Blog - Issac Kelly

In School Broadband and Ohio HB-4

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:57:47 -0400

I have found that I have a strong passion for education. To some of my closest friends that may come as a surprise, because I dropped out of high school and college, expressing a large amount of disdain along the way. I've found that largely my disdain came from school and classroom bureaucracy that gets in the way of learning.

Students need broadband. I firmly believe this. Depriving them of that is crazy. Students don't need facebook or flash games. They need TED talks and Wikipedia.

Please Support HB-4. Send the Education Committee your thoughts.

Representative,

I am in strong support of the distance learning project HB 4

I left my High School because there were not enough opportunities. I then left College, and pursued much my learning through online sources, and have now started a Columbus Ohio Small Business in the Technology field. This worked in my situation but I have also seen many advanced and remedial students not given the opportunities that they need. Advanced access to broadband could help that significantly. Since High School, the majority of my learning has been online.

The statistic quoted to me was that 28% of ohio high schools have 1.5Mbs of Bandwidth or less. That is ridiculous. In my home I have 7Mbs of bandwidth for just me. I'm sure in your home, you have 768kbs (.7Mbs) AT LEAST.

These days, not giving students (fast) access to the internet is like not giving them textbooks.

Support HB 4.

Sincerely,
Issac Kelly
<addresss>

Please upgrade your Internet Explorer

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:27:06 -0400

Please, Please, Please Quit using Versions of Internet Explorer Less than IE 7.

Please send this to all of your friends and relatives, and even the people who you don't like.

Internet Explorer 6 came out in August of 2001. By most business standards, this might not seem like a long time, but by my Industry Standards, that's like driving a car from the 1980's. With IE6, it's not just any old car, it is The Pinto, without the safety kit.

Now, IE 8 has just launched, so if you're using IE 6, you're two free upgrades behind everybody else.

There are also lots of BETTER free options, like Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

Please switch to one of these as your primary browser. You'll find a faster, more secure, better looking internet in there. I promise.

What questions do you have about upgrading? Ask them here! Please! If something is keeping you from upgrading, tell me about it.

Amazon Web Services Resources

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:58:32 -0400

AWS Home

EC2 Tools

Browser Testing
Dimdim (contact me for details..not public yet)
ElasticFox
Hadoop on EC2
PHP EC2 Manager

S3 Tools

Slides

Introduction to Amazon Web Services for Developers and System Administrators

View more presentations from issackelly.

Startup Lessons: Find your audience

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:41:20 -0500

My Twitter Notebook is Open Source

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:34:44 -0500

My Twitter Notebook is now open source. I'd like to see what other people would do with it, given the opportunity.

It's hosted at github and the url is http://github.com/issackelly/my-twitter-notebook/

My Twitter Notebook: The Story.

I'd like to start off by saying: I'm not an organized person. I get by pretty well with lists, but overall I don't plan things more than a week in advance, and I don't do a good job remembering things for more than a few days at a time. I decided that I wanted to get better about that, but didn't know where to start. I bought a scanner, and that has helped tremendously; I've also started keeping lists and making quick short notes (I was never much for taking notes, school or otherwise). For that end, I wanted to use my cell phone (calls and text messages only though) to take notes. I thought that I could e-mail myself or DM my own twitter account, but that was a little too primitative, because notes are only good to me if I can search through them, browse, tag, etc as they happen.

I made my twitter notebook in the first couple days of 2009, and I've been very happy with it. Since then, it's made some "Top xx" lists, and also been mentioned (as an aside really) on an MSNBC blog.

Task And Time Management

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:08:10 -0500

I'm tinkering with how to manage my tasks and my time.

I'd sort of like a system where I can name all of my tasks, and then sort out into a couple of different columns, really, a cross between rescue time, gmail, and tweetdeck, if that makes any sense.

Things that I'd like to be able to do:

Name a Project, and list the 'next task' as well as a list of all tasks associated with the project.

For any given task, I'd like to be able to have tags like 'location' 'waiting on' 'time estimate' 'due', typical stuff.
I'd like a timer, one that counts up when I hit start, and when I hit stop, I assign the time to task(s).

How do you manage your time and tasks? A fair amount of this functionality is included with fogbugz, but the interface for it is clunky, as it's really only made to be a bug tracker and software planner, not a general task/time manager.

