My Spayed Keyboard

Whenever I get a new keyboard or switch jobs, the first thing I do is tear off the "Caps Lock" and "Insert" keys, leaving two convenient "Crumb Gutters." It’s a great conversation starter for my co-workers who think the tech department, out of some random act of passive aggressiveness, has given me a keyboard they fished out of the dumpster. Read the rest of this entry »

The Transparent Hook Pattern

The title is a bit misleading. This isn’t really a new pattern but a specific implementation of one. I just think it’s a neat use of javascript by dynamically adding/updating object methods. For those of you who are new to the hook pattern, it’s a design where functions and code blocks can be attached during run-time to other functions or code blocks and run before,at or after the original function call. For more info on a php implementation check out this site. I’ve been using a modified version of this for some of my php scripts. This implementation is a ported version of my php version. The Transparent Hook Pattern takes the hook pattern and makes it transparent so you don’t have to rely on another function to call the hookable functions. For example..

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Web Dont’s Volume 1: An easy-to-use guide to avoid making an annoying Web site.

We are all guilty of it at some time in our short Web designing lives. We don’t like to think back to the time when we thought a 10 foot long, completely centered Web page was "Cool". It’s not till after passing that blissful phase of misguided design, that we realize the line between an original Web site with easy-to-access information, and a moving, blinking, noisy, multi-colored tool of purgatory.

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