HTMList.com

My name is Ryan Scott, I’m a junior Computer Science major at Arizona State University and Synapse Studio’s newest intern. I’m currently learning everything I thought I knew in the world of coding was wrong, and that a semi-intelligent monkey with thirty minutes of spare time could destroy all the data saved in the MySQL databases of my pet project Nayrpg. I’m doing some basic grunt work at the moment while I work to iron out my first pseudo project that will gauge my ability to learn PHP and MySQL.

I love video games, food and my girlfriend, Jenny. In the virtual world, I lead the Moogle Mafia which is a giant (hundreds of people-strong) guild of video game fanatics whose purpose is to train new players in the games we play in. I enjoy browser-based strategy games as well as online MMOs. (Yes, I play WoW, and lead my guild of 157 players.)

I love leading and I love having to use my brain. Strategy and optimization are my two biggest strengths. Hand-eye coordination and writing intelligibly by hand are my two biggest weaknesses. I despise exercise of any sort, with the possible exception of DDR which I do my best to convince myself is actually just a video game and the exercise part is just an unforeseen bug in the original programming (which they will eventually correct in the next patch).

My past programming experience was rather limited. While fluent in HTML, my PHP is entirely self-taught and all I know of MySQL was learned through a combination of trial and error and Google!

I am widely known for being the tallest, skinniest, public transportation user in Tempe. (Yes, I am car-less, relying on Tempe’s infamous busing system to get me where I need to go.) Weighing in at 150lbs and standing 6′6″ tall, I am easily spotted in any crowd by the bright green mushroom hat I wear everywhere I go. To date, there are actually only a tiny handful of people in the world who have ever seen me without it.

When given the opportunity, I will ramble endlessly about anything, as I seem to be doing at the moment. So… I… should probably… stop.

Tagged with: introduction, mushroom, public transportation, tall

Posted in: People

Sometimes, our developers are a bit too busy to come up with blog topics on their own. They’ve requested we have the masses feed them to them directly, instead.  So in an effort to make their lives easier (and to stop us from having to beat posts out of them each week), we’ve created a new category: Ask HTMList.com.  Here, we hope to open up to our readers and answer any of your questions on anything ranging from UI/UX design concepts, complex development issues, architecture and code concepts and everything in between.  We’d also love for you to seek reviews of websites, services, books or anything else related to technology or that you happen to find interesting in the field.

So start submitting your ideas for topics you’d like us to cover, your questions, and your links for our review now!  We’ve added this handy form that shows up on the sidebar when you are in the Ask HTMList section of the site to make it easier on you.   And of course, you can email your questions to ask [at] htmlist [dot] com. Try to stump us; we’ll let you know if we had to cave to Google in our responses!

Tagged with: blogging, books, code, Design, htmlist, news, review, websites

Posted in: Announcements, Ask HTMList.com

As I make my second post in this series, we find ourselves deep into the hot, Arizona summer. The weekly posts suggested by Bob faded quickly into bi-monthly posts. So let’s get caught up, shall we?

Over the past month there has been a lot of action around here. We’re closing up several smaller projects and getting a move on a few new, larger-scaled ones. I’ve been able to contribute to six different websites doing various design and development tasks. I’ve created Wordpress and Magento templates, worked on Wordpress and Magento administration and installation tasks, written custom PHP for a few websites and worked a lot with CSS and simple designs.

I’ve posted about Magento before and how great of a program it is. Well, I’ve also come to see the hard side of Magento now as well. The side that Brandon is always telling me about. Magento’s learning curve is very high, and it is very difficult to do some things that would seem easy. However, if you stick to default functionality, Magento will do wonderful things. For now, I think I’ll save my Magento talk for a different post.

I’ve been able to learn new things and fine-tune my skills. I’ve also been working on learning mod_rewrite. This Apache module is extremely useful for creating SEO friendly URLs and just making URLs look the way you want them to. You can turn http://www.example.com/index.php?state=arizona&city=mesa&id=12 into http://www.example.com/arizona/mesa/location/12/. Pretty slick! Expect a tutorial on this. However, it is quite confusing and frustrating to use. Just reading the intro from the Apache website gives that away.

I do a lot of CSS work around here. Anyone who works a lot with CSS knows how frustrating it can be when things don’t cascade the way you are expecting, especially when trying to be cross-browser compatible. IE6 has become my personal tormentor. If you haven’t read Chris’s post on phasing out IE6, you should take a look at that. And if you’re still running IE6, do us all a favor and upgrade to IE7 or get Firefox. The Latest versions of Safari and Opera are also very acceptable. There are many options. Let’s change that 25% IE6 user base to 0%.

Well, until the next installment, adieu.

Tagged with: ie6, internship, web development

Posted in: People, Rants

So in my zeal to get our new theme launched, I failed to remember to update some code on the comments page that is in place to keep us spam free.  The end result of this was that Yawasp, our anti-spam plugin, was identifying every comment as spam and rejecting them outright. Anyone that tried to post a comment over the last few days, I apologize profusely and encourage you to come back and post it now.

Special thanks to Ivo Jansch for taking the time to contact us and report the problem!

Tagged with: bugs, comments, errors, web development blog, wordpress theme

Posted in: Announcements

As you have probably noticed, we recently unveiled the new and independent look for HTMList.com.  We wanted to establish an identity separate from our web development company so I took it upon myself to get the ball rolling last weekend and decided on a layout that I felt would work well for what we are trying to do here.  We found a great free theme over at TopWPThemes and used that as a starting point. Since then, we’ve been enhancing it bit by bit.  We hope you like it and we’re interested in hearing your feedback about likes and dislikes of the new design.  You may notice the site altering slightly over the next week or so as battles continue to rage within the office on some points of contention surrounding a few design aspects. (No more “slashdot green” for instance.)

