I talked to my friend Scott for the first time in a long time yesterday. He and I were like brothers growing up and share like and dislike, almost without exception. The one major difference between us would probably be our chosen paths. While he went the photography route (the roundabout way through several stops) I went the web programming route (also the roundabout way).
The most common questions I get asked by people who are really interested in what I do is ‘what are you using to build your websites with’ and ‘what javascript framework do you use?’ It was in explaining my choices to Scott that I felt like it would be worth explaining them to the world (potential clients may be curious).
The lesser of the two questions is what I’m using to build websites. The desktop application I’m using is Adobe Dreamweaver but I’m really only using that for the code collapsing, snippets and site organization. My foundation of choice is WordPress. I’ve found it to be almost infinitely customizable and flexible enough to cover just about any project. I found Joomla too big and hit WordPress next. I’d love to give Drupal a try but I have a strong belief that being really strong with one tool makes you more marketable than being slightly experienced with several. I have not met a site that WordPress didn’t like. (But just because WordPress is in my ‘lesser’ category, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s not important. WordPress is amazing. It’s only lesser because it’s so easy to use and largely unnoticed by site visitors.)
The bigger impact tool I’m using right now is a javascript framework called MooTools. Scott had never heard of MooTools and I guess this is where the line between web surfer extraordinaire and web programmer is drawn. A surfer may know which blogging tool or BB platform he’s looking at but he’s unlikely to know which javascript framework is in use.
MooTools isn’t for javascript n00bs. You have to be fairly comfortable with coding in general but also with CSS and the DOM. Once you’re pretty good with those, stepping into MooTools is heaven. Once I started working with MooTools I realized that there really wasn’t a single thing I couldn’t do with a web page. It’s that powerful.
Once you’ve decided that MooTools is interesting and deserves looking into further, have a look at Aaron Newton’s Clientside. All of the things you want to do on a daily basis with MooTools are covered. Man, it’s almost all done for you! Aaron’s got a book coming out in August and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.
I used to rely pretty heavily on the official MooTools forum which was shut down when version 1.2 of the framework was released. I don’t lean quite as heavily on the community now but I invite everyone struggling with a MooTools script to try the unofficial forum at http://mooforum.net. I cruise it quite often and try to help where I can. My handle there is Lweel8 (it’s a bumper stumper for my punctuality when it comes to sporting events).
Best of luck to everyone out there. I hope to see you in the forum.
As if you needed an excuse.
My boss is really into post-apocalyptic movies and books. If it’s dark and dreary (or has vampires in it) he loves it. He recommended that I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road a long time ago but it wasn’t until I saw the movie No Country For Old Men (based on a McCarthy novel) that I decided to pick it up. I hate seeing a great movie knowing I could have read the book first.
You see, the movie The Road comes out this fall. I know it will be good because it stars Viggo Mortensen, and he doesn’t make crap. I’ve tried to steer clear of any spoilers because I’m now reading the book but what I do know is the general story. It is, of course, a post-apocalyptic story about a man and his son heading south to avoid the freezing cold of the coming winter. From what I’ve read in the first 25 pages, the event occurred several years ago and the man has survived much longer than most.
The book very quickly goes from dismal to scary. On page 5 is a phrase that so closely aligns with how I feel about my kids that I wish I’d written it. The man is watching over his son while he sleeps and he says, “If he is not the not the word of God God never spoke.” At this point I was very in touch with the man and thought how much we are alike. I put the book down for a break when the man asks himself on page 29, “Can you do it? When the time comes? Can you?” Clearly this is not the world I live in. The thought of saving your child from unspeakable horrors by ending his life - that deserves a break.
It’s another one of those, “what would you do in the same situation” type of books that I love and love to talk about. Feel free to leave me your impressions of The Road. I promise not to read them until I’ve finished the book (which will likely be very, very soon at the rate I’m reading it).
Update:
Finished the book in one day - a new record for me! I do recommend it but it is not for the faint of heart. Very emotional for fathers of young kids anywhere. The large print and style of writing makes for a nice quick read - you could probably get through the whole thing in one transatlantic flight…
Wow. I’m going to need full rosters for every team before I watch a single game next season. Jagr’s gone, Naslund, Hossa, Blake, Cujo, Boyle, Avery, McGrattan, Laraque, Huet, Weight, Ruutu, Ryder, Tucker, Raycroft, Hagman, Streit, Redden, Campbell, Kolzig, Lalime, Theodore… all playing in new towns next year. And the list is growing. And these aren’t just fourth liners. Some of these guys are perennial all-stars.
It looks like Toronto isn’t trying to compete this year. The crappy thing is that part of the problem is that Mats hasn’t decided what he’s going to do next year. His delay means that Toronto has to hold onto the purse strings just in case they need to spend $7 or 8 million bucks on him. Of course, this is only adding insult to injury. The sensible thing to do for everyone involved would have been for Mats to waive his NTC back in the spring to allow the Leafs to get better. As it stands, the Leafs have made no big additions and could very well be headed for the basement (not that last year was a great showing).
Montreal, on the other hand, has added some toughness in Laraque and has retained most of its young core that made them one of the best teams in the regular season. I’m not going to say that Laraque makes the Habs a Cup contender but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
We’ll see. Maybe Sundin will go to the Habs. I think that would officially make him public enemy number one in Toronto. Can you imagine if he brought the Cup back to Montreal in his first year after 13 years in Toronto? I can.
And yes, it counts towards the World Record attempt.
The Mozilla servers serving the web pages have all crashed but the files themselves are still being served. I don’t think this is well known…
Firefox 3.0 (EN-US)
Update: Mozilla has fixed their web pages and now all of the links that, earlier today, showed version 2.0 are properly showing version 3.0. SO GO GET IT!
I really don’t know if I have a knack for Texas Hold ‘em poker or if I’m just extremely lucky, but out of a total of about 8 rounds I’ve won 4. They weren’t all with the same group of suckers, either. Granted, we’re not talking about $100 buy-ins or the WSOP here. It’s just a bunch of guys wasting time and not ever more than $20 per guy (I promise, dear).
My latest victory came on Friday night. The lights at the Roblin Lake Dome, ahem, wouldn’t come on so our slowpitch game was canceled. The boys thought an impromptu game of poker might sate our need for something macho to do.
I’m clearly not the right guy to give advice, being that I’ve only played a total of 8 rounds in my life, but the one tip I’ve found that really makes my position stronger is to only have three types of bet:
- The check or call (you don’t always have to spend money)
- The silo bet (is strong but doesn’t require any time or thinking to count)
- The all-in
By limiting my plays to these three types of bet my opponents don’t have the opportunity to examine my reactions. I know that I’m either going to call, push a silo or push all-in. If I have to decide how much to bet and then worry about what kind of message I’m sending whether I’m too high or too low I’m clearly going to lose. I would be out of my element in a hurry. I’ve found that my opponents really get no read on my betting and I’ve really only been beaten by poor cards or bad rivers.
I also don’t think that revealing my methods will hurt me in the future. The guys I play against don’t really get out (on the Internet) much. Besides, this tip can’t help you read my cards or my face. I’ve watched a fair amount of WSOP and celebrity poker on TV but I will never play enough poker to know, or care, what a good or bad bet is. I have a hard enough time remembering the blinds and what beats what.
Best of luck to everyone not at my table!
