While Twitter is Down…

I thought I’d (gently) toss some links at you:

  • I read an Introduction to sessionStorage a couple of weeks ago. I approve.

    As it stands, I’m always storing bits of data in globally accessible places (either in the DOM or in a namespaced Data object,) and I always have to document what I’m doing so having a standard place to park data is great.

    The fact that it stretches across an entire session? I love it. Especially since it’s so straightforward when compared with cookies. I hate dealing with cookies. It feels like coding through a time machine. sessionStorage is much more modern. Convenience FTW.

  • Of less interest to me on a practical level was Computing with JavaScript Web Workers. It’s cool, but for the stuff I do? Not immediately useful.

    Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’ll get some computationally expensive problem and will end up using them next week or something.

  • JavaScript is represented strongly on the 30 Most Influential People In Programming list. Care to guess at the JS names included?
  • Interested in the ongoing discussion of web fonts (the embeddable, fancy kind?) one of my co-workers, Colin Henson is working on a great series outlining the whole shebang. check out: Web Fonts part 1 and Web Fonts part 2.

    We worked together on the redesign of CramerOnline.com where we used Cufon for headers, so it’s very topical around the office.

    Quick verdict on Cufon, btw? Slightly tricky, but definitely ready for prime time 🙂

  • While I appreciate all the grassroots efforts to rid the web of Internet Explorer 6, the real way we rid ourselves of that beast lies not with us, as developers, but with IT departments where they control every piece of software on their users machines.

    It’s with that in mind that the good press Windows 7 is getting should be greeted with great joy by web developers the world over. While many IT departments skipped over upgrading to Vista (I know of what I speak, we use XP at work), the lure of Windows 7 might be too much for them to ignore.

    Which would mean IE8 would get a big bump.

    And I would dance a little jig.

JavaScript Library Showdown. Video of my CDIA Presentation is Live. Check It Out!

Thanks to Jason Duclos, my presentation from a couple of weeks ago is live. In it I compare standard JavaScript DOM methods to YUI, jQuery, Dojo and Prototype/Scriptaculous.

JavaScript Library Showdown from rob larsen on Vimeo.

Here’s the deck.

Jason is the man for putting this together, by the way.

Sometimes, Dreamweaver Surprises Me- Great Accessibility Enhancement

I use Dreamweaver. I have since version 1.0.

I’m a fan.

That said, as you would imagine, I very rarely use the WYSIWYG features. I mostly use the text editor and the site management features (including Subweaver, a handy SVN inetgration.) Occasionally, however, I do open it in WYSIWG mode and very often I’m surprised at how well that editor actually handles things.

Last night I ran into one such surprise.
Continue reading “Sometimes, Dreamweaver Surprises Me- Great Accessibility Enhancement”

I’m Happy That This One is Live

We launched a new version of Cramer’s web site last week and I’m pretty happy with it. Continue reading “I’m Happy That This One is Live”

Fun With the :Hover Pseudo Class and Code Samples

This being a technology blog, with plenty of code samples being posted on a regular basis, it’s no surprise I give soem thought as to how that code is displayed. Personally I’ve gone for the old school, green on black text (using the excellent code font Consolas, where possible.) I like the way it looks.

function heckYeah() {
    check.it.out();
}

The one problem is with really long lines. Since I use a lot of real world examples and it’s code I’m caught between a desire to have one line of code=one line on the screen (easier to scan) and the readability issues that a scrolling text box creates.
Continue reading “Fun With the :Hover Pseudo Class and Code Samples”