me, I believe it has some fine writing in it, and I hope those who do enjoy it will tell others.
Look for the entire manuscript online for free very soon.
The book was originally published through AuthorHouse several years ago when they were 1stBooks Library. Needless to say I wasn't pleased with their service, and I pulled the book from their stock.
What happened was that I had gotten a deal through Anderson Austin News, a big distributor for fiction interested, and they agreed to sell the book in airports, and grocery stores everywhere, but 1stBooks didn't want to sell the book cheap enough, and they handled what could have been a great situation with disdainful ignorance.
Anyway, here we are years later, and the book is available to freely read online. The project should be up and running within a week or two, as I just have the first page of the website up today. Then I have to build a web publishing tool to convert the book into individual web pages. The process shouldn't take all that long.
Look for the entire manuscript online for free very soon.
The book was originally published through AuthorHouse several years ago when they were 1stBooks Library. Needless to say I wasn't pleased with their service, and I pulled the book from their stock.
What happened was that I had gotten a deal through Anderson Austin News, a big distributor for fiction interested, and they agreed to sell the book in airports, and grocery stores everywhere, but 1stBooks didn't want to sell the book cheap enough, and they handled what could have been a great situation with disdainful ignorance.
Anyway, here we are years later, and the book is available to freely read online. The project should be up and running within a week or two, as I just have the first page of the website up today. Then I have to build a web publishing tool to convert the book into individual web pages. The process shouldn't take all that long.
Friday, June 29, 2007
SiteMapper Tsd Software on eBay
Look for some great new software in a couple of weeks on eBay... I am building a XML SiteMap creation tool for release as a very inexpensive application for maintain complex sitemaps.
It will allow for creation from url, or local folders, create a html version of the map, and exclude dynamic urls, or filter out file extension not to list. Perfect for the busy web developer. Built in the TSD style, that is "Ease of Use!"
I think it will be a hit, and about 4.99! It will be powerful, and cost effective, as well as easy to use. I like about fourteen hours on it, of course where will I find that many hours ???
Also an update on Structured Site. After my announcement below, a lot of stuff went on, and I haven't had a chance to finish that software. It is extremely complicated, with dozens of components, OOP! I think sometimes, I'm almost done, and... then I think about another innovative feature that I want it to have, and when I release this thing, it will be the bomb baby...
Well, too many irons in the fire as they say, as I have one robot returning data, one website publishing tool running, and Delphi begging me to code, all while tying to get more pages indexed for my clients, and myself.
I better get back to it.
It will allow for creation from url, or local folders, create a html version of the map, and exclude dynamic urls, or filter out file extension not to list. Perfect for the busy web developer. Built in the TSD style, that is "Ease of Use!"
I think it will be a hit, and about 4.99! It will be powerful, and cost effective, as well as easy to use. I like about fourteen hours on it, of course where will I find that many hours ???
Also an update on Structured Site. After my announcement below, a lot of stuff went on, and I haven't had a chance to finish that software. It is extremely complicated, with dozens of components, OOP! I think sometimes, I'm almost done, and... then I think about another innovative feature that I want it to have, and when I release this thing, it will be the bomb baby...
Well, too many irons in the fire as they say, as I have one robot returning data, one website publishing tool running, and Delphi begging me to code, all while tying to get more pages indexed for my clients, and myself.
I better get back to it.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Online Poetry Library Lounge - Read & Submit Poetry
Please check out the newly designed and implemented PoetryBrowser.Com. I designed and built this website for the hundreds of online users that used to use the old version of the online poetry library which was always a hobby. The last version I built of the poetry library was built in a couple of days.
I have spent over a full week. The site now requires a free author account. From inside the online poetry library's "My Office" link, authors can post or edit their poetry that's in the library, or comment about other users' poetry.
Online authors that choose to save their poetry for display in the online poetry library lounge can delete offensive comments that other users can post about the poetry. In this way, PoetryBrowser.Com allows authors complete control over their library community experience. Their is a extensive profanity filter in place, so that shouldn't be an issue. Only other authors can post comments, or poetry. The poems themselves go through a profanity filter as well, so I am trying to keep this library family friendly.
