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Archive for February, 2009

Easy jQuery fading color menu

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

I’m creating a site for a client and wanted to jazz up the main menu slightly. Right now its just a plain text text that rolls over with a new color. It would be cooler, and just as accessible, if I made that css color fade in and out instead of just “appear”. The HTML, CSS, and JS for this with jQuery is easy as pie.

The HTML is below. Notice all I did is double up on the text in span tags. You can’t “fade” the change of a color style, but you can fade the white text in and out above the black text.

<ul>
     <li><a href=""><span class="white">Sports</span><span class="black">Sports</span></a></li>
     <li><a href=""><span class="white">Concerts</span><span class="black">Concerts</span></a></li>
    <li><a href=""><span class="white">Theater</span><span class="black">Theater</span></a></li>
</ul>

CSS. Position that white span tag absolutely so its above the black, and what you see.

#header ul li {
float:left;
font-size:80%;
font-weight:bold;
margin-top:2px;
text-transform:uppercase;
}
#header ul li a {
color:#fff;
display:block;
height:18px;
padding:3px 15px 0 12px;
text-decoration:none;
}
#header .white {
color:#fff !important;
position:absolute;
}
#header .black {
color:#000 !important;
}

The throw in a line of jQuery to manipulate that absolutely positioned white span to fade in and out above the black for a cool fading effect on hover.

$("#header li ").hover(function(){$(this).find('.white').fadeOut("medium");},function(){$(this).find('.white').fadeIn("medium");});

Facebook integration

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

So I’ve been on Facebook for a while, but I don’t seem to post on there often, even though I “mean” to. I do update my blog fairly frequently though, and crosspost all my photos to Picasa as it automatically pics those up from my home pc.

Since I moved to WordPress, there seems to be a cool app/plugin “Wordbook” that will take my blog posts and throw them up right on my Facebook wall. Also, I was able to integrate my Picasa account with Facebook as well. Super Nerd. Activate!

Race car is almost back

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

So “RedRum” is definitely less bent then I thought. To be more accurate, I’d have to say, its not bent at all. Trever checked her out, fixed the header, built me some new uprights for when the wheel bearings go out during this season, and gave her a clean bill of health. Seems that when I got hit, the front subframe, which is just bolted to the unibody was the only thing that moved. The unibody didn’t bend, but the subframe just shifted over in its bolts. That was the cause of the front camber being slightly off, and also the crack in the header.

I should pick the car up sometime next week, and next up is the bodywork. I’m going to pull off all the stickers from last season, and clean up the doors some. Then she’s off to Mike at Sentry Auto Body to get the dents fixed. Mike is going to fix the two rear quarter panels and maybe the drivers door as well. Going to also get new front fenders and bumper, and she will literally look good as new.

I’m planning on a new graphics scheme for this season. The back half of the car will continue to be E46 M3 Red, but the front half of the car is getting an overhaul. I’m going to vinyl the hood, fenders, and blend the vinyl into the doors. Also, the front bumper skin will remain factory black. The paint cracks too fast with bumpdrafting, and the black bumper will fit in real well with the fancy vinyl thats going over the rest of the front bodywork :) I’m excited! We might head to Colorado for some late season skiing in March, but if we don’t go, I’m hoping to make a late March date at Carolina Motorsports Park. We’ll see.

WordPress does not suck

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

So after telling a couple of coworkers that I had my blog on an old blogger.com template, I got this weird look and “you don’t use wordpress.org?” comment. Checking it out for a bit got me interested, and as I played with it, I realized what they were talking about. WordPress rules!

The longest part of the conversion process was setting up all the 301 redirects for my old URLs to the new ones. The import of my blog feed, the setup of the template and blog was cake, and the admin interface is awesome. Even better, I control all the code through the php templates, so my blog is now proper XHTML where with Blogger service, there was so much invalid blogger code scattered, it wasn’t even funny.

Also, the more I use php, the more I like it. I was always an ASP guy, and with the vBulletin work I do running the RoadRaceAutoX forums, and now setting up WordPress, I’m finding that php rules.

Canon 40D

Monday, February 16th, 2009

So I pulled the trigger on my upgrade. I’ve used the 350D for over 2 years now. I’m an “ok” amateur and never thought I would need an upgrade. I went the $$$ glass route, as suggested by many peers smarter then I, and it was well worth it. I got some great shots out of my 350D and 70-200L,24-105Ls. Recently, I’ve gotten the gear bug though, and with the used 40Ds coming down so much in price, I finally pulled the trigger.

Here are my impressions of 40D over the 350D for anyone else considering such a move

  • The “feel” of the camera is much better, yet smaller then my 350D + grip combo. The 350 w/o the grip is too small for my hands, but the 40D fits just perfectly.
  • The grip, the buttons, the locations, are just “right on” with this body, compared to being cramped in the 350D. I’ve seen people post that the 350D was a toy compared to the XXD series, and I kinda see what they are saying now.
  • The “click” of shutter sounds better. The 350D has more of a slap, where the motorized up and down of the 40D sounds a lot beefier.Its wierd, but I really like the sound of the 40D shutter.
  • In good light with 100 ISO, I can’t really tell a difference between two “internet sized” shots. At full zoom, you can see a slight detail difference, but there isn’t a huge wow factor in this situation
  • In low light, the difference really kicks in. 1600ISO on the 40D is about equal to 400ISO on the 350D. Its THAT much of a difference. I took a well exposed shot at 1600ISO and it looks excellent. Wow!
  • 6.5fps = Wow. That part is NOT going to suck for taking 1/80th pans of race cars. The keeper ratio was low with the 350D when trying for such low shutter speeds. With the 6.5fps, I’ll be able to nail a 4-5 shot combo of each car, where with the 350D i could get ~2 shots of “in frame” in.
  • Haven’t noticed a huge difference in AF yet, but I haven’t done any AI Servo work with race cars yet. The 40D seems to catch a little faster then I was used to, but its not that much. Then again, most of those were in great light, so the 350D didn’t have much trouble and my amateur self never found the AF lacking with my 350D as I use the center point 99% of the time.

Not saying the 350D is bad. Its certainly a GREAT body, and at current prices ($350 used) its a KILLER deal for someone trying to get into DSLRs. Its just that the 40D really is a great step up and with the improved controls/format/performance allows you to enjoy photography more. I’m sure liking mine, and glad I pulled the trigger finally..