The Media Annotations Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of API for Media Resources 1.0. This specification defines an API to access metadata information related to media resources on the Web. The overall purpose is to provide developers with a convenient access to metadata information stored in different metadata formats. The API provides means to access the set of metadata properties defined in the Ontology for Media Resources 1.0 specification. These properties are used as a pivot vocabulary in this API. The core of this specification is the definition of API interfaces for retrieving metadata information in synchronous and asynchronous. It also defines interfaces for structured return types along with the specification of the behavior of an API implementation. Comments are welcome through 25 November. Learn more about the Video in the Web Activity.

Today it was announced that GoDaddy purchased MediaTemple. I've been a long time user of both of them. I thought I'd share my thoughts. Full disclosure: this site is on a free server they give me. I pay for other MediaTemple services. I also use their affiliate program but there are no affiliate links in this article.

People generally love MediaTemple. People generally hate GoDaddy. People hate GoDaddy for a variety of reasons:

1. Their (ex)CEO killed an elephant.
2. Previous ad campaigns objectified women.
3. Their UI is kinda crappy.
4. They try and up-sell you so much it's ridiculous.
5. Their hosting kinda sucks.
6. They initially supported SOPA.

I haven't been able to muster up as much hate toward GoDaddy as most folks, because:

1. While I don't do it or love it, hunting is a legitimate hobby. He didn't break any laws and what little information there is about it suggests he might have actually helped out.
2. This section updated. Thanks to some commenters and emails for helping me understand this better. I originally understated the situation by just referencing that they use attractive women in advertising. It's definitely worse than that with objectifying ads like this that aired up until early this year. Those went on far too long, despite all the negative community feedback. They are changing that though.
3. The UI is a bit crappy, but it works. I actually kind of like using it, because when you do something like change nameservers, it happens quickly because GoDaddy is so huge. Bad UI, good UX.
4. The upselling does feel ridiculous, but from what I understand, domains are essentially a loss-leader and that any profit at all comes from other sold services. A bummer, but that's the market.
5. True. Don't use it.
6. They didn't ultimately support it, but that does kind of suck. I wish we had more internal insight into this. I feel like what they really want is better ways to fight evil crap on the internet - and misguidedly thought SOPA was going to help that. I, for one, thought the whole thing was a bit confusing.

A more personal story: when this site's domain was stolen, the people that worked the absolute hardest for me and ultimately won the battle was GoDaddy. CSS-Tricks may not be here at all if it wasn't for them. The people that I talked to there totally understood the negative public perceptions but wanted to let me know that they are just some normal happy hardworking people that care about customers, and I believe them.

Even after the ordeal was over, they helped me further by helping me make it a protected domain, which is an awesome service they offer. It's kind of a legal agreement that even makes it difficult for me to move the domain and outright impossible for anyone else to do it.

On the MediaTemple side, I'm a big fan. Their support is fantastic. Their servers are fantastic. The UI and UX of using their service is fantastic. I think it's a strong business with clever ideas (like their SiteMover, Premium Support, and proactive security monitoring.) It's very surprising that they needed to sell to grow. As they put it:

Demian Sellfors and John Carey, have been working toward something like this for some time. The reason for this is simple – it helps us accelerate our growth so we can serve more Web designers and developers in the U.S. and around the world.

Eh. I dunno. I bet those fellas wanted to make some cash and relax some of their company-running responsibilities. I bet they genuinely feel that GoDaddy is going to do a good job and not screw it up.

If anyone thinks MediaTemple is just going to be exactly the same or better forever, I'll bet you a nickel you're wrong. I bet they are losing employees as we speak who aren't happy about this. Things will change. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt though. I'm going to keep on liking both services until there is a real reason to not.

I'm going to leave comments on, but I'm kinda nervous about it. I'm going to be moderating heavily for civility.

Thoughts on GoDaddy buying MediaTemple is a post from CSS-Tricks

On-Campus Interviews offer students a chance to conveniently interview for professional positions on campus.  Employers travel to our campus for the specific purpose of interviewing preselected students for currently open positions.  This is a great opportunity to interview with employers specifically interested in UMBC students and offers the advantage of a smaller applicant pool.  Interviews take place during the fall and spring. The logistics (viewing positions, applying, signing up for interview time slots, etc.) are all handled via UMBCworks.

