I believe in the small tablet device. Apples iSlate, or whatever it will be called, is the way of the future. Or maybe the Microsoft Courier, or… whatever. I think a small, portable device, that does not try to be a full blown computer, is the way of the future.

I have been drawn to the idea of such devices for a long time. Perhaps it’s from watching/reading too much sci-fi. There was some British sci-fi show called Star Cops. I saw it in the late 80s. Some UK cop gets posted on the moon to help sort out local crime. It was an understated show with few fx, but the cop had a little box thing (called “Box”), about the size of a paperback book, that contained an AI that was his personal assistant. It would so research on his behalf and book flights (to the moon and back) for him. It would answer phone calls and take messages if he was busy. I loved the idea.

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Don’t forget that the Button element in HTML has a default action that is “submit”.

I did. And it took me ages to work out why my page kept submitting until I realised I had to set the “type” attribute to “button”.

Last year, during the bush fires here in Victoria, I spent a bit of time watching the CFA web site for updates. My wife made the comment that it would be realy nice if you could see where the fires were (at the time, there was no map on the site).

It seemed an easy enough job, so I started working on parsing the CFA RSS feed and then linking to Google maps to show where the fires are.

But the fires were over before I finished the job, and since then it’s languished in my pile of projects that would be nice to finish if I had the time. And now it’s fire season again and I was thinking I really do need to get that site done soon.

I just had a look at the CFA site to see if anything had changed, and now they have maps. Guess I was too slow

Time to archive the code and move on to the next little project.

A few weeks prior to going to Syndey for Web Directions South ‘09, my MacBook Pro died

One night I was using it. I shut it down and put it in my bag. At work the next day I turned it on and … nothing happened. Completely blank (black) screen. I angsted over it for a while, then called the shop I bought it from. It was still under warranty, so I couriered it  to them.

A week passed. I got a call that the machine was ready. Half an hour later they called back to say it wasn’t. The new parts they had put in (logic board and optical drive) failed some last minute test. They would have to order more parts. Best case was the laptop would be ready on Tuesday. I had tickets to fly to Sydney on Wednesday.

So I waited.

Tuesday come and still no call from the techs. When I called them they explained that the guy working on my laptop was sick. There was no way it would be ready before I went to Sydney

At lunch time on Tuesday, I jumped on a tram and rode down to MSY computing in North Melbourne and bought a eeePC (1000HA).

After my experience with the Asus netbook I bought for the kids, I was prepared for the worst. But the machine exceeded all my expectations. I quickly abused the work bandwidth and ran all the Windows updates, and installed a few apps.

The next day I flew to Sydney.

The eeePC did such a good job. Battery life is less than advertised, by it did survive a whole day of twittering and note taking at the conference (thanks also to the free wireless there). Didn’t have it running all the time of course, but it still impressed me.

Now that I’m back in Melbourne, my MacBook has finally been returned to me. I’ve decided that the Mac can be my home computer for now on. I suspect that being dragged to work and back every day had something to do with it’s break down. And the new eeePC does what I need it to do at work (browse the web )

Last year I attended the Web Directions UX event in Melbourne and I promised myself that I would make it to Web Directions South this year.

I managed to keep that promise and I’m glad I did.

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I have a goofy little app I wrote as me-ware, but published in the vane hope that somebody else might find it useful. It’s just a simple dice roller for use in a role playing game I’m running online. I released it, but never promoted it anywhere, and predictably it received no traffic apart from myself.

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Another loose end that I felt deserved it’s own post is a follow up from the ignite thing I did.

Did I mention that I was nervous that night? I seriously wonder if I managed to make my point at all. But this post is here to clear that up.

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I have some loose ends to tidy up.

The last Twitter Code Challenge was a bust. I didn’t promote it very well, and going on holiday in the middle of it didn’t help. In the end, nobody submitted anything before the deadline. I didn’t even get to write my own code for the challenge. Not that I was going to compete against myself, but I don’t like releasing a challenge without at least showing that it’s doable by myself. I had an idea about injecting a canvas element into the page and using some kind of fractal algorithm to draw a Mandelbrot set in it. So the loose end is this: There was no winner. I still have the books, but for now, the challenge is not on.

