Alex Jones: Web Technologist, Barbecue Acolyte, Information Junkie, Austinite

Variable Evaluation

NYPHP - PHundamentals - Variable Evaluation - “Evaluating a variable, whether it is generated by a script or input by a user, turns out to be somewhat more complicated than one might suspect. The focus here will be on determining whether the variable contains something; if it does, then additional tests will normally be necessary to determine whether it contains something meaningful.”

Posted in PHP & MySQL, Quick Links

Halloween Cocktails drinks at Drinkalizer.com

Halloween Cocktails from Drinkalizer.com

Posted in Food & Drink, Quick Links

Google Help : Cheat Sheet

This should be required reading for anyone who uses the Web: Google Help : Cheat Sheet

Posted in General

Electoral Shedding

An interesting commentary on the upcoming election, and the unlikely, though constitutionally possible, situation that electoral shedding could elevate a person who is not running for president to the top spot: Tech Central Station - Tie Goes to the…
> Interested in becoming president this year? If so, hope for an electoral college tie. With an unlikely, but plausible, perfect tie — 269 electoral votes for both George W. Bush and John Kerry — anyone meeting the Constitutional qualifications for president could end up president. Here’s how.

Posted in Law & Government

Voting

Sarah and I just got back from early voting, and while it took an hour, it was time well spent.

Don’t forget to vote today (the last day for early voting in Texas), or on Tuesday!

Posted in General

URL Decoder/Encoder

Eric Meyer has provided a nice URL Decoder/Encoder for developers to use, and if they wish copy. So you now have a useful tool, for those times that have an encoded URL (in a bookmarklet, or a part of JavaScript) that you wish to transform into an intelligible string, or alternatively, you want to quickly encode a URL so it is JavaScript-friendly.

Posted in JavaScript

Mac Modding Shortcuts

MacDevCenter.com: Mac Modding Shortcuts - “Make repetitive tasks simpler and maximize ergonomic efficiency with this excerpted chapter from Erica Sadun’s Modding Mac OS X. This comprehensive chapter covers everything from the philosophy of keyboard shortcuts to step-by-step instructions to a look at speakable items, complete with shortcut management tips and screenshots.”

Posted in OS X, Quick Links

Digital Web Magazine - Making News with Web standards

Digital Web Magazine - Making News with Web standards - “The San Francisco Examiner recently became one of the first newspapers in the country to fully adopt Web standards and publish a site that utilizes valid XHTML and uses no tables for layout.”

Posted in CSS, Quick Links, XHTML

The Washington Redskins Predict the Election

Snopes, the ultimate site for proving or debunking urban legends has reviewed the legend, circulating the Net, which claims the “outcome of Washington Redskins football games has correctly predicted the winner of every U.S. presidential election since 1936.”

Their findings? It’s true.

While, I personally don’t believe that there is some form of ethereal connection, providing a glimpse into future results of this important election, I must admit this light-hearted injection in such a contentious period is welcome. I just may tune into Fox on October 31^st for the game.

Posted in General

Functional Spec Tutorial :: What and Why

Functional Specifications “are the blueprint for how you want a particular web project or application to look and work. It details what the finished product will do, how a user will interact with it, and what it will look like.”

Posted in Quick Links, Web Development