"Who turned on the heavy?"

Have Ya Heard Iteration 3

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:55:15 -0500

Here are our group and individual URLs: Group: http://people.emich.edu/ktomlin/ Individual: http://people.emich.edu/ktomlin/kyle/ http://people.emich.edu/ktomlin/nick/ http://people.emich.edu/ktomlin/rudy/ http://people.emich.edu/ktomlin/sequoia/

EUREKA - I think i've got it!

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:08:24 -0500

Well, I think I have figured out how to at least make the page look better when it won't load a fixed position element. I changed the position from fixed to absolute, and then added this little piece of code just below in the css file: body>div.banner {position: fixed} Now, if the browser allows - the item will appear to float, otherwise the item just scrolls with the page....I guess it's better than nothing! I believe that I also discovered the reason behind it...IE doesn't support fixed positioning unless you have a newer version of IE7...and apparently the early beta release of IE7 didn't support fixed either. Curse you Microsoft!!!! Get with the times!!!!! I hope this works properly in our presentation today :) Check it out here.

Trying to fix IE errors....

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:19:25 -0500

Well, I have been trying to fix the problem with IE loading our navigation menu in the wrong spot...as it did for our iteration 2 presentation, however i cannot duplicate the error on any other machine than the one we use to present in class....Professor Gibson suggested that it may be a margin or padding issue....but I can't find it. The margin on the navigation menu is set to 0, and it is supposed to float and stay fixed in the upper left hand corner of the screen. But for some reason the computer that we present with, won't allow the menu to float, or stay fixed where it is supposed to in IE. I works fine on every other computer I have tried...and it even works fine in firefox. I am VERY irritated and I don't think I can spend much more time trying to correct a problem I can't even duplicate!!!!! Check it out here.

Weaving jQuery into our site

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:46:35 -0500

Well, sadly again this weekend I really didn't get as much time as I wanted to play with jQuery...with all my other big projects being due today for my other classes, but I did manage to add a bit to our home page and clean it up a bit....and it still retains full functionality without javascipt. That has been our biggest dillemma...I am bound and determined that everything that we add to our project won't affect functionality if javascript is turned off. So I guess that leaves us with purley cosmetic changes. I still have a few ideas up my sleeve for our final presentation (and the exciting part is I shouldn't have too many interuptions this week....WAHOO!) I look forward to seeing other groups progress as well.

AT&T To make pay-phones extinct by end of 2008

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:18:12 -0500

AT&T is going to phase out the last of it's remaining pay-phones in only 13 remaining states by the end of 2008. It's strange to think about it, since they have been in use for over 100 years (the first being installed in Chicago). But the truth of the matter is that they are extinct. I can't remember the last time I used a pay-phone....every one has a cell-phone these days. But it still makes one stop and think....it really is a big part of history.

Learning jQuery

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:44:57 -0500

Well, I was pretty sick last week, and spent most of it sleeping and drinking a ridiculous amount of fluids....but I had a chance to flip through our class notes, I actually kinda started fiddling with it just after the holiday...I think the potential for this is FANTASTIC. I can see why it is so popular. Unfortunatly I didn't get a whole lot of time to play with it - I just kinda got the rundown on how it works, but sadly didn't get a chance to implement anything for our group project yet...(I hate being sick and falling behind - it just means I will need to surge back ahead again...not that that should be too much trouble.). I know that I shouldn't worry too much...it's just a progress report, but I am hoping that one of my fellow group members of Have Ya Heard had a chance to throw something together. I absolutly hated missing out on class last week and getting the "hands on" learnign and introduction to jQuerry from the professor. But I am a quick study, and I should be completly back up to speed in no time. See Y'all in class!

Wishing you all a great Thanksgiving!

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:08:55 -0500

Well, there is absolutly no more avoiding it - The Holiday Season is upon us! I just wanted to tell everyone Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you all will be enjoying this holiday weekend. I myself, just found out yesterday that we apparently will be having Thanksgiving dinner here at my house this year....which means I have 2 day's notice to prepare food for 15 people....YAY!!!!!! But seriously, I really do look forward to our first thanksgiving here at our own place! I enjoy being in the kitchen, and so far I havn't recieved any complaints on my cooking....(key operating words there are 'so far'). We'll see if that still holds true after tomorrow :) If there are any of you still out there looking for last minute recipes for our Thanksgiving feast, check out some of these...I myself am a big pie person....mmmmm pie.......... And in case some of you havn't realized it yet, there are only 34 more shopping days left until Christmas! (for an up to the minute countdown click here). Again, have a great Thanksgiving - Eat till you're stuffed (you only live once), and enjoy the company of friends and family! See you guys on Tuesday!

