Edward Hotchkiss Designer & Developer

AJAX / JavaScript Form not submitting on hitting Enter with Safari / WebKit

I was working on a Web Based Application where a form was being submitted with JavaScript, but without a submit button, just an onclick event handler w/ a bind to a <div>. So get it to trigger with a user hitting enter, you simple add in:

<input type="submit" name="xyz" id="xyz" />

Then just make it display:none, no problem, user hits enter, form js actions are triggered and then the form is submitted. With Safari however, if the input[type=submit] was not displayed, Safari does not register it at all, and the onEnter is never triggered.

Solution:

#xyx { width: 0; height: 0; }

Monday, August 23rd, 2010 @ 1:29 am

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My Friend Can’t Orgasm!

Girl: okay so since you seem to have more sexual experience than most people i know (or at least that im aware of) i have a couple questions about the female g spot. . maybe you can answer? weird i kno. you dont have to

Me: go for it

Girl: so i think i just located my g-spot right? for the first time. . . at 26! i was perfectly happy getting off from clitoral stimulation. and i just dont like sticking objects that arent dicks in my vagina

Me: lol

Girl: (this convo is just between us okay?)

Me: dude. it’s so getting blogged as we speak

Girl: and no dude has ever made me have an orgasm thru sex, that’s been g-spot stimulated. . . so i was like,

Me: don’t worry, i wont use your name

Girl: okay, just dont say my name or any version of my name or whatever

Me: ok this is how it works. when you fuck a girl if you hit at the right angle, it hits the “g spot”

Girl: i was like, im 26 and i need to find it for myself so i know how to tell the dude to fuck me

Me: if you touch it while you fuck a girl, or you touch it while you get fucked = orgasm FTW

Girl: and like, i think i have a tilted cervix, so it makes some positions hurt me. so i just tried. to do it myself.

Me: the guy should be able to “feel you out” and get to hit the spot, otherwise don’t call him back. tilted cervix. i’ll have to consult WebMD

Girl: hahahhaa. its like sometimes my stomach hurts really bad during sex, like the dude is poking my stomach with his dick. so im pretty sure i found my g-spot

Me: well, sometimes my big dick hurts girls stomaches, it depends the girls spacing.

Girl: spongy tissue that’s like 2 inches deep and expands when im about to ejaculate. spacing/tilted cervix!?

Me: and they say “ahhhh my stomach” and yell

Girl: yeah

Me: maybe

Girl: that’s me

Me: [i just keep going] FTW!

Girl: oh, wel maybe try a diff postion that doesnt hurt her stomach. and feels better. so i think i just found my gspot right, and applied consistent pressure for like a min. and sure enough i started to feel like my bladder was gonna explode. and then i exjaculated. . like drips or whatever, and i spelled it, so it’s not pee, so did i just have an orgasm from my g-spot?!

Me: Yes, you had an orgasm

Girl: cause it didnt’ feel that spectacular

Me: oh maybe not

Girl: maybe i have to practice it more? get used to it?

Me: you should get a vibrator.

Girl: hrmmm i wonder if that store “shag” has some. the one that opened on roebling.. . . supposed to be a nice erotic sex art shop

Me: i think you need a pro to come in. i have a lot of friends always DTF

Girl: i guess im just worried that even tho i can technically have a g-spot stimulated ogasam, i might not feel it like some women do. . . but like, what i described, that sounds like what it should right? no i dont want you or your friends to help. i got this. i just needed someone to consult with that has experience

Me: no problem, i’d say hit union pool since you live so close at 7pm, by 4am you could have cum from like 5 separate dudes no sweat

Girl: that’s gross. dude. im not a fucking slut

Me: dude that’s so win. you need to put away these christian values from kansas.

Girl: that’s so gross. I’m Jewish.

Me: whatever, same shit. and take in some #boner time

Girl: actually im neither

Me: have a boner mitzvah

Girl: i can get it if i want it. i have resources. i guess i just wanted to do a lil research before my next rendezvous for a lil’ twist

Me: its 1pm now. in 6 hours union pool awaits for g spot stimulation and maybe even some semi-decent cocaine

Girl: that’s so gross. fucking dirty scumbags. so seedy

Me: brb

Friday, August 20th, 2010 @ 1:34 am

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The Making of a #Boner

It was simple. @rosssclafani and I think that #Boner tweets are funny. They are when you look at the global twitter stream and search for “Boner”. So there it is. I made this: http://www.hashtagboner.com . Check out a live feed of people tweeting anything with “Boner”. Ridiculous. But if you watch for 2 minutes, you might just laugh your ass off.

