Because Everyone Has A Dark Side

Life in General

Woodworking

I better slow down with all these blog posts or someone is going to think that it’s all I do. I’ll stick to the story that many of them are future dated and show up when I want them to.

At any rate, I was just checking out my old profile on blogger and I saw that I had woodworking listed as a hobby of mine. It’s certainly something I enjoy. I enjoy the pure idea of constructing something from raw materials. This is not limited to raw pieces of timber.

Then I started to think about it further and I can’t actually remember a single noteworthy piece that I have ever constructed. I certainly enjoy it and know that I’ve built things in the past, but I currently have nothing to show for it. What a travesty. I hereby commit to building something from raw materials in the next 6-8 weeks and posting about it once it is complete.

I don’t know what I am building yet, but I am building something.

24 Apr 2008 Chris 0 comments

Life in General

Why Aren’t Bidets More Popular

I frequent Heather Armstrong’s blog, Dooce, and on Monday she linked to this strange commercial for a bidet. The expressions on these people’s faces made me wonder, why aren’t bidets more popular here in the states?

I mean, these people are obviously really enjoying that little splash of water. So much so that they are hitting that button over and over again just to get that sensation. Is there something that I don’t know about bidets that make them totally awesome in other countries, but make them wholly uncool over here?

Are we just too prude to admit that a little splash of cool water is nice? The place Lauren and I had our wedding reception had a bidet in the honeymoon suite, but I didn’t use it. Not because I was afraid, but because I didn’t know how.

Is that the problem? Nobody over here wants one because they are afraid to admit they don’t know what to do? I mean, how do you explain splashing water all over yourself if you screw it up. Nobody is going to believe you used a bidet. They’ll think you don’t know how to go to the bathroom and think you peed all over yourself.

I’m going to find somewhere that has a bidet and try it.

Oh and if you want to see the video that spawned all this madness, I’ve embedded it for your viewing pleasure.

24 Apr 2008 Chris 0 comments

Javascript, Programming

How To Identify a Javascript Keycode

I recently made some modifications to a client’s website that involved using key presses to trigger certain events. I had the numeric keycode for a few of the keys that were already in use, but I didn’t really have a good way of identifying the keyCode for the additional key events I wanted to make use of.

Googling for the result left me with a lot of links that had incorrect information. I searched a little more and found a small Javascript snippit that was supposed to tell you what the keycode was when you pressed down a key, but I found it to be incomplete.

I took that snippit and expanded it to work in IE and Firefox. I’ve included the source here, but you can also check out the working demo.

Here is the source for my little keycode function. Keep in mind that I am using jQuery to update the input box with the correct keycode value.

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<html>
<head>
<title>Demo :: How To Identify a Javascript Keycode</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.2.3.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
function keyCheck(evt){
	key = (evt.which) ? evt.which : evt.keyCode
	$("#keyCode").val(key)
	//alert("KeyCode = "+key)
}
</script>
</head>
<body onKeyPress="keyCheck(event)">
	<p>Press any key to see it's numeric keycode.</p>
	<p>Numeric Key Code: <input type="text" length="5" id="keyCode" name="keyCode"/></p></body>
</html>

24 Apr 2008 Chris 0 comments

CSS, Design

To Reset Or Not

There is an ongoing debate about the use of CSS Reset stylesheets in web development. (See here, then here, then here) If you aren’t familiar with the concept, the idea is that a CSS Reset attempts to equalize the differences between default browser styles. At first glance this is a great idea right? Who wouldn’t want to start from the same place in the design phase of the project?

Despite the appearance that this question would garner an obvious answer from most people in the industry, both sides of the camp seem to be holding firm in their own collective thoughts. Reset advocates can’t seem to imagine a world without it while detractors seem to think it’s a downright waste of time.

I can see both sides of the arguement. On one hand, starting from the same point with all browsers and not having to worry about specific browser quirks as much is an ideal thing. On the other, I’m used to doing it this way so why should I change?

One issue I have with the Reset technique, and this is something the anti-Reset camp uses as an arguement, is that it can create more work for the developer.  The Reset removes all the default styles so the developer has to go in and re-add styles as needed. While this may be true, isn’t that part of the job? Isn’t building out the stylesheet for a site doing exactly that? I get that wiping the slate clean with a Reset might force you to manually override a few of those things again, but I don’t honestly remember the last time I left something default anyway. Most elements of my pages have enough style applied to them that they are completely different from the default versions of themselves anyways.

