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the singularity of being and nothingness
ColdFusion 9…Here I Come!
Dec 8th
Oh yeah! I just received email confirmation today that I have been accepted to participate in the Centaur (ColdFusion 9) alpha release! Additionally, I am going to be able to beta Bolt, a new Eclipse-based IDE being developed by Adobe to be used in conjunction with ColdFusion.
This is going to be fun 🙂
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Elegant JavaScript
Nov 30th
In his excellent book (and equally great NOVA mini-series), The Elegant Universe, physicist Brian Greene outlines the history of "the search for the theory of everything," the elusive, unifying theory that will explain the universe in all of its manifold glory. The interesting thing about this theory, however, is that it's primary characteristic is not soaring profundity nor escaliting complexity. To the contrary, Greene is convinced that the theory of everything, when finally discovered, will be characterized primarly by simplicity–or in his words, "elegance."
To Greene, the "theory of everything" will be elegant because it will bring together what are now disparate theories that describe the nature of the universe. It will be a theory that cohesively weaves together an understanding of the micro and macro universe; will unify the known physical laws; and will fundamentally "feel" right because of how it describes the infinitude of life in a simple theorem.
So what in the world does this have to do with writing JavaScript? Well, it's somewhat of a stretch, but as I continue to grow in my JavaScript skills, the principle of "elegance" which Greene so eruditely describes resonates with me.
Let me explain. In no way do I wish More >
Freetime and a Brainstorm (or fart…)
Nov 26th
Within the next couple of weeks, my schedule is going to be clearing up quite a bit. Over the last several months, I've had a lot of free-lance work, which is great, but it has left little time for personal development projects that I've been wanting to do for a while now.
I currently have one that's about 25% done, so I'm hoping to commit some time to that over the next several months to wrap it up. However, what I'm really excited about is a brand new project.
What is this project? I don't really want to say at the moment because I think it's an obvious service that people want, but for whatever reason no attempt has been made (yet!) to fill the need. Well, that's not entirely true–however, the lame attempts that have been made so far really only engage a very small section of the need while leaving the greater whole unaddressed. The project I'm proposing will do both…hopefully!
The most exciting part about this service is that will be mostly driven by an API that I will have to build (there's at least one hint). While I've certainly created web services before to handle remote application needs, I've More >
Thoroughly Impressed with ToothandNail Records
Nov 5th
Over the last three weeks, ToothandNail records has released 3 tremendously cool albums, all of which reveal just how far ToothandNail has come.
Before the albums, however, let me reminisce :). I've been a fan of ToothandNail for a LONG time. 10 years or so ago, ToothandNail was releasing copious amounts of albums. The one problem: they didn't have the resources for good production or good recording. The result was really cool albums that sounded like crap.
Fortunately, those days are long gone. With the success of many of its roster of bands, ToothandNail has obviously been able to upgrade its recording and production talent. Most of albums coming out of ToothandNail are slick and finished, lacking any remnants of the good old days.
With that said, the albums I've been listening to are as follows:
Emery : While Broken Hearts Prevail
This is really more of an EP, but it's got some seriously cool songs on it. Emery's sound continues to evolve as the band becomes less and less afraid to loosen the tether to their trademark screamo. It worked well for Dead Poetic (IMO), so I think it's a positive for Emery as well.
Ruth : Anorak
My first exposure to Ruth More >
On Becoming a Better Web Designer – Fancy CSS Selectors
Oct 17th
Using CSS selectors is not a difficult skill–all of us who use CSS use selectors on every line of code that we write. However, as not as many know, there are more exotic selectors available.
Blah blah blah. You can read all about CSS selectors at W3, and I don't want to rehash what has already been fully documented. So instead, let me go a different direction.
Why, you might ask, would I possibly want or need to use a fancy CSS selector like ":first-child" or something more granular like an attribute selector (a[href="http://askaninja.com"])?
Well, maybe you'll never want or need to. If you have the luxury of coding everything you do from scratch, you'll probably find little use for these. However, most of us do not have ideal circumstances like this.