And then @techzader RT’d a really funny one. Watch closely, it’s the first one.

Check out the code that does it, via my jQuery Plugin, Social Fader.

Link: http://www.hashtagboner.com/

Monday, August 16th, 2010 @ 8:35 am

1 comment.

Oh, I made the smallest jQuery slideshow plugin ever.

So I need a fast, low memory intensive way to cycle through divs. They could be images, text, whatever’s clever. So I looked at some plugins, and always looking to make it smaller and faster – here is what I threw together: Once plugins.jquery.com actually functions again sometime in the near future (WTF?) I’ll post it with my other plugins.

var elements = $("#myUL").children();
	var timeOutStart = 5000;
	function fader(elementId) {
		setTimeout(function() {
			$(elements[elementId]).fadeOut(settings.fadeSpeed, function() {
				$(elements[elementId + 1]).fadeIn(settings.fadeSpeed);
			});
		}, timeOutStart * (elementId));
	};
for (var j = 0; j < elements.length; j++) {
	fader(j);
};

Monday, August 16th, 2010 @ 6:30 am

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jQuery JavaScript Preloader

When I started migrating from pure Flash based sites, and to plain (X)HTML markup with CSS3 & jQuery, I looked around for a preloader. I found one. One single JavaScript preloader. The work was great. Looking for something more basic with more configuration optionsl; here is what I came up with in jQuery plugin form:

Currently plugins.jquery.com isn’t functioning, but once it is this is the project page:

http://plugins.jquery.com/project/Preloader

You undoubtedly have seen it in action because … you’re at my site. plugins.jquery.com is having some issues, so I can’t upload the latest, just peep my source. We’re doing a few things here.

  1. We’re setting the html to overflow:hidden, to hide the scollbars and easing on the end of the preload of the bar, affecting the scrollbars
  2. Inside our CSS we define #preloader and #overlay
  3. We’re including the Preloader.js script
  4. We call the $.Preloader class

Note that there are several parameters that you can add in such as onBefore handlers and onAfter callback functions. Enjoy.

Sites using Preloader currently:

  1. http://kurtejones.com/dotwo
  2. http://www.edwardhotchkiss.com/

Preloader Download including Demos

Monday, August 16th, 2010 @ 2:55 am

11 comments already!

The ManCode

I’ve been following @RachelintheOC‘s ManCode blog posts since @peri37 put me onto them: The ManCode. We look into the thoughts of Rachel on men. Here’s one that I really like:

“Men channel surf for the simple reason that they cannot relationship surf.”

It’s the only blog that I follow that isn’t tech. And since I don’t apply to the ManCode; it’s a refreshing breath of air, and something that I read that doesn’t use words like HTML5 or JavaScript. FTW!

via Rachel:

Q: How many men does it take to change a toilet paper roll?
A: I don’t know. It’s never happened.

This Mancode thing has been good for my marriage.

Sometimes I don’t understand the male species. This is well-documented on my blog (you won’t three-point throw wet towels in the hamper that’s RIGHT THERE next to you because they’re WET? Yea, I’ll never get my mind around that one). Clearly, I’m not alone. Um, have you checked out the relationship section of your local bookstore (or Amazon) lately?

If this is your first time to my blog, you may want to peruse a few of my other Mancode articles. The name came to me one day after I’d finally just had it, after eighteen years of marriage, with having to change the toilet paper roll. Again. Eighteen years of changing toilet paper rolls can kind of wear on a girl, you know?
So I did what any level-headed, yet slightly fed up chick, would do.

I wrote about it.

A lot.

Nine Mancode posts later, my husband and I have now reached a, shall we say, shorthand way of communicating with each other.

He’ll stand in front of the frig looking  for something, say the butter that’s right in front of his nose and , as he yells, “Honey! Where’s the butter!” I’ll simply reply: “Refrigeratoritis.”
Let’s just say he’ll look a little harder.

