Patrick and Such

Canon Canoscan on Mac OS X

Mac software porting FAIL.

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Changing window.location in IE 6

var newUrl = "http://patrickgibson.com/";
window.location = newUrl;
// This also doesn't work!
// window.location.href = newUrl;

But, the following code which shouldn't make a difference does work!

var newUrl = "http://patrickgibson.com/";
setTimeout(function()
{
window.location = newUrl;
}, 0);

Go figure!

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The domready event for Prototype

domready event to the window object which fires when the DOM has finished loading. This is a lot nicer than window's built-in onload event which fires after everything has loaded including images, stylesheets, etc. ]]> [Continued on site, 1 comment(s)]

UPS: "Sir, there are no guarantees in life."

UPS is a good company with whom to ship your goods. My pal, Kerry, ordered a new iPhone. It was shipped with UPS. Over a month ago. Dozens of phone calls have not made any impact in him getting his iPhone. He made one last call to UPS today to confirm if it was indeed "lost". UPS told him, "Sir, there are no guarantees in life." That's exactly what you want to hear from your shipping company. I therefore propose this be their new motto. I have never been a UPS fan because they have stung me with far too many brokerage fees over the years. FedEx, on the other hand, is just plain awesome.]]> [1 comment(s)]

Leopard and usbmuxd issues

Preface: This post to save the frustration of system.log files being filled up with error messages and an iPhone not being recognized by iTunes. It is of an extreme technical nature, and will be completely uninteresting to you. [Continued on site, 1 comment(s)]

Xdebug for PHP 4.4.8 on Mac OS X Leopard

Failed loading /path/to/xdebug.so (null)

You need to specify some options on before you run configure to have Xdebug compiled as a Universal binary:

MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.5 \
CFLAGS='-arch i386 -arch x86_64 -arch ppc7400 -arch ppc64' \
LDFLAGS='-arch i386 -arch x86_64 -arch ppc7400 -arch ppc64' \
CXXFLAGS='-arch i386 -arch x86_64 -arch ppc7400 -arch ppc64' \
./configure --enable-xdebug

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Do not shop at Barnes and Noble (bn.com)

Barnes and Noble is a good idea: Stop what you're doing, and go to Amazon. Barnes and Noble does NOT confirm your order with you before placing it, and there is NO WAY to cancel an order after it has been placed. Amazon, on the other hand, confirms everything before you place it, and they let you cancel it if you want.]]> [Continued on site, 0 comment(s)]

Dear Religious Pamphleteers

Yes, you. You know who you are. You're the ones with the bad hair and clothes, and who are under the delusion that what you are doing is in some way beneficial to the greater good. New flash: you're not helping! Now, while I'm not intimately familiar with the teachings of His Lord, Jesus Christ, I am pretty sure that love thy neighbour was pretty high up on the list of to-dos. Handing out a pamphlet telling me that I'm a sinner and that I'm going to Hell is not, in my opinion, showing your love for me.]]> [Continued on site, 1 comment(s)]

In-Store Pickup at Future Shop

Future Shop's website:

Why would I want to pick up my order at a Future Shop store?
It�s fast. During store hours, you can pick up your order within three hours of placing it on futureshop.ca.
It�s convenient. You can pick up your item whenever it�s convenient instead of waiting at home for a package to arrive.

...

Right... Let me clarify how it actually works.

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Advanced Parking

advanced about their parking lot, but I can assure you that nothing about this lot makes it stand out from any other lot in the city — except for maybe the price (bah-dum-cha). I am also not sure what they mean exactly by advanced people. In some respects, I would consider myself advanced (e.g. computers), but I don't know that I'd claim to be an advanced person as it's just too vague a statement to make. Let's assume they meant to say advanced parkers instead of advanced people. I'm a pretty good parker: I can parallel park my car into pretty tight spaces, I've rarely been stumped at operating convulted parking lot equipment, and I'm generally knowledgeable about the concept of parking. As an advanced parker, I still can't see how this lot is any better — or more "advanced" — than any other lot out there. If I'm missing something here, and you're in the know, please enlighten me.]]> [1 comment(s)]

12 more sleeps until Christmas

Geek Christmas, that is. Yes, MacWorld Expo is just around the corner, and it is the event causing our salivary glands to go into overdrive with anticipation of what will be the next, big product (or products!) from Apple. Will it be Mike's long-awaited über-iTV media centre? A replacement for the 12" PowerBook (ie. 13.3" MacBook Pro)? The Asteroid that never orbited our retail stores? I don't know, but I can't wait!]]> [0 comment(s)]

Beware of Filet Americain

funniest and most disgusting stories I've read in a long time. Written by Vincent Eaton, and beautifully illustrated by Chris Bishop.]]> [1 comment(s)]

The ad that broke YouTube

Digg it

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Tappity-tap-tap

I learned to type in grade 7, and when I took typing in grade 8, my teacher, Mr. Galambos, was rather taken with my skills. Instead of doing the grade 8 curriculum, he had me do grade 9 material instead. If already being able to type wasn't bad enough for a first-year high-school kid, my teacher decided to announce this "special student" to the entire class so that everyone knew there was greatness amongst the class. He was already envisioning me taking grade 10 typing in grade 9, etc. Perhaps one day, I would be able to type the 120 words per minute he could. [Continued on site, 2 comment(s)]

Your data from the desktop to the web

Web 2.0, applications that traditionally lived on your desktop, are now popping up on the web. Behind the push is none other than Google. Yesterday, they made a limited release of their online Spreadsheets application — essentially, Microsoft Excel for your browser. While impressive as far as what one normally finds on the web, it's still not as good as the real thing — at least, not as far as basically usability features such as resizing cell widths. What is impressive is what they've added: collaboration.]]> [Continued on site, 0 comment(s)]