5 Freebies for June!

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Some easy methods to get better performance from your jQuery coding. Good stuff.

jQuery Performance Rules – Best Practices for Speeding Up jQuery

I finally got around to jumping into javascript, specifically jQuery. It’s an awesome framework and a valuable part of the toolbox. Now I haven’t really found anything I couldn’t do server-side in php but there are certainly a bunch of things that are just easier using client-side, especially styling (which I hate). Using jQuery has improved my html coding, especially the use of optional attributes, which jQuery exploits quite nicely. There’s more to css life than just styles and ids.

When I first started with jQuery, all I saw was simple hide/shows and effects. It really didn’t take long to figure out how to use AJAX which not only handles form submissions but it lets me take a chunk of output and use it all over my static site. Change it once and it’s updated all over.

There are a lot of plugins around for jQuery to handle a lot of routine tasks like form validation and form submission. While I started out using plugins, I’ve eventually figured out it’s just as easy to code a couple of lines and have a customized solution that you can understand and manipulate.

Javascript and jQuery have a learning curve like most everything else but it’s worthwhile to give it a try.

It was bad enough when Sirius canned Boombox but now it seems Music Choice has decided to merge their Dance and Electronica channels into one. I used to flip back and forth when there was something on the Electronica channel I didn’t care for but it seems like every time I tune in now, it’s all Dance all the time. What the heck happened to the Electronica? Do they break blocks up during the day?

And what’s up with the MC MixTape? Sounds like a great idea but I’m not sure what to make of it.

I was just checking up on the latest referee guidance from USSF (even though my affiliation with USSF is in a temporary (hopefully) state of inactivity) on refereeing matters when I saw Sean Hurd (Florida) had been selected to the FIFA International Panel as an assistant referee. Sean started his soccer refereeing career in the Jacksonville, Florida area while I was actively officiating there in the early 90’s. Sean and Chris Kenney were the best young referees we had at the time. We all became state referees around the same time. Sean and Chris advanced very quickly due to superior talent, unquestioned integrity and the excellent Florida State Referees development program.

I haven’t seen Sean in years but I am very pleased and very proud to see his accomplishment at the highest level. Congratulations on a job well done, Sean.

Full marks to Sprint for finally releasing a supported version of OS 4.5 for my BB 8830WE. The only downside of the upgrade was having to have my enterprise settings reactivated. I don’t think the tech support folks were too bent out of shape.

The device is now quite usable with a UI that looks quite modern. HTML email renders nicely. The browser is just about usable. Best part is the OS has been rock solid. I still prefer my Centro for personal use but this is a nice upgrade.

The WordPress 2.7 core has a setting to close comments for posts which exceed a user specified aging. Unfortunately, the core doesn’t differentiate between posts and pages. Since I need additional control, I use this wonderful plugin.

Given a choice, I would prefer if the plugin would filter the comment_status page when the post is called and change its value based on aging. This functionality would prevent having to send scheduled update queries to the posts table. I believe the core functionality works this way.

Update Feb 24, 2009 – I decided to have a go at making a theme function that would mimic the core’s behavior of closing the old posts on the fly without additional queries while preserving comments on pages. It was pretty simple. You have to remove the filter (’the_posts’, ‘_close_comments_for_old_posts’ ), copy the function _close_comments_for_old_posts from /wp-includes/comment.php, modify it to do an is_page() check, rename your new function and then add the new filter (’the_posts,’your_function_name’) after you’ve defined it.

Ajay’s plugin will still allow you to keep specific posts open so there’s more functionality than what I need so my solution isn’t a replacement.

When last I left off, the Treo 700P I used for work had to be  turned in for a Blackberry 8830WE. I still use the BB but my personal phone was out of contract and it was time for me to upgrade. As an avid Mac user, I thought long and hard about going over to AT&T for an iPhone. After doing some due diligence work, I couldn’t find an easy solution to port my calendar and contacts on our office enterprise email and time management software (Lotus Notes on  a Domino server) over to an iPhone. So I went back to the old reliable Palm OS, this time a Palm Centro on Verizon Wireless. After about a week or so, here are my impressions.

The Centro is small. Really small. The qwerty keyboard is also small. I have small hands and have always been a ‘fingernail’ typer, even on the larger Treo and BB. I have no problem using the keyboard but I can see how it could be problematic for some. Personally, I love the small form factor. I can manipulate it very easy with a single hand. Something I can’t do with the much wider BB and the Treo. The screen is also small but the resolution and quality is very clear and legible. Then again, I have pretty good eyesight so I can also understand how it could be another problem for some.

One of my beefs with the Palm OS was not having Voice Dialing out of the box. Well, the Centro has it except it doesn’t seem to work for me over a BT headset. Since I live in a hands-free driving state, I really need to have Voice Dialing over bluetooth. The Centro also doesn’t support Mass Storage mode for the microSD card. I was used to both of these shortcomings with my Treo but it doesn’t make it any better that the Palm OS still doesn’t support these issues. I understand the OS is quite old now and Palm’s moving to the Pre but I’ll have the Centro for another couple of years having to work around this stuff.

Now the good stuff. Web browsing is so much faster than my BB. It could be the hardware or it could be the different 3G provider (Sprint for the BB) but I really prefer Blazer on the Centro to the BB browser. Versamail is an excellent little app for email and renders html which my BB still doesn’t do. The best part of the Centro is the outstanding PIM apps, specifically Datebk6. I never look at my BB anymore for my calendar if the Centro’s within arm’s reach.

I understand the Palm is running on a 4 year old operating system but I still prefer it to the RIM OS. As a personal organizer and for light surfing, texting and email, I think the Centro’s terrific.

One of the dirty little secrets (if you use FeedBurner) around is that you will have to migrate your feeds from your feedburner.com account to your google.com account. Anticipating this, I opened an AdSense account to facilitate the move. You don’t have to use AdSense nor am I planning on monetizing my feeds or content. Anyway, I clicked the Migrate link and all heck broke loose. The feeds all came over but with the redirect by google, I was banging into 502 errors. Since my web site relies pretty heavily on the BuzzBoost feature, not getting my burned feed left large holes in my normal content.

Turns out this is a known error (??!!). I reburned all my WordPress source feeds inside AdSense and lo and behold, the original migrated feeds came back with all the original settings. I deleted the new, duplicate feeds and all seemed well. Except for a couple of feeds which are there but for some reason, the BuzzBoost script isn’t generating any html. Not good.

Google is pushing everyone to migrate by the end of February 2008 but they are not ready for prime time. Take my advice and wait until the last minute so hopefully all the bugs are worked out.

Known Issues & Workarounds – FeedBurner Help Group | Google Groups.

Does the thought of creating css make you shake? It’s my least favorite part of development. As I brace to get my theme ready for WordPress 2.7, I am not looking forward to styling the new comments.php. Fortunately, Chris has done a lot of the heavy lifting (as well as providing an example) of what classes are used with the modified comments api. Great job!