What would help you to do this? What sorts of input/output mechanisims would it need? Reports, etc?

I'd like to make this happen, and I'm willing to do it open-source if I get some help.

What does my app need to be successful...

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 09:08:43 -0500

Yesterday, on one of my favorite news sites, hacker news; Someone asked "What does my twitter app need to be successful in 8 days". It was in reference to a twitter mashup made for the two teams playing in the Super Bowl next weekend. You can see it here.
The responses were mostly negative, 'get a less obnixous design', 'solve a problem people have', 'cleveland isn't even in the superbowl'<--which you have to look pretty closely to even notice why this is criticism.

All of the criticism was unfounded. What exists is a niche app with a limited lifespan. Spending money on a professional designer or photography you didn't take yourself seems exorbitent.

Lots of apps 'don't solve a problem people have'. Many of the iPhone app store apps don't solve any real problems, honestly, who needs an application to make fart noises?

So, if you're into football and social media, see what other people are saying about Arizona and Pittsburgh for the next week or so. If not, don't worry about it.

When it comes down to it, what an application needs to be successful isn't design, or solving problems, it's usually just getting in front of people. Lots of beautiful utilitarian tools get underutilized, and lots of ugly useless crap gets lots of attention, money, and users; the difference is people.

What's your favorite ugly or uselsess app? Mine is minesweeper.

Site Design 2009

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:21:05 -0500

From Kasey, who can't keep his hands off of a design for more than 12 months given the opportunity, comes the new design, which I like a lot.

With that, I've added much more emphasis on my blog (its the homepage) utilized servee's display rule functionality to make it beautiful, and removed my resume (not looking for work...plenty happy with servee :)

What do you think?

Demand More from your Website

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:10:34 -0500

If you're like any of the dozens of business owners or organization leads that I meet with week in and week out; then you don't give a second thought to the business that you are losing online every day.

Let me tell you a story:

A business owner I know in South-east Ohio was looking for a mobile paper shredding service.
She delegated the task to an intern, who immediately went to Google; They hired the company from a hit on a website, without ever opening the yellow pages.
The company had good reviews from clients, and a local phone number. The business owner was astounded that they didn't come from the yellow pages.

In the homes of most of my colleagues, the yellow pages are sitting firmly beneath some heavy door, and have been for years.

Friends, the internet is now truly everywhere and if you don't have a website, you're not in the game.

In 1998, to have an internet presence was 'pretty cool' for the typical Small or Medium company but you wouldn't see any new volume from it.
In 2000, it seemed like you could find anything online;
By 2005, if you didn't have a website, people noticed and
In 2009, if your website isn't working for you; then it's working against you.

The good news is that its simple to get _more_ from your website.

If you don't have a website or need help figuring this stuff out; contact me to get you started, and do not be dismayed because it's often easier to start from scratch.

Here are the five simple rules of getting more out of your website

Make your website easy to use
Make your website easy to find and search
Give something back and create an audience
Gather as much data as possible
Convert audience to clients

Make your website easy to use
Your website is the face of your business; If your website is cumbersome, and flashy, but has nothing to offer, that's going to reflect on your work.
Anyone can make a website with off-the-shelf software; This is fine if you want to show off your great-uncle's fishing lure collection, but please, don't do this to your business.
There is a lot that goes on behind-the-scenes of the initial set-up of a website that requires professional attention and expertise to make it easy to use, easy to navigate, accessible to people with disabilities, and ultimately, effective at converting visitors to clients.

That being said, some web-professionals will want to bring you back in for every piddly update; This means that when your staff or product changes at all, you would pay them high hourly rates to make minor adjustments.
Part of having a website that is easy to use, is the ability to easily make updates; Work with a web-professional to get your site setup with simple tools for managing your website.

Make sure that every page has one clear objective and contains only enough content to get your point across; Audiences on the internet don't read, they skim.

