Blog of Shaun McCran - Architecting web solutions using ColdFusion, JQuery, CSS, Accessibility and other technologies

How to adjust the canvas size in Visio

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:33:00 -0700

Random Visio tip for today (As I'm spending a lot of time in Visio at the moment). If you want to resize the canvas area in Visio simply hold down the Ctrl button and move your mouse over the canvas edge. You'll see the Mouse pointer turn into a double ended arrow. Now click and drag the mouse to expand or contract the canvas. You can also rotate the canvas by doing this.

Archimate Architecting and Modelling tools – Built on Eclipse

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:14:00 -0700

If you've ever wanted to design the flow of an application before launching into the code base or front end CSS then Archimate is for you. It is an open source platform that allows you to use an "independent Enterprise Architecture modelling language that supports the description, analysis and visualization of architecture within and across business domains." Roughly translated it allows you to draw different shaped boxes with connectors to show the layout and flow of your applications. [More]

Vodafone Sure Signal review

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:26:00 -0700

A product I'd been vaguely aware of, but have since discovered a lot more about is the Vodafone Sure Signal box. This little white box uses your home broadband to create a 3G bubble in your own home. It is basically a mini, private 3G mast. [More]

Dissecting business failures: Allowing scope creep from clients

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 01:50:19 -0700

One of the most common forms of business failure that I have the misfortune to witness on a regular basis is the allowance of clients to instigate scope creep within projects. I have never understood how some industries accept scope creep as part of everyday business; let me explain what I mean. [More]

Moving on

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:57:00 -0700

In a similar vein to Matt Gifford's recent blog post on 'Moving on' (read more here: http://www.mattgifford.co.uk/moving-on) I have the pleasure of announcing that I'm off to pastures new. I'd like to thank my current employer TDA, a marketing agency in Cheltenham, for the opportunities working with them as afforded me. It has been a really interesting and diverse period of my career and I've been exposed to some really prominent UK brands, covering a wide range of technologies and market sectors. Going forward I am extremely happy to have accepted a role at Vodafone as a Technical Architect. I'm really looking forward to working with such a recognised brand, and it's a really exciting prospect working for such a technology focussed company, with like minded individuals. So to wrap up, 'Thanks to the old, and here's to the new'.

Using JQuery to check Radio button selections

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:03:00 -0700

Ever wanted to check if a user has checked at least one option from a series of radio fields? JQuery makes this super simple, here's how to do it: [More]

JQuery Countdown timer Plugin example

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:54:00 -0700

I'd previously used a JavaScript script to count down from a now() to a given date to display real time count down information on screen. I was cleaning up the project it was used on and wondered how easy it would be to push all the 'normal' JavaScript into a JQuery plugin and encapsulate it all into one function call. [More]

JQuery auto resize input field Plugin example

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:13:00 -0700

I was looking for a simple way to make an existing Text Area form field expand as-and-when a user fills in enough information to reach to bottom edge of the form element. James Padolsey has written a great little Auto resize function, you can get it from Github here: https://github.com/padolsey/jQuery.fn.autoResize. The documentation in the example included with the download above is pretty good, but I've put up an example of it working here as well: JQuery Auto resize Textarea plugin example

Forcing the dollar ($) Namespace within your JQuery functions

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:57:00 -0700

Whilst documenting some Open Source platforms for an upcoming project I found that several of the larger more prominent Open Source software solutions perform some subtle tweaks to included JavaScript libraries. In this case JQuery. This is a short post on ho to ensure that the $ character always represents the JQuery library in your framework. [More]

Dynamically tagging content with Keywords using JQuery

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:22:00 -0700

I've used a ticketing system called Lighthouse App for a while now, and one of the features I really like about it is its ability to tag content with keywords in a very easy and obvious fashion. If you have ever wanted to tag an article or some content with a list of Keywords then this blog article is for you. [More]

Just what is 'Best Practice' exactly?

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:14:00 -0700

I've been an advocate of 'best practice' for a while now, in any random psychometric test I'll always come out rated as a perfectionist which may go some way as to explaining why I am constantly striving to make whatever process I am involved in either more efficient or generally just a smoother transaction. But some recent musing has left me wondering just what 'best practice' is? When I sat down and really thought about what the term means to me I came up with some surprising answers. [More]

What should I study in college to get started with ColdFusion?

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:16:00 -0700

The other day I got a comment on a Blog article from a reader. The reader asked "What should I study in college to get started with ColdFusion?". On one hand this is a massively open question, on the other I'd quite like to expand it even further. [More]

Simple JQuery Google Analytics tracking object

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:07:00 -0700

Each time I build a new project I find myself adding in several common objects from a variety of languages. One of those objects is a JavaScript based Google Analytics tracking object. [More]

My natural development pattern - software layer-ification

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:33:00 -0700

Whilst reflecting on some of the projects I'd been through in 2011 I noticed a pattern that became more and more prominent as the year wore on. All of my project functionality was naturally splitting itself into independent service layers. [More]

Book review: JQuery Mobile – a first look

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 03:31:00 -0700

I was recently sent a copy of JQuery Mobile by Packt publishing for review. I've dabbled in the JQuery Mobile development language a fair amount, so I was interested to see what this book could teach me that may be different from the information out there in the community. [More]