Don't miss out on employers coming to UMBC to recruit YOU this fall! The following is a list of employers coming to conduct on-campus interviews with application deadlines within the next month.

Deloitte
Position: Federal Security & Privacy Consultant - 9259839
Resume Submission End:  October 14, 2013

AOL/Advertising.com
Position:  Associate Tech Support Engineer
Resume Submission End:  October 16, 2013

U. S. Census Bureau
Position:  IT Specialist
Resume Submission End:  October 17, 2013

Mueller Associates, Inc.
Position:  Mechanical Engineer
Resume Submission End:  October 22, 2013

Morgan Stanley
Position:  Operations Analyst Program
Resume Submission End:  October 23, 2013

Worthington Financial Partners
Position:  Sales Associate & Management Trainee
Resume Submission End:  October 24, 2013

A full list of On-Campus Interviews scheduled is available on our website calendar and on UMBCworks, please check regularly for any updates or changes that may occur.

The following full-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9261270 - Server - Woodberry Kitchen (Baltimore)
9260548 - Administrative Control Assistant - Maxim Biomedical, Inc.
9261273 - Paralegal - Snyder Kearney
9261250 - Web Developer - University of MD School of Pharmacy
9260501 - Logistics Assistant - Bioreclamation IVT
9259661 - Junior Java Developer - Tanager, Inc.

The following part-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9261132 - Rock Wall Instructor - YMCA of Central Maryland (Towson)
9261149 - Website Developer - Medical Innovations, Inc.
9261197 - Marketing Assistant - Minnick's, Inc.
9261223 - Catering Director - Chick-fil-A (Landsdowne/Halethorpe)
9261220 - Office Manager - A-G Associates, Inc.

There is a small handful of free open source jQuery plugins to help organize special tables. More specifically these plugins offer unique & dynamic functionality such as pagination, row highlighting, and column sorting. The ability to sort your data is crucial when looking for patterns. It may also help you see the information from a different perspective altogether.

So for this tutorial I want to demonstrate a very simple plugin using an HTML table. Some plugins require you to create the table in JSON, but it is often easier to work with something that can tie into HTML on the page. I’ll be using the jQuery Tablesorter plugin which is free to download and use on any number of projects. Take a peek at my live sample demo below.

Live Demo Download the Source

Page Structure

The first step is to download a copy of the Tablesorter plugin along with a local copy of jQuery. Now tablesorter is hosted on Github but you can also find a download link right within the plugin webpage. All you need to include is the jquery.tablesorter.min.js file which should be copied into the same place as jQuery.

<!doctype html>
    <html lang="en-US">
    <head>
      <meta charset="utf-8">
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html">
      <title>Simple Table Sorting with jQuery - Treehouse Demo</title>
      <meta name="author" content="Jake Rocheleau">
      <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://d15dxvojnvxp1x.cloudfront.net/assets/favicon.ico"&gt;
      <link rel="icon" href="http://d15dxvojnvxp1x.cloudfront.net/assets/favicon.ico"&gt;
      <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="css/styles.css">
      <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script>
      <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.tablesorter.min.js"></script>
    </head>
    

The downloaded source files also include sample demos and default CSS. If you don’t want to build your own design then feel free to copy over the CSS as well. Tablesorter was written to be simple and linear without too many requirements. I feel the stylesheets are well worth using if you are unsure of where to get started in regards to table design.

If you are not super comfortable with HTML table structure then this is the perfect time to familiarize yourself with the material. Each table requires a <thead> and <tbody> which separates the column headings from the content rows. Most web developers know that <tr> and <td> are used to encapsulate table rows and table data, respectively. But in the header we replace data tags with <th> for table headings.

  <table id="keywords" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
        <thead>
          <tr>
            <th><span>Keywords</span></th>
            <th><span>Impressions</span></th>
            <th><span>Clicks</span></th>
            <th><span>CTR</span></th>
            <th><span>Rank</span></th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          <tr>
            <td class="lalign">silly tshirts</td>
            <td>6,000</td>
            <td>110</td>
            <td>1.8%</td>
            <td>22.2</td>
          </tr>
    

This is very important because many other table plugins will require the same page structure. And even if you weren’t using a plugin, it is good to understand semantics for your next project which requires tabular data.