Make your website easy to find and search
There are lots of things you can do here, and this is another area where getting a professional to do the initial leg work (and using software to maintain it behind-the-scenes) is of vital importance.
As the one who oversees the website you have to do the following things:

Non-Technical Things

Add your website to the footer or by-line of your e-mails and community forms (where allowed); you can do this automatically in outlook, Apple Mail, or Gmail
Here is an example
From: Issac Kelly <issac@servee.com>
To: Josh Boles <josh@joshboles.com>
Subject: Project Management

Josh,

What are you using for project management? I've been looking around for something web-based. Thanks
--
Issac Kelly
servee.com
-------------------

This is a simple step that increased my website visitors by 10%. You're sending a message that says "There is more info about my business here" and its some of the least obtrusive, and cost-effective self-promotion you can do.
Make sure that your website is on the print materials you already use; This is a no-brainer. No matter what you're advertising you should be able to point curious people to more information online. There are really limitless possibilities here that are beyond the scope of this paper.
Make lots of content; put up FAQs and hilarious videos about your industry; Become the expert, the place that people go; and link to. The more people that link to your site, the better for your search engine rankings CAVEAT: Do Not pay people to link to your site; this is considered cheating, and will get you banned from the search engines.
Comment on other people's sites and blogs in your industry or locale. Build up your reputation, and on most places where you can comment, you can also leave a link.

Technical Things

Make sure your site has good titles on every page
Example of a bad title: 'Page 14'
Example of a good title: 'FAQ - Widget Consulting, Madison WI'
Make sure your site has good urls
Example of a bad url:
http://www.a-fake-site.com/controller.asp?page=14&time=11233239&aspsessid=9384089&referrer=http://www.failblog.com/&more=things
Example of a good url:
http://www.clevelandmarathon.com/Registration/
Make sure that your software or website includes a file for search engines called 'sitemap.xml' This is different than the sitemap for your users, this is just for search engines, and good web-management generates this automatically
Ask an independent web-professional to take a quick look at the code of your website; tell them you're concerned with accessability and you want to know if you have semantic markup.
Semantic markup enables search engines and people with disabilities to use computer tools to read through your website.

Again, this is the bare bones of what you need to know, and there is a lot more that is well beyond the scope of this document.

Give something back and create an audience

You, have the opportunity to provide a service through your website that can be mutually beneficial to you and your visitors.

Let's explore one option, create a 'question and answer' service. On your website promote a page that says 'Ask the expert!'; direct your other forms of marketing online, as it's often the quickest and easiest way for your potential customers to explore your organization and its message.
Allow visitors to submit questions to you, for you to answer. Whatever your profession is, people have questions about it. For you, an expert in your field, to be able to answer them provides credibility, adds to your reputation, and ultimately, will increase the visitors to your site and turn into increased sales.

The second benefit of a question and answer service is for your website to increase rank in google's search engine and show up in more results.
If you are answering specific questions, the first thing that most people will do is search google for their question; if you come up, and answer their question, you will get increased visitors, and again, increased sales.

Gather As Much Data as Possible

Step 1) Use an analytics package provided as part of your website setup, or use a third party.
Analytics packages will track where your visitors are coming from, what they searched to get to your site, what they looked at, which region they live in, and many many more aspects. These are key to determining if your website is effective or not.

Step 2) Make it easy, and give users an incentive to submit their data, build up an e-mail list, and use it.

Convert your audience to clients

This is the most important step, but if you've done the rest right, it's the easiest.

You've got an audience, you have dozens or hundreds of people coming to your site each week to get information; you've gotten many of them to give you permission to contact them personally, now what?

This is where you get back to the basics, and the personalized approach that you take to your small business becomes your most valuable asset again. You let them know about promotions that you're giving to your mailing list, you offer incentives to come in (10% off tire alignment if you say 'thanks for the e-mail Mark!')

More Info

For questions, or how to get started with any of these things, e-mail me at issac@servee.com

How to use your new iPod or iPhone

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:22 -0500

My new (second) mom and dad (Maria's Parents) both got iPods for Christmas this year (actually, dad's was won in a raffle months ago, but they just got a computer with a working USB port..)

I thought I'd put this together for reference, beyond the typical, 'setup your iPod, buy from the iTunes store'

Put your CDs into iTunes (then your iPod)

Just because you got an iPod, doesn't mean you have to ditch your current collection of CDs

Here's What you do

Open up iTunes and put one of your favorite CDs into your computer. Chances are high that iTunes will start 'ripping' your CDs automatically, if not, click the cd icon and then click 'import'. The default settings are 'pretty good' for not using a lot of space, and keeping good music quality. You can change these in the iTunes settings, under 'Advanced->Importing'

Listen To Podcasts

Podcasts are like on-demand radio broadcasts and shows. You can subscribe to exactly what you want, and major players like NPR give out their content for free.

