Coffee on the Keyboard (Page 7)

NextUp

I never properly introduced my latest(?) little side project: NextUp.info [http://nextup.info/]. [http://nextup.info/] NextUp is a very straightforward app that helps you create an agenda, then stick to it. You enter a list of topics (or, say, speakers) and how long they’re allowed to run.

forms

Excitement about HTML5: Forms

I shouldn’t imply that I don’t like HTML5 [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/reservations-about-html5-271/]. I don’t like certain parts of it—the redundant new elements that add no functionality and are of little use except to A List Apart [http://www.alistapart.com/]. But other parts of the

What Time Is It There?

We [http://twitter.com/n0s0ap] just pushed an update to What Time Is It There? [http://whattimeisitthere.info/], so I thought I’d take the time to mention it here, since I’ve already done so on Twitter [http://twitter.com/jamessocol]. You can now link to a time [http:

extensibility

Reservations about HTML5

A day or so ago, Adrian Bateman [http://adrianba.net/], from Microsoft’s IE team [http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/default.aspx], posted his team’s thoughts on the current draft [http://bit.ly/1TNzYU] of the HTML5 spec [http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html]. Reading it is

download

EzGz: WordPress GZip Plugin

By default, WordPress (at least in the current generation, 2.8) does not enable any kind of compression on its output. Some plugins, like WP Super Cache [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/], add gzip compression, but that’s an awfully big plugin if all you want is compressed output.

curriculum

Programming in Middle School?

Eating breakfast in the hotel the other morning, my father [http://speedchange.blogspot.com] mentioned a Twitter conversation he had to join about programming courses in schools [http://twitter.com/irasocol/status/2614850096] and math curricula. Programming and math education? I just had to get involved, too. Ben Grey [http:

My New Job

I’m very excited to announce my new job: starting next month, I will be on the Web Development team at Mozilla. I am out in Mountain View right now, looking for an apartment, meeting my future boss—in person, we’ve spoken on the phone several times—and more

Education

Why do I have to learn this?

![Why do I have to learn this?](http://coffeeonthekeyboard.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/iStock_000003453709XSmall-201x300.jpg "Homework")Why do I have to learn this?Teachers, can you answer this question? Can you do it without referencing the next class? Or a state standard? Can you answer in

computability

The Fallacy of the "Singularity"

“Singularity [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity]” is a nice buzzword. It sounds so scientific and futuristic. It plays on a great fear of our time: obsolescence by machines. It’s a fear as old as the Industrial Revolution, when a single machine began doing the work of a

chrome

Google Loves Competition

Google has announced [http://news.google.com/news?q=google+os] a new Chrome-based operating system. Of course, if you read blogs like mine, there’s no way you didn’t already know that. It amazes me how many people assume Google wants to drive Microsoft out of business. From

Education

New Information Processes

Robert Pondiscio started a great discussion on Twitter [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/tag/twitter] in the classroom over on The Core Knowledge Blog [http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/2009/06/29/the-twitter-challenge/]. In particular, I’m interested in one of his comments [http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/2009/06/29/

Code

WP: Better Search Widget 1.1

Better Search Widget 1.1 [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/better-search-widget.zip] is a significant upgrade to Better Search Widget [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/wp-plugin-better-search-widget-113/] that adds new features and fixes an old bug with internationalization. Features (New features in bold.) * Optional default value. * Optional, custom widget

api

Widget l10n

I spent some of today working on bringing a couple of WordPress widgets up-to-date (Better Search [http://jamessocol.com/projects/better-search-widget.php] and Most Comments [http://jamessocol.com/projects/most-comments-widget.php]) only to discover there is a new widget API [http://codex.wordpress.org/Widgets_API#Developing_Widgets_on_2.

A Personal Update

Most of my blog visitors are people trickling in from Google with questions about rebuilding PHP on RHEL [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/how-to-upgrade-or-recompile-php-on-rhel5-59/], connecting PHP, IIS6 and SQL Server [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/connecting-php-iis-6-and-sql-server-2005-129/], or, inexplicably, looking for info on the game Crysis [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/crysis-58/]. I should

Code

JavaScript: Private Static Members, Part 2

Finally, it’s time to finish up the lesson on private static members and methods in JavaScript. Last time [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/javascript-private-static-members-part-1-208/], I introduced the technique of creating and immediately executing a function, using parentheses. I talked a little about returning a function and storing it in a

Marketing

Social Media Marketing: This is your Chance

If I could’ve sat down with Chris Brogan [http://www.chrisbrogan.com/] and Laura Fitton [http://pistachioconsulting.com/] six months ago and asked them one thing, it would have been: “Who, exactly, are you marketing to?” There has always been a small thorn in my paw about social media

Code

JavaScript: Private Static Members, Part 1

A little while ago [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/private-variables-in-javascript-177/] I talked about creating private variables and methods in JavaScript. This works, but is not necessarily efficient: each instance of the class creates new copies of the members. While that may be exactly what you want for instance variables (think of

Social Media

Communities within Communities

There is an op-ed floating around Twitter today: As a social network, Twitter is a dud [http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/anotherview/all-point.6868702apr24,0,6909055.story] . Is it ironic that an article deriding Twitter is being spread on Twitter? Irony is so ill-defined. Twitter is not for everyone,

firefox

Firefox: Open in Blank Tab

If you don’t use Firefox 3, go get it [http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/]. Then finish this article. (Safari and Opera users are excused, but there’s no promise this will work for them.) One of my (few) gripes with Firefox is that bookmarks on the toolbar have no

citypulse

A Twitter Turn-Around

A little while ago [https://www.coffeeonthekeyboard.com/oh-the-humanity-of-twitter-155/], I criticized a local newspaper, Lansing CityPULSE [http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/lansing/], for their use of Twitter. They were following the spammer model: follow hundreds of people, then post nothing but links to your own site. I’m happy to say—

client-side

Private Variables in JavaScript

Ok, enough of this social/ranting stuff. Time to write something vaguely technical. I have a love-hate relationship with JavaScript [http://www.quirksmode.org/dom/compatibility.html]. I think anyone who works with it does. Sometimes it just doesn’t do what you expect, and it’s certainly different. One

google

When to Ask - When to Google

I know people who will disagree—vehemently—with this statement, but Google is not the ultimate source of all knowledge in the universe. Neither is Yahoo, nor Ask, nor Cuil. What is the point of all this social networking if we are unable to tap that network for information from

influence

Why I Unfollowed You

Try these strategies to lose followers and waste your time on Twitter. 1) Have no name, photo, bio, or website. Avoid looking like a real person at all, in fact. If you arbitrarily capitalize and ignore the 140 character limit, you can look even more like a robot. These are

Browsers

Stop Supporting IE6

As a community, as a whole, web designers and developers need to stop supporting Internet Explorer 6. Now. Completely. I’ve been thinking a lot about browser compatibility as I’ve been working on Today’s Meet [http://todaysmeet.com/]. My CSS is valid, but it doesn’t work quite

bots

Oh the Humanity (of Twitter)

Twitter [http://www.twitter.com/] creates a powerful opportunity: no matter who you are, or how big your business, you can put a human “face” on Twitter. Comcast (@comcastcares [http://twitter.com/comcastcares]), JetBlue (@jetblue [http://twitter.com/jetblue]), Biggby Coffee (@biggbybob [http://twitter.com/biggbybob]) and Starbucks (@starbucks [http: