Jul 29, 2008
0
A List Apart Survey
I encourage all of you web people out there to take this survey. It helps us in the profession as well as the public at large to better understand what we do.
Jun 18, 2008
0
eMusic: “Maths is hard!”
Just got an email from eMusic informing me of their price for the 30/month plan increasing from $9.99 to $11.99. But, because they love me so much, they’ll throw in an additional 10 downloads, making my $11.99 worth 40 downloads.
Less is not more.
Then they show me a nice table and declare “[I] will actually pay less per download.”
This is a nice gesture, showing me the breakdown and everything. Next time, though, somebody might want to re-check the math and send a slightly modified email: not only is the math wrong (11.99/40 = 0.29975) but the bad math tells me I will be paying more per download. If I wasn’t the kind of guy who carries a calculator around and likes to correct everybody, I’d have thought “You guys are idiots; I’m not paying more for less.”
Before Excel we are all equally wise - and equally foolish
Formulas can be unruly beasts, but this is also a simple matter of proofreading. It reminds me of their ongoing problem with mismatched track names. It would be a shame to lose a customer due to a misapplied Excel formula.
May 13, 2008
0
Use Firebug to Update A Huge Form
Had a problem recently where I had to update hundreds of input fields within a shopping cart, setting prices of product variants from $200 to $49.
They were named in sequence:
JAVASCRIPT:
-
...
-
<input name="vs[1667][price]" value="200" />
-
<input name="vs[1668][price]" value="200" />
-
<input name="vs[1669][price]" value="200" />
-
...
So I busted out the command line in Firebug.
JAVASCRIPT:
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for (var i=0; i<10000; i++) {
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if(document.productvariantsform.elements["vs[" + i + "][price]"].value) {
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document.productvariantsform.elements["vs[" + i + "][price]"].value = "49.00";
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}
-
}
but all I got were "has no properties" errors.
I got in touch with my local Javascript guru who helped me come up with some code that did work:
JAVASCRIPT:
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var frm = document.productvariantsform;
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for (var i=0; i <frm.elements.length; i++) {
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if ((frm.elements[i].name.match(/\[price\]$/)) && (frm.elements[i].value)) {
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frm.elements[i].value = "49.00";
-
}
-
}
This saved literally hours of [TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][Ctrl+V].
Thank you Firebug!
May 12, 2008
0
Turns out if I’m drunk and you…
Turns out if I'm drunk and you ask me an economics question, I can't play guitar hero until I explain supply-side economics to you.
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