Office by Alex Penny
I'm a simple person. I help out with two Envato marketplaces, and edit a web development tutorial site, called Nettuts+. I also love to play guitar, and embarrass my almost-wife, Allie.
What I spent an hour late last night trying to figure out how to do… View the details. </end loser>
So it’s my birthday! I have now officially lived for a quarter of a century — depressing. I’ve managed to develop so many relationships with you guys via Nettuts+ and Twitter, so I thought it would be fun to tell you a handful of things about myself that you may now know. Please do the same in the comments if you wish!
Nobody should be alone on Valentine’s Day…including my dog. But he doesn’t get out much, so we bought him a woman for the evening. (We know it’s female because of the orange.)
That thing will be shredded by tomorrow morning. :)
Earlier today, on Twitter, I posted a couple of fun JavaScript quirks that really make no sense at all. There are a plethora of little oddities in the language, like this one: did you know that NaN does not equal itself, or anything for that matter? Better yet, try finding “typeof NaN.” It ironically returns “number,” despite all logic.
typeof NaN === ‘number’ // true
One of these “quirks/errors” received a couple responses, implying that I was incorrect. Now I’m learning this language just as much as anyone, so it’s possible, maybe even likely, that I’m wrong. But am I?
The discussion involved the fact that “typeof null” incorrectly returns “object” - or at least incorrect as I’ve learned. Nevertheless, a few people responded to me with the information that this is not a mistake, and is actually common among many programming languages. As they put it, null “is supposed to be an object.”
What strikes me as odd is that every piece of text I’ve read on the subject speaks to the contrary. As I understand things, this was simply an error that dates back to the first release of the JavaScript engine, which was then carried over to Microsoft’s JScript. The reason it hasn’t been removed is due to the fact that it could potentially break numerous programs at this point.
Unfortunately, this backward compatibility issue is the reasoning behind numerous errors and inconsistencies in languages. For example, ever wonder why so many browsers incorrectly label themselves, within the user-agent string, as being Mozilla? The answer goes back a long way…
Buzz will get right what Wave got wrong. At first glance, they’re two completely different platforms that really can’t be compared. One is essentially a Twitter copycat, while the other was meant to allow for real-time collaborations.
The problem with Wave is that it wasn’t integrated into Gmail from the start. By forcing people to access a different service - one that the majority of their contacts won’t be using - Google Wave was dead on arrival.
This is where Buzz can truly shine, and perhaps evolve over the next year into something more like Wave. With this method, unless the user disables Buzz entirely, it’s nearly impossible for a Gmailer not to participate in some form or another.
My mom is over fifty, and only has a very modest knowledge of computers and the internet; the extent of which being how to check/send email, and browse the web. Realistically, this is probably true for most people over a certain age bracket. To my amazement, within about ten hours of Buzz’s launch, she, without the urging of any of her tech savvy children, Buzzed!
My first thought was, “How does she even know about this?” The answer, of course, being that it’s impossible not to. When you login to Gmail, you’re immediately redirected - at least at first - to the Google Buzz homepage.
Buzz is definitely fun, and adds a community aspect that Twitter is fully missing. If someone I respect asks a question on Twitter - one that I’m curious about the answer to - the only way for me to review the responses is to perform a search for the creator’s username. How silly!
As I mentioned earlier today, Buzz has cleverly managed to position itself as the perfect median between Twitter and Facebook: more community, and less Farmville gifts. But with all that said, it still adds yet another social network to sporadically check through out the day. To truly succeed, in my opinion, Buzz, and specifically Google, must provide the official version of what Threadsy is trying to achieve: in one window, allow me to check my email, and send/receive messages on Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, their native Buzz service. As soon as this is a reality, I’ve no doubt that it’ll become a full replacement for my Twitter client of choice, Echofon. Until then, it’s only another window - and I have enough of those!
How to Work with @Font-Face
Just released a video quick tip on Nettuts+ that details how to display any free font on your website, using the CSS3 @font-face property.
As my company has recently switched over to Tumblr for its blogging needs, I’ve since fielded numerous queries about why we did so, when it’s not as powerful as a platform like WordPress. I can only speak for myself: it all comes down to simplicity.
More power = less convenience.
Take me for example: I have my own blog that, truthfully, is lucky to be updated once a month. My job is busy enough that I have little time left over to spend, once again, creating new content for some blog. However, with Tumblr, I don’t have to feel guilty if I’m only adding a photo, or a quick piece of information that I found to be helpful.
And as much as I want to continue with my analysis of Tumblr, the irony is that doing so sort of goes against its purpose - not to mention the fact that my desktop currently looks like this, and is stressing the hell out of me.
I’ll end with this. If I find myself updating Tumblr even once a week, rather than once a month, then Tumblr has served its purpose, and can fully be qualified as a massive success in my book.
