Now, try executing the following in IE:

What would you expect to be the value of link.innerHTML? Turns out that it is the same as the href value, ‘http://flatterline.com’. It seems that, on IE only, if the inner HTML of an anchor tag looks like a URL, then upon replacing the href, it will also replace the inner HTML. Try the same experiment, but with link text that does not look like a URL:

Inspecting the innerHTML value will show that it was not replaced.

This is a browser level quirk, so using a JavaScript library won’t save from this unless your library has specifically made a special case for this. I originally saw this when using jQuery and thought it might be a problem with the jQuery framework.

I think the best workaround here is that when modifying an anchor tag with JavaScript, set attributes first, then set the link text.

What do you think? Have a different workaround or solution?

I was able to track it down to the use of position: relative on these particular elements. If I added position: relative to other elements, they would also appear to be fixed. I proceed to try relative positioning on surrounding elements, but it was only at the body level that all elements behaved as they should.

Armed with these clues, I was able to find a post by Emil Stenström that documented the existence of this bug in IE6 and IE7 beta 2. He has a great explanation about how to recreate it. His suggestion was to add relative positioning to the body tag, but the real problem, as he explained, was the use of auto margin to center the body element.

Seeing as how this was an embeddable widget, I didn’t really want to have the widget affect any elements outside of itself. So I opted to advise the embedding page to add a centered div around their content and remove the centering on the body tag. This corrected the problem and, once again, all was right in the world.

Or was it?

Essentially, with honeypot captchas you add fields into public facing forms that you expect to not be filled in, then you hide them through CSS (or other means). Since spam bots don’t usually apply CSS styles, the fields are visible to them, yet styled away for normal users. And we all know how spam bots love to fill in whatever fields they find… When the form is submitted, you simply check for these honeypot captcha fields to have values. If they do, then you stop processing the request and return as if everything completed a-okay.

I used this technique on a site several years ago and meant to package it into a gem. This weekend, I finally checked that off my todo list! Now, I’d like your feedback on whether this is useful and what I can do to make it better. Feel free to fork the repository and mess with the code. If you add a feature, please send me a pull request. Thanks!

You can find the repository here: Honeypot Captcha on Github.

References

• Honeypot Captcha by Phil Haack
• Stopping spambots with hashes and honeypots

Company.find(:first, :conditions => [
  "state = :state AND name = :name AND division = :division AND created_at > :some_date",
  { :state => :approved, :name => 'Flatterline', :division => 'First', :some_date => '2009-02-27' }
])

This is also very handy when you have the same value for multiple parameters, since it will replace all matching bind variables with the value (e.g., the current time).

Event.find(:first, :conditions => [
  "state = :state AND starts_at <= :now AND ends_at >= :now",
  { :state => :active, :now => Time.zone.now }
])

References

• ActiveRecord::Base API documentation

So now, you can indicate which scenarios should pass and which are still be worked on, then run them separately if you like. Simply add some meta-data to your scenarios like this:

This will tag the scenario as a test that should work. If you have a work-in-progress, simply tag with @wip.

Read about some other ridiculously awesome cucumber and webrat features on the thoughtbot blog.

Strangely, though, Rails does not have an inflection that deals with the singularization of these words correctly. From the command line, try singularizing the word “business”:

While this seems like a contrived situation, it’s actually not as hard to hit as you’d think (e.g., common code that needs to singularize the incoming argument). I saw this while using Acl9, a role-based authorization system for Rails…

Here’s a quick fix that you can add to your config/initializers/inflections.rb:

You can read more about how this won’t be fixed in this ticket.

Here's what you do to patch Rack:

You should now be back in business. Hopefully it won't be too long before an update is released for Rack that includes the patch.

Happy uploading!

References

• Rails Ticket #2497: Rack in Rails 2.3.2 throws fatal error with small uploads
• Rack commit log: Fix multipart uploads on 1.9
• Ruby NYC: paperclip triggering a “invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII” ruby 1.9 rails 2.3

I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to subscribing to their RSS feed, following on Twitter, etc. It’s usually about a 2 week trial period, after which I reevaluate my choice. I also occasionally reevaluate long standing connections to see if it still makes sense for me to be connected to that person through whatever tool I’m using.

