Being married to a geek

Which my wife is, of course. Thanks to Jonathan I have a great joke that I would find hilarious if I ever had the guts it say it. She wouldn’t get it, though, which may be good or bad.

Anyway, the joke:

Geek: Get me a sandwich
Significant other: Aren’t you missing the inportant word?
Geek: Oh yes. sudo get me a sandwich

As you may have guessed this is just a quick update to let you know I’m still alive as I’m still up to my neck in myJournal, which will soon have some little preview screenshots.

Unobtrusive JavaScript password strength checker

I’ve added a couple of new functions to Performer – my easy to use JavaScript library. The two new functions allow you to check the strength of a password as it’s typed into a text box, and also check if a password and its confirmation match. Both update a notification element with a suitable message.

But that’s not all. Some of the older functions, such as the AJAX loader and tabbing functions, have got a little love as well. They now add extra classes to the elements they affect so you can style them easily. This stuff isn’t documented yet, but in a nutshell:

  • When loading some data from a remote page using the Loader function the element which is being updated will have the class ‘loaderloading’ while the loading is happening. Phew, a few too many ‘loader’s there.
  • When using the Tabber function to switch the visibility between different elements in a tag group, the link to the selected tab will have an additional class of ‘tabbercurrent’.
  • UPDATE: the Toggler function adds the class ‘toggleropen’ when the toggled element is being shown. That means you can easily do ‘open’ and ‘close’ CSS styles.

I’ve got lots more ideas for Performer, but time is short at the moment. However this little library – and the fantastic prototype library it’s built on – continue to make my life better.

Save the Developers

With the vast difference in standards compliance between Internet Explorer 6 and 7, and the recent announcements about even greater things to come in Internet Explorer 8, the time has come to get rid of the bane of web developers once and for all. That’s right: save a developer; don’t use Internet Explorer 6.

I wouldn’t even be able to start to count the number of hours I’ve spent fixing things for IE6, and as it’s been 18 months since it’s replacement was released it really is time to get rid of the old dinosaur. There are plenty of great alternatives out there, so make sure you upgrade – and make sure your family and friends (who you act as “tech support guy” for) upgrade as well.

Together we can fix the web.

2007: A Year In Review

This last year, quickly drawing to a close, has been one of new beginnings and growth for me. I don’t often reflect on a previous year like this at the turning of the new year, but this year I thought I’d make a break from my traditional beer and Jools Holland evening.

The new beginnings started back in January as I joined a new company. It had been my wish to join a start-up for a long while as the flexibility, drive and attitude of a fledgling company is much to my taste. I couldn’t have struck it better as not only do we have the backing of a major company, but our primary client is poised to become the next big thing it their industry. And I’m working with a great bunch of people.

The growth came on a number of fronts. The latest addition to the Taylor clan is continuing to shoot upwards (and outwards) and this year has mastered the all-important skills of holding a drink, walking and feeding himself. He’s set for life, I reckon. Personally the growth continues, although that’s more to do with a lack of self-control when it comes to biscuits. Note to self: lose weight, you fatty.

My out-of-office-hours work continued to grow pleasingly with the launch of a major website and several other projects. I’m in the good position of being able to choose the projects I work on which means what I do throw myself into benefits from me being a true believer in what my clients are trying to do. Plus I like to count people I work for as friends, so having a special business relationship with them is a good thing.

Musically this year has been quiet, with my only musical outlet being my church. I have been lucky enough to get a couple of new effects boxes for my guitar so what I lack in talent I make up for in range of sounds. Definitely a quantity over quality thing.

With this website I’ve stuck to my usual sporadic output, with less of the in-depth articles I’d like to write. Mainly through lack of time, but also because I’ve been preparing mentally for a new venture in the new year. As regular readers of this blog will know I’m in the process of setting up Yorkshire Twist, the official web development and consultancy branch of my online life. For too long have my professional services been cluttered by strange pictures of animals so it’s time to divide myself in two. Here’s what will happen.

This website, stillbreathing.co.uk, will continue to be my catch-all dumping ground for random stuff. So expect music, pictures and comments about things I find on the web.

My business website, yorkshiretwist.com, will be dedicated to giving an introduction to my services, articles on internet life and website development, and guides to help you get the best out of your websites.

Hopefully that will help me, and any potential clients, keep our heads clear. It’s not that I want to separate business from pleasure (anyone that doesn’t enjoy their job should think about a change of career) but a less … strange portfolio site may be better.

Anyway, I hope the following year brings you all happiness, health and prosperity.

BBC homepage preview – built with open source?

That cheeky chappy Jeremy Keith has got a photo of a possible new BBC homepage design. The BBC is one of the most visited sites on the web, so when they make a change people tend to notice. I’m not going to comment on the design itself much (although I think it’s quite nice, but not as good as the current design) but there are a couple of things in that photo worth mentioning.

Firstly they use Mac’s, and Firefox. Sensible. Secondly their Firefox has Chris Pederick’s fantastic web developer toolbar which makes seeing inside any web page as easy as anything. They also use, if you look carefully on the taskbar, the Aptana IDE.

So can we presume that the BBC website is designed and tested using open source tools? If so it’s a boon for the open source movement. Well done BBC.

I’m a bit behind the times, but I got this from Tom Coates.