Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with web

Have Users Change a Running Python Script's Variables over the Web?

millerizer — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:51:43 -0800

I'm writing a simple simulator with python and I would like to be able to have my users log in to the simulator over the internet and change their own set of variables. I know next-to-nothing on web programming and I'm not to concerned about security, the simulation will be on it's own dedicated machine.

Is anyone familiar with 90 Second Web Builder?

fruitopia — Mon, 20 May 2013 05:30:00 -0800

Has anyone used it or does anyone know anything about its functionality? Posting this on behalf of my boyfriend. He asks:

"I'm thinking of purchasing a web developing tool called 90 second website builder to create the building blocks for an article selling website. I was wondering if the community had any dealings with it and what they thought of its features and how much depth (development-wise) it has. Also, would anyone know if it was possible for a web developer to modify the created website and add his/her own code easily, or would they need specific knowledge of the builder itself?"

He wants to be able to do the first part of the website by himself (to cut down on some costs) and then hire a website developer to do the hard bits.

I want Readability stylesheet on each web page 1st load. Possible?

usermac — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:30:37 -0800

I'm finding as I age, I use Readability on a lot of pages. Can I make a local style sheet that overrides the native one upon first load of a page that does what Readability does?

Google Reader replacement?

grouse — Sun, 12 May 2013 12:38:14 -0800

Google Reader is going away soon. What should I replace it with? Specific requirements inside.

Import existing feeds from Google Reader.
Import starred items from Google Reader.
Web interface that works with Firefox on Windows and Linux.
Keyboard navigation on web interface that allows quickly moving from one whole article to the next (not just titles).
Android app that allows quickly moving from one whole article to the next.
iPad app.
Offline storage on Android and iPad apps.
Ability to star/flag items for future follow-up.
Folder organization of feeds.
Export to Pocket.
Easy subscription of feeds from Firefox.
Would prefer something free but am willing to pay money.
Easy sharing of items via email/Facebook/Twitter/Google+.

There was a flurry of posts about Reader replacements when Google first announced they were pulling the plug, including an Ask MetaFilter post, "Recommended replacements for Google Reader?" I figured that after a couple of months some of the dust will have settled, new services may have been developed, and people would know which services can handle the increased load of Reader refugees.

What is this called

AceRock — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:16:03 -0800

I'm seeing a trend emerge, but I can't quite put my finger on how to identify it. Does it already have a name? If not, help me come up with one (for an article I'm writing). The article's jumping off point is RapGenius's foray into annotating everything not just lyrics, the NYTimes' Quips tool, Medium.com's paragraph-level commenting/annotation system, and Findings.com. I go on to (attempt) to try to tie in the NYT's Snowfall piece, Grantland's recent Iditarod piece, David Foster Wallace's footnotes, the Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner, and marginalia in general at its best.

The idea is that moving commentary and discussion from below the fold of an article into the margins represents an evolution of commentary from annotation to a closer relationship to the target/main text, giving it more of an equal footing and moving it towards something more like elucidation and illumination rather than mere annotation.

Is there already some term or turn-of-phrase that describes what I'm talking about here? If not, can you help me come up with one? I am struggling with it. Thanks!

Government office wants to use Creative Commons photos - kosher or no?

rileyray3000 — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:06:09 -0800

I'm trying to get an idea of WHICH areas of Creative Commons I can draw from on Flickr. I work for a state doing something that, while noncommercial, does support business in a way. I want to use creative commons pix for a website we're putting up. So attribution, I get. That's easy. The others I'm not sure about - as a government office are we, by dint of our setup, considered non-commercial? And the non-deriviative works...does that mean we can't even crop it? And I completely don't understand "share alike" at all. Does that mean if we use THOSE photos we have to let anyone have our website template and content (which would be our only original work) for free with complete unrestricted use?

Nonprofit Headhunters in NY?

Violet Blue — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:44:24 -0800

Wanted: Names of headhunters that place communications professionals in nonprofit jobs in NYC, plus advice. Got any? I asked a question about finding a Content Strategy position (in a digital marketing agency) here a month or so ago, and got excellent advice. Among other things I was counseled to put together an online portfolio, which I've been avidly doing. And I'm just about ready to send some resumes out ... but I'm wondering whether I shouldn't weigh the pros and cons of working for a straight-out nonprofit at the same time.

I've got more than a dozen years of editorial experience (books) and 2 1/2 years working exclusively for nonprofits. In my nonprofit role, I've primarily worked with Web content, research/discovery, content organization, usability, navigation, and mock-ups hence the content strategy angle.

