techSanctuary

After returning to the Humboldt area, I started following the local LUG again. I came across a local project called Humboldt Hookup to get free WiFi in the local towns. Turns out it's my boss's pet project. I plan on donating some time to help the project get some steam. In the mean time, I'm collecting links and information on the subject.

Here is THE best article on CSS floats that I've found so far.

TerraPass is an economics experiment designed to take advantage of the existing enviromental trading markets. You buy credits equal to the CO₂ output of your vehicle. These credits are then used to reduce the pollution output in various sectors equal to your output. For $80 or less per year, you can help counter the pollution of your gas-guzzler.

I've seen arguments for both. REST is smaller over the wire, while SOAP allows complex types. Obviously each has its place. But when we are talking about web services, isn't standardization key? I'm currently working on a project to build a search abstraction layer. Having to support both protocols is an annoyance. Add to REST and SOAP the possibility of also having to support XML-RPC and things get silly. Personally, I don't mind using a few extra resources for SOAP if it means using one protocol. Computing resources are cheap these days.

Check out these additional AJAX links for more info.
AJAX Patterns
Dojo toolkit

I've been happy to see that the dark days of DHTML are pretty much over. Not to say that DHTML was inherently bad, but the Microsoft dominated implementations and poorly developed code were hell. Suddenly AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) bursts onto the scenes. Ahh, this looks familiar. Not exactly NEW is it. But wait, it's cross-browser and uses XML. This could be fun. Let's just hope we don't see a slew of poorly written implementations to drag us down.

One article I found intriguing gives details on how to play with it yourself.

I love to put client projects into their own sub-domain. It's clean for me AND the client. I hated having to wait for DNS/Apache changes to propagate, however.

While working on a PHP project, I really needed a singleton class. All of the artcles I found online about singletons in PHP4, used a non-member function. This just seems like a big mess to me. I want to be able to use it like a static member in C++. My other requirement was the ability to store the instance across the session, if the session was started.

This is one of the funnier things I've seen in a while. You just have to -see- it to understand.

My fiance and I didn't think to pre-order our copies of World of Warcraft (WoW). So, what else to do but show up at Fry's Electronics as soon as they open their doors. Remembering the Warcraft III expansion pack midnight sale/signing at the same Fry's, I opted to arrive early just in case of a crowd again. We arrived at 6:45am with our McDonald's breakfast in-hand. We were the second car there, not including the Fry's employees. So much for a crowd. People did start showing up closer to the opening time of 8am, so we started a line. We were second in line. When the doors opened, one guy ran and the rest power-walked. There was a crowd, but no where near enough to clean out the supply. I wanted the game bad too, but be serious. I guess I don't have much room to talk since I got there 1 hour and 15 minutes before they opened. In the end we both got a copy of WoW and are very happy.