Web programming tip of the day

Helpful programming tip of the day. Brought to you by the letter dumb and, today, by the MyRogers Change Your Contact Information secure online form.

Let’s suggest you have a common webform that accepts addresses including standard Canadian postal codes. Lets assume your database only accepts postal codes in some format, say, xxxyyy as opposed to another other commonly used variation such as xxx yyy (with a space in the middle).

Algorithm Suggestions:

10 Accept postal code
20 Does postal code have a space in it?
30 if yes, 
     
     Link Style="font-color:RED; set-tone:vaguely-indignant; 
     Print err423: "The format of the Postal Code entered is invalid. 
                    Please ensure that the Postal Code entered is 
                    correct and try again." 

     remove extra space

40 Store postal code to database
Posted in Archive, humanfactors, postalcode, rogers, useability | Leave a comment

FYI: Teksavvy, the best local deal in Broadband?

telephone operators

You may recall some of my historic adventures in finding cheap broadband [ Open letter to 3Web, local broadband internet service provider *]. Well I posed the question to the TorCamp Google Group and received exactly one resounding reply. So I thought I’d pass it on:

Teksavvy.com I have it at home and work now. I’ve tried Bell, Rogers, and a handfull of
other DSL providers… – Colin Smillie

I have had pretty awful results with Bell myself. Roger was alright.
But definitely, of the better local ISPs, TekSavvy in particular, has
been doing it right. It makes it much easier to be a geek… So, is your sanity worth a lot to you? Then start off with TekSavvy. -Li-fan

Agreed – Teksavvy is the way to go. I switched to them a good few
months ago haven’t regretted the decision one bit. Least of all
bittorrent and secure connections work without throttling! – mkuplens

Had been extra smart, I might have asked the question first to gig park, Noah & Pema’s excellent new social tool for service recommendations on pretty much anything </worthyplug>.

Anyway, I’ll post my thoughts on Teksavvy to this blog and gigpark after I give them a try for a while. Cheers all, and thanks to all for your recommendations.

Posted in Archive, broadband, connectivity, teksavvy | 6 Comments

Toy Spammers Attack Twitter

twitterspam
It’s started. Spam on Twitter. Why do the spammers have to ruin everything good on the internet?

Posted in Archive, assholes, spam, suck, twitter | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment