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<title>http://charlesmarshall.co.uk</title>
<language>en-gb</language>
<link></link>
<description>All from blog</description>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[IE 6 Bug - Repeating Characters (Revisited)]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://charlesmarshall.co.uk/blog/ie-6-bug-repeating-characters-revisited]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[
      Ok, so I've just discovered another wonderful way to trigger this bug. Apparently putting html comments inbetween floated containers makes the last character repeat! The joys of IE....       ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>2009-04-28 17:48:00</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Preferred Stylesheets...]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://charlesmarshall.co.uk/blog/preferred-stylesheets]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[
      Recently I came accross a very strange issue while converting&nbsp; an exisiting website. As I'm just porting it over to our framework no design or styling work was required, so I'd just been copying the header and footer files into our layout system when I noticed something. This site was using HTML 4.01 and all the stylesheet links had a title attribute, this trigged an obscure issue I had never encounted before. According in the HTML 4 spec setting a title attribute converts the stylesheet to a preferred stylesheets and only one of these can be loaded in at any time. This meant a whole bunch of styling would disappear even though its clearly visible in firebug etc. For more information take a look at this article.      ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>2009-02-18 12:23:00</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Far Too Normal]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://charlesmarshall.co.uk/blog/far-too-normal]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[
      Recently I seem to keep stumbling accross articles about the wonders of data normalisation; and they all suck. Yes thats right, I think the authors of most of these articles are idiots.They keep preaching about avioding data repetition and storing things once. These 5th normal form lovers have clearly only read text books and never worked on any kind of application that has to be fast. Yes, 5th normal form means you only store the data once, but to get to it you have to go through numerious joins, from 3 upwards. Being a pratical kind of person lets use the typical example of a customer and order in both 3rd and 5th normal form to show my point.Fetching Customer Name and Order Date From Order Reference:5th NormalFind order reference &gt; go to join table and find order id &gt; go to order table &gt; store date &gt; go to order customer join table &gt; go to customer table &gt; store customer name3rd NormalFind order reference &gt; store date &gt; go to order customer join &gt; go to customer table &gt; store customer nameEven in a simple example of something that any ecommerce site would do hundreds of times a day, using 5th normal form introduces several extra steps (and in that example I'm being kind, 5th normalisation could easy add a join between customers and names).&nbsp; In the current world of computers data in the same table can be handled with great speed and effiecency providing you do the standard optimizations like adding indexes and keys on the columns; however table joins are still slow in comparision.In this example you would end up with an extreme amount of left joins (assuming mysql here - sorry M$ lovers but MSSQL is not worth the money or hassle), causing a whole bunch of extra table scanning and locking so not only slowing down this query but every other one on the same server.Nice idea, but in practice 5th normalised form is a wasted effort. Instead of spending hours doing that any decent programmer should be busy playing Sauerbraten ;)      ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>2009-02-13 11:03:42</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Nutters]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://charlesmarshall.co.uk/blog/nutters]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[
      I only wish I'd managed to get a photo. While walking home from the new office last night I saw a group of people congregating around a van at the back end of Albert Street car park. Considering all the recent protests about Gaza et al it wasn't anything special. However, when I got closer I started to hear someone preaching at the crowd; another bunch of overly zealous deity lovers that I'd have to politely turn down their literature, just what I needed on a cold, wet night.I was wrong, no sign of omnipotent beings at all, just a big banner which said something like "A touch from The King will cure all addictions!"... Yes, thats right, Elvis worshipers! Even worse than bible bashers! I quietly sniggered to myself, kept my distance and thought to myself 'Don't Be Cruel' as 'You'll Never Walk Alone' 'In the Ghetto' and I didn't want to get attacked by that 'Hard Headed Woman' with the megaphone nevermind the 'Big Boss Man' as I value my 'Life'.      ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>2009-01-23 08:53:00</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[WAA - Where Web Agencies go to Die..]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://charlesmarshall.co.uk/blog/waa-where-web-agencies-go-to-die]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[