Here's What you Do

First click on the podcast button in iTunes, then click on 'Podcast Directory' Now you've made your way into the realm of podcasts, you can browse and subscribe to as many as you want. After you've subscribed to a few, right click on your iPod icon and change the settings. You want to go to the podcast tab and choose which ones you want on your iPod, typically the newest ones.

Buy Books from Audible

You can get a subscription to audible to listen to audio books, or buy one book at a time at a typical rate.

Here's What you do

Buy a book or subscription from them, and there are detailed instructions on how to get them on your iPod or iPhone.

What other tips do you have for using a new iPod to it's fullest? Put them in the comments

Hands on with Small Basic

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:21 -0500

I started playing with small basic last night.

Turns out, it's a very good introduction to programming (I started with JavaScript, then C++, and this is much more simple/powerful in the early stages)
It's very similar in syntax to ASP or VB.

Since it's a variant of Basic, it has some things that I'm not a fan of (goto), but really, I won't hold that against it, goto makes sense in english, so it makes sense for a beginning language.

I took a few minutes and downloaded small basic, .Net 3.5 and the getting started guide from: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/cc950524.aspx

It was simple to setup, and the guide was definitely directed to the absolute beginer. *(sort of frustrating for their lack of documentation)

Here is my first small basic program:
It does trivial encoding and decoding. Encode a message with a passcode, and send it to a friend, who can then decode it with the same passcode.
This is also a primer on how 'shared-key encryption' works.

start:
TextWindow.Write("(E)ncode or (D)ecode ")
a = TextWindow.Read()
If (a = "E") Then
    TextWindow.Write("String to Encode ")
    estring = TextWindow.Read()
    TextWindow.Write("Encryption Key ")
    password = TextWindow.Read()
    t = Network.GetWebPageContents("http://www.issackelly.com/string.php?action=encode&string="+estring+"&key="+password)
    TextWindow.WriteLine(t)
    Goto start
Else
    If (a = "D") Then
    TextWindow.Write("String to Decode ")
    estring = TextWindow.Read()
    TextWindow.Write("Encryption Key ")
    password = TextWindow.Read()
    t = Network.GetWebPageContents("http://www.issackelly.com/string.php?action=decode&string="+estring+"&key="+password)
    TextWindow.WriteLine(t)
    Goto start
    EndIf
EndIf

What you wil notice is Network.GetWebPageContents(.... I didn't actually do the encoding or decoding with small basic. It lacked the basic math or character functions that I needed, so I had to fill in the gaps with PHP (I could have written an extension, but the documentation is too sparce)

So, here is my challenge. Can you guess what I did to encrypt the string?

I'll give a free year of servee hosting and subscription to the first person who figures it out in the comments.

In Defense of jQuery

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:20 -0500

Not that it doesn't stand up on its own right, but I have to throw my $0.02 in.

I came across this article on 'why mootools and not jquery' from Julio Capote in my feed this morning.

I'm going to do a point by point here.

Classes: "Eventually you'll want real classes to structure your UI logic". While This is what you want, the better I get at jQuery the more I use chaining. I also lean toward functional programming and not OO programming, so...yeah. I'm just saying that this isn't necessarily a global drawback as much as a design choice.
Learning Curve: I buy that learning jQuery takes a bit of practice, but again, I see it as a preference thing, because before jQuery, to me 'regular javascript' just wasn't that good
Speed: jQuery IS faster.
Animations: I don't do animations much.. but in my experience jQuery's have been...sufficient. Moo Tools animations do look pretty good
New Element Creation: Making a new element _is_ easy: $("<a href='http://www.servee.com'>done</a>");
Modularity: Mootools is modular..you can get the libraries you need: You can do this with jquery from SVN...but when the whole library is 12kbs I think it's really unnecessary.
The Documentation: I've never checked out the mootools documentation, My experience with jQuery doc has been very good, and my experience with the #jquery on irc.freenode.net has been very good as well
Extensibility: I haven't done anything outside of 'basic usage' with mootools, but jquery isn't an 'unintelligible mess' by any means.
Namespace vs Prototype: Yeah, this is just preference, but unobtrusive (Namespace/jQuery) is worth it, especially if you have to have two versions of the same library on a page.
Final: I for one welcome our new namespaced overlords.