Authors may choose to post in one of eighteen categories defined by the webmaster. Although much of the site is dynamic, the poems and poem category indexes are actually static pages, for SEO reasons.
The poetry library lounge pages, and the office functionality require log in. Once logged in, those pages are completly dynamic and from your PoetryBrowser office, you can comment on other poems, and edit your own content.
The library gets published several times daily. Don't call it a poetry blog! It's the online poetry library.
So if you love to read and write poetry, check out the new site by Twilight Surfers - PoetryBrowser.Com
I have spent over a full week. The site now requires a free author account. From inside the online poetry library's "My Office" link, authors can post or edit their poetry that's in the library, or comment about other users' poetry.
Online authors that choose to save their poetry for display in the online poetry library lounge can delete offensive comments that other users can post about the poetry. In this way, PoetryBrowser.Com allows authors complete control over their library community experience. Their is a extensive profanity filter in place, so that shouldn't be an issue. Only other authors can post comments, or poetry. The poems themselves go through a profanity filter as well, so I am trying to keep this library family friendly.
Authors may choose to post in one of eighteen categories defined by the webmaster. Although much of the site is dynamic, the poems and poem category indexes are actually static pages, for SEO reasons.
The poetry library lounge pages, and the office functionality require log in. Once logged in, those pages are completly dynamic and from your PoetryBrowser office, you can comment on other poems, and edit your own content.
The library gets published several times daily. Don't call it a poetry blog! It's the online poetry library.
So if you love to read and write poetry, check out the new site by Twilight Surfers - PoetryBrowser.Com
Monday, January 22, 2007
Structured Site Web Editor HTML editor site builder
Note this link won't be live till later on today, due to the fact I'm blogging at work. "The joys of working for yourself!" Anyway, I thought I would announce the imminent release of some new Twilight Surfers Software. The application is a full-featured HTML editor and site builder. I've been working on this program for nearly a year, and it's the third full version, yet the only one to be available to the public. I plan on releasing the software by the 1st of March. It should be available by then for sure. I have to just write the integration / installation routines.
Structured Site is unlike any html editor that I know of, it's slick, fast, has integrated publishing capabilities, database page storage, integrated file and image browser, built in javascript and html code libraries. Let's you get work done fast, keep all your sites in a database, publish in a couple steps. I plan on selling ten billion copies and retiring to a private island. The demonstration version will not allow publishing even to hard disk, and I hope I've thought up and good method to protect the application from those darned crackers.
Check the link for all the goodies that Structured Site will contain... But here's a quick breakdown in case your too lazy to click!
Never look for another missing web page. Never have to look for images. Never
have to look for your favorite JavaScript.
Twilight Surfers Structured Site is the web developer's answer to common
time-consuming web design tasks.
Tired of cluttered Toolbars, that essentially do squat???
Let Structured Site's clean and usable interface delight you with quick design
times, and everything you need to keep coding right at your fingertips!
There's a lot I didn't list, and from the description, I'm sure you developers are surely salivating!
I can't wait myself...
Structured Site is unlike any html editor that I know of, it's slick, fast, has integrated publishing capabilities, database page storage, integrated file and image browser, built in javascript and html code libraries. Let's you get work done fast, keep all your sites in a database, publish in a couple steps. I plan on selling ten billion copies and retiring to a private island. The demonstration version will not allow publishing even to hard disk, and I hope I've thought up and good method to protect the application from those darned crackers.
Check the link for all the goodies that Structured Site will contain... But here's a quick breakdown in case your too lazy to click!
- Image Conversion
- Centralized Image Library
- Multiple CSS File Support
- Handles all Web Type (File Types)
- Javascript Library
- Color Scheme Generator
- Color Pickup from screen
- On Screen Ruler
- Dictionary
- Thesaurus
- Integrated Shortcut for Helper Apps
- Creates Navigation from files, open windows, or site files!!!
- Integrated W3c Validation
- Check with Tidy
Never look for another missing web page. Never have to look for images. Never
have to look for your favorite JavaScript.
Twilight Surfers Structured Site is the web developer's answer to common
time-consuming web design tasks.
Tired of cluttered Toolbars, that essentially do squat???
Let Structured Site's clean and usable interface delight you with quick design
times, and everything you need to keep coding right at your fingertips!
