<p>With the uncertainty of the future of America, the last thing families need is the cantankerous attitude of 78 year old hall of fame pitcher and “should be retired” Senator Jim Bunning. It burns me and probably most of Americans that we can dump billions into foreign economies and billions into bailing out the “Banking System” which got us into this in the first place, but we can’t approve an extension of benefits for struggling families. This halting move by <em><strong>Mr Personality</strong></em> had forced 2,000 federal employees into unpaid situations, and instilled jeopardy for jobless benefits for millions not to mention halted more than 40 highway projects, but guaranteed Mr Bunning got his check on time. Since the Senator is retiring after this session, no one can control his ornery attitude and close minded thought processes…….Well hes almost gone, and maybe there is a few others that should take a permanent vacation from politics as well, then maybe we can get this country back on track eventually……<em><strong>.just my .02c!</strong></em></p>
2010-03-04T09:41:12-08:00
61
just-say-no-to-bunning
If your too old then go knit something
Just Say No to Bunning
2010-03-04T09:45:17-08:00
<p>I was working on a project for a client when i came across a bug in IE dealing with absolutely positioned elements. I thought i had been down this road before, but apparently not. So i hope this helps others who have been given the task of making things work and coding things twice because they have people that use IE… Wait?… Thats probably all of us, at least in the real world. Everyday it seems my job is made more difficult because certain companies decide to build based on there own ideas vs the greater good of all.. Im not saying they dont have the right, but i can say Damn you Microsoft!! <br><br><br><br><h3>Absolute positioned elements bug in IE</h3>this is my basic code:<br><br><br><div class=“main_content”><br> <div class=“shtl”></div><br> <div class=“shtr”></div><br> <div class=“shbl”></div><br> <div class=“shbl”></div><br> <div class=“inner_left”><br> …<br> </div><br></div><br>
<br><br>pretty simple. And the css<br><br>
.main_content {<br> position: relative;<br> width: 900px;<br> height: 500px;<br> padding: 20px;<br> float: left;<br>}<br>.shtl, .shtr, .shbl, .shbr {<br> position: absolute;<br> width: 20px;<br> height: 20px;<br> background: url(‘images/screwhead.jpg’);<br>}<br>.shtl {<br> top: 5px;<br> left: 5px;<br>}<br>.shtr {<br>
top: 5px;<br>
right: 5px;<br>
}<br>.shbl {<br>
bottom: 5px;<br>
left: 5px;<br>
}<br>.shbr {<br>
bottom: 5px;<br>
right: 5px;<br>
}<br>.inner_left {<br> position: relative;<br> float: left;<br>}<br><br>All this is trivial. Except in IE. The problem i was having was my screwhead divs would disappear. In FF, Safari, Chrome, and Opera they all appeared where they were supposed to be, in each corner. But in IE they would disappear completely. One might think that they would maybe appear on the page but in some weird spot. <span class="caps">NOPE</span> <span class="caps">GONE</span> all together. when you inspect the source the divs would be there, but not in view. <br><br><h3>Thank god for google, and other posts like this one.</h3>It turns out that in IE when you absolutely position an element and its preceding or the following sibling of a float. So as you can seen from the code above. Not only is the parent element floated, but the div following the positioned screwheads is also floated. <span class="caps">DAMN</span> <span class="caps">YOU</span> Microsoft!.. Hence the reason for my divs to disappear. but i found out that the fix is simple, and stupid. by putting something between the AP elements and the floated elements, it allows them to come back into view and appear like they should.<br><br>This is what i did:<br><br>
<div class=“main_content”><br> <div><br>
<div class=“shtl”></div><br>
<div class=“shtr”></div><br>
<div class=“shbl”></div><br>
<div class=“shbl”></div><br> </div><br>
<div class=“inner_left”><br>
…<br>
</div><br>
</div><br>
<br><br>Easy. Simple and Stupid.<br><br>Hope this helps someone else.</p>
2010-03-01T18:20:19-08:00
51
nemesis-of-a-developer
The Nemesis of a Developer
IE Bugs
2010-03-01T22:10:55-08:00
<p>So, you want to get in to web development, or you think you already are. You have you hack version of <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/" target="_blank">Dreamweaver</a> and you can push things around in design view, or you downloaded some templates from somewhere and you figured out how to add your “bevel emboss” logo into it. You’re ready to start kickin ass and taking names! I was once like this like many others before me, but i met a seasoned Ruby developer through a project i was hired to do <span class="caps">CSS</span> work for and he showed me the true light of the web world. Im not saying that DW isnt good, i have just come to realize that to really have a grasp on the “true” web, you reallly need to dig into the guts of what your building and not just mash crap up in design view. so with that being said…</p>
<p>As a developer you’ll find that there are many many tools that can all get you where you need to be, and its a matter of taste and how comfortable these tools are to you. So if you’re a windows guy then you just have bad taste…j/k here are a few tools that we here at the cube prefer. <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br></span><h3>Mac Mac Mac -</p>