The answer, and it was probably said best by Eric Meyer himself, is to each their own. If you want to use a Reset CSS, go right ahead. If you don’t? That’s fine too. The old addage “There is more than one way to skin a cat” rings especially true in the world of web development and using a CSS Reset is merely one avenue a developer can pursue in building out any given site.

Personally, I am going to give the Reset concept a try and see how I like it. I’m very used to building out separate styles for different browsers as it is so I don’t think it will be that much extra work.

23 Apr 2008 Chris 0 comments

CSS, Design

Using a CSS Grid System For Layouts

If you’ve ever attempted to build a truly clean, cross browser compliant, css based layout then you know that it can take quite a bit of work for everything to come together. One of the tricky parts is getting your horizontal alignment setup.

CSS Framework is almost an oxymoron in that most websites rarely share enough CSS to warrant the overhead or work of building an actual framework. What if the framework did nothing more than handle positioning?

Enter the 960 Grid System.

The 960 Grid System is built on the fact that the number 960 has a high number of divisible whole numbers making it a very suitable width for a column based grid system. Couple this with the fact that most, if not all, of your end users should be capable of displaying a 960px wide site.

The way the grid system works is this. You select either a 12 or 16 column grid system. The 12 column layout has 60px columns and the 16 column layout has 40px columns. Each column has a 10px margin on either side, making a 20px gutter padding between each column.

When you want to make use of the grid system, simply include the CSS files included in the download. Next, you’ll specify a wrapper/container div and with a class name of “container_12″ or “container_16″. This sets up the container to make use of grid units. Finally, begin setting up your divs with class names in the format of “grid_xx” where xx corresponds to 1-16 depending on your container size.

An example is available on the 960.gs website. I’ve included it below:

<div class="container_12">
<div class="grid_7 prefix_1">
<div class="grid_2 alpha">
...</div>
<div class="grid_3">
...</div>
<div class="grid_2 omega">
...</div>
</div>
<div class="grid_3 suffix_1">
...</div>
</div>

With a multitude of site layouts on my horizon, I am definitely going to make use of the 960gs framework and I’ll report back on how well the system worked in streamlining my design and development time.

23 Apr 2008 Chris 4 comments

Site News

Changing Gears

Back when I started blogging in 2005 I struggled with the idea of revealing any personal details on my blog. I’m a pretty private person so maintaining an online personality was never something I ever really wanted to do. Over the years, I relaxed that stance and casually began to talk more and more about my personal life and I’ve told plenty of wacky stories about my family.

Some things have come up recently that have reinforced my original thought process of keeping my blog posts to a technical subject matter.

I recently made some comments about a previous job of mine and those comments have apparently been interpreted in a negative way. If anyone that read that post is still around, let me be the first to say that my post was in no way was meant to speak bad about the company, team, or personnel that were there during my tenure. My experiences at that time had more to do with where I was in my career and what expectations I had for the job.

With that said, I apologize if I rubbed anyone the wrong way or if I somehow came off as abrasive.

From this point forward, my blog is going to trend back to the way it used to be. That is to say that personal posts will become less frequent and my thoughts on design, usability, development, and professional development will begin to dominate the blog.

22 Apr 2008 Chris 2 comments

Professional Development

How Do You Measure Success?

Success. It’s one of those things that we all strive to achieve. My recent decision to change jobs has had me thinking about my career and the idea of success and I recently asked myself that very question.

How Do You Measure Success?

Is success driving the cool car that everyone looks at? Is success wearing the hottest clothes? How about having the high paying job? Just what kind of metrics do you use to measure your success?

The reason it’s important to give this topic some serious consideration is because if you don’t know how to measure success, how do you know when you’ve gotten there? Striving for success without quantifying what that actually means is like walking around in the dark. Are you actually even headed the right direction? How would you know if you haven’t even set a final destination for yourself.

These are all largely philosophical questions, but they are questions that I believe it is important to answer lest I find myself further away from my eventual goal than I am now simply because I didn’t take the time to plot a course.

I could further complicate the matter by bringing the topic of happiness into the mix, but I’ll reserve that for another day.