There's a lot I didn't list, and from the description, I'm sure you developers are surely salivating!
I can't wait myself...
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Page Background Color
A short note about background colors in HTML. If you are going to have a different page color other than that which will feature your main content, it is a good idea to enclose the content area will a {div} or {table} that is the same color as the area that holds the content.
You see, web pages load in stages, and let's say you have a dark background, with white content areas... For a few seconds, (depending upon page speed) you will see dark text on a dark background. This is especially apparent when dark backgrounds are used with tiled images for {div} or {table} backgrounds.
If you use a {content} area, it will load quickly and prevent this.
Alright!
You see, web pages load in stages, and let's say you have a dark background, with white content areas... For a few seconds, (depending upon page speed) you will see dark text on a dark background. This is especially apparent when dark backgrounds are used with tiled images for {div} or {table} backgrounds.
If you use a {content} area, it will load quickly and prevent this.
Alright!
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Good Site Navigation Layouts
For you to have good site navigation, there are couple of things you need to think about. Many times, you will probably have many more pages than you want to list in your main header and footer navigation lists. That being said, they still need to be categorized logically.
Including a page called site map with links to all your pages is a good idea, because a visitor to your web site can always go to that page to see quickly what may be of interest and or value. It's a good idea to keep you header and footer navigations clean. Let's say you have 5 services, it stand to reason that you have one services link, and then branch off from there.
Of course you could always have a set of navigation links above that does this, and then below you could list all you service pages in the footer navigation. I do find this method pretty good, if you have a relatively low number of products or services.
So even though you want to use consistent navigation links, you do have options. One important thing to remember is you should really use fully qualified urls in you site's navigation! That way when you move some page to a subdirectory for some reason or another, your site won't break. Always provide redundant navigation on each page, and never use flash or script as your sole source of site navigation, this is a huge no-no.
Including a page called site map with links to all your pages is a good idea, because a visitor to your web site can always go to that page to see quickly what may be of interest and or value. It's a good idea to keep you header and footer navigations clean. Let's say you have 5 services, it stand to reason that you have one services link, and then branch off from there.
Of course you could always have a set of navigation links above that does this, and then below you could list all you service pages in the footer navigation. I do find this method pretty good, if you have a relatively low number of products or services.
So even though you want to use consistent navigation links, you do have options. One important thing to remember is you should really use fully qualified urls in you site's navigation! That way when you move some page to a subdirectory for some reason or another, your site won't break. Always provide redundant navigation on each page, and never use flash or script as your sole source of site navigation, this is a huge no-no.
Fake Nike 360s Nike Air Max 360
this post is a little off-topic but still and all, be sure to check out my eBay guide to buying Air Max 360s on eBay. My guide is in the top 5000 of all guides, and you should be able to get to is by visiting the about me page. Don't bother to read the info just look at the "guides by this user" and you should find the guide.
The guide tells you all you need to know if you've ever been scammed on eBay and bought fake NIKES. You might not even know! But you can be sure by reading the guide.
The guide tells you all you need to know if you've ever been scammed on eBay and bought fake NIKES. You might not even know! But you can be sure by reading the guide.
Friday, December 15, 2006
List-Corp.Com
I've recently finished a huge project for List-Corp.Com, Inc., which was a site design, and graphics creation for a large, and modern national business directory. You can click and view their web site. They have signed on for me to create the designs an graphics they'll be using for their entire network of nine total web sites by the end of 2007.
They wanted a design that was easy on the eyes, and ad-free site, and something easy to navigate and locate the information they have in their almost ten thousand categories.
I'm also building some of the software they are using! For instance, they wanted an easy method to have current news headlines on their front page, that could draw from multiple sources. Now usually JavaScript can be used to do this, but they wanted content that could be indexed by search engine spiders, so I built a handy little ISAPI to hit multiple sites, with the keywords they specified, parse the news links, and send them back to a file they could place with Server Side Includes.
The project has really went well, and they have a ton of information available, If I so say so myself, it's the nicest directory on the web.
They wanted a design that was easy on the eyes, and ad-free site, and something easy to navigate and locate the information they have in their almost ten thousand categories.
