solidhex.com

Eh, this probably seems inexplicably lame to the casual observer, but Teddy Ruxpin is something of a cult hero around the office. Maybe we just have too much time on our hands…

A tried and true use of JavaScript is to open external links in a new window (or tab, depending on your preferences). I’ve come across countless scripts written to do this task, and even though some are using jQuery or Prototype, they are not making the most out of the library or framework they are using.

Basically, there are three ways to open an external link in a new window:

1. Give the a tag a class of ‘popup’, or something to that effect, iterate through the links and open those with class of ‘popup’ in a new window.
2. Set the rel attribute to external, and again, iterate through the links in the document, find the ones that contain this attribute and value pair and open the links in a new window.
3. Iterate through all the links in the document, check to see if the href contains the current site’s URL and if it doesn’t, pop it open in a new window.

For this example, I am going to assume my links are marked up like so:

<a href="http://google.com" rel="external">google.com</a>

With jQuery, there’s no need to iterate through each link and test for the rel attribute, and it exists, test for the value external. You can simply use CSS selectors to grab only the links you need without having to loop over them, then simply apply the Click Event Helper directly to those links like so:

$(function(){
	$('a[rel=external]').click(function(e){
		open(this.href);
		e.preventDefault();
	});
});

That’s what I like about jQuery - you get in, get what you need and get out.

At Tripkick, we aim to take the guesswork out of your hotel experience. Not all hotel rooms are created equal, so we sought to devise an online concept which would deliver more choices to travelers.

Early Monday morning, Tripkick.com was unleashed to world.  Cédric, David and myself handled the code while Amanda Halbrook designed it to look beautiful. They’ve already been written up on TechCrunch and featured on NBC to much good praise, so a hearty congrats and a round of back-patting are in order for both Tripkick and Fluidesign.

Having recently started to travel more frequently to various web conferences, I have been thumbing through the hotels in the most frequented cities of the top conferences: San Francisco, New York, Austin and Boston. Because really, who DOESN’T want to avoid the dreaded ice machine and it’s guttural roar as it springs to life providing the much needed ice for my Champale?

I sure do.

Co-worker and friend Kristina has launched brockandkristina.com - a website dedicated to her ceremonious wedding later this year. Not enticed by most of the free wedding template sites, she cranked out a custom motif that draws its inspiration from the desert landscapes of Palm Springs, California.

As it turns out, not only is the site a good way to learn the back story of how she and her fiance Brock met, but it’s also a damn good resource for hotel and activity information for those planning a trip to Palm Springs.

All the coding was handled by yours truly. jQuery helped keep the Ajax call simple and also allowed me to use nyroModal, the highly customizable and flexible jQuery plugin from monsieur Cédric.