My main reason for cutting people is mostly due to a lack of relevance to me at that time. Just because one of your posts caught my attention doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to be interested in the rest. If someone has ceased being relevant to me, why would I continue to skip over their posts in search of relevant content? (That’s a key indicator for me: I begin skipping over people’s blog posts, tweets, etc. That’s when I know it’s time to move on…)

Negative people seem to have an effect on my mood, so I choose to remove the negativity. You may have heard the phrase “negativity is contagious.” Well, I’ve found this to be true in online interactions as well. Occasional outbursts I can live with, it’s the constant negativity that gets to me…

I also try to cut people who are rude, racist, bigoted or arrogant. I’d really rather focus my attention elsewhere; it’s not worth devoting any energy to these people. Besides, it seems like many of these people are so vocal because they’re eager for responses; it’s fuel for the fire they’re stoking.

Remember, you don’t need to follow everyone; it’s your choice. Be picky. This will allow you more time to establish better relationships with the people you choose to maintain a connection with.

Try taking some time to evaluate the people you follow, read, etc. and make a few cuts. Start with me if you’d like You might be surprised at how easy it actually is.

This came up in a conversation I had with local Phoenix artist and photographer, Tyson Crosbie a few weeks ago. He posited that, while getting together in larger groups was fine for many things, it didn’t foster the same type of relationships that smaller groups did. Further, he stated that some of the best conversations he’d had were in very small groups. It shouldn’t be news to anyone that it’s easier for people to bond in smaller groups, right? I tended to agree and started thinking about it more.

New online tools make it easier for us to find people with which we share similar interests and they allow us to communicate with them. Having online friends is becoming the norm… there are many people I’ve talked with online that I’ve never met in real life. However, the communication mediums that currently exist online are flawed. For instance, we’ve probably all experienced how easily the subtleties of human interaction are lost when communicating online. After all, these are just tools; they’re not an end, they’re a means to an end!

When I do, occasionally, visit meatspace I’m either attending a networking event or some other social gathering. I think there’s a desire to be a part of something large because that’s often used as a measure of “success”. Much like many bureaucracies, the larger things get, the harder it is to accomplish something meaningful. I think making a more personal connection with a small group of people is far more valuable than being one of many in a semi-anonymous crowd.

So, why not challenge yourself this month? Use your tools to gather 3-4 people you don’t know well from amongst your diverse network of people and invite them for coffee, sit down for dinner or have a drink at a local bar. Hell, invite them over and cook them dinner, but whatever you do, start creating better relationships. Oh, and if you go out, please go to a local place and not a chain

Let us know your experience in the comments!

1. make eye contact; smile
2. perform a full clasp; no premature grabs
3. use a firm grasp; not too hard though
4. don’t be overzealous with the shaking
5. hold it for a few seconds after saying your intro (e.g., “nice to meet you”, “my name is X”)

Photo by tenderlung / CC BY-NC 2.0

If you were to search Google about how to give a proper handshake then you would find articles and videos that mostly tell you the same things I learned. A handshake is one of the first impressions you get when meeting someone. With the way I was taught, there is an element of sizing up the individual with whom you’re shaking hands; there’s a certain machismo involved. If the grip is too weak or they avoid eye contact it could be construed as a sign of weakness and, therefore, leaves a bad impression. CareerBuilder cites a University of Alabama study to this effect:

[The] study found that consistent with the etiquette and business literature, there is a substantial relationship between the features that characterize a firm handshake (strength, vigor, duration, eye contact and completeness of grip) and a favorable first impression.

However, a few days ago I had my ingrained notion of what a handshake should be challenged by an unassuming individual. He didn’t challenge it directly, he simply shook my hand in a way that was entirely foreign to me. His handshake had the following characteristics:

1. downcast eyes; slightly bent body
2. double handed clasp
3. soft grasp
4. barely any shaking involved
5. held it for longer than a normal handshake

Normally, I might have a negative reaction to this type of handshake, but this time I didn’t. Why? The handshake was sincere, absolutely and utterly sincere, and conveyed quiet confidence. In fact, it was probably the most sincere handshake I’ve ever received, yet it goes against most of the things I’ve been taught about a proper handshake.

It made me wonder why we’ve trained ourselves to look for weakness and/or dominate the other person during first impressions instead of looking for sincerity, authenticity, trustworthiness and good will. Is it some sort of evolutionary thing; a throwback to the days when our ancestors continually fought for dominance of each other? I’m not sure, but I feel like the handshake has become an insincere, mechanical response to a common interaction. In essence, it’s lost it’s meaning.

What do you think?