Another IE Bug. Why Microsoft, Why?
I installed the WordPress plug-in 'Democracy' today and got a call from a user telling me that he couldn't add an option to the poll. After checking the user, I found out that there was a problem with Internet Explorer. Big surprise, right?
I learned that when creating a radio button html item using Javascript's `createElement()` function, unless very carefully crafted, Internet Explorer will refuse to select the radio button. The following Javascript code fails miserably in IE 6 & 7:
var rdo = document.createElement('input');
rdo.type = 'radio';
rdo.id = 'someUniqueID';
rdo.name = 'myRadio';
rdo.value = 1;
myDocumentsBody.appendChild(rdo);
The way around it? Simply create the entire element using innerHTML.
document.getElementById("my_id").innerHTML('<input type="radio" id="someUniqueID" name="myRadio" value="1" />');
This works in all major browsers and IE will actually be able to select the radio button.
I freaking HATE IE. This is yet another example of how Microsoft has failed the web developer community by not providing consistent standards for us to adhere to.
Frank Warren of PostSecret.com
Dana and I went to go see Frank Warren of postsecret.com fame the other night at Wake Forest University. I honestly didn't think that Dana would enjoy it but she was laughing and really into Frank's talk.
Frank was surprisingly mild-mannered and soft-spoken, but completely hilarious throughout. He had great presence and knew when to joke around and when to be solemn. Each time someone got up to talk, we was very respectful and treated everyone with respect and dignity, especially when people were telling stories of suicide that have affected their lives.
The room was completely packed! There wasn't an open seat in the place and I suspect that there were people that weren't able to get in the door because the organizers were letting people trickle in at the end.
Dana wanted to stay and purchase a book and have Frank sign it, but by the time we got out to the lobby, there was already at least 75 - 100 people already in line so we decided to purchase the book at a local store.
Dana suggested maybe we could but the book and snail mail it to Frank with return postage to see if he'd sign it and send it back.
I suspect he would.
Amazon is Cat-tacular!
I found a little funny easter-egg on the amazon website that I've never noticed before. If you go to www.amazon.com
and view the page source. If you don't know how to do that, this post probably won't make much sense to you or be funny in any way, shape, or form.
One the very last line of the source is a comment: <!-- MEOW -->
What the heck? It made me laugh that the amazon developers would put something like that in the source code.
How much does this little gem cost amazon to serve to all their customers? It is, after all one of the highest trafficked sites on the internet. Adding that to every page has to have some sort of effect.
Total worldwide internet users: 1,407,724,920
Percent of global Internet users who visit this site: 2.13%
Unique pages viewed per user per day for this site: 6.64
So that put the estimated total users for amazon.com at 29,984,541 unique people and the total pageviews per day at 199,097,351.
The data for "<!-- MEOW -->" is 14 bytes including the newline character before it so this addition to the source costs amazon approximately 2.6 gigabytes of bandwidth every day. Amazing!
Let my know if my calculations are off.
Just Installed Open-ID
I just installed Open-ID on my blog tonight to be able to log into more and more websites that support it without having to create a new account. I used the open source project phpMyID and it was s snap to install.
- Create a subdirectory in your website. I used "/openid"
- Rename MyID.config.php to index.php
- Rename MyID.php to openid.php
- Edit the last line of index.php to say
require("openid.php"); - Here's the tricky part- open a unix shell and type
echo -n 'username:phpMyID:password' | openssl md5 - Put the username and the hash that was generated into the array at the top of index.php
- Upload the files and navigate to that directory
- Log in using the password you supplied to the terminal prompt earlier
- Add these lines to the header of your website main page:
<link rel="openid.server" href="http://your.url.com/openid/" />
<link rel="openid.delegate" href="http://your.url.com/openid/" />
Now I can log into sites like Livejournal, Sourceforge, Technorati, and many more with one login credential: http://www.ear-fung.us/. If I'm logged in it'll authenticate immediately and let me in, otherwise it'll redirect to my page and ask for my credentials and then send me right back to the site I came from.
Farecast.com Really Works!
I recently had to get two plane tickets to Dallas for a conference that my wife and I are going to. I decided I'd use Farecast.com because of all the hype about them recently on some of the blogs I follow.
The service they provide is amazing. The airline industry is pretty hush-hush when it comes to how they price their flights. What Farecast has done is plot historical prices from city to city and will tell you if the prices are going to drop, stay the same, or go up. It's really a quite ingenious way to think about air travel. I guess their "How It Works" page says it best:
Farecast offers unique features to help you Know When To Buy™, When To Fly™, and Where To Stay™—all based on science, not marketing. And now it's available from most major U.S. and Canadian cities to destinations worldwide. Our smart travel search also allows you to easily compare, sort, and narrow down flight and hotel results for hundreds of websites.
Thanks to our technology and data, you can find out if the lowest fare for a trip is rising or dropping over the next 7 days.
To find an Airfare Prediction, select cities and dates highlighted in green when you search flights.
My recent experience with Farecast was spectacular. I checked rates from Raleigh, NC (RDU) to Dallas, TX (DFW) in February and they told me to wait (ticket prices were about $375 if I recall correctly). When I got around to checking the price again on April 3rd, they said to buy the tickets at $299.
I jumped on it and bought the tickets. I looked at the same flight again today (7 days after I purchased the tickets).
Purchase Price:
Current Price:
As you can see, Farecast.com saved me about $200 ($100 each ticket) by telling me when would *statistically* be the best time to purchase the tickets.
Everyone should use Farecast.com. (They do hotel prices too.)
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Nike+ Running Stats
- Total runs: 169
- Total distance: 298.44mi
- Total time: 86hr 53min 47sec
- Total calories: 39,935
- Avg pace per mi: 17'28"
- Avg distance per run: 1.77mi
- Avg calories per run: 236.30
My Records
- Farthest Run: 6.43mi
- Fastest Mile: 8'40"
- Fastest 5K: 32'10"
- Fastest 10K:2hr 16min 12sec
My Recent Runs
- June 1, 2010, 11:39pm
- Distance: 2.20mi
- Duration: 41' 12"
- Calories: 279
- May 27, 2010, 9:59pm
- Distance: 1.16mi
- Duration: 19' 44"
- Calories: 146
- May 10, 2010, 10:56pm
- Distance: 0.67mi
- Duration: 10' 57"
- Calories: 85
My Nike+ Goals
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