The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're a Real Geek When...

Leonard Nimoy shows up at your door asking directions, sees the Spock crap laying all over your living room and says, "Damn!"

You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.

This Crapolla is sponsored by...

In This Issue...

Resetting IE's stupidity.

Job Listing of the Month

The economy is tough, so why not try something adventurous this year?

QuickSchools.com is a SaaS startup which is inviting software engineers from silicon valley to come work with us in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Yup, you don't see this kind of opportunity every day!

Here's the deal.

QuickSchools.com is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We've just raised venture funding in order to aggressively market our SaaS online school administration software in the United States. Think about it:

There are over 30,000 private schools in the US. And many times more public schools.
Schools are now rapidly adopting software solutions to increase their productivity.
The existing software on the market is old. Most of them are still delivered the old-fashioned way - installing on on-site servers. They are nowhere near the cutting edge of what's happening with Web2.0, SaaS, social media, and so on.
Schools REALLY want to save money for education, so providing an affordable SaaS solution MAKES SENSE.

We believe QuickSchools.com is well-positioned to hit this market hard. BUT we've got a problem: We need talented J2EE software engineers to work in Malaysia who know what it's like to work in a Silicon Valley environment. If you think this sounds like an adventure too good to refuse, read on.

First of all, straight up: We won't be able to offer you compensation that matches your US-based compensation. However, we CAN offer a salary that allows you to live a VERY comfortable life here in Malaysia (between RM 10,000 and RM 12,000 per month). We believe Malaysia is a wonderful place to live in. The expatriates who work in Malaysia certainly enjoy their life here very much. (There are some who choose to stay here forever... but that's another story!) Plus so many exotic destinations are a close 2+ hour flight away: Singapore, Bangkok, Philippines, Phuket islands, Vietnam, Cambodia, and so on.

And relocation... well, about all we can take care of is your flight out here. But hey, this is an adventure, so just pack your bags and come on over.

Please check out www.quickschools.com for an idea of what we do. There's quite a bit more work to do... and we need your help to get there.

There are a variety of senior-level positions we're offering: Lead Architect, R&D Manager, Senior Software Engineer.

Sounds good? Please email your resume and tell us why you'd like to take up this opportunity: adventure at quickschools dot com

p.s. If your background or interest is different from the above, but the idea of working at QuickSchools.com is appealing and you believe you have something solid to offer, let us know!

p.p.s. We also have a sales position in the US. If you have anyone you'd like to recommend, we'd love to hear.

Notice it's all sell and no requirements? No mention of what technology is required. Usually, you dangle technology in front of a geek to get him to move. If you're not going to dangle money (which they are not), the technology had better be good. They didn't even mention free Diet Coke.

Here's the exchange rates I found for the money

1 US Dollar = 3.60874 Malaysian Ringgit
1 Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) = 0.27711 US Dollar (USD)

I looked up the Kelly guide to Malaysian compensation. What's being offered seems a little high for this country, but for you, I think we're talking around 4 grand.

It's the type of job listing that makes you wonder if you'll wake up in a tub of ice with two wounds on your back.

Have I Mentioned Lately How Much IE SUCKS?

I learned HTML in the lobby of a radio station where I had a Sunday morning gig. This new fangled internet thing had just appeared and we had to do a web site. Seemed pretty simple. HTML back then had very few tags, and reminded me of the Pascal homework I did for my girl friend six years previous. (A simple word processor where the data file needed to explain what was happening so the page could be re-created later.) Chicks love it when you do their Pascal homework!

HTML is quite a bit different now. We don't put so much formatting stuff into the content. This allows us to make templates so many pages of the same type of content can look the same, and those templates can easily be modified and replaced. This is mostly done through manipulation of cascading style sheets (CSS). The trouble is because style sheets cascade, they modify the style sheet built into your browser. The real trouble is every browser has a different style sheet you're using as a starting point. (Truth is browsers have their default style sheets for a reason. If a page loads without a CSS call, there's a style sheet there to make it presentable.)

Firefox, Opera, and Safari have very similar style sheets from whence you start. Your work will look very similar between these three browsers. But when you get to IE, who knows what your work is going to look like? It's like a cross-eyed cow wrote it, or someone who wanted you to develop on their browser and thus have all the others look like crap.

The answer to this horrible dilemma is a CSS reset. Before you start loading your CSS tags, you load a file full of tags that take all the margins, paddings, borders, list styles, line weights, you name it, down to zero. Instantly your pages look like crap on all browsers. Now, you need to start loading your style sheets, and you'd better have a style for everything you just set to zero. If you think about it, you can easily rack up half a dozen style sheets.

The reset style sheet to set values to a base point.
A main style that contains values to be used on all pages.
A style sheet to be used for navigation. Navigation tends to be a lot of tags, and keeping it separate keeps the other files readable.
Template specific style sheets. For every type of page you need at least one of these. Here's where you wander off the trail of HTML that looks the same everywhere. If a template has a unique look, define it here. If the item is used on multiple templates, move it to the main style.
A printer style sheet in case the user wants to kill some trees. You don't need to print the navigation, so move its margin -9999 pixels to the left and it won't print. All sorts of web stuff doesn't need to hit paper so deal with it here. And while you're at it, change your colors so it's black printing on white.
Smart phones have tiny screens and could use their own style sheet to make things fit.

On a large site the number of tags you're going to come up with will be enormous. You need to have a way to organize the work otherwise managing the style sheets will be impossible in the future.

What's the secret sauce? It's that CSS reset. You can drive yourself crazy trying to figure out everything needed in a reset, or you can use what others have learned. From the very beginning of the web, most of us have been reading the source of pages we admired. It's how we learned new techniques. Not only can you look at a page's HTML, you can also download the style sheets and read them. I'm not saying you should download someone else's reset and use it without permission. This is significant work. At the same time, I think it's ok to read it, and use it to help you write your own. You may not like everything they are resetting, or they may be missing pieces. Use other's style sheets to learn.

If this is new to you, maybe you just started down the CSS path, and the force isn't flowing yet, you can download a reset that's ready to use. Many sites are using Eric Meyer's CSS reset. Yes, once again, we are reminded that the internet is filled with people who want to help you for free. Just remember, one day when you're mister über-web geek, you need to pay the internet back by giving away your knowledge.

Maybe one day all the web browser companies will decide on a single style sheet to use as their default. Or maybe there will be a tag you can put in the header of a web page to tell the browser to discard its own default style sheet. But that's another fairy tale for another day. For now, know where you're starting from. It's not always the same place!

This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.

Dick Cheney Now Evaluating All Applications to the Republican Party

War Heroes Need Not Apply

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"I can't believe how far up your ass, you've gotten that stick!"

"We're out of cookies, I'm shooting the Den Mother."

"How do you spell, 'God Damn It!' on a phone?"

"Chicks hate wires."

"What's this guy's name? Salami? Like the sandwich? We need to call up sandwich boy and see if we can get a phone system without all his baloney!"

Excuse Me

I have to audition another bar.

Fek'Lar
They pay me to think. These are my thoughts. Do you think they are getting their money's worth?

Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn!

Although written with the software professional in mind, my mind tends to wander all over the place, and I sometimes write about politics, mass stoopidity, dumb things I saw, and whatever else comes to mind.

From time to time, I use salty language, thus The Crapolla is not intended for children, or certain people from the Christian Right.

feed available from http://www.lowcomdom.com/crapolla/index.xml

EOJ

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