A – http://www.apple.com/ B –  http://www.bbcode.org/reference.php C – http://www.chromeextensions.org/ D – http://www.danawoodman.com/ (yay, thats me!) E – http://en.gravatar.com/ F – http://www.facebook.com/ G – http://www.google.com/analytics/ H – http://www.danawoodman.com/ (again!?) I – http://www.iconfinder.net/ J – ttp://www.javascriptcompressor.com/ K – http://www.kayak.com/ L – http://localhost:8000/ (Django’s home on my computer) M – http://www.mcshanesnursery.com/ N – http://www.nathanborror.com/ O – http://www.organixcms.com/ P – http://www.panel.webfaction.com/ Q – http://www.qinsb.blogspot.com/ R – http://www.robotson.com/ S – http://www.simplebits.com/ T – http://www.twitter.com/ U – http://utidylib.berlios.de/ V – http://www.vimeo.com/ W – http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ X – http://www.xp-dev.com/ Y – http://www.youtube.com/ Z – http://www.zillow.com/

This was actually an interesting experiment (game?). I ended up getting a mixed set of results including services or sites I frequent combined with pages I don’t even remember visiting.

Another enjoyable waste of time, try it out!

[b]bold text[/b]

Results in:

<strong>bold text</strong>

[i]italic text[/i]

Results in:

<em>italic text</em>

[s]strike-through text[/s]

Results in:

<strike>strike-through text</strike>

[u]underlined text[/u]

Results in:

<u>underlined text</u>

[size=30]30px text[/size]

Results in:

<span style="font-size:30px">30px text</span>

[color=green]green text[/color]

Results in:

<span style="color:green">green text</span>

[center]centered text[/center]

Results in:

<div style="text-align:center">centered text</div>

[quote]quoted text[/quote]

Results in:

<blockquote><p>quoted text</p></blockquote>

[quote="John Smith"]quoted text[/quote]

Results in:

<blockquote>
    <em>John Smith</em>
    <br />
    <p>quoted text</p>
</blockquote>

[url]http://www.google.com/[/url]

Results in:

<a href="http://google.com/">http://google.com/</a>

[url=http://google.com/]Google[/url]

Results in:

<a href="http://google.com/">Google</a>

[list]
    [*]List item[/*]
[/list]

Results in:

<ul>
    <li>List item</li>
</ul>

[ul]
    [*]List item[/*]
[/ul]

Results in:

<ul>
    <li>List item</li>
</ul>

[ol]
    [*]List item[/*]
[/ol]

Results in:

<ol>
    <li>List item</li>
</ol>

[img]http://example.com/logo.gif[/img]

Results in:

<img src="example.com/logo.gif" />

[img=200x80]http://example.com/logo.gif[/img]

Results in:

<img src="http://example.com/logo.gif" width="200" height="80" />

[code]# code here...[/code]

Results in:

<pre># code here...</pre>

[code=css]body { background: #fff; }[/code]

Depending on the implementation of BBCode you are using, some or all of these codes could be implemented and more could be potentially available. Consult the documentation or FAQ on the BBCode variation you are using to see what is available to you.

All you need to do to run it is open up your console and type:

python -m smtpd -n -c DebuggingServer localhost:1025

EMAIL_HOST = "localhost"
EMAIL_PORT = 1025

See this page for more info: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/email/#testing-e-mail-sending

Hope that helps, cheers!

If you see anything I’m missing let me know! Hope this was helps someone out there!

"(.+$)

The " part can be any character or combination of characters and the (.+$) matches anything (.) to the end of the line ($).

That’s about it, nothing fancy but useful none the less.

Step 1: Buy a Mac

Yeah, I’m serious, the first step I offer people is “could you buy a Mac instead of a PC?”. The reason I offer this step first is because the people I know that are both inexperienced computer users and Apple Mac owners, send me substantially less technical requests. The reasons for this are many but basically boil down to the fact that Macs are generally more stable (built on UNIX, etc…), easier to use (actually designed well) and closed source (you buy Macs from Apple, not anywhere else so they are sure everything works on your computer). So if you — or your technically inept friend or family member — can afford it and need a new computer anyways, go for a Mac if possible.

Step 2: Do you have a virus?

