Blogging

An archive of blog posts at SitePoint

I'm a regular contributor to the SitePoint Blogs where I've become known for my off-beat, sometimes contentious take on industry issues. My posts are mostly technical, and sometimes vividly opinionated ... but always an interesting read

Posts Archive for 2013

1. 3 Neat Tricks with Regular Expressions <mmxiii.iv.xvii>
2. Children of the DOM <mmxiii.iv.iv>
3. Evolving a New Mutation <mmxiii.iii.xxv>
4. Automation Type Conversion In The Real World <mmxiii.>
5. Finding an Ancestor DOM Node <mmxiii.ii.xxiii>
6. A Study in Experimental Game Development <mmxiii.ii.xv>
7. Intelligent String Abbreviation <mmxiii.i.xxx>
8. Instant Form Validation Using JavaScript <mmxiii.i.xxiii>
9. Using Web Storage <mmxiii.i.ix>
10. Fixing the details element <mmxiii.i.ii>

Posts Archive for 2012

1. Parsing an ISO datestamp <mmxii.xii.xvii>
2. Accessibility in Modern Interfaces <mmxii.xii.xiv>
3. Creating an ISO datestamp <mmxii.xii.v>
4. Practical JavaScript Accessibility <mmxii.xi.xxvi>
5. Removing Useless Nodes From The DOM <mmxii.xi.xxi>
6. JavaScript Accessibility 101 <mmxii.xi.xii>
7. Why Would You Write Your Own CMS? <mmxii.xi.viii>
8. Testing For Empty Values in JavaScript <mmxii.xi.iii>
9. Adding Micro-Constructors to a Modular Design Pattern <mmxii.x.xxiv>
10. A Utility Function for Padding Strings and Numbers <mmxii.x.xii>
11. Modular Design Patterns: Private, Privileged, and Protected Members in JavaScript <mmxii.x.iv>

Posts Archive for 2011

1. The Ever-Increasing Uses of a Zoom Layout (Part 2) <mmxi.v.xi>
2. The Ever-Increasing Uses of a Zoom Layout (Part 1) <mmxi.v.x>
3. The Angst of Accessibility <mmxi.v.ii>
4. Better Take The Web's Temperature — It's Coming Down With Another “itis” <mmxi.iv.xxi>
5. (More) Assignment in Conditions <mmxi.iv.xix>
6. The Art of Accessibility <mmxi.iv.xii>
7. Sophisticated Sorting in JavaScript <mmxi.iv.iv>
8. What's The Best Date Format? <mmxi.iii.xxii>

Posts Archive for 2010

1. Counting with an Arbitrary Character Set <mmx.xii.xxi>
2. The Anatomy of a JavaScript Design Pattern <mmx.xii.viii>
3. My Favorite JavaScript Design Pattern <mmx.xi.xxx>
4. Why Aren't Tooltips Triggered by The Keyboard? <mmx.xi.xxiii>
5. The Guilty Secrets of a Standards-Based Programmer <mmx.xi.x>
6. Scripting, Loading and Irony <mmx.xi.iii>
7. Throwing Better Errors Using Stack <mmx.x.xxvii>
8. Assignment inside a Condition <mmx.x.xii>
9. The Best Way to Instantiate Ajax? <mmx.x.v>
10. The Footer's the Menu <mmx.ix.xxviii>
11. Creating Shadows Around Polygons in CSS <mmx.ix.xxi>
12. Contiguous Sibling Selector <mmx.ix.vii>
13. Better Passwords #3: Caps-lock Warnings <mmx.viii.iii>
14. Better Passwords #2: “Show Password” <mmx.vii.xxii>
15. Better Passwords #1: The Masked Password Field <mmx.vii.xix>
16. Creating Accurate Timers in JavaScript <mmx.vi.xxii>
17. Making CSS Count Backwards <mmx.vi.xii>
18. Reducing HTTP requests with generated data URIs <mmx.vi.v>
19. Using CSS Text-Shadow to Create Embossed Text <mmx.iv.xxii>
20. A Simple CSS Drop-Cap <mmx.iv.xv>
21. How To Get Smoother Rounded Corners <mmx.iv.xiv>
22. Towards A Cooler Focus Caret <mmx.iv.xiii>
23. A Specialized JavaScript Library for Querying CSS <mmx.iv.v>
24. Creating Beveled Images with CSS <mmx.iii.v>
25. CodeBurner Updates for Firefox 3.6 <mmx.ii.xvi>