I'm also building some of the software they are using! For instance, they wanted an easy method to have current news headlines on their front page, that could draw from multiple sources. Now usually JavaScript can be used to do this, but they wanted content that could be indexed by search engine spiders, so I built a handy little ISAPI to hit multiple sites, with the keywords they specified, parse the news links, and send them back to a file they could place with Server Side Includes.
The project has really went well, and they have a ton of information available, If I so say so myself, it's the nicest directory on the web.
Friday, December 1, 2006
IE7 Breaking Websites
Is Internet Explorer Version 7 breaking your CSS? Especially your 3-column layouts??? It's probably all the IE CSS hacks that you have for IE6 according to the IE developer staff, Their support for standards is greatly improved.
I know I'm having a heck of a time with some float issues. But that's the price we pay for the relative ease of CSS design. I mean remember tables?
About the only thing I use a table for these days is for a form design, still pretty easy to make those look good with the use of tables. But back to IE 7 breaking our CSS
The title of this post has a few answers, and below our some helpful links for you if you are facing this bug-a-boo. I guess we should have downloaded the beta of IE? Huh...
Some IE Blog Posts
IE7 CSS Hacks
Oh, and while I'm at it who else hates Yahoo and Google for indexing content on webmasterworld.com??? I mean you can't access the content, without a subscription but it seems neither Yahoo or Google have figured out this yet. You thing with a billion or so dollars you could put a few people on it especially for a site that has probably thousands of indexed pages!
Just de-list them already! You know how many times I've clicked on a link of their's and come up with a, "Only Paid, lah-de-oo-ga-dee"
Anyway good luck with the IE7 troubles... Hope this post helps a little.
I know I'm having a heck of a time with some float issues. But that's the price we pay for the relative ease of CSS design. I mean remember tables?
About the only thing I use a table for these days is for a form design, still pretty easy to make those look good with the use of tables. But back to IE 7 breaking our CSS
The title of this post has a few answers, and below our some helpful links for you if you are facing this bug-a-boo. I guess we should have downloaded the beta of IE? Huh...
Some IE Blog Posts
IE7 CSS Hacks
Oh, and while I'm at it who else hates Yahoo and Google for indexing content on webmasterworld.com??? I mean you can't access the content, without a subscription but it seems neither Yahoo or Google have figured out this yet. You thing with a billion or so dollars you could put a few people on it especially for a site that has probably thousands of indexed pages!
Just de-list them already! You know how many times I've clicked on a link of their's and come up with a, "Only Paid, lah-de-oo-ga-dee"
Anyway good luck with the IE7 troubles... Hope this post helps a little.
BoogleBot
What's Up with GoogleBot??? Seems like it's been crawling my server for days on end, off and on. Sometimes it goes aways and is right back in a minute or two? Does anyone know if Google has the capabilities to crawl sites that there are no external links to?
That's a good question, because sometimes I put up a site I'm working on, if I go Server Side Includes, to test it out.
If anyone know the answer, please post it here. That way I don't have to research it for hours. Just a quick note to le me know, maybe I can do something for you someday...
Thanks in advance... OneSurfer
That's a good question, because sometimes I put up a site I'm working on, if I go Server Side Includes, to test it out.
If anyone know the answer, please post it here. That way I don't have to research it for hours. Just a quick note to le me know, maybe I can do something for you someday...
Thanks in advance... OneSurfer
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
SEO Optimization
I think a lot about how to improve the web sites that I code. The site in the link above really helps, and it runs very quickly. It analyzed your site and gives you a lot of detailed information regarding your keyword density, your title relevancy and such.
It's one of the more useful online tools that I've come across, and I thought I'd share the link with others that might not know about it. The service is completely free, and very useful, as I've mentioned.
Happy coding...
It's one of the more useful online tools that I've come across, and I thought I'd share the link with others that might not know about it. The service is completely free, and very useful, as I've mentioned.
Happy coding...
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Google Experiment
Everyone is always looking for the best way to stay on top in the SEO market, and I guess I'm not really that different. I do share on thing in common with Google. I like clean, and simple designs, and interfaces for my software, and my websites.
Apparently, Google is experimenting with a new search engine, to see how the market reacts to different user interfaces. I would like to think part of their popularity was an ad-free interface.