While he’s still got a ways to go in the kitchen—he’s a great cook but a not-so-great cleaner upper, i.e., he’ll put his glass NEXT to the sink in the land of Far Far Away from the Dishwasher  (you know, that machine that doesn’t exist in Guy World)—he’s improved a bit in the bathroom area. In fact, he actually put on a new toilet paper roll the other day.

It was a good thing he was standing close by when I noticed, given that I fainted and all.
He has even graduated from only putting the dirty clothes in the washing machine into that other contraption that is evidently not just taking up space for the heck of it known as the dryer. Not that said clothes ever actually move from there, of course. They just sort of build up in there. Like a clothing mountain, if you will–their only chance of rescue the occasional buzzing “beep beep” of the ‘dammit you idiot get us out of here we were done yesterday’ signal. And if I mention cleaning the lint screen, he looks at me like I’m speaking wolf, the same language the clerks apparently speak on his solo trips to the grocery store. Which clearly, I am.

I think if he actually folded a load (before it laid eggs) and god forbid put it away, I might end up in the hospital.
Husband is a good sport and laughs supportively and with quasi-believable chivalry at the criticism I receive exclusively from seemingly perfect single men. Yea, I know.

Sure, I do stupid stuff and admit that I am, on rare occasions, wrong or even kind of a bitch. Yet what is at the heart of my posts is this: sometimes guys do silly, goofy things that we gals just don’t get (and okay, okay–vice versa) and silly me—I’m a writer. I’m going to write about it.
So lighten up. We have.
Now I just have to work on this Manesia thing.

When the book comes out [yes, I will actually buy ... a book] I hope to get an autograph. Signed with “My Man Code”. Or maybe not. Regardless, check check check check it out.

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 8:02 pm

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I was in a Tumbling Downward Spiral

It’s funny the way that one progresses on the Interwebz, as we adoringly call Al Gore’s Invention; The Internet.

My name is Edward Hotchkiss, and I am 28 years old. I have been online hacking & programming since I was ten. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit, met a lot of crazy people, and seen even more crazy Web based applications and services. My first blog was when I was eighteen, and no one even knew what the word Blog meant. It got me fired from a bartending gig. Think of it like Wikileaks meets Craigslist casual encounters, meets alcoholic waiters and bartenders. Hmm.

So I stopped blogging. Because I had better things to do, namely; making money. And making more money. (And fucking). But that’s beside the point, I stopped blogging.

So we jump forward to this year, 2010. Everyone that is clueless taking cues from ‘ Jobs saying “Flash is dead”. Read my other posts to see how I really feel about that. So last month, I moved my old Flash pure ActionScript 3.0 site to flash.edwardhotchkiss.com and used this domain as a pointer to Tumbler. I wanted to make the most social-centric, advanced and insanely Flash-like site to hit the Internet since 2Advanced [Remember 2advanced kids?].

But per the title, Tumblr was so incredibly slow on the authoring side. The customization required off site hosting for certain files which had tons of variance as work was achieved and site changes made. Every update on a design/programming change took about 30 seconds. So back to WordPress, and back to blogging. Ignore the design/UI/UX – I’m live editing while you’re reading this.

After 18 years, I just might have some incredibly intelligent things to say. Possibly.

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 6:30 pm

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HTML5/CSS3 Heading the wrong way

Regarding: Frying Technology: HTML5/CSS3 Heading the wrong way

As much as I like all the brand new shiny features of HTML5/CSS3, I think it’s going wrong. Maybe I don’t get it or something but now it looks like all the new features need to be defined 3 or 4 times. Once for Webkit, one for Mozilla, a normal non-browser specific one, and for the new Internet…

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 2:21 am

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Gridlock around the Clock

Okay so the thing is… If you’re not using Flash, no matter how good your design, you are still relying on cross-browser code to render your vision to the exact precision you applied to its creation. Well, good luck. You may have applied the cleanest of grids in your Illustrator comps, but no matter how closely the development process matched it, one stupid suggestion from an idiot client forces reconsideration on the prioritization of information, and in order to preserve the time/cost ratio, project limitations suggest that design just lets dev handle it.

This can be a problem, or it can be a breeze. It all depends on the css backbone that design and dev are using to bring the vision to the Web. If it’s custom styling developed from scratch, it might not be worth getting all religious about the precise layout.
But that won’t do.  Read on to find out why the shit hasn’t hit the fan.