Posts Archive for 2009

1. The CodeBurner Family Welcomes Three New Babies! <mmix.x.xx>
2. Who's Using ARIA? <mmix.ix.xvi>
3. HTML 4 Considered Harmful <mmix.vii.xxxi>
4. Announcing Updates to our Popular Add-ons for Firefox 3.5 <mmix.vii.ii>
5. 10 Cool Things We'll Be Able To Do Once IE6 Is Dead <mmix.iv.xiv>
6. The Right Way to Make a Dropdown Menu <mmix.iv.i>
7. Techy Treasures #5: Fudging CSS Counters in Internet Explorer <mmix.iii.xxxi>
8. Announcing Version 1.1 of CodeBurner: the Reference Tool for Firebug <mmix.iii.xx>
9. Developing CodeBurner — An Exercise in Exploratory Programming <mmix.i.xxviii>
10. Introducing CodeBurner: the SitePoint HTML & CSS Reference Tool for Firebug <mmix.i.xxvii>

Posts Archive for 2008

1. Techy Treasures #4: What's inside a dollar function? <mmviii.xii.x>
2. Techy Treasures #3: When is a mouseout not a mouseout? <mmviii.xi.xxv>
3. Techy Treasures #1: Feelin' Empty <mmviii.x.xvi>
4. Tagging is Not Just for Content <mmviii.viii.xxix>
5. Debugging JavaScript: Throw Away Your Alerts! <mmviii.viii.xxii>
6. Using JSON for Language-independent Configuration Files <mmviii.viii.xxi>
7. Regex Matching Attribute Selectors <mmviii.vii.xxix>
8. Mangling XML as Text with PHP DOM <mmviii.vii.xxiv>
9. Conditional Comments for HTML Email <mmviii.vii.xviii>
10. Top 5 Tips for Staying Awake <mmviii.vii.iv>
11. BBC Rejects hCalendar Microformat Because Of Accessibility Concerns <mmviii.vi.xxv>
12. Dust-Me Selectors: Now Compatible With Firefox 3! <mmviii.vi.xxiv>
13. Thanks for what? <mmviii.v.xx>
14. Building The Matrix - Notes from The Architect <mmviii.v.xiv>
15. You can stick your em-dash up your dot dot dot <mmviii.iv.xxx>
16. You guys all suck <mmviii.iv.xxi>
17. You're Fat and I Hate You <mmviii.iv.xvii>
18. continue - the forgotten statement <mmviii.iv.xiv>
19. A collection is not an array <mmviii.iii.xix>
20. Unblocking Adblock <mmviii.ii.v>
21. The Accessible Dungeon of Doom <mmviii.i.xvi>

Posts Archive for 2007

1. Internet Explorer doesn't just suck, it also blows! <mmvii.xi.xxx>
2. Dust-Me Selectors Version 2.0 <mmvii.xi.xxvi>
3. All in the mind? <mmvii.xi.xxii>
4. Dealing with unqualified HREF values (Part 2) <mmvii.x.xvii>
5. Why Accessibility? Because It's Our Job! <mmvii.x.xvi>
6. Comment-Driven Development <mmvii.x.x>
7. How green can you be? <mmvii.x.i>
8. Don't make users take responsibility for our problems <mmvii.ix.x>
9. Nihilism, accessibility, and the preponderence of amazing co-incidences <mmvii.viii.xiii>
10. Dealing with unqualified HREF values <mmvii.viii.x>
11. What is a community? <mmvii.viii.iii>
12. Find unused CSS selectors with "Dust-Me Selectors" <mmvii.vii.xxx>
13. Insert in place without document.write <mmvii.vii.xi>