Additionally, we look forward to releasing a couple new blogs into our blog network over the course of the next month.  We have some really exciting ideas (not to mention domain names as sexy as HTMList to deliver them on).  More on that soon, so keep your eyes to the site (or feed) for further updates.

Tagged with: blogging, feeds, htmlist, news, synapse studios

Posted in: Announcements

We’ve decided to get a little serious about this and brand our blog under the awesome HTMList.com domain. I know, you’re jealous, right? We’ll be changing some design elements to reflect the shift in real estate soon but get a head start and subscribe already using the nifty dropdown on the left. You can add us to iGoogle, Google Reader or about two dozen other subscription aggregation services you’ve never heard of.

In the mean time, expect more posts on bleeding edge web development concepts, quick and easy how-tos and the nitty gritty into the languages and tools we use every day. We’re going to be attacking things across the spectrum skill-level wise so there should be something for everyone. And yes, we’ll be covering nearly everything web dev—far more than “just” HTML.

Tagged with: html, htmlist, htmlist.com, relocated, web development

Posted in: Announcements

Meet our new intern, Jeremy Lindblom:

Now, we always Facebook and MySpace (which I refuse to link to) search anyone we’re considering hiring. But for some reason, a proper Google search completely escaped my mind. Until now.

I’m just saying that we could’ve made his first day (nay, even just the *interview*) considerably more fun (for us) if we, say, dressed as Goombas or other Mario arch-nemeses.

It should be totally obvious by now that you need to be fully aware of your social networking identity, as your potential hires, clients, inamorata and life partners can, will and SHOULD do at the very least a cursory background check by making sure there’s nothing absolutely terrifying or bizarre about your personality before, well, getting into bed with you. Or, in this case, a useful source of mockery for the next three months.

Tagged with: links, news

Posted in: People

Synapse Studios is proud to announce that our proposal was selected for an enterprise accountability database project for Arizona State Board for Charter Schools. The project was awarded through Arizona’s SPIRIT e-Procurement system and Synapse Studios’ proposal was selected over six other web development companies who submitted proposals.

Our proposal received a 938 out of a possible 1000 points on their evaluation criteria, with the following comments for our Method of Approach:

Excellent five-phase method of approach; communication and progress reporting; timeline. Excellent case studies. Communication doesn’t appear to be a problem since it’s a local company and they are willing to communicate in person and by phone. Best Method of Approach proposed, meets and exceeds all Scope requirements.

The application will handle accountability and compliance tracking and management for the State Board. Synapse Studios is proud to add the State Board for Charter Schools to their roster of government clients. The project is slated to be completed by the end of 2008.

Tagged with: arizona, awards, charter schools, projects, synapse studios, web development

Posted in: Announcements

Hello everyone. My name is Brandon Ching and I am the newest developer here at Synapse Studios. I recently relocated to Arizona from San Diego, CA to attend ASU. I am very happy to be apart of this company and hope that my contributions, both professionally and personally, will enable Synapse Studios to reach the next level of their business goals.

I can most easily be described as a life long student. I have a B.S. in Criminal Justice Administration, a Master of Public Administration degree and was recently accepted to the ASU Doctoral program in Public Administration where I will be researching the government’s use of Internet surveillance technologies as a means of control and coercion in the citizenry.

My technical background is a varied one. My specialty is anything and everything open-source; primarily Linux. I hold certifications in UNIX system administration and have been to a number of technical training conferences from organizations such as USENIX, LISA, and SANS and have been trained in areas such as: system administration, linux OS security, networking, computer and network forensics, and web application security. I am also a GIAC Certified Computer Forensic Analyst and enjoy computer forensics as a study and practice.

I have been developing under the LAMP stack for about 4-5 years now and have experience in everything from AJAX, object oriented PHP, and MySQL database design to the Google Maps API, Drupal, CodeIgniter, and more recently, Magento.

In my free time, I enjoy archery, shooting, competitive badminton, hiking, and photography. My wife and I are also expecting our first child in early November; we are very excited about that.

Tagged with: introductions, synapse studios, web development

Posted in: People

I’m Edgar Hassler, and I resent having to write an about me blog post. I’m miserly, misanthropic, and am to blame for a good deal of development at the Studios. After an unfortunate misunderstanding with Bob’s sister, the guys gave me the nickname “The Bear”. We don’t really know how long I’ve been here, but it’s been more than thirteen Linux is Ready for the Desktop Slashdot cycles, or roughly three earth years. In addition to being a developer I’m also a student in statistics and I am the captain of the Synapse Studios Step Team, “The Steppers”.

If I show up on the blog it will be either liquor fueled angry polemics that will undoubtedly be deleted by Chris once he finds them, or something about ECMA-262-3, or maybe tributes to John Singleton—I read about him a lot in GoF, Alur and Fowler.

I might also write about dive day, where we travel up main street looking for shady restaurants to have lunch in a form of adventure dining that almost never ends up with someone sick or us becoming unwitting accomplices to a “jacking”.

Finally, I’m also a fan of beards, including Doug Crockford’s beard, but especially the maestro—Ben Bernanke—and his beard.

Tagged with: ben bernanke, introductions, Rants, synapse studios, web development

Posted in: People