But I've also been working with design, video, social media blogging, and the creation of newsletters, press kits, fundraising kits, and the like.

My current title is Senior Content & Communications Strategist, so I'm straddling both worlds. And the key to my interests is I'm very much a Jill-of-all-trades, and happily so, with an overall focus that encompasses communications in all its forms. And, in some ways, it strikes me this skillset would be most useful to a nonprofit. Thoughts?

Okay, so my questions are:

Is this enough nonprofit experience to get me a communications job for a nonprofit?
If so, what kind of title/level would I be looking at?
How much would such positions pay?
Finally, do you have any recommendations for NYC nonprofit placement agents or agencies?

Many thanks!

I can't stand the heat, should I get out of the kitchen?

socksister — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 08:02:56 -0800

Is the weight of expectation and pace of change making my web career untenable? I started working for a 'new media' agency in 1999. Since then I've mostly worked in web publishing and content management. I've seen a lot of systems come and go. I'm now a team leader for a content/production team and I'm getting to serious burnout.

My biggest problem is that 'web publishing' is now such a broad remit it's impossible to keep up with everything I'm expected to understand on behalf of my organisation. I'm heavily involved in strategic and operational activities around technical development, specification, functional and UX requirements and testing, intricacies of search and analytics, optimisation, data management, CMS and server architecture, UGC and community management, CRM integration, social media, privacy, video and audio production and streaming, standard editorial, content strategy and maintenance, e-communications, cross-sell, extranet-type network and DMS platforms and online application and payment actions - oh and I'm supposed to be on top of all the crowd-based alternatives for anything that may be proposed internally. As well as actually running the high-profile, fast-moving, high-traffic site my team is actually responsible for.

I can't cope with trying to keep up. Every week I'm drawn into a lengthy series of questions/decisions about problems with features or services that I'm expected to understand and have an opinion on and I'm about ready to scream. My immediate boss, whilst lovely and supportive, is from old school press and has no background in digital platforms but there is a huge appetite in our org for 'modernity' and my team is expected to enable it all. As the 'friendly' face of web we're also the de facto translators between PMs, BAs, business owners and the IT team. It's completely exhausting.

My original motivator for working in web was about shaping the message and I'm still interested in that, but I'm bogged down in endless requirements, policy-making, standards development and governance - and it's all impossible to keep hold of because the technology moves so fast. I feel I'm constantly trying to hold up against a Tsunami of 'services' that promise amazing things but result in unworkable systems with processes that I'm expected to understand and fix - because I 'know web'.

I did think maybe it's just my current place so I've been applying for other, similar jobs and even had a couple of offers but when it came down to it they just looked like more of the same and I couldn't face going ahead. I used to love having a broad view but now I think I'm fundamentally unsuited to the pace and breadth of it and I need to look at other options before the cracks start to show.

So my question is: is this the reality for being a front end web manager? Are there non-developer specialisms with fewer expectations, and if so how do I reposition myself for those roles without heading for obsolescence as systems inevitably move on?

What's the current hotness for web development frameworks?

meowzilla — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:35:47 -0800

What are the best options for quickly developing web applications? I'm looking for something as fast as possible to set up and get running, instead of getting bogged down in setup and configuration details. I've got experience in LAMP almost eight years ago, but that's an example of something that takes too long to integrate everything together, then requires a few more frameworks on top of the "P" layer. I know PHP, Perl, SQL, JS, HTML, and CSS (and can probably learn any other mainstream language) but I don't know what frameworks tie them all well together.

I'm not concerned about scalability, performance, or security; just a very simple CRUD (create, read, update, delete) application. Maybe even just the read part is enough.

Ruby on Rails was the talk of the town a few years ago - is it still the best option? I've touched node.js and all-JS sounds promising, but what do I need to build on top of it to get going? Are Java-based frameworks still unwieldy and overdesigned? And I don't have any idea how CMSes like Joomla or Django work - they seem designed for blogs or static websites.

How to transform daily emailed data into a web–accessible chart?

borborygmi — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:47:31 -0800

I get reports emails every morning with simple, TSV data in the message body - and am trying to do something pretty with them, automatically. I'd like to forward these emails ... somewhere... and have them transformed into charts that are viewable on a password-protected site, or something like Panic's Status Board app.

Are there any tools that can help me get this job done? The simpler, and cheaper, the better. I looked at sites like StaHat.com but still felt like I was missing a few steps.

I don't have access to BusinessObjects or CrystalReports. but I do have FTP access to a server and some coding skills in HTML, C and python. Also pretty good with excel, if that helps.