This is probably the second most common issue I see in the Windows world and it is that Windows is highly susceptible to viruses and trojans if you a) don’t have and run anti-virus software regularly, and b) are an active internet user/downloader.

If you paruse the internet looking for music and programs and don’t know what you are doing, you are almost guarnteed to inadvertently download a virus or trojan (usually without knowing it) and if let to its own devices, it will quickly clog your system with crap and send all your hard earned money and identity to some 14 year old Chinese or Russian hacker.

So, at this stage I suggest scanning the whole computer for viruses and ad-ware. This can take a while. I’m serious, this could take hours or days depending on how much crap you’ve let pile up on your computer.

I recommend AVG anti-virus which is a free and well known anti-virus solution. I also recommend scanning for ad-ware which are not particularly a problem but could potential steal information and slow your computer down. To remove ad-ware download the free Ad-Aware program.

Run both programs multiple times until they come up with no viruses or ad-ware.

Step 3: Do you have proper drivers?

I’ve been getting this one a lot lately because I have a few friends who decided to reinstall Windows without first knowing what they were doing and second not having their drivers CD.

So, to those out there that are planning on taking the most drastic — and seemingly the most common — step and starting with a fresh copy of Windows please heed this warning: Make sure you have the right drivers before reinstalling! Let me repeat that again for those that skim, Make sure you have the right drivers before reinstalling!

“Why would I need to do this” you ask? Because I just told you and thats all you need to know!

Well, other than the fact that you should always do what I tell you, you also don’t want to be trying to set up your nice clean copy of Windows and then realize you have no internet connection to download drivers and updates (not to mention the fact your video resolution sucks and your audio doesn’t play). So, make sure before you reinstall to have your manufacture’s driver install CD.

If you don’t have that anymore, then do the next best thing, go to the support website of your computer manufacturer and download the appropriate drivers and burn them to CD or put them on a USB drive so you can install them after you install Windows. Since it is hard to find these support pages I’m including an (incomplete) list of manufacturer support websites below to speed up the process for you:

• Acer
• Alienware
• Asus
• Compaq
• Dell
• Fujitsu
• Gateway
• HP
• Lonovo
• Panosonic
• Sony
• Samsung
• Toshiba

To find your driver downloads on these sites you will need to either know the make and model of you laptop or desktop, or you will need to know the serial number.

If you don’t know the make/model or serial number of your computer, look for the name and model number either on the screen, body or base for laptops, or the front/back/bottom of the tower (the big box that has the CD drive in it) for desktops. If you still can’t find the manufacturer, you may have a custom made computer.

When selecting the files make sure you are downloading them for the right version of Windows! If your computer is WindowsXP Pro SP2, make sure to select drivers that correspond with that version. If they don’t, it just won’t work. To find what version you have go to the Control Panel and then find System and you should see the version there.

In that case, I really can’t help you more than to say take it into either the person that made it for you or a computer repair shop (or the Geek Squad as a last resort!).

Step 4: Do you have room on your hard drive?

Check to make sure you have free room on your hard drive.

Not having enough hard drive space will cause your computer to slow down a lot and could cause other problems.

To find out how much free space you have go to My Computer and right click on the image for your C:/ drive and go to Properties. Under that pop-up menu you should see the amount of free space available.

Depending on the size of the drive, it is recommended to keep about 10% of your hard drive free.

Step 5: If the above did not work, then seek more help…

At this stage I usually either take the computer apart and sniff around for burning smells or tell them the are out of luck. Usually if the problem is not a virus or not having the right drivers it is a hardware issue or some serious software woes.

In either case it is time for a professional. Take the computer into a reputable computer repair person or if you can’t find one, take it on down to Best Buy and talk to the GeekSquad.

Conclusion

Anyways, that is a brief overview of the process I go about when trying to fix other people’s computers. I hope it was somewhat helpful to you and that I didn’t waste too much of your valuable time!

Thanks for reading!

http://code.google.com/p/jquery-input-replacement/

The code performs a simple but useful function that I seem to always need so I decided to create a plugin that I (and others) could reuse.

