Daniel Baldwin

Awhile back I posted a video for the “What do you do with Linux” contest and now I’m a lucky finalist. Which is very exciting for me as I really didn’t expect to see my video do very well as there are so many other great video’s up there, I just though I would do it for fun. Now by some stroke of luck I am a finalist and hoping to drum up some more support for my video. So please visit the site at www.howdoyoulinux.com and vote for my video entitled “Web Development in Linux“. Thanks for the support.

So I have been working on a project that needs a reCAPTCHA validation that is a bit customized. Well while I was working on it I had to refresh the page quite a few times and some how it came up with my last name. I am taking that to be a bit creepy, I mean what are the odds of that actually happening it must be really remote. I wonder what it will know next…

I recently had to build a site that ran mainly off of jQuery and I had the whole thing working from one script.js file that just had a lot of functions in it with some global functions defined at the top. The more I looked at this mess of a file the more I felt disappointed with myself that I had allowed myself to code so horribly.

So I went on a mission to turn the entire site into an object. I tried many different ways, including Javascript’s built in prototyping, but nothing seemed to turn out as nicely as I would have hoped. So I had the crazy idea of turning the entire site’s code into a jQuery plugin. Well it has worked out very well and even though it is a it of a wierd thing to do I have taken to making site that use alot of javascript into jQuery plugins.

The problem for me is that what was outlined on the jQuery documentation wasn’t all that helpful and I found that using existing plugins to figure out how the plugins were being built was alot more helpful but also confusing as there seems to be a nearly unlimited amount of ways to make a plugin. So after searching around for a while and a bunch of trial and error this is what I ended up with:

/*** Sample jQuery Plugin*/
 (function($) {
    function Sample() {};

    $.extend(Sample.prototype, {
        settings: {
            base_url: ''
        },

        init: function() {
            this.sampleFunction();
        },

        sampleFunction: function() {
            /* Sample Function Code */
        }
    });
    //Plugin End
    /**	*	Event Handlers	*/
    $(document).ready(function() {
        if ($.sample == undefined) {
            $.sample = new Sample();
        }
        $.sample.init();
    });

})(jQuery);

I find that I like to call the plugin after the site, e.g. jquery.danielbaldwin.js, and I name the function accordingly. I have found that having all the javascript for a site in one object has helped me to build sites that are more complex, can have persistent variables easily, I can set settings that can be changed just by changing a 1 to a 0, and I feel like my code within the object becomes so much cleaner and more legible.

sIFR has always been really impressive with how well it works and how it can make websites look good and unique. However, I constantly dread implementing sIFR on a site as the setup always seems to be such a process that results in some issue that I have to spend extra time working out. For a long time I just assumed that this was the kind of hardship that I would have to deal with in order to appease all the designers out there since fir me the only other option was image replacement which is not an option for me because of server load and portability. Now, though, I am looking forward to not going through all the hassle because I have been recently introduced to a new option, Cufon, that promises to be much easier.  The things right off the bat that I really like about Cufon are that it doesn’t require any additional plugins such as flash, it works in all the major browsers, and it seems to render almost immediately. Getting Cufon running is also really easy and painless, the hardest part is that you have to go to their generator page, http://cufon.shoqolate.com/generate/, to generate some javascript that creates the font for you. Then you set up the page like this:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
	"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>

	<title>Cufon Demo</title>
	<script src="http://cufon.shoqolate.com/js/cufon-yui.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="Swiss_721_700.font.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
		Cufon.replace("h1");
	</script>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Replaced Text</h1>

</body>
</html>

So doing the replacement really takes almost no code and almost no time to setup. There are 2 other parts of Cufon that have me impressed and happy. The first is that the selectors for the replace are very basic by default but lets you do advanced selectors with the help of a javascript framework like jQuery or Prototype and you dont have to do anything extra other than just have the framework there. I think this is cool because for me most of the time I am using jQuery or Prototype on my projects so they are already there and then I know that Cufon’s code isnt bloated with repeat functionality. The second feature that I am excited for is Cufon’s ability to reload it’s replacements on the page. This is helpful when content changes on the page without a page reload like with ajax. In sIFR you would have to re-call your whole replacement statement and it would look something like this:

sIFR.replace(newsgothicbd, {
	selector: '.demo_top',
	wmode: 'transparent',
	css: '.sIFR-root { background-color: #F9F9F9; color: #417596; text-transform: uppercase;} a { color: #417596; text-decoration: none; } a:hover { color: #417596; text-decoration: none;}'
});

however with Cufon you can just do this:

Cufon.refresh();

So I think it is pretty obvious that I am excited for this find and I am really excited to integrate the use of Cufon into my daily web development. I really thing that this will make the sites I work on look better, have a smaller footprint, and load much faster than with sIFR.

I remember when I was younger I used to lug my CRT monitor, tower, speakers, and other perennials to my cousin’s house every week so that we could all play computer games. I wanted the big heavy tower over a laptop because I could get better computing power out of it.