I looked at the Search Mash home page and it doesn't even have a button. I'm assuming that you have to press the enter key on your keyboard. I didn't try it out, preferring actually to use a scraper for my searches, especially if I'm searching for my keywords. Otherwise, Google has a tendency to give skewed results. *Particularly if you search from the server the web site is running on.
Bu anyway, back to the NEW Google??? The page is so clean it could be freshly diapered. Anyone with any more information is more than welcome to post and let the blogging community hear their thoughts on this new Google venture.
Click over to the title of this post for the full story.
Apparently, Google is experimenting with a new search engine, to see how the market reacts to different user interfaces. I would like to think part of their popularity was an ad-free interface.
I looked at the Search Mash home page and it doesn't even have a button. I'm assuming that you have to press the enter key on your keyboard. I didn't try it out, preferring actually to use a scraper for my searches, especially if I'm searching for my keywords. Otherwise, Google has a tendency to give skewed results. *Particularly if you search from the server the web site is running on.
Bu anyway, back to the NEW Google??? The page is so clean it could be freshly diapered. Anyone with any more information is more than welcome to post and let the blogging community hear their thoughts on this new Google venture.
Click over to the title of this post for the full story.
Malicious Software
I was over at the Microsoft site, and was glancing around.
I came upon the security guide for Windows Vista. Microsoft engineering teams, consultants, partners, and engineers, plus customers have approve after reviewing this prescriptive guidance. What the heck is a prescriptive guidance???
Why make up terms to make things sound more important than what they actually are??? Remember Active Desktop, and the so-called, "channels".
The preliminary Vista security guide does seem fairly comprehensive, but one has to wonder, after the security nightmare that was Internet Explorer was for so many years, it is finally going to REALLY be better?
Tell me what you think...
I came upon the security guide for Windows Vista. Microsoft engineering teams, consultants, partners, and engineers, plus customers have approve after reviewing this prescriptive guidance. What the heck is a prescriptive guidance???
Why make up terms to make things sound more important than what they actually are??? Remember Active Desktop, and the so-called, "channels".
The preliminary Vista security guide does seem fairly comprehensive, but one has to wonder, after the security nightmare that was Internet Explorer was for so many years, it is finally going to REALLY be better?
Tell me what you think...
Freight Payment Directory
I have just finished up building and refurbishing www. freightpayment.net.
I have totally re-tooled it to be a freight payment listings directory. Having been in the top ten for years with the companies I worked for, now that I work for myself, I figured to allow this site to help other more deserving companies increase their web site visibility.
So if you get a chance, check out the new site, and let me know what you think about the design. I would appreciate any feedback at all. As sometimes I tend to think I over-use some elements of design too often, but they seem to always look nice.
I intend to make this site very professional, with no ads, and nothing to distract web surfers from the information they are searching for.
I have totally re-tooled it to be a freight payment listings directory. Having been in the top ten for years with the companies I worked for, now that I work for myself, I figured to allow this site to help other more deserving companies increase their web site visibility.
So if you get a chance, check out the new site, and let me know what you think about the design. I would appreciate any feedback at all. As sometimes I tend to think I over-use some elements of design too often, but they seem to always look nice.
I intend to make this site very professional, with no ads, and nothing to distract web surfers from the information they are searching for.
Thinking about DMOZ??? Forget it...
You need to check out my post over at http://www.dmozsucks.org/. Especially if anybody is considering even posting anything over at http://www.dmoz.org
It's basically a waste of your SEO time and talent. There are much better ways to get quality inbound links for your website.
There was a day when not having a link in DMOZ hurt. That day is over. There index is full of dead and broken web sites, and the quality of the sites that are listed are not that great. Not to mention that most of the editors are owners of businesses that are in the category they edit! Of course links in DMOZ NEVER HURT!
Just forget it, don't waste you time.
It's basically a waste of your SEO time and talent. There are much better ways to get quality inbound links for your website.
There was a day when not having a link in DMOZ hurt. That day is over. There index is full of dead and broken web sites, and the quality of the sites that are listed are not that great. Not to mention that most of the editors are owners of businesses that are in the category they edit! Of course links in DMOZ NEVER HURT!
Just forget it, don't waste you time.
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