Basically, the code replaces blank HTML form inputs with a string of text that is used to supply default values into the field. This is primarily used to give a field a default value, such as search fields. Below is a short little video showing what it does:

The plugin lets you define the field (or fields) that you want to apply the text to and (optionally) the CSS class to apply to the input when the text is applied to it.

When a user clicks on the field (when it gains “focus”), the CSS class gets removed and so does the initial text, allowing the user to enter in their content.

This can be used for search fields, login forms, and a number of other applications.

I hope the code is useful to someone out there and if you use it or have questions, feel free to post a comment or submit a bug to Google Code.

So I’ve created another jQuery plugin recently called jquery-showhide:

http://code.google.com/p/jquery-showhide/

Overview

jquery-showhide is a more robust “toggle” function that allows you to do a few cool things that the default jQuery .toggle() function does not. Please check out the video below to see an example usage of the plugin:

This video shows you what you can do with the plugin, including using the “autofocus” feature.

Features

First off, you can toggle the text of the toggle object to whatever you want. For example, if you have a hidden “categories” table, you can have the toggle link say “Show categories” and after it is clicked and the categories table is shown, you can have it say “Hide categories”.

Another useful thing is “autofocusing” which lets you define a field within your hidden object to autofocus when showing it. This is useful if you have a hidden form that you want a user to be able to type in as soon as it is visible, rather than having to click on the field manually. I’ve been using this on some personal projects and it really does make things much quicker.

Since jquery-showhide is completely “class” based (it uses classes to show/hide objects, rather than applying style="dispaly: none"/style="display: block"), it is a little more robust, especially if you would like to do more than just show/hide a field (such as changing it’s display or size).

Using

If you want to use the plugin, go to http://code.google.com/p/jquery-showhide/ and download the latest release and view the demo/demo.html file to see how to use it. Also check out the notes on the Google Code page for more info.

I hope you enjoy the feature and if you need to get in touch with me or find a bug, please leave a comment or submit a bug to Google Code.

• Description
• Examples
• Possible Values
• Browser Support
• Conclusions

Description

The box-shadow property allows drop shadows (as well as inner shadows) on block elements.

It is important to note that using box-shadow alone is not supported in any browser yet because CSS3 is not finalized is not even in the CSS3 specification anymore. Currently to get it working in WebKit browsers (Safari, Chrome) you need to use -webkit-box-shadow and for Mozilla browsers like Firefox you must use -moz-box-shadow.

Examples

Box with a normal drop shadow

box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #666;
-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #666;
-webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #666;

This box should have a 3px drop shadow.

Box with an equidistant drop shadow

box-shadow: 0 0 6px #666;
-moz-box-shadow: 0 0 6px #666;
-webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 6px #666;

This box should have a drop shadow on all sides.

Box with an inset shadow

box-shadow: inset 3px 3px 3px #666;
-moz-box-shadow: inset 3px 3px 3px #666;
-webkit-box-shadow: inset 3px 3px 3px #666;

This box should have a 3px inner shadow.

Box with a solid 2px drop shadow

box-shadow: 2px 2px 0 2px #666;
-moz-box-shadow: 2px 2px 0 2px #666;
-webkit-box-shadow: 2px 2px 0 2px #666;

This box should have a 2px offset drop shadow that is solid.

Box with a reverse 3px drop shadow

box-shadow: -3px -3px 3px #666;
-moz-box-shadow: -3px -3px 3px #666;
-webkit-box-shadow: -3px -3px 3px #666;

This box has a reverse 3px offset drop shadow.

Possible Values:

Browser Support

Supported Browsers

• Firefox (since version 3.5)
• Safari (since version 3.1)
• Chrome (since  first version).

Unsupported Browsers

• Internet Explorer
• Opera (rumored to be supported in version 10)

Conclusion

I hope the above information was useful. If you want to see more examples of this property, want to see other tutorials, or have a question or comment please leave a message below.

Cheers!

First, you’ll need a link that you will be clicking where you want the confirmation box to pop-up.

<p><a href="/some/path/to/delete" class="delete">Delete</a></p>

<script type="text/javascript">
    $(function() {
        $('.delete').click(function() {
            return confirm("Delete this item?");
        });
    });
</script>

Well, that’s it. Nothing special, but comes in handy once and a while.

Note: Thanks to Brian for his suggestion!