Keetology

Up The Moo Herd IV: There's A Class For This

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:29:26 GMT

Gather round boys and girls! It's time for another episode of Up the Moo Herd: MooTools Tips and Tricks! In the previous installment, we talked about some of the tips and tricks involving classes. In this part, we're gonna pick up from where we left off last time, and talk about several topics still related to classes: mutators, inheritance and mixins.

In case you haven't read the announcement post I wrote a few days ago, there will be several changes to the Moo Herd series. First, the part discussing the Fx classes will be removed and replaced by one about some DOM tips and tricks. Another change is that I removed the section on “Reusable Code” for this article due to both length concerns and because it sounded too preachy for my taste.

Continuing the music-flavouring from last time, this post' title is courtesy of the second song from Cute is What We Aim For's first studio album, “The Same Old Blood Rush with a New Touch.”

And with that, let's continue our exploration of Classes. Ready? Go!

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.

'Sup Mark?

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:29:26 GMT

Or to ride an old title trend: Reports of my death have been grossly understated. I’m sure you’ve been wondering whether I’ve decided to call it quits with this whole blogging thing, and I assure you that I have not.

Of course, if you've ever dropped by the IRC channels or if you're following me on Twitter, you will know that this isn't the case. And because I've been a really busy boy these past few months, I've decided to post a short update just so you know.

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.

The Hosting Quest of 2009

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:08:06 GMT

Mike came barging into my room one Thursday afternoon. “Mark, man, you gotta help me. Geocities is closing!” I tried my best not to laugh, especially when I saw the genuine look of worry in his face. I failed.

I've known Mike since High School, and we're pretty close. He's a really talented artist and his drawing skills are nothing short of extraordinary. In the morning, he works as an Events-Coordinator for a small Manila-based marketing firm. But at night, he releases his inner artist by taking on freelance illustration jobs for various magazines and print-related projects.

Unfortunately, Yahoo's decision to take down Geocities meant that Mike's portfolio will disappear in a few months. I like Mike, but I never really understood why he kept using such a crappy hosting site for his portfolio. So after a few minutes of laughing, I told him to get a seat and relax.

Thus, the “Hosting Quest of 2009” began.

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.

Thoughts on the iProduct

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:02:34 GMT

There's a lot of hype generated recently regarding this new “iTablet” product that Apple is supposed to be unveiling. I'm not usually the one to feed rumor mills because don't have any track-record regarding these things nor do I have unidentified insider sources. But since my curiosity was piqued enough, I decided to write this post to add my thoughts to the discussion.

This post is done for the sake of fun—as I mentioned, I'm not really in the position to dish out any juicy rumors since I don't have any good sources for them. But what I can do is speculate based on what I do know and what I have observed.

So here are my thoughts on this new iProduct (I'm not gonna use “iTablet” or “iPad”) in terms of three things: what it will be, what OS it will run on and what the price will be like.

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.

Titanium Love From Linux Journal

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:43:57 GMT

A quick update while I take a break from Javascript: our favorite open-source platform for creating rich-desktop applications is getting some Linux loving this month!

The september issue of Linux Journal, the original publication of the Linux community, is featuring an introductory guide to Appcelerator Titanium! This is awesome news for all of us who support Titanium, because we really want to get the word out to more developers, especially those involved in the open-source scene. And there's no better place to get the word out than one of the oldest magazines that cater to open-source enthusiasts.

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.

Up The Moo Herd III: It's Classy, Not Classic

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:04:21 GMT

It's time for another episode of the Up the Moo Herd: MooTools Tips and Tricks series, where we'll talk about classes, the backbone of MooTools. Other JS libraries thrive using plugins and extensions, but MooTools keeps its object-oriented focus by using classes and mixins to new functionality to the framework.

Due to length concerns, I split up the article on classes into two parts. This one tackles constructors, implement and extend, singletons, and private methods and variables. The next part will deal with mutators, mixins, inheritance and reusable code.

I went directly to the various tips and tricks that involve classes in this post rather than explain the basics. If you get lost, it might be good to get a firmer grasp on how classes work. The series introduction linked above contains links to tutorials and sites that would help you to do just that.

The title for this post is taken from Breathe Carolina's second album, which I was listening to while writing this article. They're a really awesome band, and I admire them for being able to make Miley Cyrus' “See You Again” palatable.

With that, let's start getting classy!

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.

Up The Moo Herd II: Native Flora and Fauna

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:54:05 GMT

In this second installment of the Up the Moo Herd: MooTools Tips and Tricks series, we're going to tackle Natives, a topic included in the list of lesser-known things about MooTools.

Before anything else, I'd like to apologize for the delay in posting this article. I've been a little busy with a MooTools related project (which we will be releasing for public consumption soon), so I wasn't able to finish of the rest of the articles. But the good news is that the next parts of the series are already done (whew!), and they'll be posted by Friday.

I'd also like to thank Valerio Proietti, the lead developer of MooTools, for taking some time to answer some of my questions on this topic as well as for the idea of the Table native (which will be available in Moo2).

With that said, let's explore the Native flora and fauna as we climb up the herd…

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.

Up The Moo Herd I: Playing Fetch

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 04:39:46 GMT

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.

Up The Moo Herd: MooTools Tips and Tricks

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 04:37:55 GMT

MooTools has always been my Javascript framework of choice. I won't go into evangelist mode and start preaching of the merits of using MooTools instead of Framework X, because it's been done before and frankly, these library wars are just starting to get annoying. It suffices to say that I know that MooTools is not only good at what it aims to do (which is to make programming Javascript easier), but it also inspires me to write good code.

Now while I may proclaim myself as a MooTools fanboy, a quick scan of my sparse archive probably wouldn't show that. But I want to give some love back to the framework. And so I'm writing a series of articles geared towards people who already know the basics of MooTools, but want to go a step up the herd.

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.

Jask: Running Javascript Tasks with v8cgi

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:36:17 GMT

Today I'm releasing Jask, a simple task runner written in Javascript, loosely based on Ruby Rake, and runs on v8cgi. I've been working on it for the past few hours and after a few tweaks, I decided that I better set it loose on the wild to get some feedback.

For the impatient, you can get the code at the Jask Github Repo. If you have time in your hands, read on.

Continue Reading | Comments | Posted by Mark Obcena.