<p></h3>I actually have a Ubuntu box as well, but I am a Mac guy for life, not that you cant develop on other platforms, I just think that the Mac out performs any other machine on the planet and the last thing i want when im working is a box that craps out or hangs etc.. So i would suggest saving a few extra bucks and buying a <span class="caps">MAC</span>. Even the <a title="Apple Mac Mini - Pure Awesome!" target="_blank" href="http://www.apple.com/macmini/">mac minis</a> are a supreme machine<br><h3>Ruby, Rails, jQuery -</h3>The core of our development efforts. <a title="The Ruby Programming Language" target="_blank" href="http://www.ruby-lang.org/">Ruby</a>, because its the greatest programming language on earth. <a title="The greatest framework in the world" target="_blank" href="http://www.rubyonrails.org">Rails</a>, because its a fantastic Ruby based web development framework, and <a title="simply awesome javascript" target="_blank" href="http://www.jquery.com">jQuery</a>, because it makes javascript easy and a lot of fun to code. I wont go into too much detail on these as most posts will be about these.<br><h3> Textmate -</h3> When it comes to writing code i have used <a href="http://netbeans.org/" target="_blank">Netbeans</a> which is an <span class="caps">IDE</span> (integrated development environment). Its a good tool if you like IDE’s and the other <span class="caps">IDE</span> is <a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby/index.html" target="_blank">Ruby Mine</a> which gets a lot of praise from Ruby guys that like IDEs. I personally think they are heavy and clunky and dont really care for them. <a href="http://www.macromates.com" target="_blank">Textmate</a> is my editor of choice. It has color coding, a nice snippets feature, and there are a lot of great <span class="caps">FREE</span> bundles to help enhance it with a lot of really nice features. It loads fast and simply gets the job done without hiccups. Also you start to notice that in many many screencasts, Textmate is the editor being used, so it can help a noob follow along a little better. it costs about $50 bucks but is so worth it.<br><h3>SequelPro – </h3>When it comes to web applications using <span class="caps">SQL</span> based database back ends, I <span class="caps">WAS</span> a long time user of a <span class="caps">FREE</span> application called Cocoa MySQL. This has now transitioned into a program called <a title="Sequel Pro database management tool" target="_blank" href="http://www.sequelpro.com/">Sequel Pro</a>. This is a fantastic <span class="caps">GUI</span> type tool for managing your databases. it allows you to not only manage local (on your machine) databases, but remote (on your server) databases as well. Very easy to use and <span class="caps">FREE</span>. Although i suggest you donate even a few bucks to these projects to give back to these great tools that make our development lives easier.<br><h3>Firefox – </h3>Unless you live under the Microsoft rock, youve probably heard of, and hopefully use, <a title="The Mozilla Corp - Firefox" target="_blank" href="http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/">Firefox</a>. Firefox is one of the greatest tools for web development. Not only is it a great, and <span class="caps">IMO</span>, the best browser out there to experience the web with, it also has the ability to add plug-ins. These plug-ins make a developers life a lot easier. The most noted are <a title="Firebug add on for Firefox" target="_blank" href="http://getfirebug.com/">Firebug</a>, <a title="The Web Developer toolbar for Firefox" target="_blank" href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60">Web Developer Toolbar</a>, and <a title="yslow page tester from yahoo" target="_blank" href="http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/">YSlow</a><br><h3>Photoshop -</h3>Not so much a dev tool, but a tool non the less. For those that are doing both design and development, <a title="Photoshop graphics software" target="_blank" href="http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/">Photoshop</a> <span class="caps">IMO</span> is a must have. There are alternatives like <a title="GIMP open source graphics tool" target="_blank" href="http://www.gimp.org/"><span class="caps">GIMP</span></a> or <a title="Inkscape vector tool" target="_blank" href="http://www.inkscape.org/">Inkscape</a> that are free from the open source community, but I find that Photoshop is the greatest tool for image manipulation and optimization, and graphics. You can also use Illustrator in conjuction with, but i find that i can create about 95% of everything i need in Photoshop. This is the tool I will be using in future graphic blogs and tutorials.</p>
2010-02-22T18:10:31-08:00
41
what-the-cool-kids-use
what the cool kids use
Tools of the trade
2010-02-22T18:14:52-08:00