Sample Agreement Generator

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:18 -0500

Here is another post about some little tool I've made..

This one will take a set of checkboxes and radio buttons (anywhere on a page, doesn't have to be in a table or anything) and turn it into a block of text.

Caveat: you can't have any other checkboxes or radio buttons on the page with this snippet, it will behave poorly.

Check out the source below to see how it works. 21 Lines long, the value="" can be as long as you want. Post a comment if you have any questions.

This could be used for any type of text generation.

	Sample
	Client gets the code
	I get the code

Agreement

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.2.6.pack.js"></script> <table> <tr><td><input type="checkbox" value="This is a long paragraph of text that explains this part of the agreement" /></td><td>Sample</td></tr> <tr><td><input type="radio" name="1A" value="A paragraph of text explaining that the client gets the code. A paragraph of text explaining that the client gets the code. A paragraph of text explaining that the client gets the code. A paragraph of text explaining that the client gets the code. A paragraph of text explaining that the client gets the code A paragraph of text explaining that the client gets the code." /></td><td>Client gets the code</td></tr> <tr><td><input type="radio" name="1A" value="I get this code!!! I get this code!!! I get this code!!! I get this code!!! I get this code!!! I get this code!!! I get this code!!! I get this code!!! I get this code!!! " /></td><td>I get the code</td></tr> </table> Agreement<br /> <textarea rows="6" cols="40" id="agreement"></textarea> <br/><br/> <button onclick="process()">Process</button> <script type="text/javascript"> function process() { var agr = ""; $("input:checked").each(function(i){ agr += $(this).val() + "\n\n"; }); $("#agreement").val(agr); } </script>

JS Sudoku Solver

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:17 -0500

Here it is, plugin a puzzle, hit try. If it doesn't work, hit Try again. If it doesn't work after a few times, hit possibilities, put that in the comments, and I'll see if I can sort it out. Happy sudoku-ruining

If you want, you can embed this as an iFrame

http://www.issackelly.com/sudoku.html, but please, backlink here.

And the Code...