Consider this: Where I work, we are using an enterprise information management software for our employee intranet. While the product itself is quite powerful, whoever built the layouts and templates that come boxed with the products are certifiable idiots. Strewn across hundreds of layout files in obscure, inaccessible (well, at least to me…) folders are inumerable styles, both external and inline, that handle the "design" of this product.
Can anyone say nightmare? Believe More >
Blog Action Day 2008 : Poverty
Oct 15th
For Blog Action Day 2008, I have posted an article over at my personal blog. It's pretty short, but it highlights an issue I've thought a lot about over the last year.
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The Face of God in the Poor
Oct 15th
Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. – Matthew 25:34
This vision of the kingdom of God reveals an interesting perspective into the identification of the face of God. The scenario is that of the eschatological Christ presented as victor and King. Yet the ones who belong to the kingdom of the Victor are not warriors and statesmen, nor kings and rulers–rather, it is the sick, the impoverished and the oppressed. Yet these are not simply citizens of God's eschatological kingdom by proxy, but are more audaciously the ones with whom God in Christ self-identifies. It is in their faces and lives that God dwells most vividly.
It is often said that God is no respector of persons; and in ways this is probably true. However, the eschatological Christ reveals that the More >
Will Chrome Kill Firefox?
Oct 12th
I've read alot of articles on the interblog in which people claim that Google's new browser, Chrome, will hurt Firefox, rather than Internet Explorer. The biggest reason for this, the protagonists claim, is that given that Internet Explorer users are the least likely to change their browsers, the majority of acceptance of Chrome will come from others…hence the hit to Firefox.
But is this really accurate? I don't buy it. The way I see it, the argument made above is true, but in reverse. It is undeniable that people who use IE, besides being horribly misguided in their choice of browsers, are less than likely to switch to a new browser. But it is equally true, IMO, that those who use Firefox are already predisposed to using more than one browser. So rather than a huge pile of competition, Chrome represents just another option.
Of course, if Chrome turns out to be really flippin' cool (which I don't see yet…) and vastly superior to all other options, it is probably more accurate that ALL browsers are in trouble. The time is not far away when Google will be placing proprietary OS's on new computers and, just like the Behemoth Microsoft before it, More >
On Becoming a Better Web Designer: A Dr. Phil Moment
Sep 15th
Over the last several weeks, I've seen my blog readership increase signficantly. I am extremely grateful for the kind words that people have shared with me, and of course, for everyone who follows my ramblings about web design.
During this time, I've had several readers contact me, seeking advice about how to get more into web design, how to improve their skills, etc. I am extremely humbled that anyone would seek my advice on this, and I have done my best to provide the best suggestions I can. So now, let me distill down some of the things I've said.
I don't want to get overly Dr. Phil-ish on this, but I think the psychology of the web designer is a crucial component to be becoming better. What does this mean? Well, I continually advocate that one of the best ways to become a better designer is to live in the billion-and-three design galleries that are out there. Let me diverge for a second and shamelessly plug my own — css-imagine.com. There, I'm done :).
In all seriousness, I believe that examining and learning from the design of others is a great way to improve. First, by doing this, you begin to More >
Flippin' Cool Spry Goodness
Sep 1st
As followers of this blog know, I am a pretty big fan of Adobe's JavaScript framework, Spry. Admittedly, it's not a super-huge framework like jQuery, but I like its simplicity and how rapidly I can develop a solution with it.
One thing I've been frustrated with is Spry's effects. While they have some good effects, I never found them particularly flexible or usable beyond little dynamic enhacements. Apparently, most of this is because I hadn't read the documentation enough.
Enter effect clustering. Normally, Spry effects run in turn of function call: so if you have, say, a tool-tip that you want to fade out and move, these effects would run in order (which wouldn't really make sense to do anyway). However, as I discovered with great joy yesterday, Spry allows for something called "effect clustering" which allows any number of effects to be run in parallel with one another.
I about peed my pants when I found this out, it's so cool and useful. So here's an example of this in action.
And here's the code:
FadeMove = function(element, options) { Spry.Effect.Cluster.call(this, options); var duration = 1000; var toggle = 'false'; var from = 100; var to = 0; var fromPos = new Spry.Effect.Utils.Position(); fromPos.x = More > 
