zahnster

Even though this was technically the first bit of JavaScript I developed, it’s my second official release. It’s a knock-off of the Coda site effect, first developed for iFeedFish, and recently it’s been used on an up-and-coming site I’ve been developing at work. Reusing the code has provided me with the perfect excuse to modularize it, document it, and now you can own the effect yourself!

I’m calling it PageSlide JS, and it’s proof positive once again that I am super awesome at naming these things. Just like with SmoothScroll, this is being released under the MIT license, so you can do whateverthehell you want with it. Unlike SmoothScroll, I actually have a mini-site for it up and running. You can find that at http://pageslide.ifeedfish.com.

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This post isn’t meant to be a bash on Safari. Safari is a great browser overall, it’s super-fast, lightweight, and very integrated into the Mac OS. However, it’s not perfect, and not, as Steve Jobs thinks, any replacement for the Firefox browser.

When Steve Jobs had his last Keynote presentation at the WWDC, he displayed a chilling vision of how he sees the future of the browser market share. Not only is his vision unrealistic, it’s also insulting (what’s also insulting is he didn’t try to chunk away at IE’s market share). By effectively removing Firefox (and the ‘other’ web browsers) from the pie chart, he is demonstrating to the world that he really doesn’t understand the advantages of Firefox over his Safari browser, and in turn, what makes Firefox a refreshing alternative to any other browser on the market.

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This morning I woke up to my friend Kelly calling me and telling me that all downtown trains were closed. Apparently, a huge storm ripped through the city (I must have been tired – I slept right through it) and this morning, for the first time ever, I experienced how the city completely falls apart when Subway service fails to run. Busses were packed like sardine cans, and cabs – cabs were nonexistent. You had to be good to find a Cab.

I’m at work right now, walked about 60 blocks this morning to get here – I’m just nervous about how the commute home is going to go. With a heat index of over 100 degrees, I really hope that a walk home is not required.

Recently, I’ve started digging into JavaScript, which, for the most part is foreign territory. JavaScript is a very unique language – it’s come from the gutters of the proprietary ‘web 1.0′ to become the shining light of the new ‘accessible’ web. It’s also a language that I’ve not really been good with – most of my code is stumbling my way through, getting lucky after a million wrong turns.

However, since the release and adoption of JavaScript libraries, namely Prototype and Scriptaculous, I’ve finally been able to hop over the JavaScript learning curve. I’ve been doing more JS code both at work and at home, and creating some pretty cool effects.

So, for the first time ever, I am releasing a piece of code to the world. It’s being released under the MIT license, so you’re free to do just about anything with it, and it’s called SmoothScrollJS. Essentially, it’s an animated horizontal scroller, with left and right triggers for a smooth scroll effect. You can adjust the width, speed, and ’smoothness’.

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I don’t understand this at all – the restrictions that are placed on music you legitimately buy off the Internet. In my mind, when you buy music, you should have full access to play that music on as many computers as you need, and also you should be able to share your iPod between computers. In a world where people are around computers more and more (I touch 2 Apple computers on any given day), we need to lighten up the restrictions on people who take the trouble to legally purchase it.

Right now I am annoyed. Extremely annoyed. I just bought some music off the iTunes store, and I go to play it to get this message:

November? Apple, are you honestly telling me that the music I just spent my hard-earned money on won’t be allowed to play on my MacBook till November? You’re out of your minds!

No wonder people pirate music.

iConcertCal has been around for a while, so this post is hardly ‘news’. However, with the recent release of iConcertCal version 2, I figured I would write a post about it, because there are still a good number of people who haven’t heard of this useful iTunes plugin.

What iConcertCal does is reads your iTunes playlist and informs you of concerts going on in your area. Since version 2 came out, this functionality has been extended to include when new albums by your favorite artists are due to hit shelves. On top of this, the creators of this plugin extended the concert feature to allow for basic social interaction – you can view your friends shows and publicly list the ones you plan on attending (I’m in the system as ‘rauenzahner’ in case you’re interested in looking me up).

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So… the site changed. Again. I upgraded to WordPress 2.2 and I figured I would change the style with it. I haven’t been thrilled with the style of the site (yet everything I come up with is crap, too) but I’m liking the one I picked now. Lets see how long that’ll last for, right?

In other news, I am really proud to announce that I finished putting together the concept behind iFeedFish.com. Thanks to some encouragement from some of the awesome people at work, like Matt (who introduced me to effect queues), and Tom (who totally loved the concept and encouraged me to continue), I am near completion of the site. The bugs are out of the JS animations and overall it’s 99% complete (and totally workable as-is).

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Do you develop in Cake? If so – have you ever wondered what that mysterious level 3 debug (with the ‘full object dump’) did?

This was something I have been confused over since the time I started developing with the framework – which is just over a year ago. I would set the level to 3, but never noticed a difference between the output there and the output provided by level 2 debug. I knew I was missing something, but nowhere in the Cake Manual does it elaborate on this setting or what you have to do to make it work.

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I got into the web industry because I love creating innovative, streamlined web solutions. My ultimate goal is to create intricate web applications that enrich people’s lives, providing them with accurate, in-depth knowledge and resources. However, until I get to the point where I can work for myself, creating my own web applications while making enough money to live off of, I work for companies (all interactive agencies so far) who have paying clients with minds of their own – and not always the best ideas of what’s good for their sites (or for the web in general).

Most of the time it’s fine. Clients are open to our ideas, as we are the professionals, and we can convince them of best practices and standards. We can tell them how frames are nightmares, popups are annoying (and mostly blocked, rendering them inefficient for anything), and how Comic Sans should never. ever. be used.

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