PittGeek

It looks like this blog was recently hacked with a rather nasty, malware-distributing trojan, and apparently this has been a rather wide-spread problem. Hopefully there weren’t too many visitors turned away by the “Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!” message from Google. Here is a blog article with more information about the problem. I deleted all of the WordPress files and upgraded to WordPress 2.5.1, then reloaded all of the ScribbishWP theme files from a backup. Finally, I had to hand-clean my WordPress config files and a few static HTML files. I asked for a Google review of the site after the cleanup and it looks like we’re in the clear for now, but please email me if you notice anything like this happening again!

Some of the standard ASP.NET server controls allow the user to specify a template containing custom markup that will be used inside the server control. It is possible to create “.ascx” user controls that make use of this type of template. The MSDN documentation explains how.

When discussing the new features in Visual Studio 2008, LINQ gets most of the press. However, LINQ only works if you are targeting the .NET 3.5 Framework. Another new feature of Visual Studio 2008 is the ability to choose which Framework version to target, and sometimes you just don’t have the luxury of upgrading all your users to the latest Framework. Fortunately several of the new language features in C# 3.0 don’t require library support, so here are some useful enhancements that work just fine when targeting the .NET 2.0 Framework.

• Lambda Expressions (more via Eric White and Scott Guthrie)
• Auto-Implemented Properties (more via Scott Guthrie and Dan Wahlin)
• Object and Collection Initializers (more via Dan Wahlin and developer.com)
• Implicitly Typed Local Variables (more via Scott Guthrie)
• Extension Methods (more via developer.com and Scott Guthrie)
  Update: It turns out that the compiler attaches an attribute to extension methods that is not defined in the .NET 2.0 library, so extension methods can only be used with .NET 3.5 after all.

Clearly blog posts have been very sparse here, so I’m going to try something new. Whenever I find a good article or web site that helps me solve a particular problem I’m having, I’ll try to dash off a quick post referencing it. This’ll help me locate the information if I need it again later, and maybe it will help someone else find what they’re looking for too.

Have you ever noticed those strange “WebResource.axd” URLs that ASP.NET likes to generate? I recently needed to return a JavaScript resource from a custom ASP.NET control and wondered if I could take advantage of “WebResource.axd” myself. Via ASP.NET blogger Jeff Putz, Using WebResource.axd for embedded resources shows you how.

I recently purchased a U3-enabled flash drive. I’ve been using Password Safe (originally from Bruce Schneier’s Counterpane Labs, now a SourceForge project) for some time now to store my passwords, and it seemed like a perfect application to have on a flash drive. I was shocked when I discovered that they wanted $9.95 for the U3 version of a free utility!

Well, the U3 Developer Kit is available for a free registration and Password Safe is Open Source, so I decided to see if I could build my own U3 version. It turned out to be easier than I thought. The standard binary distribution of Password Safe already includes all of the necessary U3 support. I just followed the U3 packaging guidelines along with some pathnames gleaned from the Password Safe source to lay out the U3 package. I then used the U3 tools to generate the manifest file and configure the various actions. I even wrote a little device install utility as an NSIS script to make sure the default data directory gets created when installing to the flash drive.

I’m hereby making available the final result under the same Artistic License terms as Password Safe itself. This is based on the 3.10 version of Password Safe, but I will attempt to provide updates whenever I happen to notice a new release of the original binaries. Feel free to email me if you have any feedback. I simply ask that you remember I had nothing to do with the original Password Safe program, only the packaging.

• U3 Installer
• Source
  The source ZIP contains just the source files for the U3 packaging. You’ll need to obtain the program binaries from Password Safe and the U3Action.exe from the U3 Developer Tools, then place the files according to the directory listing in package_dir.txt. You can also get the U3P2EXE tool from the U3 site to build the executable installer package.

We’re finally back after some extended downtime. Obviously I don’t get around to updating the site very often, so I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I didn’t notice the problem right away. A big thanks to Jeffrey who emailed to inform me that ScribbishWP was unavailable. All of the static content on the site was accessible, but all of the WordPress-powered pages were down. It took technical support a week to track down and fix the problem, but as of last night everything seems to be working again.

So if you’ve been having trouble accessing ScribbishWP, give it another try now. And stay tuned for a long-overdue update in the near future (I’m putting that in writing in the hopes that it will motivate me to finally wrap this up).

I finally upgraded the blog to run on WordPress 2.0. I’ve been holding off on this for awhile because I just haven’t had the time to deal with it. I’m happy to report, though, that the upgrade went just as smoothly as the WordPress documentation claims.

After backing up the database and files from the previous blog installation, I downloaded the ZIP file for WordPress 2.0.5, extracted the files to my local disk, and uploaded them to my host server with FileZilla. I then entered the URL of the upgrade script into the browser, clicked the Upgrade link, and voila!

Now why can’t all software upgrades go this smoothly?

After a lengthy beta cycle, Internet Explorer 7 has finally been released. Microsoft claims that IE7 has significantly better CSS compatibility than previous releases, so how does that impact the sidebar “bug” in ScribbishWP? You’ll be happy to know that IE7 does in fact fix the overflow problem that caused the sidebar to shift to the bottom of the page. Unfortunately, IE7 still puts the scrollbars inside the existing content space, but it’s a whole lot better than having to play games with specific elements in your content to prevent IE from barfing.

