Archive for July, 2008

Napster offers unlimited free, legal downloads for 7 days with no commitment? For real?!

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

We have all seen the “Free unlimited access to millions of mp3 downloads” offers that pop up all over net. I never give them much attention, it’s all just spam to me. But I got to thinking about it the other day while going through my MP3 song collection. If this is real, and the offer stands, why the hell would anyone turn this down!?

I mean honestly, do you really need any more time than a week to download all the music you could possibly want? Seriously, I could probably fill my IPOD in like two hours with a decent connection, let alone an entire week. This has to be the best offer I’ve seen yet when it comes to accessing downloadable media.

Stop and think about it. Get the trial, download all the music you can for seven days, and then just cancel. It’s a complete no-brainer! Take a day off from work even. Is there a catch?

Give it a shot, get Napster - fast, safe and legal. Over 6 million Music MP3s!

Just my $0.02

Fully Auto, Motion Sensing, Paintball Sentry - Wow…

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Ok, I’m not one to gawk over every ludicrous YouTube clip I get referred to, but this one is just too cool to resist. Someone built a fully-auto, motion-sensing, paintball sentry powered by a laptop. Obviously this person needs some sort of “most dangerous toy” award or something.

Damn, check this thing out!

Emulate xHTML Strict - Compliant iFrames & Using jQuery

Sunday, July 13th, 2008

Developers continue to argue whether it’s really that important to publish everything using the “Strict DOCTYPE”, or if valid markup code is really even that important. While this is a discussion for another time, I try to publish every site I author in Valid, Strict xHTML. I believe standards are made for a reason, and if you wish to write good code - just follow the standards.

Occasionally I find the need for a page element that is not considered valid xHTML-Strict markup. Once big one that has come up is the good ole’ “iFrame” tag. Granted you can always change the DOCTYPE to “Transitional” and still have valid code, or you can use the “Object” tag to get the same results and be valid. In the past I’ve done both of these, but I’d rather use the Strict DOCTYPE and let’s face it; “Object” tags simply do not play nice across browsers. I’m sure there are other ways to display this sort of content, but I’ve yet to find any useful. Regardless, I found what I think is a MUCH better way to display iFrame content, both technically speaking and considering Search Engine Optimization (SEO; search bots don’t like iFrames). I wanted to share in case someone else finds himself or herself in the same situation.

Note: This outline is designed for people with at least a little or moderate developing experience. Also, this technique is a workaround that is SEO friendly for use when iFrame content is inevitable. It should be noted that iFrames are not valid elements for a reason and should be filtered out if possible.

(more…)