JavaScript? More like JerkScript
Disclaimer: I am not a professional, well, anything. But definitely not a professional JavaScripter. I’ve made a few financial calculators and a few usabilty tweaks (the tweaks I got from the Web, but I took the time to understand them and move things around to my liking).
So I’ve been tasked with making a calculator to calculate (obviously) how much you can get from the Saver’s Credit. Easy enough. If you know your Adjusted Gross Income and your Net Contributions for the year, as well as third-grade math, then you should have no problem figuring it out. To produce, it really only takes the basics of HTML and JavaScript.
So, I start it up from scratch. Very simple, only the basic functionality. Doesn’t work. JavaScript console keeps giving me errors like, “form not defined”, and “form has no properties”. Strange, so I do a little hunting. I find a couple resources that indicate I’m using forms and JavaScript all wrong. I completely understand the reasoning. However, what I don’t understand is the fact that I have a relatively huge calculator that does it the “wrong” way, but it works perfectly and in all browsers I’ve tested it on.
I understand that JavaScript needs to know how to use the form in the HTML section. It seems you either need to use:
document.forms[0].whatever
…if you have only one form to speak of, or you need to name the form and call it in the function, thusly:
myForm.whatever
However, I have the generic:
form.whatever
…but down in the HTML section, where I call the function to be used, instead of something like:
onClick="functionName(this)"
…I use:
onClick="functionName(this.form)"
…and it works perfectly.
So, is this something kinda new or something on it’s way to being deprecated?
The Dapper Drake
So, uh, yeah. Ubuntu 6.06 released on the first on the first of June. This is not a release notice or a review, since you can find those pretty much anywhere. I just wanted to comment on how screamingly fast it is.
Since I was going to reinstall anyways, I upgraded when the Release Candidate was ready as I’ve heard nothing but great things about the quality of their betas. Everyone seems to have had a good experience with the update, except for a couple tweaks here and there. I’ve noticed a handful of things go wrong, though.
—
First, OpenOffice. Seems functional enough, but all the icons on the toolbars are invisible, except for the one I’m hovering over. Not exactly usable. I wonder if it has anything to do with installing the newest with Automatix over the one that was there since install.
Second, Kopete. Whenever I have a chat window focused, and then right-click an icon on my desktop, it freezes Kopete and any desktop functionality. I can use the windows that are already open, but everything else is stuck until I kill Kopete. It doesn’t happen everytime, but at seemingly random times.
Finally, Firefox. Every so often, I’ll click a link and it will load the page (shows the address in the address bar, shows the title, which means it’s reading from the heading in the source), but it doesn’t display a damn thing. If I click refresh like a maniac, I may get the background color. Occasionally after a few refreshes it will actually load the page, but have trouble with links on that page. This happens sparingly and seemingly at random.
—
So, a couple hiccups, but nothing major. Even less concerned because I’ll be reinstalling fresh.
I remember the first time trying out an installed version of Gnome (as opposed to the Live CD) and thinking it was the fastest desktop I’d ever seen. I’ve only tried the new Gnome on a Live CD, but even KDE has gotten much swifter. I don’t mind when something like Azureus takes a couple seconds to open (has to load up clunky Java), but when it comes to terminals and file browsers, I want it NOW!
Eye Candy
I downloaded the Kororaa Live CD to check out what was so cool about this xgl. I wasn’t expecting much, with an “old” Intel integrated video chip (82845G/GL/GE), but it runs smooth as silk.
Live CD goes in, PC boots up, login… Opens to a standard looking Gnome desktop (with a link to keyboard shortcuts). I didn’t notice that link at first, so I struggled to figure out what I knew it could probably do.
I tried immediately to open a terminal to see the jelly-like “wobbly” windows and true transparency. (KDE currently has true transparency on menus, but still semi- for everything else [terminal background]). Gnome’s terminal crashed on startup (later learned this was a known bug). Alright, fair enough, it is an early beta. Opened up a file browser and tried to see how distorted I could get the window by shaking it really hard. Ahh, so easily amused. Fun to hit Ctrl to make it sticky and watch it stretch and squeeze against other windows.
The desktop shortcuts were (mostly) easy to figure out, intuitive in a Gnome environment. Fun to spin the cube around to other desktops, but it’s not as quick as I’d like. It looks damn cool, but the animation takes a bit too long. It’s like all those Hollywood movies whenever they send an email, it has the document “fold” and turn into an envelope and fly away. Looks cool, but if I had to watch that every time, I’d probably shut it off.
One feature I thought was really useful was the way the windows automatically arrange themselves when you hit F12. It’s just temporary for you to choose a window to give focus, but I think it’s great for when I have a lot of windows open and don’t want to dig through them.
I think it makes the desktop a little too distracting, but a couple features are very valuable. I was also impressed it worked so damn well on this machine. Especially with proprietary operating systems having similar features, but much higher recommended specs.
Where’s George?
So, I was looking through my wallet to see how much cash I had me, to see if maybe I needed to go to the bank tomorrow, and I noticed a strange stamp on a $1 bill. I commonly see stupid things noted on bills, but it had a web address. The stamp was partly obfuscated by the green Department of Treasury stamp on the right side, but I discovered it to say:
See where I’ve been
Track where I go next!
www.wheresgeorge.com
Interesting. It’s an online project to track where currency notes end up. I submitted the bill that was stamped here. Even has a link to show the Google map between the points.
Here is the most-tracked bill. Almost 5,000 miles in over 3 years.
