Working with AJAX pages on other peoples web sites can be a pain. Especially when using and creating Kynetx applications which can run on a plethora of web sites. When designing things for AJAX pages there is an "undocumented" javascript function which we use. It's name is watchDOM. It resides within the KOBJ object and has the function signature "KOBJ.watchDOM(selector,callback);". This function monitors a DOM element which you specify for changes. When it detects a change, it then runs a callback function.

At my current place of occupation, Kynetx, we use jQuery extensively. One of the strangest, most difficult parts of learning how to use jQuery, in my opinion, is using "selectors." Selectors are jQuery's way of selecting elements within the DOM to alter, add, delete, store, etc. Makes sense, right? Seems easy enough, yes?

I recently saw a trailer for Lego Universe at Joystiq. The game looks pretty freaking sweet! If you have never played any of the Lego Games which have come out recently, namely Lego Star Wars, Lego Batman and Lego Indiana Jones, I urge you to go and purchase one. Right now. I kid you not, this game is one of the greatest series ever. It has humor, violence (no blood), story, and no talking. These games are some of the best ever. But why?

As a new blogger, I've been keeping track of things which have either helped or hurt me as a blogger. One big thing that I have noticed is a large decline in traffic as I stop posting.

As a blogger, you have to consistantly blog. Every week, day, hour, or whatever other time interval you choose. The longest time I reccomend, however, is a week. Anything longer and people stop caring or remembering about you. A week is just long enough that people don't get sick of you, but short enough that they remember who you are. Keep this in mind as you go about your blogging.

UPDATE: Added the Firefox Plugin!

UPDATE: Added the Chrome Plugin!

UPDATE: Added a search button to Gmail

Nearly every single soul reading this post uses Google. Everybody tries to beat Google. Yahoo and Bing are it's biggest competitors. I'm not here to discuss that, though. Instead, I want to talk about my improvements to Google, Yahoo, and Bing that I want everyone to see.

I do a lot of things. Just ask anyone who knows me. They all know that I'm pretty knowledgable in just about any feild, situation, etc. Granted, there are things that I do not know about. I'll be the first to admit that. I do know enough to get by on lots of things though. I can repair cars (which I'm pretty good at, actually), do plumbing, electrical, carpentry, sys admining, antiquing, programming, and lots of other random stuff. My most recent problem, however, was with the sys admin part of my life.

While I was at the Kynetx Christmas party, my boss' wife asked me, "I want to understand this Twitter thing. Why do you use it?" I answered her question and thought that I'd post my response here.

There are two main reasons why I use Twitter.

Bit.ly, tinyurl.com, and many other places have started up link shortening which is usefull for Twitter, telling people over the phone, etc. But what it makes difficult is the fact that you have no idea where that link is really pointing to. As we can see from this post here, there are dangers with the way that Mozilla handles URI's. You could exploit those dangerous problems with a shortened link, and nobody would ever be the wiser.

When writing my Kynetx rules, I like to duplicate as little work as I possibly can. In fact, where possible, I use the same exact rule with a template which pulls from a data structure based on site. Here's an example as to what I mean.

Code:

global {

dataStructure = { "www.foo.com": { "location": "http://www.usbchainsaw.com/" }, "www.bar.com": { "location": "http://www.xkcd.com/"} };

}

rule template is active {