Fortunately, your AI file was laid out using the guide templates from Nathan Smith’s 960 Grid System. Now, the precedence of information inherent in your grid are already explicit in the css, and  dev can use design’s visual ideas to commit the changes immediately while preserving the initial grid.

A quick conversation about the logic of design’s grid passes an awareness of its rules to development, and as we know, development is a game of rules. And impatience, so now that development is committed to the original visual structure of the design, adjustment can be made rapidly, and we can get on with it, to the next project.
I’m loving the 960 grid system so damn much, expect to see it in the next css-driven web project I design, and sit tight while I develop an Actionscript 3 rendition of the very same system.
Phil Coffman and Josh Kemmerling over at Springbox did  pretty good job of laying out the design / dev / 960 grid manage á trois in this article. You can’t hide from the truth, ’cause the truth is all there is.

via Ross Sclafani

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 2:18 am

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GIT for Eclipse / Eclipse driven software packages

We all use Eclipse for development [Well, anyone that knows their stuff], and there is something definitely missing.

When Linus Torvalds essentially* replaced the legacy SVN system with GIT / GitHub etc were born – no one has stepped up to the plate yet to produce a working Eclipse plugin with integration. I heard rumors and dead site links otherwise, but nothing that has panned out.

Do you remember CVS? Video killed the radio star and GIT will kill SVN.

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 2:17 am

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HTML5 / Canvas / Twitter = Legit

By far the best experiment in emerging Web technologies that I have seen yet. The demo uses Processing, Canvas and .ajax( calls to simulate a really cool animated effect of tweets aligning with the <audio /> playing. So sick.

Check it out here:  http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/

I’ts pretty cool seeing a full blown “Web 3.0″ Application integrating ProcessingJS, Social Media [Twitter] and HTML5

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 2:15 am

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HTML5 / Flash Debate on NYTech

Via NY Tech Meetup List [Author: Damion Hankejh]

“I don’t think companies should* develop a standard site and a mobile site — my point is that they are* doing this already.
HTML5 is no more capable than any other technology at gracefully shrinking a custom interface from a width of 1024 pixels to a 3-inch smartphone screen.  How is HTML5 going to magically replicate the time and critical thinking behind these redesigns?  Clearly it can’t — and in my experience, GUI implementation is not where the bulk of development is couched for most applications anyway; it takes more planning and time to design a GUI (or two) than to implement a GUI.  Companies are stuck building different front ends for different screen sizes with or without HTML5.”

Great Point.

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 2:15 am

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Why the web DOES need Flash

After reading Arthur Debert’s [the author of BulkLoader an amazing Flash package for loading assets with a complete line of callbacks/listeners and asset types] blog post titled “The Web does not need Flash” I had to disagree on a few points between messaging on a meetup list regarding the iPad / lack of Flash and reading the aforementioned post.

What everyone is really missing is the fact that JavaScript and ActionScript [which is the backbone of Flash] are both ECMAScript. Unfortunately JavaScript does not, and will not for a very long time; adhere to its standards as an object oriented and reusable language able to perform chained animations and create structures that can be extended by other developers. What really is behind HTML5 and CSS3? Well, let’s not forget JavaScript.

Ergo; I disagree with not needing flash. As an expert in both OOP ActionScript 3.0 [OBJECT ORIENTED] meaning REUSABLE CODE, and an expert in jQuery / JS [Procedural, harder to reuse and sloppy] I disagree. Try doing a series of custom animations. Also look at browser support.

More people actually have Flash than JavaScript enabled. Also, JavaScript uses more memory, very memory intensive. People complain about Flash hogging memory but what they don’t really see is that the Flash Web sites which they are going to are actually animations, games, slick portfolio sites etc. Try replicating the same in HTML5, the all encompassing term for a plethora of emerging technologies.

HTML5 / CSS3 / jQuery [doing a good job for its purpose though] = FAIL. Jobs just does not want to lose a huge amount of money to people creating Flash apps, adding the link/apple touch icon to their home screen and then cutting him out of millions and millions of dollars.

