An introduction to Web QQ

Tecent QQ (腾讯QQ) is an instant messaging tool developed in China, and it serves the largest amount of users in the world with more than 300，000，000 active accounts; recently, it announced its new IM services of web QQ, to follow the trend that most IMs provide web services, like web messenger, web yahoo messenger, etc.

However, compared with other IM services, web QQ is more sophisticatedly designed and provides as rich functionality as desktop client does! The moment I saw the interface, I was stunned, and I really admired how powerful web applications had evolved!

Here are some snapshots of web QQ, I really like the design, and it is very responsive and my experience with it is so nice that sometimes I will not use my client QQ.

Install IIS with FTP service

Last night, when I requested a friend to share the video recording of a NBA game Lakers VS Nuggets, I realized I just uninstalled IIS last time coz that I installed Apache server, and now I need to reinstall IIS in order to set up a FTP server, using my computer as host.

To install IIS, I went to Control Panel-Add or Remove Softwares-Add or Remove Windows Components, and there in the list of windows components I ticked the Internet Information Services checkbox, and clicked next to install it. However, after installation complete, I opened IIS manager but found there was no default FTP site! I thought it was an install incomplete error, so I reinstalled IIS again, still no FTP site.

Since it was not working, I thought there might be problems with windows installation backup files, and decided to uninstall IIS and install ServerU, yet when I was about to uninstall IIS, in the dialogue box, I noticed there was a details button, and when I clicked to get in, I realized what had gone wrong with my installation: FTP service was not selected to be installed!

So now I selected it and installed IIS again, finally can use FTP services. Well, it was really a bit tricky.

Lightbox and Expand/Collapse function in DHTML

Recently I helped school club to design a website to broadcast Singapore Music Express competition, there are two nice tricks in web design, one is the fascinating lightbox effect, the other is the expand/collapse feature.

As an effect commonly used in web 2.0 site design, lightbox offers nice zooming and transition effects of images overlaying on top of pages, while the rest of page dims. To get this function, there are a lot of scripts you can use online, simply download the JavaScript and css style sheet, and add reference in your html code will work. You do not need to read or understand the javascript which contains up to 2000 lines of code, if you do not want to modify it.

To get the expand/collapse feature, we need to write a javascript function in the page, which will change the style of the spcified elments, either to display the block or hide it. As blogger will filter javascript, I will not post it here.

Which looks better?

I have made 2 banner designs (using Adobe Photoshop), used in web page design for my club, I think both are ok, but first one is more impressive, how do you think?

Damned IE8 Flashplayer Problem

Have you guys encounter problems with IE8 that your flash player worked well yesterday however after a refresh of page today, it no longer works but gives you an annoying hint that you should upgrade your flash player to latest version or tell you to enable JavaScript for your browser?

The problem exists since IE 8 Beta, however, the solution is not as easy as just to upgrade flash player as when I tried to solve it that way, even I upgrade my flash player a thousand times, the problem still exists, that's the damned thing! As a result, I can not watch YouTube in IE, can not watch Justin.TV in IE, can not view my blog flash widgets..

To work around that, after many searches and tries, I found that upgrading flash player merely in browser would never help, but you should download the offline flash player install package and install it. As it is installing the player, I notice several files are written to system folder, which testify my guess as a install from browser will not write the files, and after install complete, I refreshed YouTube page, well, annoy finally is swiped away.

Download the offline flash player install package HERE.

Multiple IEs

Recently I helped design a very simple website, however, I encounter the annoying compatibility problem, as I designed the web pages using some DIV and CSS, and the pages are rendered as expected in firefox (Good Job!), minor differences in IE8 (Still Fine), however, there are problems viewing them in IE7 (Frustrating), and earlier versions of IE (WTF): the layout totally turned out terrible messy.

Yes, we can simulate IE7 in IE8 (Press F12 will enter debug mode), however, there seems no way to simulate IE6 online. Do we need to install IE6 to test? NO!

Microsoft has released a compatibility pack called VPC, but you may find the image size just a bit huge, isnt it?

Well, I dont want to download that, after some searches, I found this tool useful, namely MultipleIEs, which will install all versions of IEs on your PC, as it claims but I doublt they are not IEs that are installed but some compaitbility packs also, but never mind, it is definitely a very very useful tool, especially for web designers.

Download

Apache HTTP server conflicts with IIS

It is always troublesome to install server tools like IIS and Apache, when I was doing my Industrial Attachment I took two or three days to configure IIS to make it work, and this time it is Apache!

Fortunately this time, it is just a simple conflicting problem between IIS and Apache, as when I was installing Apache, I chose the same port 80 for the service, while it is the default port for IIS too. After installation complete, when I attempted to start Apache, it gave me an error indicating "The requested service has failed".

Realizing that it might be the conflict problem, I went to Control Panel-Administrative Tools-Services, and there I found the IIS service, stopped it first and then started Apache service, well, it works now.

Huhu, Got to have my FYP presentation the day after tomorrow, good luck to myself.

Singapore Mosquito favors blood type B

After I have played basketball, I would always be "attended" by many annoying mosquitoes while my friends would not. Mosquitoes in Singapore are typically much larger and fiercer, and the swollen will not disappear within several days!

It is said that mosquitoes favor blood type O, but it is obviously not the case in Singapore; when I am with my friends in the room or in the field, it is always me who am attacked most, while my friends would often not even realize there are mosquitoes around.

Well, to keep away the disgusts, let's see what are the favorite targets for mosquitoes:

• Large vital capacity people;
  
• Hidropedesis and those who sweat often;
  
• Fat guys;
  
• Pregnant women or in their menstrual period;
  
• People who have just underwent heavy sports;
  
• People wear dark color clothes;
  
• Those who do not wear socks;
  
• Women wear heavy cosmetics;