Random and Opinionated Thoughts

by: Jennifer Zelazny

bbPress Business Web Development

I Apologize for the Light Posting…

I have been extremely busy with two particular projects in the last few weeks. One – a major site optimization and the other – a custom bbPress solution which has had me reading through the functions at all hours of the day to figure out exactly what is available to me and then how to […]

Serenity Now!

Growl Gone Bad

Some days are better than others. Somedays you do not need to work with other humans to get slapped in the face. Welcome to my day. (For those that do not know what you are looking at – it is a screen full of error notification messages brought to me by Growl)

CSS HTML/XTML

Simple 3 Column Layout

I was talking to one of my friends today who does a lot backend programming but often needs a quick and easy 3 column layout that has the floats all figured out. His frustration with floats prompted me to make a very basic layout for him to use. If you find yourself in the same […]

Stuff

DespairWear

I am a huge fan of all Despair.com items, but I had not been there for a few months so when I saw they are now selling shirts (DespairWear) I got really excited. Expect to see me sporting one of these in the near future!

Software

EveryBlock

There is a really cool web site out there that I stumbled across a few days ago: EveryBlock.com. This really cool web site lets you look at events and places on a “neighborhood” level. You can see all crimes, photos, Craigslist listings, businesses, film locations, etc by entering in a zip code or by choosing […]

Hints Life

Career Advice for College Students (or Anyone)

I returned from a trip to my alma mater, The Pennsylvania State University, a few days ago after getting asked to speak at the History Department career fair. I was one of seven speakers at the event. We all had various non-traditional history degree careers (which was the point) and surprisingly we all had a […]

HOWTOs Web Development

Switch Repositories (SVN)

In order to take a look at WordPress 2.5 before it was released, I used subversion to check out the latest code available using the instructions given on the WordPress site. Once WordPress 2.5 was released, I wanted to keep my sites using 2.5 and not the bleeding edge releases (2.6) so I needed to […]

Business Hints HOWTOs

How to Get Stuff Done

The last few weeks I have been extremely busy and on top of that I have been dealing with a sick child and also being sick myself. There is no time to be wasted so efficient use of the time I had was crucial. I feel that since owning my own business, I have had […]

Stuff

Jappler Recommends: Wireless Weather Forecaster

If you ever need a gift for someone that is hard to buy for, check out Brookstone’s wireless home weather forecaster. This really cool instrument automatically locates itself geographically, then updates itself using radio signals so that you always have the latest weather report (thanks to accuweather.com). I recently bought one of these and it […]

Apple Serenity Now!

Chicago: Cold

I know it is generally cold here in the winter – and even though we had a nice break a few days ago, it is cold here, but man I was shocked to see my Mac Mini’s ambient temperature reporting: So much for that temperature reporting application!

Apple Web Development

Developer Menu in Safari 3.1!

My preferred browser is Safari but when I need to do any serious debugging, I use Firefox because of the web developer, firebug, and yslow (for firebug) addons. In the most recent update of Safari (Safari 3.1), we now have the option to show a “Developer” menu (without any hacks) when using the browser. There […]

Places

Chicago is Beautiful…

Chicago is a beautiful city. It has a beautiful lakefront, a beautiful skyline, and a beautiful grid layout. Check out this awesome night photo that shows the grid system: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myelectricsheep/343703624/sizes/l/