Thanks for the “help” Apple dictionary…

Had to laugh when I looked this up.

Truly one of the best 404 error pages that I’ve ever seen…

Found at oobject.com.

Facebook is a fabulous tool for networking but not so forgiving from a design and layout standpoint.  You are stuck with the Facebook cookie cutter look.  It’s true, I have seen some FB apps that will allow you to futz with the interface but I’m not too trusting.

Enter my wife’s request to show her “running progress widget”.  Normally, if she wanted to show a banner or a little add or a snippet of html (a widget) in her website or blog, this would be dropped in.  But she’s not a developer and she doesn’t have her own site.  She has Facebook.  So…  As I thought this through, perhaps I could take a page from Apple?  I like how they do their iTunes links.  All I need is a new page with html to load and show the widget.  Further, it would be great, if I could get that page to load at about the size of the widget.

Process goes like this:

1. Click link in FB.
2. Link loads a new page with javascripting that prompts the html with widget to load, at the size that I want it (in a new window) and simultaneously close the “loader” page.

So far so good…  we’ll see how well it works.

Here’s the link to “save as” or see in action:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1610749/sharon_race_widget.htm

Tested in:

• XP - IE8
• Vista - Firefox
• Windows 7 - Firefox & IE8
• OSX - Firefox & Safari
• Invariable the only issues that I saw kick in were primarily because of either FLASH not being installed or because of pop-up blockers (both fixable/trainable).  Ultimately the scripts and corresponding widget works but an end-user’s knowledge of how to troubleshoot (or lack thereof) may rob them of the full web experience.  That being said, I can’t control that too much :S

I’m particularly fond of these minutes…

Credit one “Glen Prior“…

So we begin with this photo that I shot yesterday:

And the comment is made:  “Boy, you can practically see the reflection in his eyes…”

Well, as it turns out, you can!  I zoomed in - only to find myself (holding the camera up to my face), silhouetted and reflected back.  The animated gif shown below has four phases.

1. Original shot, cropped down to the eye
2. My silhouette (emphasized)
3. The sliding glass door (emphasized) - at an angle
4. The line of the dining room table (emphasized)

Pretty amazing what gets caught on film in an instant!