Introducing Peekaboo.js!

So I have been playing around with the idea of making a jQuery for a while now. I’d always come up with an idea and as soon as I’d hit the googles, I’d notice that someone else has already done it… And done it better. Why regress?

The Problem

I needed a way of highlighting content on a page with totally fucking over the content. I didn’t want to have to resort to copy to the content into a new div to show as a traditional modal. In all honesty, I needed this to work with huge images. What’s a boy to do? Roll your own? Damn, skippy.

Enter Peekaboo.js

Peekaboo came out of that idea. Peekaboo isn’t your mother’s modal. It allows for content to shine through from the layer it’s on, rather than copying it and pasting it inside of another manipulated div. Think of it as your personal javascript hole punch. With peekaboo all you have to do is specify the element you wish to highlight and that’s it. All the other stuff is fluff.

$('#details h2').click(function(){
	$(this).parent().peekaboo({
		opacity: 0.6,
		background: '#333',
		speed: 300,
		container: 'body'
	});
});

“That’s all good and fine, how does work?” It grabs the element that you are applying it to gets its size and overlays four (North,East,West, and South) elements to the to the document and when you cancel the pop under the overlays go away. Multiple peekaboos can be on a page. It really makes your whites whiter and your brights brighter! Go download it and try it. Don’t like it? Fork it.

Guess it would help if I put a demo in, right?

Peekaboo.js is licensed under the “Who gives a shit?” license, so do what you want with it. Show me if you use it in something neat.

Using localhost with an iPad.

I have just stumbled across some awesomeness! I am trying to do a browser only (no app store) app for the iPad. But how to test locally from the iPad itself? 

  • 1.) Find your computer’s IP address. It should look something like ‘192.168.blah.blah’. You should be able to find it going to your network settings.
  • 2.)Find the port that your localhost is using. Straight out the box, it’s usually port 80. If you are using XAMPP or MAMP, it’s probably going to be 8080. In my case I am using Jetty so it’s 8090.
  • 3.)Make sure your iPad and development computer are on the same (wireless) network.
  • 4.)Fire up your app in your test stack.
  • 5.)Point your iPad’s browser to ‘192.168.blah.blah:8090’.
  • 6.)Bask in the awesomeness.

1 year in the game.

Five years ago I started I started my career as a freelancer. I had no idea what I was doing but by god, I was doing it. I went out and got work, got clients. I broke a few rules, got burnt in the process, and learned a lot about myself and my chosen profession.

On January 1st 2010, I made a promise (like a million other people in the world did on that day) to myself that I was going to change my life. First on that list was to start writing about my wonderful misadventures in freelancing. Who knew that I could write and be paid for it? … Certainly not me! After I started writing, I became bored with it and moved onto the second part of my diabolical plan to rule world: quit my day job

Eyes wide open.

Now let me tell you what I mean by quitting my day job. I was working as a data analyst for a insurance adjudicator. This was by no means my dream job or my career, but it kept my family fed and the cable on so I worked there during the day and freelanced just about every night til the sun came up. Finally on June 1st 2010, I got my big break. A freelance client that I had landed through a friend had asked if I’d come back do a bit more freelancing and then become a fulltime employee.

After talking it over with Amanda, we decided that I should take the job but that little voice of doubt was still in the back of my head. It was my grandmother and it was one of her phrases of country-common-sense

“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know” - My Grandma

My grandmother was right, that job was a nightmare. I won’t go into the nuts and bolts of it here because that’s not what this post is about. Plus, I got to be pretty lubed up with beer before I go through re-living that nightmare.

Never working a day in my life again.

After working at the Front End Developer Job from Hell, a few of us quit. I like to think it was like rats jumping from a sinking ship. I scored a new job working for the company that I still work for now. It’s a blast to work everyday, I love the people that I work for and the people that I work with. I learn tons of new stuff everyday, stuff I certainly wouldn’t have learned at the last job. I know you’ve read that quote or heard that quote a million times over, so I won’t say it again. I love the company that I work for, it makes the task of being a front end developer so much easier.

Enough with the rambling.

One year ago today, I took the first steps on the path to my career. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew what I wanted to achieve. In life, there are always stumbles on the path… the important part is that you realize the stumble, is just a stumble not a setback. In the end, it always comes back to my favorite saying and personal philosophy: “He who dares, WINS.”

Designing Interfaces … First Thoughts

Despite all of the UI toolkits available today, it’s still not easy to design good application interfaces. This bestselling book is one of the few reliable sources to help you navigate through the maze of design options. By capturing UI best practices and reusable ideas as design patterns, Designing Interfaces provides solutions to common design problems that you can tailor to the situation at hand. - Amazon.com 

So far I am about 55 pages into this book. I love it. I have learned so much new useful information. I’ll come back and add more to this after I read the entire book. But so far, so good.

Not living up.

This is for all the artists
who know their work is just a drop in the ocean
but do it anyway, hoping
This is for everybody who carries the world’s weight
But stands up straight
Put a hand up, Try to relate.

-P.O.S from “Music for Shoplifting”

One cliche’ of an artist is that they think that their work is desperately inferior to that of their peers. I once thought this was a cliche’. I have fell victim to this, and honestly, I hate the way it feels. It makes me feel inadequate as a designer and a developer. I KNOW that the work I am putting into the world is good. I get great feedback on the things that I release. Sometimes I wonder if this is just some form of side-saddled regressed humility.Sometimes I wonder if it stems from the fact of how much I try and how much I disgard before the final product. Guess its my own little mindfuck. I don’t experience it often, but when I do… It hits pretty hard. Maybe it keeps me grounded. So as I slow dance the line between inferiority and humility I remember what Ben Folds says,

“Smile, like you’ve got nothing to prove. No matter what you might do, there’s always someone out there cooler than you.”

Sweet GAWD finally!

So I finally updated my personal site and this tumblr blog’d design. In the next coming weeks I plan to add more to the content of both and work on some more interesting things.

Ubuntu Again…

Right now I am typing on my Mac waiting for the Ubuntu update process to work through it’s doings. Why am I installing Ubuntu again after all of these years (2)? I have decided to go back after working on a Mac everyday since late November. My reasons for keeping windows around are few.

  1. I need windows for Photoshop and Illustrator.
  2. umm…

Yes, one could argue that I could use WINE and get into photoshop and illustrator that way but I think that’s about as successful as trying to wash one’s foot while still wearing a sock. So at this point I am using Mickey$oft solely to get my photo manipulation on. Add to the fact that I am going to try and get some RoR $hit going, look out!

My thoughts on CSS3PIE.

I came across CSS3PIE via a twitter post by @StudioNashvegas. I cruised the project and liked what I saw. I thought I would try it in the webapp my company is building. I figured out a  few things about it.

In my opinion, CSS3PIE is best used for personal site and non-webapp applications. The webapp that we are developing has a huge user share in the area IE7. The performance of the HTC that is included in CSS3PIE was clunky when compared to other JS products. Plus it made our jQuery act a bit weird.

Overall, if I WILL be using CSS3PIE in my personal builds and portfolio because of the ease and light jQuery work I do.

"This is the obligatory tumblr quote."
God