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

PHP vs Ruby on Rails, Part 1

PHP vs Ruby on Rails, Part 1

Posted in PHP & MySQL, Quick Links, Web Development

Smooth Scrolling Anchors

Via Snook comes a nice pointer to using JavaScript to Smoothly scroll internal links, eliminating the jarring experience that anchors sometimes provide.

Posted in Design & UI, JavaScript, Quick Links

The Validity of Xmas

I originally posted this on December 20, 2004, but I think it would be nice to bring to the forefront once more…

Back in September (2004), Neil Gaiman posted an entry on his site that mentioned the definition of the word ‘Xmas’. Like many, if not most Americans (and perhaps other English speakers), I assumed it was a shortened and/or slang version of the word Christmas. Apparently this is not the case. According to the American Heritage Dictionary (via Dictionary.com), Xmas is a valid word, with a long history within Religious writing:
> Xmas has been used for hundreds of years in religious writing, where the X represents a Greek chi, the first letter of, “Christ”.In this use it is parallel to other forms like Xtian, “Christian”. But people unaware of the Greek origin of this X often mistakenly interpret Xmas as an informal shortening pronounced (ksms). Many therefore frown upon the term Xmas because it seems to them a commercial convenience that omits Christ from Christmas.

Posted in General

Google Tips

Some handy Google Tips for your enjoyment.

Posted in Quick Links, Technology

Stalin’s Super-Warriors

Apparently, back in the mid 1920s, Josef Stalin “ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes”.

History kicks ass…

Posted in Featured, History

Mulled Cider

This recipe for Mulled Cider (Spiced Apple Cider) sounds delicious!

Posted in Food & Drink, Quick Links & Tagged: alcohol, drinks, food

OS X Tip: Character Palette

How to enable the OS X Character Palette

Posted in OS X, Quick Links

iPhoto-like image resizing using Javascript

iPhoto-like image resizing using Javascript

Posted in Design & UI, JavaScript, Quick Links

An Even Better Way to Build Ruby, Rails, Lighttpd, and MySQL on Tiger

An Even Better Way to Build Ruby, Rails, Lighttpd, and MySQL on Tiger | Ruby on Rails for Newbies

Posted in OS X, Quick Links, Web Development

Another Take: Firefox Extensions

Stuart Robertson of Design Meme has posted a concise write up of his Top 5 Firefox Extensions for Web Designers. I wasn’t aware of Aardvark, but it looks to be quite useful. The other two extensions that aren’t on my list of Firefox Extensions, are ones that I continue to monitor. Hell, the geek in me has happy little daydreams about each of ‘em.

GreaseMonkey has grown in popularity in a very short time, and while I like the idea of having the ability to script other sites, I just haven’t taken the time to install and play with it. I think it will be very addictive for someone like me…

I haven’t used del.icio.us for a couple of reasons. The first is the fact that I don’t like the idea of relying on an external entity to host my bookmarks. I need to spend some time researching the ability to sync my local bookmarks with del.icio.us. For now I keep my bookmarks synchronized using my own server. The second, reason is the same as the one I noted for GreaseMonkey. I think I would spend a lot of time tagging and tinkering.

Perhaps I will add these to my list o’ things to do on my holiday time off…

Posted in Firefox & Thunderbird