Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Programming

In today's digital age, knowing how to program is a great ability.

In the past couple months, I've built Google gadgets to show Child and I how much money we have left in our bank account, and how many minutes we have left on our phone plan (see below).


(Most of the content [text/images] is grabbed directly from our account at tmobile.com. The black and white bar across the gauge is a custom addition, however. It marks where we should be for the time in our billing cycle--currently we have minutes to spare.)

I've also built custom RSS feeds for some forums and sites I frequent. This has a downside, however. In the past, whenever I'd get bored, I'd browse my collection of sites. Now, however, any updates to the sites are delivered right to my door, so it takes me 10 minutes to scan all new content, and I'm bored again.

My most recent project has been learning how to build Firefox 3 extensions. As my first example, I built a word-replacement extension. It can run automatically, or you can run it per-page from a right-click menu item. It replaces a list of words with replacement words on all webpages you view. Good for cleaning up forums with a lot of bad language, replacing common misspellings or abbreviations, etc. Something maybe parents might be interested in.



The first comment someone posted after I submitted the extension to the extension-directory was as follows:
First- I find this hysterical... not because it exists, but because I have a list of friends that I could get to transfer from IE to Firefox just for this extension. (I live in Utah- and all my friends are Mormons- turns out the stereotypes are true)
This person doesn't know that I'm also a Mormon living in Utah. :)

I found the comment amusing, but I'm really not sure why people are so (egotistical? self-centered? close-minded?) that they think everyone else in the world shares their exact same moral standards.

I don't laugh at, look down on, or denigrate your use of language on your (website, blog, whatever). You didn't ask me to read it, and I accept you for who you are. So why do I get laughed at or looked down on for holding to my own moral standard?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

dude, i am exponentially impressed! where do i find the t mobile Google gadget? that would be quite useful.
i also think that the Firefox extension is hilarious, not in a bad way but a ytmnd kind of funny way.

Xirax said...

Replacing p*n with own? I want my puns (not to mention my pins and my pens) to stay there! :D Or is "*" just to cover characters?

I accept you for who you are.
Hmm, remind me who was that after my April 1st post demanded to know clearly right there and then whether that was a joke or not? ;)

Also, how about Pandora firefox extension?

The Writer said...

>Or is "*" just to cover characters?

The *** are just to cover characters. Note the button at the bottom that says "View All". It will display all the words normally, as well as turn into a "Hide Again" button.

>Hmm, remind me who was that after my April 1st post demanded to know clearly right there and then whether that was a joke or not? ;)

If my MSM history serves me correctly, I quote: "Alright, I'll assume it's a joke and you're not gay. But it's alright if you are. ;) I have a Russian friend who's gay that I talk to on chat all the time."

So I stand by my statement when I said I accept you for who you are. :)

>Also, how about Pandora firefox extension?

I was going to ask what you meant by this, but it suddenly clicked: you're asking about making a Pandora firefox extension, right?

I'll have to think about it. It'll be a lot of work, but it'd be a really handy one. I'll have to check if there's even already one...

prin said...

I admire your strength of character. :)

Sorry I swear so much. I'm trying to swear less...