A while ago, I wrote a jQuery based slideshow that I shared with some friends, and I ended up getting a pretty good response to it – enough to merit making a full plugin with it. Here is the initial launch of the plugin and project, and I’d love to get any feedback pertaining to usability and additional features.

The intent is to remain very lightweight but flexible, and so far, that seems to be met. Following, you will find links to my Google Code project page as well as a sample script that demos the working slideshow. For any additional questions, please feel free to contact me.

Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/gw-slideshow/
Demo: http://code.guahanweb.com/jquery/demos/gwSlideshow.html

Enjoy!

In efforts to create a unique gaming site, we would like to get your input on what areas of the gaming community have yet to be tapped to their fullest potential. If you have any input at all concerning what focus this site should take, please leave feedback on the site directly: www.whatgamerswant.com. Thanks for helping out!

So, I have come to a decision point, and I need some input. Having owned the domain www.whatgamerswant.com for nearly two years now, I figure it’s about time to do something with it, so I am faced with the challenge of deciding what, exactly, to do.

I have toyed with ideas for using it as a portal to Video Games, Board Games or both, but the last thing I want is to have it turn into just another gaming site floating around the web. Rather, I want it to become the embodiment of its name: a site which provides gamers with information that is both relevant and desired, whether that is a compilation of some of the most popular news feeds and blogs or a comprehensive list of game details for new releases and titles still in development.
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So, yesterday was my daughter’s seventh birthday, and we had a nice gathering at Chuck E Cheese’s with a few friends. However, when it came time to cut the cake, there was a small abnormality with it that was explained to me in more detail after the party. Can you spot the issue in the picture above?
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Well, one of the challenges in writing our custom JavaScript library for this next release of our CMS at work has been to come up with a modularized approach to our objects that can be followed precisely while still allowing a measure of flexibility to the end developer (Imagine that! Actually trying to support some framework style design principles in JavaScript!). Anyway, what has been one of the most challenging pieces to the puzzle has been to appropriately handle configuration objects passed to constructors that override specific, default behavior of the object.

No, the challenge was not so much handling a config object proper — that is relatively easy. Where the challenge began to really take shape was in allowing a user to provide specific pieces of optional data and only use the valid pieces of the config object to override existing default values while ignoring the rest so as not to cause any JavaScript errors to be thrown elsewhere in the script. For a quick example, let’s say we have the following data object that loads itself up using an Ajax call (NOTE: all examples in this post are using the ExtJS lib).
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We all have heard the saying that You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and just as much as in our personal relationships, the brutal force of this statement shows itself true in the web world as well. I cannot count the number of times I have visited a website to glean information about a particular topic only to be immediately bombarded with any number of issues: from broken links to JavaScript errors, layout issues due to lack of attention given to cross browser compatibility, and even, in some cases, the dreaded 404 error right from the home page. Now, none of these issues is a deal breaker to me; I mean, come on, we’re all human, right?

Well, what if that website happens to be for a company or product that is in a technology industry to some varying degree? Does that make a difference? Based on some feelers I’ve put out over the years both with clients and customers for many of the projects of which I have been part, this can indeed make all the difference in the world. Whether or not your organization or product is web related, the average user hints at the fact that, if your content is perceived to be technology based in any form, these small faux pas mentioned above take on an impact of much greater magnitude.
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OK, so I’m posting some pictures after all. These pictures of my youngest, taken the other day, turned out so well, I had to share them. She absolutely loves the water, and this bath time was no exception. Ever the ham, she poured it on when the camera came out, and though she’s getting a little big for the sink, she definitely had a grand time splashing about:

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Developers who have been using Google Analytics for any time can appreciate the flexibility and power behind some of the graphing software it offers. I recently found myself wondering just how they get the incredibly usable effect they have, so I began tinkering with some Actionscript and soon found myself with a very workable base that not only could be modified and grown to match what this software offers but is also surprisingly simplistic in nature.

Basically, we simply have our main application (or graph in this case) that can take any number of argument values and calculate not only their position based on ratio but also spreads them across the graph in a readable way. So, we create a simple point object that handles the visuals – both the expanding and contracting as well as the showing and hiding of the value text – and allow our graph to do some very simple calculations to spread them out evenly.
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