01.20.10/Easy Full Screen Background Images with jQuery
“There are many like it, but this one is mine.”
A recent Weightshift project, Central, brought about a few development challenges, one of which was background imagery. Naz had designed the page to include photography set behind the content. This raised questions:
- How would we deal with the additional weight of the images (~150–250K) without dragging down the page’s load time?
- Everyone’s browser window will be a different size. How do you determine what is the best/largest size to make the image, so that it fills the entire window?
- How do you account for images that are proportioned differently?
I did some research and found a few good solutions, though each had its limitations.
CSS-based solutions were straightforward, but didn’t address the requirement of triggering the download only after the page was ready. Javascript solutions addressed the page load requirement, but were often more complex than we needed and required the user to have prior knowledge of the image size (something that we couldn’t necessarily predict). The final solution was not novel, it was an amalgam of both solutions, implemented in Javascript.
Backstretch is a simple plugin recreated from the code used on Central, derived from the ideas presented in existing CSS and JS solutions. It is meant to be used by those who want a lightweight, minimalist implementation of dynamically-resized background images that can be executed in one line of Javascript, with nothing more than a link to an image.
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01.13.10/The Tenant Governor of the Little Scott, Legoland
Google’s voicemail-to-text transcription service rarely gets it right. But, what it lacks in accuracy is made up for in laughs.
For instance, a call from my parents which starts as “Hi, Scott, it’s Mom” is transcribed to “My god, it’s Mom!” Or, “Hi, Scotty, it’s your Dad,” becomes “Hi, scaredy.”
I shudder to mention the call I got from “Dr. Balls office.”
For those who don’t have Google Voice, I thought I’d share. Here’s one I received tonight:
Hey the election for the tenant Governor of the little Scott, Legoland, stands out from the crowd other candidates talk about the economy, but Democrats Godly code is doing something about it right now. Scott is holding job fair is to help Illinois. Please get back to work. Scott is not a career politician use of small businesses and the father of Rod must resign a citizens group just want to remove Robert boy from office. Both Democrats. Scott Lee Cohen for. Lieutenant governor. I’m Scott Lee calling tonight group it’s not.
If this sort of thing tickles your fancy, you might want to check out these blogs devoted to GV transcription snafus.
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01.05.10/Netflix Watch Instantly for the Wii?
Just took part in a survey for Netflix where I was asked about my interest in Watch Instantly on a Wii. Interesting that a disc might be required…
Imagine that Netflix offers its subscribers the ability to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on their TV via their Nintendo Wii. You can choose from a library of some new releases, lots of classics and TV episodes. There are no advertisements or trailers, and movies start in as little as 30 seconds. You can fast-forward, rewind, and pause or watch again. The movies & TV episodes you instantly watch are included in your Netflix membership for no additional fee.
Some things to keep in mind:
- You will need a Netflix subscription
- You will need a Netflix Instant Streaming Disc (available for free). This disc must be put into your Nintendo Wii whenever you want to instantly watch movies and TV episodes from Netflix over the Internet
- Your Nintendo Wii must be connected to the Internet
If this functionality were available, how likely would you or someone in your household be to get a Netflix Instant Streaming Disc for the Nintendo Wii (available for free) in order to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on your TV?
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11.17.09/Twitter Statpack: Who’s Following Who
Sasparilla Muckinfuss is now following your tweets on Twitter. Huh? Who’s that?
It’s not an uncommon scenario: someone follows you on Twitter, and you’re not sure how that happened. Of course, there’s a good possibility that they’re spam, but not always. Often it’s hard to tell. You can see that they follow 101 people and are followed by 523, but who are these people, and how are they related to you?
Introducing Twitter Statpack, a Jetpack extension for Firefox. Statpack adds a few more statistic to the Twitter profile page, helping you understand who someone is, and how they relate to you.
Ready to give it a try? Install Twitter Statpack today.
Note: You’ll need to have Firefox with Mozilla Labs Jetpack installed in order to use Statpack.
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10.21.09/Goodbye AT&T, I’m out
I am no longer an AT&T customer. My iPhone is now useful.
I consider myself lucky: I was let out of my contract after a several-month long dispute over AT&T’s quality of service (or lack thereof). Look above; that picture shows what I saw every day: zero to one bars of service within a 1-mile radius of my office. Anyone who’s been on the phone with me me has earned the purple-heart-of-patience award for tolerating my dropped calls (sometimes as many as 2-3 times per chat). And this phone is my only phone, the one I depend on to run my business.
I expect I’m not the only one with this problem. I’ve spoken with you too; your reception sucks.
How did I do it?
I don’t mean for this to be a how-to for those who wish to sneak out of their contract. Mine was a legitimate problem of poor service. If yours is too, here’s what you can do:
- Call AT&T (1-800-331-0500 or 611 from your wireless phone).
- Ask them to open a support ticket. It’s important that you start documenting your problem.
