splee.blog

Thomas Hervé recently posted the answer to one of my lesser prayers to the MochiKit mailing list last week: A port of the scriptaculous effects and drag & drop libraries to use Mochikit.

Basically this frees you from the extra overhead of both the scriptaculous and prototype .js files. I was using scriptaculous for the sole purpose of creating effects. Mochikit has always done all the real work as I understand it a lot better than any other library. The best thing about this port is that, aside from the different script tags, the code for creating and using the effects doesn’t have to be changed at all! It’s literally a drop-in replacement.

This adds to mochikit the one thing that was missing and has made me a lot happier in using it as I don’t have to worry about the bandwidth being wasted on some hefty js files just to make things slide and fade out.

Kudos to Thomas, and many thanks.

Wow, it’s been nearly a month since I posted. December was so action packed that I just plain forgot to write about any of it.

The main reason for my hectic schedule was due to the fact that Christmas is the only time of the year when all my freinds are back home, rather than scuttling through life’s rat race in London. It’s a rare occaision when I get to go out and see everyone at the same time. I spent so much money in the pub (I’m still not drinking, but it’s amazing how expensive Diet Coke actually is) but it was all worth it.

The company Christmas party was great, for the most part. It’s always amusing to see your work colleagues and, in particular, your bosses lose all control under the influence. However, being harrassed by a bi-sexual german took some shine off the night, as did a drunken boss throwing up in the back of my car. If Carlsberg made shitty nights out, they’d probably be something like that.

Christmas itself was nice. Pressies abounded and I got an awesome gift: A days racing at Silverstone. I’m going to book it asap, as I simply love driving and I’ve always wanted to be able to throw a car around a track.

For Christmas day we had 16 people for dinner. My sister’s boyfriend is Italian and his family came over for a week. It was the first time they’ve left Italy and was actually the first time his father had flown, so their english was non-existant. Still, the language barrier wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it would be. It’s amazing how you can convey meaning just by speaking and using body language, even when the spoken language isn’t the same. You can pick up a lot just by inflection and facial expressions.

New Years Eve was a ball. I went out in Harpenden with a couple of mates and, as NYE and my birthday are the two exceptions to my no drinking rule, got rather drunk. I wasn’t too bad though as I was taking it slow. My alcohol tolerence has dropped rediculously, I found. I ended up drinking a pint of water for every pint of beer to keep me from becoming a gibbering mess, which worked out quite well as it meant that my hangover was severely reduced.

And now, back to work.