      The WAA vultures have been circling again. In a recent press release they announced new staff members; former employees of the recently insolvent Twist Communications. Having never heard of them and just going by the cached version of their website it looks like a small time flash company from the middle of nowhere (at least according to the phone area code). This spell of buying companies for specific clients seems to suggest WAA are trying bulk out their client list again after several clients leaving them. After a bout of redunancies and now speculative purchases, maybe the future isn't so bright in Sutton Coldfield.      ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>2009-01-22 12:31:00</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[WAA Buys Crap Web Company...]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://charlesmarshall.co.uk/blog/waa-buys-crap-web-company]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[
      Now I left WAA a while ago, but I still like to see their web people doing good work and do tend to moan at them when they dont! Regardless of what minor layout issue, semantic faux pas or just something I think is wrong (I moan alot).I mildly bearated them in a previous post regarding the appalling flash site they launched that replaced a nicely marked up (if somewhat overly pink) site. Since the relaunch of www.waa.co.uk their google site index has dropped from over 5000 pages to just over 600! All of the old content they had (mostly articles by Chris Tomlinson) has been removed, nothing new has been added. At least the people they had in web were smart enough to be using open source tech and support the open source community. Looks like that's aboout to end.WAA have recently bought a new web company, MarketingNet. A java and .net based company. Guess all the remaining good points about WAAs web department are about to be replaced by a huge chunk of paper work, administration and bureaucracy. No longer can they claim to be agile or cutting edge when your using tech like that.However, this is not&nbsp; the worst part about the new company. That honour goes to their own website; which doesn't work properly and generally looks like something a first year uni student would knock up in dreamweaver. Large parts of the navigation are relative links which have then been copied and pasted in to the other pages, meaning that the home link that goes to index.html doesn't take to the home page most of the time; when you're in a sub section such as 'about us' if your not careful you can end up going to /aboutus/aboutus/aboutus/index.html. Of course that page doesn't exist.I just hope they got a bargin basement deal on these guys as the quality of work is just plain shocking; reminds me of the early 90s before anyone web person had heard of quality control.      ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>2009-01-16 10:36:00</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[Advertising Accuracy.. or Lack of..]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://charlesmarshall.co.uk/blog/advertising-accuracy-or-lack-of]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[
      Now I don't mind a bit of artistic license when it comes to advertising, but I have my limits. Recently more TV adverts have glaringly inaccurate parts to them and are still broadcast as if they are truths. The big offenders to get my goat so far this year are the PC World sale advert and the Change4Life campaign about healthy eating.Don't get me wrong, I think raising awareness about eating properly, exercise etc is needed. Apparently 10% of parents thought jaffa cakes counted towards your daily recommended amount of fruit, how scary is that! Lack of knowledge, apathy, social groups and non stop junk food advertising probably contributed to this sorry state of affairs, but thats for another time. What annoys me in this advert is the fact they show humans killing a dinosaur! Two species separated by over 60 million years!Somehow this managed to go unnoticed and has been airing regularly since the beginning of the year. Apparently ASA have no issue reenforcing a popular misconception.If that isn't bad enough the current PC World sale advertising fails at basic math; printer for half price, really? I could of sworn half of 129.98 was 64.99, however the advert tells me it's 59.99. The wording says half price, not less than half price. Again, shouldn't ASA be pointing these things out and getting them corrected?You might say that it's only an advert, but how many people are watching that advert? What if your child / nephew / niece etc gave that answer on a math test? Would you say then it doesn't matter then?In the current social climate most children spend almost as much time in front of the tv as they spend at school, so surely the prime time viewing should at least be accurate?      ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>2009-01-03 11:51:00</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[jQuery Diagonal Accordion]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://charlesmarshall.co.uk/blog/jquery-diagonal-accordion]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[
      Looks like anything can be done with a bit of math &amp; javascript.. Take a look at this page for an example of sliding at angles.      ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>2008-12-15 12:29:00</pubDate>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title><![CDATA[jQuery Resizer]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://charlesmarshall.co.uk/blog/jquery-resizer]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[
      Inside our current cms we utilise a jQuery resize tool for stretching out our content entry area. However, it is a bit clunky and and the large size (9k) doesnt help matters. Time to make a new one; and here it is.Example pageMinimised jsIf you've happy with it or having issues drop me a message on either the jQuery project page or via the One Black Bear site.      ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>2008-11-11 09:29:00</pubDate>
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