- Remind them that they have the data to confirm this issue: call start/end times and dropped call logs. (Updated: Thanks, Paul)
- Wait at least a month. Let them try and resolve the problem—it’s only fair.
- If they can’t resolve your problem, demand compensation or to be released from your contract.
Seems like common sense, eh? It is.
An open support ticket is the key; it’s your documentation that there’s a problem, and proof that it hasn’t been resolved in a sufficient period of time.
Remember: it’s reasonable to expect that your service works; reasonable to ask someone to repair it if broken; and reasonable to leave if it can’t be fixed.
Good luck.
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09.29.09/Responses to an Informal Survey on Scotch Whisky
I was looking to buy a new bottle of Scotch whisky and posed the question, “What’s your favorite?” Here are the answers that everyone submitted. Hope you find a new, enjoyable drink. And thanks for your help.
| Distillery | Region | Type | Age (yr.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| * Honorable mention for 12-year, Redbreast Irish whiskey, which does not get to stand with its Scottish brethren, though is recommended as a good alternative. | |||
| Laphroaig | Islay | Single malt | |
| Oban | Highland | Single malt | |
| The Macallan | Speyside | Single malt | 12/15 |
| The Glenrothes | Speyside | Single malt | 12 |
| Compass Box | Highland | Blended malt/grain | |
| Benromach | Speyside | Single malt | |
| Bruichladdich | Islay | Single malt | 15 |
| Rosebank | Lowland | Single malt | 15 |
| Bowmore | Islay | Single malt | |
| Glenkinichie | Lowland | Single malt | |
| The Balvenie | Speyside | Single malt | |
| Lagavulin | Islay | Single malt | 16 |
| Glengoyne | Highland | Single malt | |
| The Glenlivet | Speyside | Single malt | 18 |
| The Dalmore | Highland | Single malt | 12 |
| Isle of Jura | Highland | Single malt | |
| Scapa | Highland | Single malt | 12/14 |
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06.19.09/jQuery PageSlide v1.1 Released
A huge thank you to Derek Perez, who has taken over development of the jQuery PageSlide plug-in. He’s done a major overhaul and brought it up to version 1.1 with the following new features:
- Choose slide direction (left or right)
- Custom width slides
- Modal slides
- unobtrusive
- Mutiple slide definitions on the same page
- Fully supported with IE7+, FireFox 2+, Safari 2+
- Minified version included!
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06.02.09/GitHub Firewall
Very cool. GitHub now offering private installs of their software within a company’s own network. If I had a business that was large enough to warrant this type of setup, I’d be all over it. But, alas, my new projects are weenie small, so I’ll stick to the regular ol’ GitHub product in the foreseeable future.
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06.01.09/TinyFinder: A Jetpack Widget
This weekend, I started to play around with Jetpack from Mozilla Labs. If you haven’t already heard of Jetpack, it’s a Labs experiment that looks at making the creation of web browser extensions easier. As someone who’s previously tried to make a Firefox extension, I can say wholeheartedly that this was a much, much, much more pleasant experience.
The widget that I created–TinyFinder–looks for rev=canonical links in a webpage, and displays them in the statusbar of the browser window. Rev=canonical links are meta tags that are used when a website wants to suggest a preferred tiny url to use. For example, the Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/srobbin/3533142101/) can also be accessed by Flickr’s own tiny url (http://flic.kr/p/6odh48). Of course, you could always use one of many url shortening services, but Flickr’s custom URL suggests what you’ll see on the other side of the redirect: a photo/movie. Several services are starting to employ their own custom tiny urls: Dopplr, Threadless, Songza, and many more.
If the web page you are looking at does not provide its own tiny, custom URL, you can always click on the statusbar widget; one will be created for you and automagically copied to your clipboard.
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04.22.09/Leaving Songza
I love music. Every since my parents let me pick out a few cassettes from our Columbia House ’12 tapes for 1 cent’ mail-in order, I’ve been hooked. (I chose Thriller, Weird Al’s ‘In 3-D’, and the Flash Gordon soundtrack.) That’s why, when Aza approached me with a project he had been working on, I was so excited to join in. The concept: provide a way for people to legally listen to and share music, and do so in an incredibly user-friendly way. Flash ahead to the present: Songza has grown into a robust website that’s enjoyed by millions of people around the world. I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done, appreciative of the opportunities it has presented and thankful for the community that has supported us.
So why am I leaving? I’m working on a new project: a social network that allows people to send status updates to their friends, telling them what they’re doing…in 141 characters.
But seriously forks, I’m leaving so that I can return to freelance work with clients and to start a new project. The details of the new project are hush-hush for the moment, but I’ll be sure to announce them here when it’s ready to go.
Thank you to Humanized (Aza, Atul, Jono and Andrew–collectively and fondly known as The Humanoids) for all of the support that you’ve given me; to my friends and family for listening to me ramble on about Songza ad naseum; to my friends in New York who’ve welcomed me with open arms and taught me to completely obliterate my liver; and above all to the Songza community for making the past year and half of my life so wonderful.