Note I haven’t included a full copy of the table because it is mostly repetition. Adding your own data into the HTML will probably be the most time-intensive part of this whole process, mostly because you will likely need to organize all your data first. There are some basic tools online for auto-generating HTML code but it’s a much better idea to write it all yourself.

Custom CSS Styles

I want to jump into my own styles.css file which is the only stylesheet used in this demo. I typically include a simple CSS reset based off Eric Meyer’s template. Also at the top of the document I have an import rule to include an external Google Web Font for the heading text.

However the most important customizations are found towards the bottom of the file. I labeled this inner table with an ID of #keywords because the demo is sorting through fictional search engine keyword results. Aside from the typical HTML elements you will also find classes appended onto specific columns which makes styling a whole lot easier.

#keywords {
      margin: 0 auto;
      font-size: 1.2em;
      margin-bottom: 15px;
    }
    
    
    #keywords thead {
      cursor: pointer;
      background: #c9dff0;
    }
    #keywords thead tr th { 
      font-weight: bold;
      padding: 12px 30px;
      padding-left: 42px;
    }
    #keywords thead tr th span { 
      padding-right: 20px;
      background-repeat: no-repeat;
      background-position: 100% 100%;
    }
    
    #keywords thead tr th.headerSortUp, #keywords thead tr th.headerSortDown {
      background: #acc8dd;
    }
    
    #keywords thead tr th.headerSortUp span {
      background-image: url('up-arrow.png');
    }
    #keywords thead tr th.headerSortDown span {
      background-image: url('down-arrow.png');
    }
    
    
    #keywords tbody tr { 
      color: #555;
    }
    #keywords tbody tr td {
      text-align: center;
      padding: 15px 10px;
    }
    #keywords tbody tr td.lalign {
      text-align: left;
    }
    

To be more specific, I’ve wrapped the text of each table header inside a span tag. This isn’t necessary to include sorting arrows but I found it to be the easiest approach. Basically when clicking any table header a new class is appended onto the <th> element. Every inner span element gets a non-repeatable background image displayed over to the right side of the text.

However the image itself will depend on which class has been added. If there is no class then we don’t use any image and the space just appears empty. Headings with a class .headerSortUp displays an up arrow, representing ascending order. In the opposite case we switch the arrow icon for .headerSortDown.

I want to point out that you can really go crazy with these classes by updating borders, background colors, etc. I wanted to use this demo as a showcase of what is possible. With some knowledge of advanced CSS properties you can really manipulate the selected table column to appear in many different styles.

Sorting with jQuery

Since my demo includes a small number of rows I’ve setup the plugin using the smallest amount of code possible. Simply put, Tablesorter is amazing for any project where you need to dynamically sort information. There are no required options but many are available if you wish to try them out (see the online documentation).

$(function(){
      $('#keywords').tablesorter(); 
    });
    

My jQuery selector targets the keywords table and then runs tablesorter(). This will make each heading clickable and thus able to sort through your data. It is amazing how this plugin will recognize various types of data like strings, floating numbers, even symbolic numbers like currency or percentages.

I want to provide one more sample bit of code in relation to paginating your data. You can find a live sample on the plugin webpage to see how this looks in a real-world example. Also remember that everything is designed using CSS and it’s very simple to customize this yourself.

$(document).ready(function() { 
        $("table").tablesorter({widthFixed: true, widgets: ['zebra']}).tablesorterPager({container: $("#pager")}); 
    }); 
    

In order for this to work you need to download the plugin extension and include this along with the other JS scripts, because the pagination is not built into the core plugin functionality. There are some other related add-on scripts and themes you may try out at your own accord.

In that sample code above you will also notice some regular options passed into the Tablesorter function. The first pieces you’ll notice are default config options which are outlined in the documentation. Zebra striping is an extended widget – check out more about these widgets from this sample demo page. It is possible for developers to even write their own widgets and thus extend more functionality out of this plugin.

Final Thoughts

Although Tablesorter is quite easy to set up, the custom options allow for a much greater user experience. Even the small pagination demo can be helpful if you are including many rows of data. While Tablesorter is very basic and will require extra CSS to get the page looking sharp, it’s my opinion that it is well worth the effort, because of all the extra functionality you can gain by working with jQuery. Feel free to download a sample copy of my demo and see how you can implement table sorting into your own web projects.

The post How To Code a Sortable Table with jQuery appeared first on Treehouse Blog.