So what makes me angrier XmlHttpRequests or the Edge network? Well it is a tough call to be honest. Lets start with Edge. I have a wonderful 3G phone so I don’t get stuck with a shit connection. But ATT insists on throwing me to the Edge (read: slow) network. I shouldn’t have to wait 2 minutes for a page with forms to render. I want my page now!

Lets move to AJAX (easier to type on my phone). I want cross domain scripts like in the old days. The “security” that modern browsers have is ridiculous. What harm could a cross domain script do? It can’t be anymore dangerous than every JSON request being run through eval(). Maybe I don’t see the danger…
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After a little persuasion from Cara Jo I’ve made the switch to wordpress. I use it to manage the content of my site. As much as it pain me to give up the template system I threw together I think this will allow me to manage my site easier, and get feedback quicker.

Wordpress also give me the opportunity to make posts during the bus ride home, or to work… but I’m usually too tired for that in the morning.The rides usually give me a chance to think about future projects or how to improve what I’m working on now. PikaChoose has finally made it to a stable release so I’m on the hunt for the next big thing to keep me busy. I’m thinking either a game or some sort of RSS module, but there are a ton of those already. I’m sure something will come to me shortly.

Well sorry about formatting issues or typos. Mobile Opera is good, but doesn’t compare to a desktop browser.

Jquery

Jquery is a wonderful addon for Javascript. The big advantage? A small footprint that takes the best of Javascript and CSS and combines them making your Javascript easier to write well being more effective! So where might you see Jquery on this site?

Menu Icons

Using the ability to dynamically resize icons based on mouse position allows a menu that mimics the OS-X dock almost flawlessly. I’m going to assume that if you made it to this page you probably already noticed how it works.

Code Blocks

Did you notice these little jewels:

PHP Example

	
	$this->execute();
	$this->stop(4);
	

These code blocks use a couple of different technologies. First the sliding is handled by Jquery. The highlighting is done using the aptly named: Highlight.js. Well they don’t score points for creativity on their name they do maintain a light footprint packed full of useful features. Unfortunately the documentation is in Russian, but there are plenty of English tutorials to help you work through it.

Style allow the user to customize the color so that it matches your favorite text editor. The parsing of code blocks integrates nicely into Jquery making a seamless choice for displaying code. It does lack a copy to clipboard feature, but most of those require Flash or Active X, neither of which are used on this website.