In Response to Timothy Brickey- CSS Validation: What gives?

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:34:03 -0500

Tim, If you go to the w3 site and validate your css, look closely. w3 gives you 2 different codes to paste, one just for the badge, and a separate on that give you the badge as well as a link to the validation. Here is the proper code: Hope that helps!

DIY'er stuffs MAME machine into dinner table

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:13:18 -0500

I guess this goes to show how big of a dork I really am....I found this article very interesting and entertaining! I am a big fan of the old arcade games... Root beer tapper (aka - tapper, beer tapper) in particular. But this guy is a bit crazier than I am. he actually installed a MAME (an old arcade game emulator) machine in his dinning room table. I myself prefer to look of the old cocktail game tables. But still I thought it was pretty cool...perhaps a future summer project....when the wife is out of town ;)

In Response to Jamie Vince - Google Calender

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 11:43:33 -0500

Jamie, In order to get your events to show up on the embedded google calender do the following: 1) On the left side of your google calender home page, click "manage calenders" 2) In the calenders tab, click on "Share this calender" 3) Change the setting from "Do not share with everyone" to "Share all information on this calendar with everyone" 4) Google will ask you if you are sure you want to do this....answer yes. 5) SAVE YOUR SETTING CHANGES, and again google will prompt you if you are sure...answer yes. Your embedded google calender should now display ALL events your calender. I tried it out myself - See it here. Hope this helps!

Looking forward to Iteration 3

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 11:22:44 -0500

Upon looking ahead to what will be required for our IS 247's Iteration 3 project, I am excited about learning jQuery and using javascript to enhance our site. I hope to get a chance to get a head start and play with this over the holiday weekend! - There just isn't enough time in the day.

In Response to 3-2-1's Group project...

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:04:32 -0500

Just a few comments here, I like to overall look of the site very much. However, when navigating your site there are some "sub-menu's" that only appear at the bottom of the page (i.e. the indian & mexican pages with the 'local restaurants' etc.) - you may want to consider placing these at the top and bottom like you did with the primary navigation bar...so that you don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to get to it. I would also consider making the pictures on your home page hyper-link to the corresponding pages, as well as the text just to increase ease of use and functionality. But I like to look and feel guys! Color choices are nice, and I like the subtle color changes in the background on your unordered lists. Content is fantastic, but my #1 suggestion for improvement is to increase the ease of navigation within the site. And perhaps a few more images, to go along with the great content!

Have Ya Heard - Final touches for Iteration 2

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 18:15:18 -0500

Well, I finally got the CSS validation "badge" on all our pages, I finished adding all the "compare prices" links, and I have double checked ALL the links probably a half a dozen times just to make sure everything works. I also went back through our CSS file, and removed all of the redundancies in the code, to minimize bandwidth use. Also double checked to make sure we had a substantial number of inheritance examples....yup plenty of those. So, I think we are good to go for Tuesday's presentation. Let us know what you think - View Have Ya Heard's Site.

Old school computing - do you remember when....(probably not)

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:30:27 -0500

Well, I've been thinking lately about the old school computers I have used back in the days of old. And I laugh when I go back and look at them from the old IBM Portable PC 5155, the old IBM Convertable (Both old school "laptops" my dad used to bring home for "work purposes" that I got to play on as a kid.) The first computer I played with back in grade school the Apple IIGS. I actually learned how to do some computer (basic - NO, not visual basic) programming on an old IBM PS/2 with NO hard drive - we ran all applications off of a floppy! And finally our first home computer - a trusty old IBM PC AT 286 with a CGA monitor...I doubt that most people today even remember, let alone know about these fascinating relics! Oh, the good old DOS days....

Have ya heard - Styling bugs worked out , i think

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:44:17 -0500

Well, I think I have finally fixed the little styling and layout bugs in our group website so that it looks alright on different resolution screens. I also went back through just to make sure that our pages still validated XHTML 1.0 strict, and to my surprise all of them did except for our home page. I apparently got absent minded and forgot to close a tag when I re-styled the page (oops). But glad I caught it before we turned it in. A word to the other groups in IS 247, take a quick minute to re-validate your pages after re-styling just to make sure you didn't make a small mistake. - I'm glad I did.