Paul Irish

I've been a big proponent of Jing for screencapture for a while. I still love it, and it's top notch for sharing video, but I've come to enjoy a free tool called Gyazo for screenshots. Both of these tools are invaluable when it comes to web development QA.

Below you'll see a screencast demonstrating gyazo to the #jquery IRC channel:

Both Jing and Gyazo provide hosting for you (infinite, eternal store, as far as I've seen), and they both automatically copy the url to your clipboard. Gyazo is a bit quicker for images, and also doesn't have a business model, which is comforting. :)

And it's cross-browser as long as you don't mind some Japanese text:

• Gyazo for OS X
• Gyazo for Windows
• Gyazo for Linux

Oh and open source. :) I think you can even host your own image repo if you don't want to use gyazo.com.

Handy tip, keep the shortcut somewhere totally handy. On Windows, I keep mine with the quick launch icons.

Paul Irish hacks

By default, MacRumorsLive polls the server for updates only every 60 seconds. I know, I know.. <enter sad puppy face here> If you're like me, you probably want that action with a touch more zip to it! And thus…

To poke the server every 10 seconds for a new update, drop this badboy into the location bar on your MacRumorsLive tab and hit enter:

javascript:(function(){var booyah=10,str='ro[0].firstChild.nodeValue',countdown='document.getElementById("ti").innerHTML  = (rr-x) + " seconds till next update..."; setTimeout';rr=booyah;eval('d = '+d.toString().replace(str,booyah));eval('ppd = '+ppd.toString().replace(str,booyah));eval("l = "+l.toString().replace('setTimeout',countdown));x=5;})();

btw- this doesn't work in IE. Deal with it.

Update (11:41am): It now has a countdown till next update.

Paul Irish hacks

Let's take a list of countries that was originally alphabetized in English, but is now translated to French.

var arr = ["Argentine", "Australie", "Autriche", "Belgique", "Brésil", "Canada", "Chili", 
"Chine", "Costa Rica ", "République Tchèque", "Danemark", "Équateur", "El Salvador ", 
"Finlande", "France", "Allemagne", "Guatemala", "Hong Kong", "Hongrie", "Inde", "Irlande", 
"Italie", "Japon", "Corée du Sud", "Luxembourg", "Mexique", "Pays-Bas", "Nouvelle-Zélande", 
"Norvège", "Panama", "Pologne", "Portugal", "Russie", "Slovaquie", "Espagne", 
"la Suède", "Suisse", "Turquie", "Royaume-Uni", "Uruguay", "États-Unis"]

You can see the incorrect sort order for Germany ("Allemagne") and the US ("États-Unis").
Running the standard javascript Array.sort() will sort it according to the American English language:

arr.sort();
/*==>
["Allemagne", "Argentine", "Australie", "Autriche", "Belgique", "Brésil", "Canada", "Chili", 
"Chine", "Corée du Sud", "Costa Rica ", "Danemark", "El Salvador ", "Espagne", "Finlande", 
"France", "Guatemala", "Hong Kong", "Hongrie", "Inde", "Irlande", "Italie", "Japon", 
"Luxembourg", "Mexique", "Norvège", "Nouvelle-Zélande", "Panama", "Pays-Bas", "Pologne", 
"Portugal", "Royaume-Uni", "Russie", "République Tchèque", "Slovaquie", "Suisse", "Turquie",
 "Uruguay", "la Suède", "Équateur", "États-Unis"] */

Note the misplacement of the last three entries. A real internationalized sort of this would be a huge motherbitch to implement, but here is a quick and hacky way to get your ducks in order:

  arr.sort(function(a,b){
 
    function normalize(str){
       return str
               .toLowerCase()
               .replace(/è|é|ê|ë/,'e').replace(/ò|ó|ô|õ|ö/,'o').replace(/ì|í|î|ï/,'i')
               .replace(/à|á|â|ã|ä|å|æ/,'a').replace(/ù|ú|û|ü/,'u');
    }
 
    a = normalize(a);
    b = normalize(b);
 
    return ((a < b) ? -1 : ((a > b) ? 1 : 0));
  });
/*==>
["Allemagne", "Argentine", "Australie", "Autriche", "Belgique", "Brésil", "Canada", "Chili", 
"Chine", "Corée du Sud", "Costa Rica ", "Danemark", "El Salvador ", "Équateur", "Espagne",
 "États-Unis", "Finlande", "France", "Guatemala", "Hong Kong", "Hongrie", "Inde", "Irlande", 
"Italie", "Japon", "la Suède", "Luxembourg", "Mexique", "Norvège", "Nouvelle-Zélande", 
"Panama", "Pays-Bas", "Pologne", "Portugal", "République Tchèque", "Royaume-Uni", 
"Russie", "Slovaquie", "Suisse", "Turquie", "Uruguay"] */

It's not perfect (I bet that "la Suède" should actually be in the S's), but it'll get you a bit closer without too much effort.

  arr.sort(function(a, b) {
    if (typeof a === 'string' && typeof b === 'string') {
      return a.toLowerCase().localeCompare(b.toLowerCase());
    });

Paul Irish hacks, javascript

i wonder about the personal fulfillment of:

• doing what we think we should be doing
• doing what we want to be doing
• doing what we think makes us happy

because those three are certainly different..

Paul Irish front-end development, hacks

If you're incredibly popular on the internet, like me, then I can hear you crying for help. :)

Friend requests littering your inbox can get annoying. They certainly don't need your attention right now, so why not through them to a more passive information consumption area: RSS. That way you can process them en masse, when you're ready to.

First, we use the filters in Gmail to identify all friend request emails.

• Set up a new filter.
• In the subject area put in this text:
  {"friend request" "is now following you" "newest contact" "friends on yelp" "added you as a" "has requested your trust" "wants to be your friend" "invited you to connect" "would like to be added"}
• Click next, then select Skip the Inbox
• Check Forward it to and in the box put in a unique-email-address @ mailbucket.org. (For example: paulsfriendrequests@mailbucket.org) This will be a public feed, so… yeah.
• Click Create Filter

Your newly created RSS feed will be at http://mailbucket.org/unique-email-address.xml.

This filter will catch all friend requests from: Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Spokeo, Twitter, Yelp, and Plaxo Pulse. (And should be pretty trivial to add new ones. :)

Paul Irish hacks, javascript