ok; so the old entrance to Blue Studios  was just some text :(…

So I thought over the weekend the enhance the entrance, I hope you all like it.

The Digaset site and our Open Source jQuery Games Engine site are temporarily down whilst we do some updates.

I never use XML when doing AJAX I’ve always believed in using the JSON format. For me XML and Soap requests are too bloated and there is way too much overhead. But recently I had a client that wanted xml over json and for some reason I couldn’t figure what was going on with IIS as I’ve never had this problem in apache - well here’s the solution for you and a little background info.

Getting XML demos to work on IIS 6-
1. Right click on “Default Web Site” Select “Properties” from context menu.
2. Select “Home Directory” Tab.
3. From Application Settings select the “Configuration…” button.
4. Add an application extension.
5. Enter the asp executable extension - C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\asp.dll
6. Select all verbs radio or enter XML,GET,HEAD,POST,TRACE
7. Goto Mime Types Within the “Default Web Site Properties” window under the HTTP Headers Tab.
8. Add .”xml” and “text/xml” - although this should be already set on the root “Web Sites” folder aswell.
9. Goto “Web Service Extensions” Make sure “Active Server Pages” are enabled.
10. stop start IIS or do a iisreset
11. Open all xml files and enter the asp tag to set the content type.
12. <%response.ContentType=”text/xml”%>
13. extjs, jquery or any other framework will now work with IIS.

IIS by default will not return POST or GET http requests of any file format that is not defined - therefor you have to set this up under the application extensions.
Unfortunately the asp extension returns the content type as text/html as a result you have to enter the asp tag to return the content type of text/xml. <%response.ContentType=”text/xml”%>

Passing the incorrect content type to javascript will not break or crash the script however will not display any results.
For example if IIS returns the content type of text/html for a xml file then the javascript method - response.responseXML will not work - using the response.responseText method will return text however this does not help as further methods may be expecting an xml structured response.

As an alternative you may by able to install FastCGI and set up the xml extension in there instead of asp I believe this will automatically return the correct content type for xml.
However there could be security risks by doing this as php cgi could be now extecuted from the server - and I would recomend a security audit if you took this approach.

As part of my skin bundle (fingers crossed due to be officially released in a couple weeks) I will be including this easter egg :). That’s right a Stark Industries WebCenter Spaces Skin!!

It’s still in its early conceptual design phase, so don`t expect this to be the final result..
But for you interested - click to see the larger design.. When your bored of your current skin flip over to this one

Before anyone comments - this may be just an image but from my experience of customising Spaces everything in this crazy over the top design can be converted to a Spaces skin..

I hope you guys enjoy this latest skin - as you can see its based on the original white design - I did back in December with a few slight alterations.

No I didn’t reskin firefox aswell, before anyone comments
Search for NASA Night Launch to download the firefox skin if you really like it..

Yes I know you are all asking for the extended trinidad css skin files for the design - in a couple of weeks fingers crossed I`ll have them complete and you`ll all be able to get them install them and alter them as you wish.

I’ll also be working on a complete new interface for Spaces approaching it from a Social networking view rather than a portal widget styled design that Spaces currently implements!!
So think facebook, linkedIn, MySpace’d version of Spaces for connecting and collaborating… I have my work cut out for me - but its going to be great fun….

##Update ##

I have thrown together a few widgets.. This is just a quick mockup and not a final representation..
And yes for all you designers obsessed with following the box model guidelines - I`m sorry.. But I prefer randomness than conforming to the rule..
And with this design it seems to actually work

That’s right its a WhatchaMCallIt…

Yes, yes wierd random blog post - I was playing with photoshop last night and randomly came up with the above.

I have no idea as of yet what I`m going to use it for - but I`m sure there is a project or two I can use this with and maybe  add it to a flashy app