Actually, you're probably best to view source, as the lines aren't properly broken here.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://jquery.com/src/jquery-latest.pack.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> given = new Array(); possibilities = new Array(); var i,j,k; function doGo() { initThis(); for(var z=0;z<99;z++) { attempt(); possibilitiesToGivens(); //oneInBox(); possibilitiesToGivens(); givensClearPossibilities(); oneInRowCol(); possibilitiesToGivens(); } givenToBoard(); } function initThis() { for(i = 0; i < 9; i++) { possibilities[i] = new Array(); given[i] = new Array(); for(j = 0; j < 9; j++) { possibilities[i][j] = new Array(); for(k = 1; k < 10; k++) { possibilities[i][j][k] = true; } if(isNaN(parseInt($("#a"+i+'x'+j).val()))) { given[i][j] = 0; } else { given[i][j] = parseInt($("#a"+i+'x'+j).val()); for(var l=1; l<10; l++) possibilities[i][j][l] = false; } } } } function attempt() { //brute out impossible combinations for(i = 0; i < 9; i++) { for(j = 0; j < 9; j++) { if(given[i][j] > 0) { filterRowCol(i,j); filterBox(i,j); } } } } function oneInBox() { for(i=0;i<9;i++) { for(j=0;j<9;j++) { if(given[i][j] == 0) { if((i==0) || (i==1) || (i==2)) { iLow = 0; iHigh = 3; } else if((i==3) || (i==4) || (i==5)) { iLow = 3; iHigh = 6; } else { iLow = 6; iHigh = 9; } if((j==0) || (j==1) || (j==2)) { jLow = 0; jHigh = 3; } else if((j==3) || (j==4) || (j==5)) { jLow = 3; jHigh = 6; } else { jLow = 6; jHigh = 9; } var trues = 0,trueL=10,trueM=10,trueN=10; for(n=1;n<10;n++) { if(possibilities[i][j][n]) { for(var l=iLow;l<iHigh;l++) { for(var m=jLow;m<jHigh;m++) { if(possibilities[l][m][n]) { trues++; } if(trues == 1) { given[i][j] = n; givensClearPossibilities(); //filterRowCol(i,j); } } } } } } } } } function oneInRowCol() { for(i=0;i<9;i++) { for(j=0;j<9;j++) { if(given[i][j] == 0) //we haven't found it yet { for(n=1;n<10;n++) { trues = 0; truess = 0; if(possibilities[i][j][n]) { for(m=0;m<9;m++) //for this row { if(possibilities[i][m][n]) { trues++; } } if(trues == 1) { given[i][j] = n; } for(l=0;l<9;l++) //for this row { if(possibilities[l][j][n]) { truess++; } } if(truess == 1) { given[i][j] = n; } } } } } } } function givensClearPossibilities() { for(i=0;i<9;i++) { for(j=0;j<9;j++) { if(given[i][j] > 0) { for(k=1;k<10;k++) { possibilities[i][j][k] == false; } } } } } function filterRowCol(i,j) { val = given[i][j]; for(var l=0; l<9; l++) { possibilities[i][l][val] = false; possibilities[l][j][val] = false; } } function filterBox(i,j) { var iLow,jLoq,iHigh,jHigh; //boxNum = findBox(i,j); val = given[i][j]; if((i==0) || (i==1) || (i==2)) { iLow = 0; iHigh = 3; } else if((i==3) || (i==4) || (i==5)) { iLow = 3; iHigh = 6; } else { iLow = 6; iHigh = 9; } if((j==0) || (j==1) || (j==2)) { jLow = 0; jHigh = 3; } else if((j==3) || (j==4) || (j==5)) { jLow = 3; jHigh = 6; } else { jLow = 6; jHigh = 9; } for(var l=iLow;l<iHigh;l++) { for(var m=jLow;m<jHigh;m++) { possibilities[l][m][val] = false; } } } function possibilitiesToGivens() //turns one possibility into a given. { var l,m,n,trues=0; for(l=0;l<9;l++) { for(m=0;m<9;m++) { if(given[l][m] == 0) { for(n=1;n<10;n++) { if(possibilities[l][m][n]) trues++; } if(trues == 1) { for(n=1;n<10;n++) { if(possibilities[l][m][n]) given[l][m] = n; } } } trues = 0; } } } function givenToBoard() { for(i=0;i<9;i++) { for(j=0;j<9;j++) { if(given[i][j] > 0) $("#a"+i+'x'+j).val(given[i][j]); } } } function displayPossibilities() { var l,m,n,trues =''; for(l=0;l<9;l++) { for(m=0;m<9;m++) { if(given[l][m] == 0) { trues += l+ 'x'+m+' - '; for(n=1;n<10;n++) { if(possibilities[l][m][n] == true) trues += n+','; } } else { trues += l+'x'+m+' - '+given[l][m]; } trues += " : "; } trues+= '<br/>'; } $("#possibilities").html(trues); } </script> <table> <tr><td><input style="width:26px" style="width:26px" id="a0x0" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a0x1" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a0x2" /></td><td rowspan="11" style="border-width:1px; border-color:black;"></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a0x3" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a0x4" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a0x5" /></td><td rowspan="11" style="border-width:1px; border-color:black;"></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a0x6" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a0x7" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a0x8" /></td></tr> <tr><td><input style="width:26px" id="a1x0" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a1x1" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a1x2" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a1x3" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a1x4" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a1x5" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a1x6" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a1x7" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a1x8" /></td></tr> <tr><td><input style="width:26px" id="a2x0" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a2x1" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a2x2" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a2x3" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a2x4" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a2x5" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a2x6" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a2x7" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a2x8" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="11" style="border-width:1px; border-color:black;"></td></tr> <tr><td><input style="width:26px" id="a3x0" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a3x1" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a3x2" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a3x3" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a3x4" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a3x5" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a3x6" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a3x7" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a3x8" /></td></tr> <tr><td><input style="width:26px" id="a4x0" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a4x1" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a4x2" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a4x3" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a4x4" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a4x5" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a4x6" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a4x7" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a4x8" /></td></tr> <tr><td><input style="width:26px" id="a5x0" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a5x1" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a5x2" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a5x3" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a5x4" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a5x5" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a5x6" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a5x7" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a5x8" /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="11" style="border-width:1px; border-color:black;"></td></tr> <tr><td><input style="width:26px" id="a6x0" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a6x1" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a6x2" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a6x3" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a6x4" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a6x5" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a6x6" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a6x7" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a6x8" /></td></tr> <tr><td><input style="width:26px" id="a7x0" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a7x1" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a7x2" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a7x3" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a7x4" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a7x5" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a7x6" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a7x7" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a7x8" /></td></tr> <tr><td><input style="width:26px" id="a8x0" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a8x1" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a8x2" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a8x3" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a8x4" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a8x5" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a8x6" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a8x7" /></td><td><input style="width:26px" id="a8x8" /></td></tr> </table> <button id="doGo" onclick="doGo()">Try!</button><button id="showPossibles" onclick="displayPossibilities()">Show Possibilities</button><button id="clear" onclick="$(\"input\").val('')">Clear</button> <div id="possibilities"> </div>

