A Day in Paradise

Not sure if what I clicked through told me not to tell anyone about anything, but I just got my beta invite to Xcerion.

Xcerion is yet another OS-in-a-browser, although they prefer to call it “Cloud Computing” or “XML Internet OS”. I assume they say XML since that is probably the data transfer layer, as well as the file save format, regardless advertising an “XML OS” is totally 1997.

The interface only works in IE (Cross Browser compatibility is coming soon) and is pretty slow until everything loads up (see it’s just like a real OS). Once everything is going it seems to be pretty snappy.

I’m getting back to work

Oh yes, did I mention it was very pretty?

I’m running way behind on a pile of stuff, so have decided to do a quick linkdump of some things that I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while now.

• I just listened to the latest pro-php newscast (I didn’t listen to the old ones, but love the new format). Haven’t listened in a while and was happy to hear my blog entry discussed. I am planning on writing a follow-up to that. You guys need better show notes, some links maybe?
• I’m giving a workshop at PHP Conference
• I experimented with Chorizo Scanner at our UG meeting, since then I’ve run some other tests and have some comments (blog entry pending).
• I am LOVING YUI. I suck at CSS and Javascript, so the grids and comprehensive js library gives me more incentive to embrace the web2.0 hype. Carousel rocks! I’m planning on blogging about the “controversy” surrounding Yahoo’s design choice in the Grids CSS.
• My Router sucks, so I apologise for the connecting and disconnecting on irc (need to use a proxy). In the last 2 weeks a 300gb hard drive failed, as did my TV tuner

So there are a couple of things that I need to catch up on. Will keep you updated.

Are you finding yourself sleeping too much at night? Are you making all of your deadlines and have time to spare? Are you spending a lot of time with your girlfriend but don’t have the cash to buy her that awesome Swarovski accessory. Do you do a lot of window shopping at thinkgeek? Are you wondering how you’re going to afford the next generation iPod? Did you participate in the recent “lets-make-slashdot-look-like-digg” contest, and are mourning the hours of CSS code that you wasted twiddling pixels and writing CSS only to be superceeded by the ugly ass css that is slashdot now? Do you spend hours tweaking the CSS on your beautiful blog, and then ruin your work of art by dropping in adsense ads to make some cash? Are you working in a boring day job and were just diagnosed with a terminal brain cloud?

If you answered yes to any of these questions and can handle some good old fashion no-nonsense CSS work (purely design implementation) email me at aaron-at-wormus.com.

A couple other important requirements:

• basic PHP knowledge required
• basic Smarty Templating knowledge required
• able to use subversion (it ain’t rocket science)
• strong CSS knowledge
• knowledge of YUI library a plus
• and dependable

Finally, we’re a small team and not in the position to pay “industry standard” prices, but the compensation is negotiable.

One of the things that I want to get going is a collaborative journalism platform. The system will have a couple of primary features.

Article Collaboration

1. You create a “Article Stub”
2. You add reference material
3. You collaborate on the article
4. You maintain a workflow (data gathering, writing, draft, published, revision1, revision2)

RSS Aggregator

1. You can add however many RSS feeds to the Aggregator
2. You can tag specific articles in the aggregator with keywords which could pertain to upcoming stories.
3. You can select a specific quote from the article and tag it for future use in an article

In a previous post I made a list of a bunch of “getting organized” tools, I’ve looked through most of them, but none of them really do what I want.

However, the best I could find was backpackit. The things I like the best are writeboards and price ($5/month). I could have just used a regular wiki, but since I was colaborating with a couple other people the inteface is VERY easy to understand and use.

This is how I’m using backpackit.

1. Create a page for the project
2. Share the page with people who will be collaborating on the project
3. For each article we’re going to write I create a writeboard and add it to that page.
4. Everyone colaborates on the article by adding data, wikipedia style.

Obviously this doesn’t really work the way I need it to, and there are always “stop editing I’ve got an update” messages flying around IM, but for now it seems to work.

If anyone has the time/energy/skills to create my collaborative journalism platform PLEASE let me know. I’d be VERY interested in working with you or sponsoring your work.

Yes, and I’ve got referral links so if you decide to sign up with the paid for version I get 3 free weeks of service!!! Woot!

JavaScript – Introduction to Forms

Why am I always wondering how to do this?

for (i=0;i

setTimeout(’window.location=”http://www.slashdot.com/”‘, 5000);

Javascript Get or Set Checked Radio Value

had some problems with this… can never remember when js uses “Checked” and when it uses “Selected”.

Core JavaScript 1.5 Reference – Devmo

Where have you been all this time?

When I moved to PHP I just coded perl in PHP, now I’m doing a bit of javascript, and yup I just do PHP in Javascript.

Anyway, today this internet explorer “bug” bit me in the ass Harold’s Home | substr() bug in Internet Explorer’s javascript. Now according to MSDN that’s actually a feature, but it sucks that it doesn’t work like you’d think, and more importantly Firefox does.

Anyway thanks to Richard Hayes, I’m sorted out. The correct code is :

ext = obj.item.value.substr(obj.item.value.length – 4);

That seems to work just fine.

And by the way PariahBB that cool BB whose interface literally eats the heart out of any other BB, NOW DOES RSS!!!