On a related note: Jeffrey Hardy, the creator of the original Scribbish theme, recently introduced an updated style targeted at a minimum display resolution of 1024×768 (see I no longer care about 800×600). Requiring a higher screen resolution allows a wider area for content, which reduces the likelyhood of hitting the overflow issue in the first place. Hopefully I’ll have some time soon to add the wider style as an option in ScribbishWP.

From eWeek, the free development tools market is about to get bigger as Borland resurrects the Turbo brand. In addition to Turbo C++, the lineup includes Turbo Delphi for Win32, Turbo Delphi for .NET, and Turbo C#. Each Turbo product will be available in a free Explorer version and a more advanced Professional version. More details are available at www.turboexplorer.com.

Some ScribbishWP users have reported problems with the sidebar in Internet Explorer. When the site is viewed in other browsers such as Firefox or Safari everything looks fine, but in IE the sidebar disappears to the bottom of the page below the content. The problem doesn’t occur on all ScribbishWP sites, so what causes the problem and what can you do about it?

The Problem

Surprise, surprise! The problem is actually a bug in the way Internet Explorer implements CSS. It is sometimes referred to as the “Expanding Box” problem, and it is triggered when one of the elements in the content area or the sidebar exceeds the column width defined in the stylesheet, You can get all the gory details of the bug at Position is Everything. Internet Explorer 6.0 made a number of improvements in the handling of the CSS box model, but this particular bug still persists.

In ScribbishWP, the content area and sidebar are assigned fixed widths in the stylesheet. This is partly for stylistic reasons and partly due to technical constraints of the current CSS standards. The positioning of the content area and sidebar into side-by-side columns depends on these fixed widths.

When Internet Explorer expands the width of one of these columns, the columns will no longer fit side-by-side so the sidebar gets pushed down below the content area. This happens most often with images and <pre> blocks, but it’s possible in other cases also. Firefox and Safari, on the other hand, will limit the displayed width of the contained elements, and add a horizontal scrollbar below the element if necessary to allow the remainder of the element to be viewed.

The Workarounds

Yes, I said workarounds and not solutions. There are a variety of CSS hiding techniques and other browser-compatibility tricks, and some may wonder why I don’t use those to “fix” the problem in ScribbishWP. There are several modifications that can be made to the CSS styling to prevent the sidebar from shifting to the bottom, but they all involve tradeoffs, so I’m leaving it up to individual authors to decide what is best for their site.

Here are several options that you might try if you want to avoid the problem on your site.

Adjust Your Content

Adjusting your content to fit within the size limits of the theme is really the only way to ensure that all visitors to your site receive basically the same experience. ScribbishWP defines a content area width of 500px and a sidebar width of 200px. If you can keep your content within these limits then you won’t have a problem.

You should always scale your images appropriately for the available space. <pre> blocks can be a little trickier because adjusting the formatting to make it narrower may affect the meaning. It is also impossible to control the exact size of the fonts on different systems, so leave a little breathing room if you can.

Adjust the Column Widths

If you can’t quite fit your content to the default column widths, you might want to adjust the widths. The column widths in ScribbishWP are controlled by three elements in the style.css file: #content, #sidebar, and #container. #content and #sidebar should be self-explanatory. The width of #container is the total width of #content and #sidebar, plus an extra 40px for the border between the two columns. For the default widths, this is 500px + 200px + 40px = 740px.

Just be aware that the default widths in ScribbishWP are already hitting close to the limit of what can be viewed on an 800×600 screen without horizontal scrolling. If you increase the widths by much then users may need higher resolution displays to view your site properly.

Set Fixed Element Widths

Internet Explorer won’t honor the fixed widths of the containing column elements, but it will honor a specific width assigned to the element itself. Assigning a specific width to an element will force IE to display scrollbars for the element if it exceeds the specified width.

Unfortunately, IE doesn’t take quite the same approach as the other browsers when adding the scrollbars. Internet Explorer covers up part of the content by adding the scrollbars inside the current display area of the element instead of increasing the display height and adding the horizontal scrollbar below the element like Firefox and Safari. You may need to make extra room in the block by adding an empty line or two at the bottom, especially for single-line blocks, but that empty line will be seen as extra blank space in all other browsers.

You’ll need to consider lots of variables when determining the correct width for a particular element. For example, the <pre> element in ScribbishWP uses 10px of padding, so the element width needs to be set to 490px instead of 500px. There is actually another 10px of padding on the right side, but it is not part of the visible portion of the element when the element is truncated so it isn’t included in the calculation. If an element is nested inside a list then you’ll need to reduce the width even further to account for the bullet margin.

Enable Line Breaking

You can force IE to add line breaks to normally “unbreakable” text by adding the following IE-specific CSS attribute:

  word-wrap: break-word;

This will, of course, mess up the careful formatting of your text without even giving you the control that you would have had by adjusting the content yourself. Non-IE browsers will ignore this non-standard attribute, though, so it should only affect the rendering on IE.

Hide the Overflow

You can ensure that your beautiful layout will never be compromised by telling IE to hide any content that overflows the boundaries of the content area. On the #content element in style.css, add the following CSS attribute:

  overflow: hidden;

This will cause IE to simply chop off any content that doesn’t fit within the column. The drawback is that IE won’t add any scrollbars or anything, The content is just gone, so the IE user will never see it. Firefox and Safari still seem to display correctly because the element widths have already been adjusted before determining if there is any overflow.