Lazycoder

!(Ten Blogging Hacks)

Micro Persuasion: Ten Blogging Hacks: “Ten Blogging Hacks”

YOU CAN NOT “HACK” A BLOG BY USING A BLOGGING CLIENT ARGH!!

NOR CAN YOU “HACK” WIKIPEDIA BY LOGGING IN!

Seaside development

Ted Leung on the air : Phear Avi and Smalltalk: “Best quote I’ve heard from a Seattle Mind Camp roundup:

my favorite was from Ryan Davis, giving a presentation on Rails, who said something like

I defy anyone to come up here and use any other framework to duplicate what we%u2019re doing in Rails as quickly. Except Avi.”

(Via Ted Leung.)

I was at the RoR presentation at MindCamp. That quote caused me to download Squeak and Seaside to see what the fuss is all about. I”m not used to working in a VM like environment so I’m not sure where to start. The Squeak/Smalltalk documentation out there tells you a lot about Smalltalk syntax, but nothing about the environment. The Seaside movies are really useless. All they show is something clicking a “do it” menu item and then opening a browser window, showing a counter var increasing. How about showing me how to GET to that point folks? There’s a 46 MB video, maybe that’ll have more meat in it. So far, most of the Squeak/Smalltalk docs I’ve found are either pure syntax, pages and pages of variable assignment examples, or are propaganda. I think I’ve figured out why people aren’t using Smalltalk as much as they used to. It’s hard when you are starting from square one to get into it. I have yet to find a “beginning Smalltalk” site as good as the ASP.NET site or the Java tutorials. Maybe I’m just too used to being spoon-fed my information?

Update: Avi of “Except Avi” in the quote above, left a tutorial link in the comments. The tutorial is good because it explains the “counter” tutorial that I mentioned above. For me, it showed me what I know and what I don’t know. For example I understand the session id in the querystring and I understand how they are building the page now. What I don’t know is how to structure Smalltalk programs and how to define classes, relationships, and so on. At least I’ve got a starting point now! Looks like fun!

Don’t sniff for browser versions

Request.Browser.Version may not be a double: “Avoid writing code like this to do browser detection:

if(Double.Parse(Request.Browser.Version) < 5.2) { // 5 or less

“

(Via ComputerZen.com – Scott Hanselman.)

I’ll second the call to not use Request.Browser.Version, but for a different reason. Checking for a specific browser version leads to the land of never-ending if-elses. You should always sniff for browser functionality unless you have damn good reason to pick a single browser version. Usually when I’m preaching that, it’s during a client-side scripting presentation. But it applies to server-side sniffing as well. If you want to find out of a browser supports ActiveX, check Request.Browser.ActiveXControls rather than checking using an “isIE” var.

More on Childs Play

Penny Arcade!: “I’m going to start off with some Child’s Play news. We went Live with CP 2006 on Monday and as of right now we’re sitting at about $64,000 in cash and toy donations. What’s incredible is about $40,000 of that is in actual wish list donations. I try not to cuss when talking about Child’s Play but that’s fucking incredible! I’ll admit that I was worried about CP this year. There are a lot of worthy causes asking for your charity this year and I would not have thought any less of you if you chose to send your money elsewhere. I’m honored that so many of you see the value in Child’s Play.”

(Via Penny Arcade.)

I’ll second that curse. That’s fucking incredible. $64,000 in 5 days.

I try not to shove charities down people throat, but this one is a really cool charity. I’ve worked for a couple of non-profits, so I know how the “Administrative costs” part of them usually works. Some huge percentage usually goes to pay for the offices, the President’s salary, the salary of all the people that work there full time, the advertising, and anything else they can think of. Then, whatever is left trickles down to the people the charity is serving. That’s why most charities hate non-monitary donations. Child’s Play has none of that. Everything, every penny that is donated goes straight to the hospital.

Funniest thing I’ve read today

Apple’s New Thing – Mac Forums: “”

Check out the Mac zealots getting all frothy over the debut of the iPod. Some choice quotes in there.

“Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player.”

“hey – heres an idea Apple – rather than enter the world of gimmicks and toys, why dont you spend a little more time sorting out your pathetically expensive and crap server line up?”

“I still can’t believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently!
Why oh why would they do this?! It’s so wrong! It’s so stupid!”

“$400 for an Mp3 Player!

I’d call it the Cube 2.0 as it wont sell, and be killed off in a short time…and it’s not really functional.
“

“All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distiortion Field™ is starting to warp Steve’s mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off.”

It just goes on and on and on.