Posts by jwmcpeak

This is a jQuery plugin to animate menu’s.

http://vizziweb.com/animenu/

Think it’s good enough for CodeCanyon?

Thanks.

Submit it and see

I’m not entirely sure I understand. You want book recommendations?

Beginners: Beginning JavaScript 4rd Edition (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470525932/) (Shamless plug) JavaScript Beginner’s Guide (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071632956/)

Advanced: Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (http://www.amazon.com/dp/047022780X/)

As a tablet, the iPad fails.

Personally, I don’t care it doesn’t have a camera or that it can’t multi task. I don’t need those things. What I do need is the ability to use a writing utensil to write and have software recognize my handwriting and convert it to text. That’s a deal breaker for me. Otherwise, I’d be in line for a 3G model in 60 days.

I guess that’s just as well. Dell or HP will release a true tablet sometime this year at a lower price point. It may not have 3G capability, but that’s a feature I can live without. So I win in the end, I guess.

@Jeffrey – No, I’m not. Their feature-set isn’t what I need, and I can’t justify their cost. As for my 8 to 5, I work for a local (private) oil company.

You asked for a story. You’re getting it =)

In the fall of 1997, I was in my freshman semester in college. I bought a game called Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight at Christmas, and I wanted to play it online. I had played multi-player games before (Duke Nukem 3D), but never anything on the internet. I used Netscape 4 at the time, and the best way to play JK online was Microsoft’s Internet Gaming Zone. The Zone used ActiveX, thus I had to use Internet Explorer. They just released version 4, so I downloaded it and used it solely for Zone access.

I joined a clan called Wielders of the Darkside, and I started the modification division of WD. I created skins for the in-game avatars, and I needed a website to showcase them. At the time, the clan’s website was hosted on GeoCities. Naturally, I signed up for a GeoCities account for the mod site. The webmaster of the clan’s site used the :hover pseudo class on a rules, and I thought it was hot. So I started doing research. I printed out the HTML 4 and CSS proposals.

In spring of 1998, I found WebFX. I fell in love with DHTML , but I had never programmed in my life. So I found books on JavaScript, read them, hated them, and started reading Erik’s code. Also during this time I found ForgetFoo’s site. It wasn’t a JavaScript mecca, but I later befriended Foo, one of the most talented designers of our day, through a chance meeting at WebFX’s forums. Later that year I found Thomas Brattli (founder of the old dhtmlcentral.com) who wrote phenomenal cross-browser DHTML (NS4 and IE4 ). I started reading his code.

In 1999, I assumed leadership of WD and became the clan’s webmaster. I bought the wdonline.com domain and used the clan’s website for my experiments in web development – primarily client-side development at the time. At first we manually updated the site, and later opted for a PERL script. I decided I wanted a more comprehensive management system, so I picked up PHP and wrote a CMS . I hated its syntax, but it got the job done.

WD dwindled with Jedi Knight’s death. A few of us played a few other games under the WD tag, and we started playing the abomination known as Jedi Knight II. It had potential, but the development team had no idea what made the original game so great. When they finally released the SDK , I revived the modification division and started writing a mod called JK2 ++. JK2 was built on the Q3:TA engine, so I had to learn C (I had some experience with it, but not enough to call myself a C programmer) in order to make my modifications.

I got tired of the game, and eventually closed the clan’s doors. I turned wdonline.com into my personal site, and I focused on client-side development. I wrote a simple DHTML library and used it as a basis to write several DHTML widgets. After a year or so, I decided to start learning C# for a Windows project. I fell in love with C#, and I decided switch to the .NET platform and found a host that offered ASP .NET 1.0.

A year or so later, Foo wrote an RSS aggregator using ColdFusion and a little JavaScript. He called it FooReader. I asked for permission to copy his design, and I built it using .NET and my own RSS /Atom parser in JavaScript called XParser. That bit of code, plus a few tutorials I wrote on XSLT and C# landed me a job coauthoring Professional Ajax. I was then asked to help finish Beginning JavaScript, 3rd Edition.

I have worked in IT since late 2002, but I never had a full-time programming job until summer of 2008. A company I worked for in 2000 and 2001 called me out of the blue and offered me a programming job. I spend most of my time in C# and .NET, but I get to spend some time writing JavaScript for our intranet (and soon an internet site). I also get to learn IBM ’s RPG language.

Anyhow, TL;DR version: I gamed, I web developed, I wrote books, and now I program for a full-time job.

The visual effects are amazing and well worth the ticket price. The rest is meh. The story’s been done many times.

Have you looked at Google apps? http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/calendar.html

Don’t you all think that over the next few years we will say goodbye to the mouse ( not the keyboard ) for most of the apps we use ? .... I’m up for a touchscreen and move all those knobs and hit those pads … YEAH

Touchscreens are great if it is the primary input, but I don’t see it replacing the mouse. Doing so would be a huge step back as far as input devices go. The mouse sits next to the keyboard, and using it requires you to move your arm only a short distance from the keyboard. A touchscreen requires you to stretch one or more arms over the desk. It’s a huge productivity hit. In order for a touchscreen to work as a user input device, it needs to be the only, or primary, input device. Anything else is cumbersome, an annoyance, and counterintuitive.

OK, i see.. as most of you speak about using a touchscreen for “regular” computer based work, sure you prefer using a keyboard and a mouse. Just think about other new possibilities that a touchscreen offers for people who would love to have one

Check those videos / articles for example :

http://www.jazzmutant.com/lemur_overview.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnmOTc1dVM0&feature=related

Your assertion was the touchscreen will replace the mouse. As I said, a touchscreen has to be the primary input device in order to be feasible solution. The links you provided bolster that statement.

I’m still convinced there isn’t going to be any tablet. I think the MacBooks will get an i7 mobile

I think they’ll eventually bring one to the table, but I won’t attempt to guess if they will this month. I see all this hype as the same as the hype surrounding the iPhone before its announcement. We saw iPhone rumors fly around for at least six months before it was officially announced. Whether or not this is the same type of free marketing remains to be seen, but there is some correlation with past Apple products.

Don’t you all think that over the next few years we will say goodbye to the mouse ( not the keyboard ) for most of the apps we use ? .... I’m up for a touchscreen and move all those knobs and hit those pads … YEAH

Touchscreens are great if it is the primary input, but I don’t see it replacing the mouse. Doing so would be a huge step back as far as input devices go. The mouse sits next to the keyboard, and using it requires you to move your arm only a short distance from the keyboard. A touchscreen requires you to stretch one or more arms over the desk. It’s a huge productivity hit. In order for a touchscreen to work as a user input device, it needs to be the only, or primary, input device. Anything else is cumbersome, an annoyance, and counterintuitive.