In my Highs and Lows post from the 2nd of April. I did talk to Zazz about the SSD and they pointed out that there was in fact a little asterisk next to the “16 GB SSD” which lead to an explanation that 16 was in fact an actual 8GB solid state drive, and 8GB SD card.. Wikipaedia explains SSD as “a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data.” It also implies that flash memory can be considered “solid state”. So their 8+8 could be called 16GB SSD, if you squint at it. I feel ripped off, and I firmly believe that Zazz was being deceptive in their marketing of this product, but it’s a hard case to argue, and in the end probably not worth it. Lesson learnt: read the fine print.

The Acer Aspire is still kicking, but it struggles to do anything in a timely manner. It’s such an old model that I doubt it’s still available anywhere, but just in  case anyone is thinking about buying one, I’d seriously suggest they look at other models from other manufacturers first. The kids still like it.

The time has come for the second TwitCode challenge. Yes, I just made up the name *after* the first challenge.

And I’ve also made a slightly more formal TwitCode home page that explains the basic rules which apply.

This challenge is much like the first one, but this time I have made jQuery available. I’ve also changed the structure of the target page a little. It’s not as sparse as last time.

And this time I have two Sitepoint books up for grabs: Modern Web Design Using Javascript and Dom”, and “Designing Without Tables”. These books are second hand, having been much read by me. But I haven’t looked at them in a while, so perhaps it’s time for somebody else to get their chance. And in case you were wondering, the winner takes all. There’s no second place. I’ll pay the postage to send both books to the winner.

So the deal is you must submit the most fun / interesting self contained JavaScript code that fits inside 140 characters, so that it can be posted via Twitter. The 140 character limit must include addressing. It can be sent directly to me via Twitter by addressing it to @nedlud (my Twitter handle), or by including the more generic hash tag #JS

I’ll watch the #JS tag on Twitter and assume that any posts that look like pure JavaScript are entries.

The only change to the basic rules for this challenge is that the jQuery library is available.

All entries will be tested on this page, using Firefox 3.5 and jQuery 1.3.2. (not IE)

I’ll leave the challenge open for 1 week, starting today (12 July 2009), so next Sunday (19 July 2009) will be the cut off.

Start your interpreters..

I have too many JavaScript books, and I just bought a new one, so I want to get rid of some old books.

The first one on offer is the Sitepoint book “The Art and Science of Javascript“. This is a great book, and the chapter on Meta-programing rocks.

So how do you get your hands on this free book?

I only have one copy, so I have to find some way of choosing who to give it to. And I want to make if fun. So how about a little competition?

Send me a JavaScript file, and the one I like the best, wins! I’ll even pay the postage.

How will I judge? Err.. I like fun things. If it makes me smile, you’re in with a chance.

I’ll run the code in this page to test it, and just in case you were wondering, there are no frameworks to leverage off. Your code must be completely self contained. And I’ll test with Firefox 3

What’s the catch?

Of course there is one. The catch is that you have to send me your JavaScript via Twitter. That’s right, it has to fit inside the Twitter 140 character limit, and I guess that includes addressing it. My Twitter handle is @nedlud. But to save a little space, I think I’ll allow a #JS tag. Include #JS in your code (*instead* of address it to @nedlud) and I should be able to find it on Twitter. The #JS tag seems to get a fair bit us use, so I’ll look for things that look like pure JavaScript code only. I’ll DM the winner so I can get a mailing address from them.

Use @nedlud if you want to be sure I get it.
Use #JS if you need to save those extra 4 characters.

Since it’s Twitter, and everything is so *now*, I’m only going to leave this little competition open for one week. Today is Saturday 13 June, so I’ll take submissions only up to Saturday 20 June.

Good luck.