• Web Two Point Oh!
  A satire on web2.0 applications. Quite funny.
  (tags: funny web2.0)

• Don’t think of it as pasta on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  (tags: recipes)
• Oops I did it again II on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  (tags: recipes)
• Just add tomato… on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  (tags: recipes)
• Binnur’s Turkish Cookbook: Potato Moussaka
  (tags: recipes)
• Binnur’s Turkish Cookbook
  (tags: recipes)
• Chicken with Chilli and Nuts on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  (tags: recipes)
• Chile Peanuts (Cacahuates Enchilados) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  (tags: recipes)
• Homemade Chicken Soup on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  (tags: recipes)
• Beer Can Chicken on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  (tags: recipes)

• New Zealand Free to air TV Guide
  A TV Guide that isn’t the shit flash TVNZ version.
  (tags: new-zealand)
• Introduction - In search of the One True Layout
  The ultimate(?) CSS layout.
  (tags: css design markup web)

• East African Groundnut Soup on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  A very yummy looking soup!
  (tags: recipes flickr)

I love scripting.

I - like most web designers - have spent many hours viewing source on pages that have nifty script trickery. I’ve always loved that one can learn JavaScript just by stealing (read: borrowing) other people’s code. (That’s probably why I’ve never bothered learning Flash.)

Back in the early days scripting was used mainly for rollovers and form validation. Back then it was all you needed. Everything was new and undiscovered. People weren’t thinking about accessibility or standards, we just wanted to be able to make that image over there change when you moused over some text over here. For me it was about getting my website to do what that other webdeveloper’s websites did. One my favorite sites was bratta.com (now defunct, but there is a back up here). I would spend hours and hours trawling through his code trying to figure out how the fuck he did it! As you’ll see if you go to the above URL most of the scripting is now completely useless.

Now days people are using scripts for far smarter things. The days of whizz-bang are over. Scripts are now used to enhance usability and the user experience. Applications like GMail, Flickr and Basecamp use a fair amount of JavaScript, and a lot of the time you don’t even notice. This is how it should be. JavaScript is the subtlety added to web interfaces. Things like the ‘yellow fade technique‘ and plugging new elements onto the DOM are the way to go these days. Less is more.

So, now that I’ve been rambling for a scroll or two it’s probably about time I cough up some documentation and linkage. I’ve broken the links down into four sections: Documentation; Libraries; Blogs; and The Others.

Documentation

JavaScript documentation is rare and quite unusable…but I’ve managed to find a few gems:

• JScript reference - this is Microsoft’s scripting reference. It’s not standard but many of the JScript Object Model is identical to the JavaScript Object Model
• W3C’s ECMA script binding reference
• Mozilla JavaScript documentation
• Webreference.com’s Documentation

Libraries

These libraries are mainly JavaScript libraries, some have a stronger focus on AJAX, however.

• Prototype
• Scriptaculous
• Dojo
• MochiKit
• Rico
• DynAPI (teh originator!)
• NEW - Moo.Fx - based on prototype.

Blogs

• Jeremy Keith
• Quirksmode
• DOMScripting
• Man In Blue
• Aleto
• 1976design
• Simon Willison

The Others

These are links I couldn’t categorise…

• JavaScript: The World’s Most Misunderstood Programming Language
• CBL Partial Updater - PHP AJAX thing. Very easy to implement and use.
• AJAX:Getting Started
• SAJAX - another PHP AJAX thing

So that’s all I have for the time being. If you know of any awesome links I’ve left out please add to the comment form.

• CSS Shorthand Guide
  A list of the CSS properties you can shorten down to one set of values. CSS Shorthand saved my life.
  (tags: code css web)

• Web Standards Group - Ten Questions for Jeremy Keith
  Russ from the Web Standards Group talks to Jeremy Keith about javascript, DOM and all things geeky
  (tags: css javascript usability web-standards)

With summer on it’s way (yeah, you can really tell, right?) we’ve been making a few small preparations…

A few weeks ago Ed came to our work to talk about having a better life. I was quite surprised at the things I learnt from his little chat. (Dave has done a nice little round up of Ed’s visit.) I’ve been making sure to eat a nice fibre breaky each day, I’m more conscious about sitting on my arse all day and I enforce micro-breaks where I try to do a spot of arm stretching and the like. Manda takes the piss out of me cos I keep banging on about eating five times a day, and getting more exercise. I’m a staunch anti-eater and anti-exerciser.

So lately Manda and I have been going on nice walks along Tamaki Drive. I usually drive to her work (on The Strand, across the road from Saatchi and Saatchi) and leave my car there while we walk. The reason for this is because the walk between our house and Manda’s work is totally shit. It’s a decrepit side of town; lots of building, and containers, and boring scenery. The good stuff starts right at the start of Tamaki Drive.

The first day we went I forgot my camera so I had to take some shots with handy wee camera phone. Luckily the sun was out and the ocean was looking particularly photogenic so the photos came out rather well. At some point (probably tonight) I’ll upload the shots I took with the real camera.

Not only is all the walking improving my life (as Ed suggested it would) but it’s preparing me for all the walking we’re likely to do in London over Xmas.

The London trip is getting very close and as a result a flood of old memories and good feelings are washing over me. I’m very very fucken stoked that I’ll be able to hook up with my brother, my nephew and all my peeps. It’s been way too long!

Go Reunions!

• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
  Prince of Persia done in flash. Very very very cool. takes me way back
  (tags: software game)
• HOWTO Spot a Wannabe Web Standards Advocate
  It’s funny.
  (tags: funny web-standards)

Things of this magnitude only happen when you really have to get a shit-load of work done.

Today I found myself going through about 6 pages of CSS/markup issues for a large shopping cart site. The project is nearing an end so we’re all pulling together to get it sorted.

Today was also the day samba decided to shit itself several times causing my G5 to derail. It wouldn’t communicate with our development server. At all! Poor OS X didn’t deal with it very well. I restarted several times thinking it would clear it up. It worked. Briefly. Then just when I thought it was all going well it grey screened. In several languages. No spinning beach ball…just a nasty message on a greyed out screen.

So yeah, that was my day.

Also - making animated gifs sucks.