Now only 7 years later I have a 2 pound laptop that I haven’t yet been able to give it a task that it couldn’t perform without issue. We are in a time where we can have huge amounts of computing power in small machines. Relinquishing the need for most people to have a bulky desktop.

What is really interesting though is it would seem that it is beginning to become a trend to trade power for portability, thus netbooks are born. Netbooks seem to be all the rage with many companies already having a netbook in their product line up. Companies, like Apple, who don’t have a netbook in their line up are being begged to add netbooks.

I really started thinking about where things are going in regards to computing when I read this article in Daring Fireball. In the article John Gruber stated “But today, for many common tasks, the type of CPU you get when you build a $400 lightweight laptop is fast enough.” For along time now computing has been all about speed, now it would seem that its more about how portable you can be.

Evernote

Organization in life seems to always be an issue. There are always so many things to remember and do. I started using Evernote when it first came out but now that it is so cross platform, has an iPhone app, and has a better rounded feature set. I have been able to see the benefit of using Evernote.

I am currently using Evernote to store receipt, manage task lists using the TaskPaper format, and recently I realized that I could use Evernote to store code snippets and have access to them wherever I go.

This is a great product and I hope that we will be seeing more great features coming out of the Evernote team soon. For instance blogging right from Evernote wouldnt be a bad idea.

I really love the form factor of my iPhone. I really have enjoyed the device quite a bit. However I do have a device addiction and with the launch of Android followed by the launch of Nokia’s N97 I have been really wanting something fresh. I have been thinking for a while now how great it would be to be able to dual boot my iPhone so that I can save on hardware and try out a different interface. The news of Linux running on the iPhone has been a ray of sunshine to my gadget addiction.

Read more on Gizmodo

Source: command+shift+5

There are plenty of scifi tv shows and movies that portray a future with everyone wearing the same clothing. Usually this clothing is a jumpsuit and that is where the idea of the “Silver Jumpsuit” comes from.

With all the variations of gadget design’s and styles of clothing it seems imposable to think that we will ever be in a time where the “Silver Jumpsuit” will be the norm. However, I have been noticing that in regards to cars it seems like more and more car manufacturers are just copying each other and designing the same car.

The new Honda Accord for instance looks great but I can see parts of Acura, BMW, and Mercedes designs all reflected in the design. I am noticing the same issue with Hyundai’s new vehicles as well. Chevy and Ford’s cars are beginning to follow the same design ideas as the Honda, Hyundai, Acura, BMW, and Mercedes.

Volvo and Audi are preserving their uniqueness rather well at the moment but it makes me wonder how much longer they will hold off of becoming more like the rest of the pack.

If things continue like this we are looking to a future where the thrills of car spotting and driving would be gone and we would all be in “Silver Jumpsuits”. I would hate this because I would look like an idiot in a silver jumpsuit plus I am a huge car fan and I love to see new and unique designs for cars. I can only hope that some of the cool concept cars these companies are creating actually become real cars and that they dont all use the same designer for those either.

Apple’s “Lets Rock” event has come and gone. A lot of speculation surrounded the event as usual and as usual most of the reasonable predictions were correct. I had hopes of something more and completely different but I was sadly disappointed.

I am waiting for something that is a cross between a Mac Book Air and an iPhone. I realize that now is not the best time for Apple to release a product like this but I am tired of waiting for someone to come out with a device that breaks the mold of devices that we have today. I feel like we are still in the early 90’s as far as our devices go. All we are doing is making things smaller.

Hopefully something will come out of Apple’s next event. They are, in my opinion, the best hope we have to have new technology that breaks the mold. They did it with the iPod, the iPhone, and with their stores I think they will be suprising us more and more.

In the end we got new iPod Nano, new iPod Touch, and iTunes 8 with Genius. A lot of work on Apples part to deliver these things but I’m still waiting for something to excite me again like the iPhone did at its announcement.

I have been using my Apple TV a lot lately, in-fact it is all I watch these days. Ever since I got my Apple TV I have been a huge fan of it and all its possibilities. With Apple TV Take 2 even more potential has opened up for the small device. I am finding my self trying out more movies and tv shows. I will admit that sometimes it is more expensive to buy full movies or tv seasons from iTunes but I would have never wanted to buy anything if it weren’t for my ability to easily try just one episode or see the movie trailers right next to the “buy” option. One case of this happened just yesterday when I decided to finally see what all the hype was about and try Lost. So I bought 2 episodes which got my wife and I hooked and has now translated into me buying the entire 1st season.

I also love being able to rent movies right from my couch. I know that that makes me sound like a bum but I always hated going to the rental store and ending up either getting something else because they were out of what I wanted or having to go rent 10 movies because I might not like any of them. With the Apple TV I can see the trailer right before I decide to rent and if the movie doesn’t turn out to be what I thought it was I can stop watching and just rent another.

I do think that the Apple TV has a lot more potential than what Apple has currently given it but so far I am a very happy customer and all those who say that the Apple TV is a dead product should really try to own one.