September 7, 2011
Horizontal

Something I’m anal about is horizontal scrollbars on a web browser, I can’t help resizing it so that it fits all the content nicely whenever I see one. Therefore, nothing gets my goat more than web pages which, due to some html/css “technique” or browser bug, always has this scrollbar.

The latest candidate is the Twitter image uploading help page. Although all the content is within the browser window, but the scrollbar still won’t disappear. Is there some content hidden on the far right? What am I missing out on?

9:51am  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vby9ECyIW
July 30, 2011

After watching Transformers 3, I wondered to a friend why all the Autobots were road vehicles, after all the Decepticons have giant cannons, fighter jets and the ridiculously OTT Shockwave. Then my friend said that’s why they’re called AUTObots and my mind was blown because I never really made that connection since watching Transformers from kindergarten. I think they diverged from this in later generations though.

5:46pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vby7hx6lR
July 30, 2011
Things I like about Google+

I’m not a very active “social network” user, but I find them useful as a messaging platform. Currently, I’m using twitter as a SMS replacement, as the notifications work reasonably well on an iphone (either via email, boxcar or the official client). I used “tweetie” before it became the official twitter client, and one feature was that you could embed images in a direct message. Tweetie would upload the image to a hosting service like twitpic, first warning you that the image would be public. Now, as the official client, they’ve removed this feature altogether, I suppose to make it less confusing for new users.

After getting the G+ invite, I started to evaluate it as a messaging platform. G+ has two features that make it useful for mobile messaging: Huddle (mobile group chat), and photo upload. Huddle notifications are very responsive: it feels like I’m using an IM app like GTalk, which is good because the current GTalk experience on the iphone is poor. The photo upload feature is also killer because you can share images with select people, and doing so is simple and intuitive. Unlike twitpic, the images are integrated into G+ so they can be conveniently accessed from the photos section.

Some things that would make G+ better to use (for me):

  • Sending direct messages, like twitter’s DM feature

  • Desktop huddle support (they are working on this)

  • Mobile video upload, at least for small clips

  • More configurable notifications. For instance, to receive notifications whenever a post appears in a certain circle

5:26pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vby7hw03O
July 10, 2011

Back from reservist, it was a pretty relaxed affair this time round, even managed to finish Feast for Crows. It was pretty alright, except that it’s actually a two part book (with the next being Dance of Dragons coming out soon), meaning a really long wait to find out what happens to the current characters. Couldn’t resist grabbing a few games from the ongoing steam sale as well, like Magicka and the Mass Effect pack, but I don’t think my desktop can handle them.

1:23pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vby6xnBRi
June 23, 2011

Just finished watching the Game of Thrones series from HBO this week. Searching around my copy of ‘A Feast for Crows’ now which I never got around to finishing.

2:07am  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vby6L5y-Z
June 22, 2011
Readable articles

I’ve become pretty obsessed with reading online articles with the “optimum format”, that is, via reading lists like Instapaper, or readability, or readable. Or the Easy Reader chrome extension. (Or Safari’s reading list. Or the upcoming iOS5 web reader) I can’t use a web browser these days that doesn’t have a way to reformat an article, either via bookmarklets or extensions. At work, I installed readability on one of our local servers because the Readability server was blocked by our firewall for some reason.

When reading articles (especially on apple computers), I find myself admiring the great looking fonts, the optimum spacings, the way the content is just so.. clear and readable. It’s becoming kind of distracting.

1:07am  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vby6Iv_ny
May 14, 2010
unit testing with rhino

Couldn’t quite find a unit testing framework that didn’t depend on the DOM, so here’s an adaptation of minunit:

http://gist.github.com/400107


sample output:

load(“test.js”);
All tests passed!
Tests run: 2

load(“test-fail.js”);
js> js> js: “jstest.js”, line 17: exception from uncaught JavaScript throw: Failed at JSTestSuite with: error, bar != 5
        at jstest.js:17
        at test-fail.js:17 (testCase)
        at test-fail.js:20
        at <stdin>:8

1:33am  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vbyZWN4v
May 12, 2010
Seth's Blog: Really Bad Powerpoint

Bullets are for the NRA

(via Instapaper)

10:48am  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vbyZFT0_
May 12, 2010
The Productivity Myth - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review

I’ll have to remember to clear my leave, not too difficult since I’m just starting out though.

(via Instapaper)

10:47am  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vbyZFSIl
May 12, 2010
Simple games

I’ve started writing bits of game code again, now that my job has stabilised a bit. I’ve found that the Slick library is pretty neat, but didn’t want the overhead of writing in Java. Rhino offers great interoperability, and I’ve made a mini game here. Yes, it’s Pong yet again!

I’m also using the Phys2D library from the same author as Slick, it looks a little “abandonware” but it’s really easy to work with at the same time.

Instead of coding an opponent, I’ve also taken the easy way out by changing the rules. Now, you’ll have to move both paddles yourself using W, S and Up, Down keys to create a streak. Each collision against the top and bottom walls adds to your score, but letting the ball past your paddles resets it.

12:01am  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZV5vbyZA7C2