Use of The City as a metaphor for the Internet/Web

0bvious — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:19:31 -0800

I am looking for examinations of the Internet and World Wide Web that use the structure and/or history of the city as a metaphor. I'm afraid I have no original example of this phenomenon to kick things off. I have this image in my head of 'the city' that always goes back to Plato and his Republic. Plato's city was a physical, social construction, as well as a philosophical metaphor, at one and the same time. It feels that many have talked about the Internet in similar, overlapping, terms.

(It need not be 'the city as metaphor', rather any social, physical space that humans build and live in will suffice. Also, metonymy rather than metaphor would be great.)

Writings that explore the political history of the city, it's technological expansion, that consider the city as a nexus for theories of human civilisation, of emergence perhaps, of structure, social and political control and, perhaps most importantly, of space vs place - all as a way to think about similar phenomena taking place online. The Internet as emerging network with similarities to the city; the World Wide Web considered as spatio-social metaphor?

etc. etc.

Any ideas?

I need a lot of royalty-free pictures of California. Options?

rileyray3000 — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:51:28 -0800

So basically I need to swap out all the art on several websites with photos of California that we have the rights to use in perpetuity (as well as for print). I realize there's the "buy one at a time from Getty" avenue but I have neither the time or resources for that. What I need is a boatload of pics that I can use for commercial use that are all OF California (as well as some general use pics, graphics and art). A very big collection that I can hand to an intern so they can get swapping. I think in the old days you used to just be able to buy a CD-rom of images. Can you still do that? Are there full collections with hundreds of pics? Or are there any free collections that anyone knows about that are just public use for this purpose? My budget for this is not high (no more than a couple hundred bucks) so I'm open to any options possible.

Let me Lycos that for you.

deludingmyself — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:55:40 -0800

Educational Internet scavenger hunt game from the late 1990s, with new questions and websites to explore each round. What early multiplayer web-based treasure hunt game thing was I playing? Sometime around 1995-1998 or so, my brother and I were playing an online scavenger game aimed at kids (and adults?) that required you to go around each month (I think?) to a variety of pre-screened websites, and attempt to hunt down specific pieces of information. Think like, trivia you might find in a National Geographic magazine for kids, except that the websites you'd go to might be... I don't know, an early homepage for a nature preserve in New Zealand, the website for a U.S. state capital, and an early information site that described all the Apollo missions in detail. (Just guesses... I don't remember any specific websites. It could've been more themed, but I don't think so.) You'd get a long list of questions (dozens?) each round, and then submit your answer - I think via an html form with a user name, but I can't swear to it. Then each round the scores would be tallied, and you'd get them back (along with the correct answers?), and then a new round would start, with new websites to explore and new answers to find.

I remember the questions being hard to solve, although I'm sure loading at whatever modem speed we had at the time didn't make this sort of thing easy. And I must've played at least three or more rounds of this, and remember being pretty obsessed with it at the time, but I haven't thought about it (and how much those skills relate to my current knowledge worker, web-researchy life) until just tonight. What the heck was I playing?

Scrolling past the most recent 20 articles at io9 and deadspin?

mediareport — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 06:11:15 -0800

I get that Nick Denton has some sort of fixation on breaking the simple functionality of scrolling backward through a blog's archives, but the last time Gawker sites redesigned, you could work around the breakage by going to "blog.[gawkersite].com" to get it back. Is there currently any way to scroll back past the most recent 20 articles at the front pages of io9 and deadspin? Note: I've tried, but don't care about the Kinja comment system at all; I just want to read the posts on occasional visits. Is Gawker Media just writing visitors like me off or is there a workaround to the elimination of easy access to older stories?

Tool for building a reference guide website or document generator?

100kb — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:23:36 -0800

Is there a word for these types of web-based tools, and a widely-used way to make them? One: a way make a web-based reference guide / glossary / help centre. Two: a tool that will generate a custom 20-page PDF based on complex user inputs, complete with table of contents. Are there open-source, well-supported solutions for building these things? Maybe a way to combine some plugins for Drupal or Wordpress? I really have no idea how to tackle this. I have a client who has a unique need. I'm trying to figure out if I can provide what they're looking for, and if not, where I should point them. Let's call them a non-profit association (NPA). They support small member organizations (MO's) by providing legal counsel, and one of the legal services they provide is a toolkit for new non-profits to write their documents of incorporation and bylaws.

