Psyked*

it’s easy once you know how.

XSLT and RSS feeds.

Posted by James - 31/01/08 at 12:01:58 am

XSLT is XSL Transformations, and XSL is Xtensible Stylesheet Language. (So says w3schools)

XSLT is pretty impressive. With a single stylesheet you can completely reformat XML data into a HTML structure that suits your needs. Even better than that, you can also use quite complex commands to single out specific peices of data. This gets me thinking - RSS feeds are XML based - and RSS feeds are often formatted in the ugly default method of the browser. So why don’t people use XSLT to completely refactor their RSS feed data, not least to maintain a bit of branding consistancy. Continue reading XSLT and RSS feeds….

Getting started with AJAX / Prototype

Posted by James - 28/01/08 at 01:01:01 am

I thought it was about time I got into some AJAX, or at least got into making use of some Javascript libraries that work with it. Check out the search feature - pretty snazzy, huh?

I based it on the AJAX search results plugin “Addicted to Live Search” for wordpress by John Nunemaker, and then hacked and customised the Javascript functions to add things like the loading graphic. Suprisingly simple, and one I’ll have to remember to write up in the future.

Automatic Link Icons v2.0

Posted by James - 08/01/08 at 09:01:05 pm

Wow. My previous post, Auto-matic Link Icons is by far the most popular on Psyked. It’s even been translated into Russian! Things are constantly evolving, and I thought it only suitable that I should expand upon the original with a few new ideas, techniques and general improvements. So, without further ado:

Improving the Icon Display;

In the original post, I put forward the following code for adding link icons; Continue reading Automatic Link Icons v2.0…

BETT 2008

Posted by James - 08/01/08 at 09:01:31 pm

Well, I’m off to the BETT show on the 9th (tomorrow)  I forget what BETT stands for, but it’s an IT exhibition for schools / educational markets.  Dynamic Learning is being shown off there - as well as being shortlisted for an award - and there’s probably going to be a lot of SCORM / LMS related products on display so it should be an interesting one.

…

Although I suspect not quite interesting enough to warrent a followup post.