zahnster

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m completely addicted to music. Chances are, I’ll be completely deaf by 40, but I pay little attention to that thought when I’m working on some code, headphones blaring all the way. My iTunes library is nearing 10,000 songs, and close to half of those are rated and sorted into playlists.

Not only am I addicted to music, but I’m addicted to the psychology behind music. I love deciphering music patterns, seeing what I listen to compared with my friends and those in different social circles around me. So it should be no surprise that I have a last.fm account that I actively use.

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More jQuery love is going down… it seems to be the theme of the month.

This last weekend I picked up the ‘jQuery in Action’ book and it really opened my eyes to just how cool jQuery is. I mean, I was pretty stoked about it already, but now I want to take it out to dinner and maybe make out with it a little in the back of my car.

So, reading the book, I learned just how powerful their wrapper element is. A lot of it’s css-based, so it’s easy for a front-end dev type like myself to catch up on, and then it mixes in simple regular expressions and has() checks and .. my mind is blown.

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Hello. I’m not dead, although I know the site’s been for some time. This is because life’s running at 1,000 miles an hour. I’m getting into my zone at Fox, every day seems to be a bit better, and I’m working on some pretty cool projects. I’ve been learning a whole new section of web development, and my exploration into JavaScript continues, but on a whole new level.

At Fox, now I have to think more than ever about file size, code efficiency, flexibility, and scalability. Ever since I’ve been “into” JavaScript I’ve been a fan of the Prototype framework. And why not? It’s solid, efficient, and the footprint… isn’t that bad. Coupled with Scriptaculous, it’s a powerful set of tools for any kind of JavaScript / Ajax functionality.

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In my last post, I mentioned how I felt a bit underwhelmed at the coding practices behind the new msnbc.com website. Judging by the majority of the response (and the ‘web elite’ response at that), I have no idea what I’m talking about. Doctypes apparently are throwaway items in standards-based web development, and using TextMate automatically makes you a web expert.

I admit that I could have been a bit more tactful with some of my previous comments, but I did compliment the design, and I am still very impressed with it. However, even after the explanations and the excuses about 10 year old code and CMS limitations, something doesn’t sit right with me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I feel like the front-end development on the site could have been executed better.

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Yes, ladies and gentlemen: it may look glossy, but the all-new ‘web2′ msnbc.com doesn’t have a doctype declaration, among other problems.

This is what happens when Microsoft tries to make a website.

It was quite a sad reality to discover. My friend and coworker, Sean, told me about the MSNBC.com site redesign tonight on IM, and at first I was blown away – visually they can give themselves a high five. I noticed that the load-time was a bit top-heavy, but it soon turned out to be the least of this site’s problems.

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Maybe because they’re so undocumented and ambiguous, but there’s something about Cake URL routes that have both fascinated and frustrated me. In my one+ year history with Cake, I have gone about several methods of planning and executing routing, striving to provide a clean, relevant (& seo friendly) url structure without being counterproductive to the conventions of Cake.

Recently I had a rather unique challenge come across my plate. It was a potentially complex routing situation where the parameter needed to be between the controller and the view in the url structure. Visually, ‘/controller/parameter/view’. It made total sense seo wise, and if I could make it work right, wouldn’t affect Cake conventions at all. However, I wasn’t even sure if this method was possible.

The solution, as it turns out, was amazingly simple.

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Clearing floats have always been an annoyance for us as web developers, because it requires us to use empty markup. It wouldn’t be that much of a problem, except that using floats for complex css layouts has become somewhat of an industry standard.

Not too long ago a new trick came along which had many css developers feeling lighthearted – a way to clear floats without markup. It was a simple, reliable css method that’s been around for ages – the overflow property. Simply by declaring this (usually to auto or hidden), you are able to extend the parent div over the floated divs, and effectively clear your divs – something you have previously needed an empty block level html element to accomplish.

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Popping in real quick to shamelessly plug Elle’s Pop Quiz – a promotional mini site for Legally Blonde (the musical version), specifically the MTV airing of the entire musical today at 1pm.

What’s the site, you say? Why it’s elleslounge.com/mtv!

Why the plug?

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Css-based web design has a fundamental belief of fully separating content from presentation. We want to optimize our HTML so we have next-to-no images or structural elements which are there for presentational purposes. Our reasons for doing so are good and right – search engine optimization, accessibility, portability, and so forth – but every once in a while, despite the best of intentions, we can go a bit overboard with the stuff.

There’s a new trend going on, one which I am sure comes from the many text-replacement css methods that have been popping up in every css book published: entire pages with absolutely no imagery. Now, I know css is all about separation of content from presentation, and that css images are easier to replace than html images… you can chat me up about it all day. Fact remains that sometimes images say more about the content than they do the presentation.

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I’m a fan of sites that are to the point. It’s one of the big things I love about the whole ‘web 2′ movement. Cut the crap, get to the good stuff.

It is knowing this that I find myself addicted to the newest in a long line of blogging sites, Tumblr. According to Tumblr, “If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.”

And they really are. With preset post settings for blogs, pictures, video, quotes, links, and chat transcripts, it is the ultimate quick blogging tool, allowing for a freedom to create spontaneous, quirky posts. It’s like Twitter, or Pownce, but with a little more sustenance – and a lot less of a dependency on social interaction.

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