Gabe Harris

2011 was pretty much just another year, but looking back I kept thinking of all the things that happened in those 365 days. Here’s a list, in no particular order, to remind myself what went down: Keep reading…

And I’m going to let you finish, but I have the greatest dad of all time. My dad has taught me more than I could ever say. He preached to me (often falling on deaf ears) about all things in moderation. He did not preach to me about “always do your best”,”treat people with respect”, “do the next right thing”, “what you reap is what you sow”. Nope, I don’t recall one conversation about any of those things. In fact, we have never really had any heartfelt, passing-down-wisdom, touchy-feely discussions.

What did he do instead? He showed me every day how to do each of those things, and much, much more. He showed me how to accomplish anything I set my mind to. He showed me how make the best of any situation. He showed me that absolutely anything is possible. He showed me how to love and care for a family. He showed me honesty and hard work. Plus- he showed me how to fish, and he got me my first tattoo! I can trace most of the things I admire about myself back to my dad (and of course there was influence from mom, and other important people, too – no slight to them intended!) I remember in first grade telling my mom I wanted to look like dad when I grew up, and she replied “Your father is a handsome man.” Little did I know at the time, the unspoken words were really “I want to BE like dad when I grow up” and “Your father is a wonderful man”.

Thanks dad, for everything – you said just enough, and didn’t clutter the message by saying too much!

I’ve been intrigued by JavaScript templating lately, enough so that I did a little bit of playing with a few options (mustache and I Can Haz JS). I made this page from I Can Haz JS, and it was very easy to implement.

In a nutshell, here’s how it went:

1. Link to all the right JS files
2. Create a <script> block with the template for my data
3. Use Google Feed API to snag an RSS feed
4. jQuery voo-doo to make these JavaScripts render something on the screen
5. Muck with the look/feel to make it entertaining

I don’t believe I have hardly scratched the surface with what is possible. It seems to me these templates would be very useful in pages with lots of Ajax calls to the server sending/receiving/updating data. Of course I have no projects going right now that need any of that action, so I put together a super-simple quick-hitting test page. Go look at the page and view the source, and have fun at the rest of the playground, too.

The hardest part was thinking of some (almost useful) data source to use and then remembering that I couldn’t violate any security measures (ahem, must implement Google Feed API to pull an RSS feed.) I’m potentially biased, but I dig the color scheme and design I’ve put together here. Additionally, I was stoked to see all the new fonts the Google Font API has now! It had been a while since I checked them out, been sticking with Font Squirrel.

Anyone want to help me think of a project where we can use this templating? I don’t have a lot of free time, but would love to build something. Ping me here, or on the Twitters!

When I began my personal web site, back whenever that was, the domain GabeHarris.com was sadly already taken, and I had to use Gabe-Harris.com. By a stroke of luck, without really looking, I learned GabeHarris.com was now available! I instantly scooped it up, and I’m thrilled to have it. I feel, even more officially so, like the real Gabe Harris!

I don’t consider myself a technofile by any means, but I do get a crush on a new phone in a hot second. With the explosion of new, smarter, slicker, sexier phones, I’ve been drooling for a while. I previously toted around an older Blackberry Curve. It was a delightful entry into the world where the internet lives in the palm of your hand, and emails and social networks are always available. That mistake will never be made again, I’m certainly not in the Blackberry target demo. Drum roll… Keep reading…

How can you deny ‘Dojo’ as the coolest Javascript library name? People that use it seem to love it, so I’m giving it a go. Check it out at the playground. I haven’t done a whole hell of a lot with it yet, but it’s a start, and I expect it to keep growing over the coming days/weeks.

First impressions – it feels like the jQuery a little bit, but I do miss the jQuery $ sign. I’m not used to it at all yet, it seems long-winded after writing so much jQuery. It certainly doesn’t appear to have the faithful following I’ve grown accustomed to with jQuery, but that can have its positive connotations as well. It could push me to write my own custom ‘plugins’ which in theory should lead to more power and usefulness. Plus it absolutely will push me to be a better front-end developer. I am excited to keep pressing forward with it.

Besides the more obvious reasons for not using them (if no reasons come to mind, stop reading and go play some place on YouTube), in-line styles suck on another level. Keep reading…

I like fun things, but getting tattoos all the time is rather cost prohibitive. So I have built a little playground area, for learning and trying new stuff. Some of it is just following along through tutorials I’ve seen online, and some if it is testing out new things as I read about them. Most of it is front-end related (CSS(3), HTML(5), and JavaScript/jQuery), but there is some coding going on as well (CodeIgniter) that you won’t see. At any rate, check out the playground for some good times.

BE WARNED: if you’re using IE, you probably won’t love it so much… sorry?