<p>I do a lot of road traveling and I have noticed a trend of closing and abandoned restaurants that were once flourishing tourist stops for travelers and families, all along the interstates and highways. I can recall even as a child when we went on road trips as a family we would all look forward to the great food and experience from the new “food stop”. It seems that today, families don’t even talk in the car much less stop and enjoy some family time in a restaurant. I even have a really close friend that I recently visited who when traveling, wears headphones listening to an ipod, his wife listens to hers and the children both have on head sets watching a <span class="caps">DVD</span> movie. Most people don’t realize how short life is, and that the times they spend together are numbered and will soon pass before they know it and they will be wondering what happened. Technology is a good thing in certain terms, but with Ipods, laptops, in car dvd players, and video games, who needs conversation anyhow. I guess in short, my family and I have not fallen prey to the “Drive up and Drive on” mentality that fast food restaurants have ensued upon us, we still take time out to know what goes on in each others lives and show interest in them by making these stops at restaurants, but no longer will families and travelers be learning about each other and seeing the cultures of art that adorn the walls on these types of establishments and from here on out the booths will remain empty and the legacy’s will fade. I feel sorry for those that don’t know what I am talking about, and I guess the only question I have left to ask them (if they could remove their headphones long enough) is “Would you like to super size those fries with that order”?</p>
2010-02-05T20:54:10-08:00
31
the-vanishing-restaurant-era
the moral fleecing of America
The Vanishing
2010-03-05T21:37:08-08:00
<p>This being the first post of the newly added DevEngine, I wanted to give an overview of what will be featured here. This blog is going to be geared towards the things we use the most here at C2M, namely <a title="ruby website" href="http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/">Ruby</a>, <a title="rails website" href="http://www.rubyonrails.org/">Rails</a>, <a title="jquery website" href="http://jquery.com/">jQuery</a> <a title="css at w3c school" href="http://www.w3cschools.com/css/"><span class="caps">CSS</span></a> and occasionally some other tools that we find very useful, simple, and solid. This blog will also be geared around the beginner.<br><br>When I was first starting i found that there are a lot of great resources (books, screencasts, podcasts etc..) out there for all these various frameworks and languages, but the one thing i found as a real beginner was most of these resources seemed to have this assumption that you had about 1 year under your belt. This can really cause a lot of frustration for those that maybe just don’t quite get the basics. To no fault of these many resources, I just think that after a while as you become more seasoned as a developer, you forget that there were those few moments where the light didnt shine as bright, therefore making what seems to be a simple tutorial, difficult. I’m hoping that as we post small segments here, that those just starting out will find this to be a great resource tp help them along their path to becoming Rockstar programmers.</p>
2010-01-09T19:42:44-08:00
21
The-rise-of-a-developer-blog-for-noobs
The rise of a developer blog for noobs
For Moments like these
2010-02-22T15:13:29-08:00
<p>Well everywhere you look or tune into now is just more bad economic news which seems to all hold the phrase “It’ll get worse before it gets better”……We are all hearing uncommon terms such as “billions” and “bailouts” but never hear “the little guy” or “small business America” ever mentioned when these terms are used. One guy has come up with a plan that will benefit all of us in “small world America” it is called the “<span class="caps">JSA</span>” or “Jump Start America Plan” that would benefit not only the little people, but the banking institutions and the Government entities as well…The beauty of this proposal is its simplicity and straightforwardness…Could it really be this simple? Many believe so including some politicians as well as banking officials that have read it. If we don’t do something, there will be billions passed out and probably nothing gained in the end, so lets see if we can help this country from falling into another Great Depression by educating ourselves and those around us. You can read the prosposed bill <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z4z586klk_w/S22O7hSenTI/AAAAAAAAAmM/Svh65B9a0mo/s1600-h/jsa.jpghere" target="_blank">here.</a> If you like what you read spread the word and maybe just maybe……</p>
2009-12-17T16:13:14-08:00
11
to-stop-the-downward-spiral
Could it really be this simple?
To stop the downward spiral
2010-02-22T18:01:27-08:00
<p>Well the inventors over at Katchum Alarm Systems have finally made their product a realization, they have devised a way to put a damper on all of the copper theft problems the nation has been experiencing since the economic downturn. Their system will detect the instant that the perpetrator tampers with any copper tubes or wires on just about any system, and a sensor will send a signal to a control panel which in turn will dial a series of programmed phone numbers or pagers, or can be routed to their main alarm call center. This system is a one of a kind alarm system unlike no other which also has the capability of not only saving taxpayers thousands on theft costs, but also can alarm you in the instance of a refrigerant loss on <span class="caps">HVAC</span> sytems which can save you money as well. So hats off to the guys at Katchum Alarm Systems!</p>
2009-11-21T15:51:35-08:00
1
katchum-alarm-systems-launch
To catch a thief
Katchum Alarm System Launch
2010-02-22T18:00:59-08:00