My final thought on this topic for today is that this hustle and bustle of the normal american workday hasn’t allowed us to slow down and answer the types of introspective questions that I think we should all give serious thought to. This is not to say that it is anyone’s fault but our own, but we let days be dictated by the list of things we have to do instead of taking control of our day.

22 Apr 2008 Chris 0 comments

Life in General

Headed Back To Rackspace

I mentioned last week that I had a job offer on the table and I wanted to state that it was official now. I have accepted an offer to work as a Level 3 Windows Engineer for Rackspace. This should be a great move and really revitalize me professionally as working in a small business environment can sometimes drain you.

22 Apr 2008 Chris 0 comments

Kids, Life in General

An Eventful Weekend

When you have kids, most weekends tend to be eventful. This past weekend was a little more eventful than most.

Friday night was by and large a normal day. We spent some time cleaning up the house and sitting around. Saturday morning showed up far too early and we had a soccer game at 11 so there was no time to lounge around. Between some more cleaning and prepping the kids to get out of the house, the morning literally disappeared.

The soccer game was good. The kids were a little more distracted than previous games, probably due to the heat. We ended up winning 5-1 or something. They don’t keep score in the U4 age group, but as the coach it’s hard to not want your team to win.

Lunch and then a little more cleaning too us well into the afternoon. At about 3:30pm we jumped in the car and headed for the Hyatt Hill Country Resort & Spa. Lauren and I had a room for Saturday night to celebrate our 5th anniversary, which we actually celebrated back on April 5th. We took the kids up to the resort for the afternoon to play in their waterpark that they have.

Despite the warm temps, the water was a little too frigid to stay in. We ventured into the baby pool to warm up and found out that it was the warmest place in the resort as it was heated. With the hot tubs out of commission for the afternoon, we stayed in the baby pool.

Next we headed up to the room to get cleaned up and went back to the house to drop off the kids with family.

For dinner we ended up chowing down on the buffet at the Springhouse Cafe as the individual menu items didn’t seem to be all that interesting. I ate far too much and the bartender was way too generous while making my Margarita.

As it was our anniversary, the front desk was nice enough to send us up a bottle of sparkling wine and some chocolate covered strawberries. A nice touch.

For breakfast, we headed back down the Springhouse Cafe and indulged in an awesome breakfast buffet before heading home to rescue Lauren’s family from our children.

To our surprise, the kids did great and didn’t freak out at all.

Since it was still quite early, we decided to head out to the zoo. It was a nice day after all.

The zoo was a lot of fun and it was quite nice outside, even though it looked like it was going to rain. Some of the animals were inside while the keepers cleaned their cages. One animal that was not laying around was the Sumatran Tiger. This made me a little nervous, given last year’s San Francisco Zoo fiasco. The Tiger, who is normally asleep at the very back of the barless pit, was pacing along the front edge of the ravine as if something had gotten his attention. It was amazing to see him walk that edge, but at the same time a little frightening. We moved on pretty quickly.

We finished our usual path around the zoo and headed for the car. With Fiesta in full swing down here, parking near the Zoo had become a nightmare. Upon returning to our vehicle, I noticed a wonderful gift left for us by a fellow park/zoo patron. This gift came in the form of a 3′ long scratch down the side of the van.

Thanks douchebag.

Fast forward to dinner at Chili’s last night with my mom and brother. We come out after a very long dinner, think entertaining your kids for 25-30 minutes AFTER you place your food order, and I walk over to the van to point out the scratch to my mom and notice that instead of a long straight scratch, it was now a wobbly one. That’s odd. Oh wait, this was the wrong side of the van. While enjoying our meal, someone else decided to leave a mark on my van. This time the weapon of choice was a green crayon. *Mental note to finish cleaning the 6′ line of crayon wax off the car after work and then washing and waxing to hopefully remove the actual scratch.*

So that was our eventful weekend. Needless to say, we are all exhausted and in dire need of some rest. Maybe next weekend we can relax. Doubtful.

21 Apr 2008 Chris 0 comments

Life in General

Amazon Shipping Is Ok

After trashing on Amazon, I found out that maybe their shipping estimates just suck. My USPS delivered package that was slated for delivery on Monday actually showed up yesterday. Now I just have to wait for the DHL guy to come. Fingers crossed that the estimate of Tuesday is off and my PSP shows up today.

18 Apr 2008 Chris 0 comments

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