Blog - Page 8 of 15 - Trippnology

What are QR codes and how to use them

We’ve had lots of questions about QR codes recently… What are QR codes? How do I use QR codes? Are QR codes just a fad? We’ll answer these questions and more.

What are QR codes?

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is essentially just like a regular barcode that we’re all used to seeing on every product we buy. You don’t need any special hardware to scan a QR code, all you need is something you probably have very close to you right now… your phone. There are apps for scanning these codes for all the major platforms and we’ll list some of them below.

The beauty of a QR code is that they can link to almost anything; a bunch of text, a website URL, a telephone number, full contact details (vCard), a Google Maps location, wifi connection login and much more. The other great thing is that you can easily create them yourself with one of the online QR code generators also listed below.
Continue reading “What are QR codes and how to use them”

Scrollable box without using an iframe

Here’s a super simple CSS tip to create a scrollable box on your website, without having to use the dreaded iframe tag. Scrollable boxes are great for cramming lots of content into a small space. They are perfect for announcements or short news feeds.

The solution which forms the basis of this technique is the overflow attribute. It can be set to .scrollable { width:250px; height:300px; overflow:scroll; }

Give a div the class you specified above and you’re good to go.
<div class="scrollable"> [Put your content here] </div>

Example 1:

Ornatus omittam scaevola eos ea, eu his amet quas insolens, nam alii honestatis appellantur id. Vim eirmod imperdiet delicatissimi an, quo pertinax inimicus consetetur at. Id facete euismod mel. Quo mandamus eloquentiam et. Nam ad consul malorum ullamcorper, has ea bonorum verterem. In accusam dissentiunt est, id eos prima mutat solum. Everti percipitur ne vel, ea ubique legimus vix.
Lorem ipsum sea ad molestiae similique repudiandae, qui et habeo reque nonumy. Placerat efficiantur vim ex, eam nulla maiestatis definitiones ei. Duo et inermis definitiones, an vix omittam offendit. At cum noster aliquando constituam. Suas eripuit qui eu, et eam copiosae dissentiet. Labores delicata ad sea, in soluta definitiones eam. Et mea solet nonummy.

The problem with setting overflow:scroll is that it creates both vertical and horizontal scroll bars and often the horizontal bar is not required (or desired).

A better idea is to set overflow-y:scroll (or overflow-x if you need horizontal only scrolling) leaving you with the desired effect.

Example 2:

Let us know what you think in the comments here or on Facebook.

Firefox 5 Final available for download

The latest version of Firefox is available to download from the Mozilla servers, before the official release date. Readers might remember that the same thing happened with version 4 just a few months ago.

The official launch day is Tuesday 21st June and as usual, Mozilla are planning some fun stuff for the day. This is all part of the move to a rapid release schedule, getting the latest features and enhancements out to users as soon as possible.

So what’s new?
It’s certainly a much less dramatic improvement over version 4.0, which was released on March 22 after a development time of more than 13 months. In
fact, at first look, you will not be able to tell a difference between 4 and 5. The layout is identical and the overall look and feel will not reveal any differences at all. There is a list of improvements, many of which most users may not care about. It’s not an impressive list for a completely new browser version, but a closer look shows that Mozilla has fixed almost 1000 bugs in total and there are actually more new features than Mozilla says there are.

The major points include improved support for HTML5 and related technologies, a slight speed gain in JavaScript as well as idle connection tuning integration, which should speed up the page load performance of Firefox considerably. There are 38 new “features“, my favorite being CSS3 animations, keeping Firefox inline with the Webkit browsers when it comes to web standards.

Firefox 5 Direct Download Links:

If you’d rather wait for the official release, it will be available here.

Let us know what you think in the comments here or on Facebook.

Top notch broadband from AAISP

We’ve just recieved our dealer code from Andrews and Arnold. This means we can now supply broadband via AAISP and help customers with order and fault tracking.

We chose them from the massive list of available ISPs (Internet Service Providers) because basically, they wipe the floor with everybody else! Have a look at this comparison to see what we mean. Even when business grade ISPs like Zen are included, the results speak for themselves.

They also test all their resellers for competency. We had to answer some pretty tricky networking questions before we were granted dealer status – it wasn’t just signing up on their website!

More reasons to choose AAISP:

Real, unfiltered internet access (no traffic shaping).
They’ll fix a fault on your line even if you are with another ISP.
Constant quality monitoring.
Usage based tariff – pay for what you use.
IPv6 enabled.
Call centres based in England.
Free .uk domain with your broadband.
Easily bond 2 or more lines together for increased speed and resiliency.
No minimum contract.
Pay by BACS – Direct Debit optional (other companies should take note of this one).

As you read through their website, it becomes clear that these guys really know what they are doing and go the extra mile to make sure you get a good service. This fits perfectly with our own philosophy which is why we have no doubts about recommending them.

For the more technical readers:

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms    <1 ms  www.routerlogin.com [192.168.0.1] 
  2    15 ms    15 ms    14 ms  b.gormless.thn.aaisp.net.uk [90.155.53.12] 
  3    14 ms    15 ms    14 ms  a.armless.thn.aaisp.net.uk [90.155.53.6] 
  4    15 ms    14 ms    15 ms  rt-lonap-a.thdo.bbc.co.uk [193.203.5.90] 
  5    15 ms    14 ms    14 ms  212.58.238.153 
  6    14 ms    14 ms    14 ms  rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136] 
  7    16 ms    16 ms    17 ms  virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252] 

Trace complete.

You gotta love being 3 hops from the BBC!

Let us know what you think in the comments here or on Facebook.

Link to a specific post on Facebook

Someone asked me yesterday how to link to a specific post on Facebook and I had to stop and think for a minute. When you get a notification, you get a link to the status or link in question but how do you find this link yourself?

The answer was staring me right in the face. Under each post (be it a status or link post) is a timestamp. It is this timestamp that provides a link to the individual post.

All you need to do is copy this URL and paste it onto Facebook just like any other link. Unfortunately, the results aren’t very pretty but at least it gets the job done (and includes any original comments).

Let us know what you think in the comments here or on Facebook and remember to share with your networks.