Currently this is a Word document that has all the legal language the MO needs, in several optional variations, with notes where they should cut and paste things or customize. The user (MO member, usually not computer-savvy) has to cut and paste this Word document into a new Word document and then figure out how to generate a new table of contents and change the text to reference that new table of contents. This is required because often the text says things like "(when such and such happens) see bylaw 2a subsection 3 (but if such and such doesn't happen) see bylaw 3c subsection 1," so numbering needs to be consistent. The process often goes badly and the MO has to send their document back to the NPA to be cleaned up and fixed, which creates a lot of work

The current Word document also comes with a reference guide which explains legal terms and bylaw implications. Currently this guide is produced as a static PDF or printed booklet.

The NPA has a vision of this all happening online, in a more controlled way. They want the guide to be an interactive help centre, linked directly to the working document. So as the user is working on selecting their bylaws, they could click on a term and go to a web page with a definition, or see a pop-up with an explanation. Furthermore, the NPA would like to have more control over the final document, ideally they'd like PDF output based on a limited number of choices, rather than a Word Doc. The process is complex enough that the user should be able to save their work and come back later, rather than doing it all in one sitting. The MO's already all have logins to the NPA's (Drupal-based) site where they access the downloadable resources, so Drupal makes sense as a starting place. Any ideas about how to tackle this with existing tools? Are they looking at paying $50k for a complete custom web app? Or is this just plain too big to tackle, and they should put the money towards hiring a bunch of legal assistants to deal with the workload from the current system?

Recommend me a new webhost for my client, please

Thorzdad — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:22:04 -0800

My client is talking about moving to a new host. I need options to suggest. My client is (finally!) fed-up with Network Solutions for their web host. I'd like to recommend a couple of good possibilities to them, but I'm not really up-to-date with the options.

They're a small business (an adoption agency, actually) with a mid-sized website, all pretty basic html, no fancy bells-and-whistles. They average between 2.5-3.5 GB of bandwidth per-month.

A really good webmail option would be a plus. Currently, the staff hate NS's webmail interface to the point where they are all having mail forwarded to Gmail accounts (a situation I'm not entirely comfortable with given the sensitive, personal nature of a lot of their emails and, well, Google being Google.) The host's mail should have solid spam filtering that doesn't require each user mess-around with Spam Assassin or whatnot. Ditto for not using multiple webmail clients (for instance, my own webhost has you choose between three webmail clients each time you log in.) The fewer geek-oriented features for users, the better.

As for future site plans, there is always talk about having secure forms and, possibly, some limited sort of live chat, but they have never gone further than talk.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Obviously, cost is a concern (they're a non-profit) but almost anything has to be cheaper than NS.

You're doing it wrong.

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:22:41 -0800

I make websites. I have an old client whose new vendor is, to be blunt, not a competent web designer and not a developer at all. She has been coming to me for help, and it's putting me in quite an awkward situation. How can I remove myself at all gracefully? While I was out of my area for a couple of years, an old client hired a new designer to redesign the website I built for them with WordPress in 2006.

A year ago, this designer came to me with questions that suggested she had no business building a website for anyone. I suggested at the time that perhaps she would like to design the look and feel, and I could write the front-end code. She wasn't into it.

In the intervening year, the few contacts I had with her simply reinforced my initial impression. Here was a person who did not have the skills or interests to adequately do the job she'd been hired to do. I've tried to be as helpful as I could. I've certainly felt helpless.

We are closing in on launch, and the final product of a year's worth of efforts is, in a word, awful. I personally think the visual design is underwhelming, but my subjective view there is irrelevant. Not in the realm of opinion though, is the sloppy, hackish, inefficient, and ugly code sitting under the surface. It pains me.

Now I am being asked for help again – this time to take the monstrosity live. I definitely won't do it, but I feel the need to justify, to this designer and to my old client, why I refuse to be involved.

My feelings are no doubt colored by disappointment that my work is being retired. Were it being replaced by something as good or better however, I would have no problem. But it is being replaced by something terrible and broken.

I care about this profession, and I definitely resent that there are so many people out there doing it poorly. It's depressing that most small website owners can't tell the difference between good work and bad. My own work is surely not perfect, but I go to great lengths to stay current and understand what I'm doing – including what I'm doing wrong.

I want to yell at this designer for ripping off my old client, people I care about, and for learning on their dime without apparently learning anything. I want to run to the client and warn them about the shoddy product they're being sold. The whole thing makes me sad and angry, and want to behave like a sad, angry person.

But I'm a grown-up, and I still have to live and do business in this small world.

I'm just having a hard time figuring out the grown-up thing to do.

Ideas?

How can I make sure I won't get sued for cybersquatting?

anonymoose — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:19:23 -0800

This is a little tricky to talk about without specifically mentioning my domain name, but I'll try. I have a popular website that's about to get significantly more popular, because I'm about to publish a book, go on book tours, etc. There's a *much* more popular website that's been around since the beginning of the web, and part of my domain name includes their domain name (for example, suppose their domain was Narnia.com, and my domain was AdventuresinNarnia.com). We're in the same general market (say Narnia.com sold video games, and I reviewed video games). What legal risk am I subjecting myself to, particularly if I have absolutely no desire/intent to sell my domain name? I have a PR4 site and I don't want to move, but I don't want to put links to my website in a published book and then get forced to move later.

Recommendations for a simple Web contact form?

steinsaltz — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:48:16 -0800

Someone with a simple .HTML/.PHP page and no content management system needs me to put up a "Contact Us" form. In the old days there were a lot of PHP scripts to do this, but I can't tell if any of them are still reliable and secure. Are there any recommendations for one? I'm familiar with all the great ones for Wordpress (Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7) but unfortunately can't use those because this site has no database. Any help much appreciated.

A website to extract prominent colours in images/webpages?

kansakwens — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 08:40:32 -0800

I seem to recall at one point finding a website where you could type in the URL of a webpage or image and it would give you the prominent colours, with hex codes, etc. Does this actually exist or was I dreaming?

What's in your Google Reader/RSS?

decathexis — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:44:57 -0800

Another internet rut question/on the eve of Google Reader's destruction: What's in your RSS? I know that some people have 600 different feeds, so I want to narrow down the question slightly. I saw the answers to this recent question, but I don't need to hear about big company-run sites like Lifehacker, NYT Blogs, or other standard stops. I miss the weird and idiosyncratic side of the net. I want blogs run by talented individuals talking about their professions or hobbies or niche local interest. I love "inside baseball", but preferably not about baseball! It's okay if a site has several writers, but I want it to be specialist, not generalist. Sites don't have to be updated super regularly, just smart as hell. Bonus points for blogs about the arts, sciences, or humanities.

How do I build a component library?

eleyna — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:49:00 -0800

How can I build a component library so our designers and developers keep things synchronized and don't end up doing a lot of double and triple work? I'm part of a design team for a large (and getting larger) website. After a lot of hiring, we have more designers and developers now (yay!), so there's more work going on, and we're all doing different things at the same time. Sometimes designers and developers end up doing double or triple work, designing a solution for the same problem, because we didn't know there were already existing components in random places on the site that we could have used, instead of building a new one. (e.g., hover effects, carousels, buttons, toggles, etc.)

It would be great to have a component and pattern library that contains:
> Design files
> HTML/CSS/Javascript
> Any related code/documentation

Are you currently building, maintaining, or using a component, design, or pattern library? If so, how did you build it? Are there any off-the-shelf solutions, or did you roll your own? Any relevant experience would be helpful.

Gotta lose my mind in Detroit Rock City

spicynuts — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 07:58:31 -0800

Detroit - Anyone know who the big players or up and comers are in terms of small shops doing solid ios and interactive development? I've been scouring the country looking for sharp, hungry interactive or app development agencies because I am unhappy with our current development shop. Unfortunately part of our value prop is that we don't use NYC or SF resources so we can pass savings along to our clients so I've been focusing on places like Baltimore and even the Dominican Republix. However, seems like Detroit is in the news a lot (front page of today's NYT) so I googled and apparently there was an app developers conference in Detroit in February so it looks like there is a fledgling and developing scene of agencies and developers there. Does anyone have connections or at least know who the talented people there are? I've already reached out to Detroit Labs.

Need a tool for walking users through my website

Kellster — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:07:02 -0800

The idea here is that I have a product for a specific niche (construction management), that is well designed and (I think) very intuitive. But the target users are not very savvy in terms of WHAT they should be doing. I need to walk them through various processes step by step. I'm envisioning something that can easily be scripted that will walk them through various pages, functions etc. Wait for them to enter something into a field, point out the next field (with a text bubble or the like) and then keep them moving through it.

I swear I saw something like this a few months ago, but I can't find out now. Anyone?

How to replace non-ascii characters with HTML entities?

the latin mouse — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 08:32:30 -0800

I’m currently working on an international project and need to format documents written in German, Polish and Croatian for use on the web. What is the quickest way to convert all the non-ASCII characters into the relevant character entity? Some sort of web form would be my ideal solution, but I’d settle for a freeware program.