I can’t help but realize that the new ads from Microsoft are totally useless, unconvincing, and uninformative.  The basic message behind the three major ads are:

• Windows Mohave – “Don’t listen to the millions of people who’ve experienced debilitating issues with Vista.  Instead, look how polished and slick the interface looks.  Kind of like a Mac – I MEAN.. doh!”  Does anyone notice that they never show you what the people are looking at?  Makes you wonder.
• Seinfeld – “We’re funny?  “.  So you wasted tens of millions of dollars and NOT give anyone a good reason to use your product?
• I’m a PC – “A lot of people use Windows, so you should too?”  This reminds me of a famous quote, “Any fool can use a computer.  Many do.”  I mean, seriously, “Windows.  Life without walls.”  That’s your slogan?!  I guess Microsoft doesn’t consider devices not working, spyware constantly infecting machines, a browser (conveniently labeled “Internet” for all the ignorant) that is not standards compliant, and a slew of other deal breakers walls.  Apparently Microsoft has an entirely different take on what a wall is than the rest of the world…

Microsoft, I’d like to help.  I’m not a fan, personally, but I’d like to help.  Your Operating System comes pre-installed on 90%+ computers.  You DON’T NEED TO MARKET as aggresively as you are!  Second, instead of trying to make everyone think you’re hip & cool, why don’t you actually focus on making better software and better user interfaces?  I can give a million reasons why I’m a Mac user, but the one reason that I tell everyone, regardless of their level of expertise in computing, is “Everyday, I wake up my Mac, do what I need to do, and then put it back to sleep.  It just works everytime, the same way it did all the times before, and it will continue to work exactly as it does until I replace it with a new model.  I don’t have to worry about scanning for spyware, cleaning up the registry, etc.  I never have to figure out why my computer is suddenly running slow.  It just works, everytime.”

On a recent project, I couldn’t figure out why the following block of code worked on OSX but not Red Hat Linux.


function __autoload($class_name) {
require_once 'lib/' . $class_name . '.class.php';
}

I had a class named ‘bank.class.php’ which autoload was attempting to find.  It worked properly on OSX, however on Linux it wouldn’t work.  I quickly discovered that Linux required the file to be renamed to ‘Bank.class.php’.  Alternatively I could have changed the autoload to:


function __autoload($class_name) {
require_once 'lib/' . strtolower($class_name) . '.class.php';
}


So I just finished writing my first jQuery plugin!  The idea behind it is simple – provide a dead simple way to apply a default value to any text-based form field.

In it’s current state, my plugin accomplishes the following:

1. Provides a simple way to apply a default value to any text-based form field.
2. Only shows default value for EMPTY form fields.
3. Default value returns to an empty form field when it’s lost focus.
4. Upon submitting the form, fields which still contain the default value are set to empty

Example Usage:

$(“#myfield”).DefaultValue(“My Default Value..”);

View Demo

Download

I’m sure there are other plugins that satisfy these requirements and I’m not claiming that this is the best in the world, but it satisfies all my requirements and gave me the opportunity to develop my first jQuery Plugin!

I may enhance the plugin soon to incorporate styling to form fields.

Do you find it a hassle to manage external images? One day all your images show up just fine, and the next you see the infamous red x in it’s place, signifying that the image is no longer available. Frustrating!

With this quick fix, you can say goodbye to that problem. With a quick javascript event function, you can easily replace broken images with a default image of your choosing without any crazy server-side file existence checks.

The way to accomplish this is to reset the img tags src attribute on the OnError event. This event is fired when an image cannot be loaded for whatever reason. Perfect time to replace the image with the default image!

Example:

<img src=”http://www.somedomain.com/someimage.jpg” onerror=’this.src=”/images/default.gif”‘ />

With this one JavaScript event function, you no longer have to worry about whether images will show up, and best of all, viewers of your site won’t think you are a slacker

Continuing Tony’s Article…

Erlang

It floats, and might even perform relatively fast, but what’s with the syntax?

ColdFusion

The picture says it all…

CShell

Seemed convenient at the time, but turned out to be entirely inadequate.

Ok, my brain hurts. More to come!

As you may have noticed, I just recently upgraded to Wordpress 2.5!  I’m currently in the process of porting over all previous posts/comments.

This sites main objectives are simple:

• Provide opinionated, geeky programming goodness
• Work as an outlet for my unique humor
• That is all.

I invite everyone to comment, yell at me, disagree with me, and give me your perspective on the topics I choose to write about.

Enjoy!