M@Blog » geekery

Safari 2.0 and jQuery

matt — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:45:04 +0000

Quick tip if you were unsuccessful in convincing a client it’s not worth supporting Safari 2.0, and you want to use jQuery but it’s not working (crashes, etc.): check for any .hide() / .show() in your Javascript code, and replace with .css(’display’,'none’). Particularly if you’re calling hide / show on page load.

Look! New!

matt — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:13:50 +0000

Most people start their year on the 1st of January. In keeping with Japanese custom, this year I’ve decided to start a fresh look on April 1st. My wonderful girlfriend, business partner, and personal sanity-checker whipped together this new design in an afternoon after being fed-up with the bland previous theme.

I hope to keep the momentum going with a few more tweaks and enhancements over the coming month. Enjoy!

PHP on CentOS + Plesk VPS

matt — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:53:27 +0000

I’m still scratching my a head a bit on this one, but figured I’d at least post my solution to an issue I came across parsing PHP on CentOS 5.2. (If you know the reason for the below, do post in the comments!)

The main problem was that PHP files weren’t being parsed correctly. I confirmed that the PHP module was loaded (/usr/sbin/httpd -M), and my /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf file contained the right directives. This was a stock install of CentOS 5.2 after all. I even tried moving some of the directives around to the domain-specific vhosts.conf file. I also confirmed that *.conf files were being loaded by the httpd.conf with “Include conf.d/*.conf” in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.

Or so I thought. Turns out, I needed to wrap the contents of php.conf with …. I realized this when I ran /usr/sbin/httpd -S to see what was actually being called – and noticed that some SSL directives were pulled in from ssl.conf, but nothing from php.conf. WTF?

So when different ports are supported (i.e. 80 and 443), directives for each now have to be wrapped? I have another CentOS machine (the only other – I don’t get to make these choices) w/o SSL and the php directives are loaded w/o the .

At any rate, I usually opt for Debian-based distros as the folder structures make more sense to me. And I dislike GUIs that attempt to make server management easier for the layman but in fact barf files all over the system (I’m looking at you, Plesk).

The Stormtrooper visits

matt — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:25:21 +0000

Had dinner with Danny Choo last week at the Gotanda Kua Aina, and he toured our building afterwards. As part of his “Week in Tokyo” series he posted a few photos from inside our building, apartment, and a few views from our balcony. You can check them out on his “A Week in Tokyo 33“. We’re working on bringing you a more permanent, realtime, high resolution view from our apartment, so stay tuned!

Krugman’s Interstellar paper

matt — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:21:52 +0000

With Paul Krugman recently being awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, I was reminded of a paper of his from 1978. I think I originally got it from Gruber (Daring Fireball) …

2kurabe “Web Directions East 2008″-themed widget!

matt — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 04:43:16 +0000

In collaboration with the folks at Web Directions East and in anticipation of their first conference in Japan, we’ve put together a 2kurabe widget with a custom “skin” (theme)!

At the moment there is only one 2kurabe, but more will appear automatically as the WDE team adds them.

Enjoy!

Web Hosting in Japan – Unbeatable Prices!

matt — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:53:59 +0000

W00t, w00t! After many months in agony of local (Japan) web-hosting prices, I have finally found a server farm worth it’s dime.

They are Tsukaeru.net, they’re located out in Nagano, and they’re run by an Aussie – which means English support! They have a massive data-center all for themselves, and their prices are comparable to what you find in the U.S.

If you need Japan-local hosting for latency reasons, want price / service ratios you see in the U.S., and don’t mind English service and support to boot, you can’t do any better than these guys.

If you sign-up for a dedicated server now, you even get an iPod Shuffle to boot! :) If you’re as excited as I am about this and feel even an inkling of gratitude, be sure to use the link above when you sign up!

2kurabe Flash widgets – now live!

matt — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:50:14 +0000

「２くらべ」ブログパーツフラッシュ版がいよいよ誕生！遊んで、作って、是非お友達と共有して下さい！

A Flash-based widget (aka “blog part”) of 2kurabe is now available. Check it out, make some 2kurabes, and spread the word!

Super Mario Mushroom Burgers!

matt — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:33:00 +0000

Made some Super Mario Mushroom Burgers for my girlfriend’s birthday.

1-hour in the kitchen.

7-hours of full stomach (these were big burgers).

eternal cuteness.

Credit to Instructibles.

Duplicating (aka “Backing Up”) Your OS X Leopard DVD

matt — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:19:33 +0000

Took me a few searches, but finally found a decent explanation on how to duplicate your OS X Leopard DVD. The key is not to choose “New Image” in Disk Utility, but to go through File > New > Disk Image from …

Remember, you’ll need to use a Dual Layer DVD.