One of my favorite things about Halloween are the deals on candy the next day. Today I went into DuaneReade to see if I could satisfy my sweet tooth on the cheap. I was perusing the Halloween candy when the store manager pointed at me asking if I liked Candy Corn. “Why Yes I do.”
“I’ll give you all of the candy corn on the shelf for a dollar.”
Sold. 26 containers of candy for $1. Yesterday this same candy would have cost me $52.
As I was checking out the lady at the cash register asked if I would like to make a donation to the Charity.
“It’s for Diabetes.”
Of course it is. So I donated twice as much as I spent on candy.
Time to go reverse trick-or-treating around the office!
CSS grid frameworks are a handy solution for rapid development of page layouts. One minimal CSS grid framework that I have taken a liking to is Grid – a minimal CSS Grid utility.
As pointed out in Javascript HTML CSS’s article on Grid Grid is limited to the number of columns declared in the CSS with the default maximum being 5 columns. The path to extend Grid is a task as easy as coloring within the lines.
As an exercise I wrote This jQuery plugin which eliminates the need for the CSS file within Grid. While the prospect of relying on JavaScript to maintain a layout makes me cringe – It does offer a limitless approach with customizable options. On Document ready this plugin parses the elements on the page and applies the appropriate CSS properties to the elements within the DOM based on the naming convention proposed by Grid.
The hero pane is highly customizable.
You can override the default settings of the plugin by passing parameters
jQuery('#hero').heroize({
'heroTransitionSpeed': 700, //transition time in miliseconds
'heroTimeDelay': 8000, //panel display length in miliseconds
'heroPlayImg': 'play.png', //path to custom play button
'heroPauseImg': 'pause.png', //path to custom pause button
'heroNextChar': '>' //Character to use in "Next" button
});
In addition the included CSS file has been clearly marked to easily configure the
height
width
fonts
opacities
colors
text bar properties
References
I built this plugin using Stefan Gabos’ jQuery Plugin Boilerplate – A great starting place for kick starting a jQuery plugin.
With a couple of long car trips on tap this summer it was time to address the backseat entertainment options for my 21 month old. He’s an antsy ball of energy that would rather run his head into the headrest over and over than be subject to a car ride longer than 4 miles.
Brandishing my iPhone and a streaming Netflix account like a sword in battle I felt confident that a solution was only a Google search away. What I discovered, however, through perseverance and several trips to multiple electronic stores is that one can never realize exactly how little the customer service people actually know.
The good news is the easy solution exists – but there is a lot of noise out there and plenty of ways to get tripped up along the way. The goal of this article is to save a few trips to the store and a few headaches to anyone who comes after me who chooses to pick this fight.
Goal
The goal, at the outset, seems simple enough.
“To harness the ability to stream Netflix and Videos from the iPhone to an external screen in the car while keeping the iPhone and screen charged.” To be clear – I am not looking for a custom installation job here – just a temporary ad hoc solution that can easily be removed when not using the car.
Simple Enough. And here’s your grocery list complete with my Amazon referral link to help pay for all of the gas I used getting to and from Best Buy and Radio Shack to make this thing work:
Get your AV out capable CD player ready with the included RCA plug adapter
Connect the griffin RCA outs with the CD player’s RCA outs with a female-to-female connecter
Set the case up in the car, hide the cables, and you should be about ready to entertain
End result? Exactly what I was looking for… iPhone streaming Prison Break (season 2) via Netflix to the Screen in the car while everything remains plugged in and fully charged. Mission Accomplished!
The company I work for is located on the 32nd floor of World Trade Center 7. As such we are privileged to have amazing views of New York City – especially of Ground Zero and the ongoing construction of the Freedom Tower and the 9/11 Memorial.
Yesterday President Obama visited New York which included a trip to a local fire company and paying his respects at the site of the terrorist attacks.
Luckily the bomb dogs stationed in our lobby didn’t seem to mind that I brought my video camera to work. Please enjoy a few select shots from my vantage point.
Note: The hand held video camera is on a tight zoom which makes for shaky video. This is especially noticeable when I laugh at Bob Slade’s joke. If you tend to experience motion sickness I would recommend you grab a plastic bucket before enjoying this video.