Having worked with tons of teams on tons of project types and tons of approaches, I’ve noted that the people that say that HTML5 and CSS3 are the way of the future, obviously haven’t ever made a website in Flash. Try creating something engaging with animation in JavaScript/HTML5/CSS3. It’s slow. It’s also all procedural programming. Flash is here to stay. Every project has it’s own solution. HTML5 / CSS3 is not some final end all solution for all projects. The web designer is extinct. The web DEVELOPER that knows multiple solutions for various “problems” is the future.

Everyone keeps talking about HTML5, CSS3 – but what about JavaScript? That is what really provides the means the create animation and core features that Flash provides. It isn’t even Object Oriented adhering to ECMA 4.0 [as actionscript does] because of arguments that Adobe would have a monopoly on the core specs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript#ECMAScript_Harmony

“… ECMAScript Harmony will include syntactic extensions, but the changes will be more modest than ECMAScript 4 in both semantic and syntactic innovation. Packages, namespaces and early binding from ECMAScript 4 are no longer included for planned releases….”

This is completely politically and economically based and driven by the explosion of “Web Standards” which ironically JavaScript does not adhere to, while AS 3.0 does.It is quite clearly a matter of market domination and he will fail when a hacked browser comes out with Flash enabled for the iPad / and on April 11th Adobe introduces CS5 with the ability to create not only flash websites, cross-platform AIR apps based on web apps etc with native functionality, but also the key factor: Export to iPhone app for Flash.

I am all for Apple and only use Apple everything including an iPhone, MacBook pro, time capsule and iTouch. HOWEVER; Steve Jobs motivation is greed and it’s disgusting. The iPad was simply a response to the extensive new usage of NetBooks running Windows at a low price point [1-300$ USD] and a way to invigorate an already market leading “app store”.

So now you can buy two versions of the apps that you love. The iPad version, and the iPhone version, although both run on iPhone OS 4.1 [currently], and can be adapted to detect device OS and redraw dimensions accordingly.

As far as Steve Jobs criticism of Flash and calling it “buggy”; another irony is that at least my windows using/viewing clients can see my websites that I make in Flash looking exactly the same in every browser, without me ever having to even check. Flash doesn’t care about things like “quirks mode”. I’m not an evangelist for Flash, I’m merely stating three main points:

  1. Every task has a different solution.
  2. Flash is here to stay
  3. Jobs motivation is greed.

This is analogous to political lobbying in Washington whereas the man with the money influences the man with the clout.

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 2:13 am

1 comment.

Profiling Tweens & Easing w/ Arrays & jQuery

What is a motion tween? It’s a quadratic equation that is CPU intensive, to a relevant degree. If a Web site [or any application for that matter] is of a fixed size or forced to be a fixed size [ie: <div style=’width: 500px; height: 500px;” … then can’t we calculate in advance a tween’s “steps” into an array of plotted points for the motion.

OK, variable sizes, .em’s etc.

How about setting up profiles for various screens? Steps:

  1. Check screen resolution w/ jQuery/JS
  2. Ascertain whether or not the screen is already profiled in a DB
  3. Yes: .animate(
  4. No: .animate( -> onFinish function to send an AJAX call to add a new profile

OK speed. Is this faster or slower? Reading arrays or calculating quadratic equations? Demo when once I’m not swamped.

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 2:12 am

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JavaScript Sockets / Where are they?

Anyone using JavaScript coming from Flash or back from HTML/JS to Flash then back will notice that unlike ActionScript 3.0; we don’t have socket() support.

There are extensions for FireFox, but this already limits you to users having that extension. Really not practical. With ActionScript 3.0 I can talk to an SMTP server [HELO anyone? Get it?] and send an email no PHP / SS Lang needed.

Obviously we have intermediaries and can publish an SWF file or a PHP file to relay to sockets, but it’s just a hack. ECMAScript needs to be fully adopted by JavaScript. We went backwards with JS 1.8, why go backwards when we can take on JS 2.0.

FAIL + Mildly upset.

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 2:11 am

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Display your Social Stream with jQuery plugin

Introducing “Social Stream”, a jQuery plugin which I wrote to display my digital social stream of information using different service APIs.

Currently supported at Twitter & Tumblr. I’ll be adding others as I go along. Blogged on http://desizntech.info/

Link: http://plugins.jquery.com/project/SocialStream

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 @ 2:09 am

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Edward Hotchkiss