JavaScript Sudoku Solver v1

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:16 -0500

If you have a problem case, hit "show Possibilities" and put the output into the comments, I may get back to it.

Google Chrome and my past prediction

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:15 -0500

Google's announcement of a new browser is not suprising in the least.

It fits directly in line with what I said while at Google-IO 2008.

Google is commodizing the desktop. Everything will be online, and when you're not online, you might as well be with tight gears integration.

Making the browser faster, and more bullet proof will take away (over time) security and performance concerns of web apps a thing of the past.

Simple JQuery Mortgage Calculator

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:14 -0500

Servee is moving into real estate territory, more details to come, but I've made this simple mortgage calculator. Free to use, no warranty, etc.

Here is the code for your copy and paste, check the example below. It requires Jquery to function. My styles also may mess up the line breaks in the HTML, but the JS is all pretty short, so it's not a big deal.

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.2.6.min.js'></script>


<h3>Mortgage Calculator</h3>
   <form >
<p>  <input type="text" name="mcPrice" id="mcPrice" class="mortgageField" />
Sale price ($)
</p>
<p>  <input type="text" name="mcDown" id="mcDown" class="mortgageField" />
Down payment (%)</p>
<p>  <input type="text" name="mcRate" id="mcRate" class="mortgageField" />
Interest Rate (%)</p>
<p>  <input type="text" name="mcTerm" id="mcTerm" class="mortgageField" />
Term (years)</p>
<button class="smallButton" id="mortgageCalc" onclick="return false">Calculate Monthly Payment</button>
  <input type="text" name="mcPayment" id="mcPayment" class="mortgageAnswer" />
</form>
<script type="text/javascript">
$("#mortgageCalc").click(function(){
var L,P,n,c,dp;
L = parseInt($("#mcPrice").val());
n = parseInt($("#mcTerm").val()) * 12;
c = parseFloat($("#mcRate").val())/1200;
dp = 1 - parseFloat($("#mcDown").val())/100;
L = L * dp;
P = (L*(c*Math.pow(1+c,n)))/(Math.pow(1+c,n)-1);
if(!isNaN(P))
{
$("#mcPayment").val(P.toFixed(2));
}
else
{
$("#mcPayment").val('There was an error');
}
return false;
});
</script>

Mortgage Calculator Example

My arcade Cabinet

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:12 -0500

This is still available!

Works Beautifully, USB arcade controllers for your PC/Mac/*nix/Console (with adapter). I've been using this for the last 6 months and it works beautifully. It stands 5 feet tall, and 3 feet wide. Lots of shelve space. It makes a great arcade cabinet/entertainment center. I'm moving to a smaller place, or else I'd take it with me.

It packs flat, pieces slide together, with the exception of the control top, that has 6 screws for stability. It can store in a 5'x3' area.

I also have a small desk, technical and college text books, various IT/Computer equipt and a lot of clothes I'm trying to get rid of before I move.

$250

craigslist is fail

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:11 -0500

For Sale in Columbus

issac.kelly@gmail.com (Issac Kelly) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:10:10 -0500

I'm moving into a small place (in Charleston SC) when I get married at the end of the summer, and I have a lot of things on Craigslist that i'm trying to get rid of in the short order.

Cannon Photo Printer (takes direct usb from camera)

Lexmark Printer/Scanner/Copier