Web Development, UI Dev

Kindle Fire: My Review

Justin — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:55:12 +0000

I have had my Kindle Fire for a couple of months. I really like it. I use it for general things such as checking my e-mail, facebook, or playing apps. I recommend the Kindle to those who want a tablet and don’t want to shell out the $$ for an iPad.

Here are my likes for the Kindle Fire:

I like the size. It’s easy to carry in one hand without having to worry about dropping it
Great battery life. I charge mine maybe once a week and I use mine a lot
Amazon music cloud. If I purchase something I can listen to it on my Kindle. I can also download it to my Kindle to listen with WIFI isn’t available
Automatically checks my gmail when connected to the internet
Netflix!! And of course Amazon prime movies
Youtube, the mobile version

That being said, there are some minuses IMO:

Apps are limited, just because it’s on the android marketplace doesn’t mean it will be on the amazon marketplace. No Temple Run! (yet) but there is Draw Something!!
Facebook is the mobile facebook. It’s a glorified link to your browser.
Size wise, it’s smaller physically to an iPad, but probably weighs as much as an iPad 2.
No camera. But hey, it’s a first generation device.

In general I really like my Kindle. I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a tablet device. There are also many children’s games available, so if you’re looking between a Nintendo DS and this it’s going to be a tough choice but I recommend the Kindle. You can put games and more on it. Books, e-readers. I think this device will be a pretty good competitor against the Nintendo DS.

My Kindle Fire in a case with a stylus

Do you have a Kindle Fire? I’d like to hear your thoughts on it in the comments area.

How to Include jQuery in Your WordPress Thesis Blog

Justin — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 01:18:05 +0000

The Thesis wordpress theme comes with the option to include jQuery in a site-wide fashion or just on the home page. I checked that option out and it’s including jQuery 1.4.2, which is kind of old, since jQuery is at 1.6.2 as of right now. So I wanted to be able to include my own jQuery to make it more recent. Here is how I did that.

You could also use one of the CDN hosted jQuery libraries and just use their version.

Copy the code below into your custom_functions.php:

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function footerscripts() {
?>

< ?
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_footer', 'footerscripts');

After I include the jQuery library I usually next include any scripts I need. I steer clear of putting javascript in the file itself and prefer to link it to an external javascript file, like I do on this site.

I hope this helped you figure out how to include jQuery in your thesis theme. Your comments are welcome.

Thesis Theme – Remove Comments are Closed

Justin — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:17:18 +0000

This is one of the first things I do when creating a site for myself or a client using the Thesis theme. It’s annoying seeing on pages where you clearly don’t ever want comments.. It’s a pretty simple line of css that goes into custom/custom.css. Here it is:

1 2	/* remove comments are closed statement */ .custom .comments_closed p {display: none ;}

That’s it! one line if you remove my comment. I leave it in to search for when I need to find the code quickly.

Are you a 9 to 5 Programmer?

Justin — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:40:43 +0000

Are you a nine to five programmer? Is all that you learn what you learn while at work or do you have small learning projects that you tackle at night? I keep programming related magazines around me all the time. There is always time for learning new things. After all, the web is constantly changing. A good resource for following new topics is twitter. I have found Tweetchat to be nice for following specific hash tags, such as jQuery or #thesiswp. Twitter is a great resource to find useful new things. If you’re on twitter hit me up. I’m @justinrains. Another good source for information is podcasts. No, you do not need an iPod to listen to podcasts. You just need a computer connected to the Internet. Most of the time you can listen to the podcasts right from the site itself, no other software is needed. Another good developer resource I look forward to reading is jsmag. It usually comes out on the 1st of the month and is ~$5.00 per issue if you buy separately like I do.

You can be a 9-5′er at any job. Does your day end when you leave or clock out, or are you learning afterwards? Do you subscribe to industry magazines or read up on new things in your industry? Don’t let yourself fall into the 9-5′er thing. Keep learning.

What about you? Are you constantly learning or just 9-5 learning?

How to Add Facebook Image Meta in Thesis

Justin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:09:59 +0000

It’s nice when we write good content. It’s even better when a reader shares it on sites such as facebook or twitter. One problem with sharing on facebook is that facebook will try to pull in images from the site but may not always pull in the one you want. You can control what images show up with a special meta tag. This will make the one you pick as the first image, but unfortunately not the only image. This is still useful if you post only a youtube video in your post or page and want to specify an image for when shared on facebook. Facebook has a set of share tags available.

To specify an image I first upload it using the Media->Add New wordpress page and grab the URL of the image after I upload it. Next, while on the page or post scroll down to the Custom Fields area. The first time you will need to add a new field. Call it image_src and to the right paste in the full path to the image you just uploaded. Save the post. Next, add the code below one time to your Thesis theme’s custom_functions.php file.

Here is the link to the text file with the Thesis code to add to custom_functions.php.

That’s it! Pretty simple huh? Leave a comment if you have any questions or comments. Thanks for reading!

How to Add the Facebook Like Button in Thesis

Justin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 22:26:11 +0000

Facebook Like Button

Thesis is a great wordpress theme but it takes some getting used to. You are no longer editing a file called “single.php” you’re using hooks to add in content and change things around. To add the facebook like button in Thesis open up custom_functions.php in your favorite editor and add the code in this file. I couldn’t get the code to display properly here in this site.

This will add in the like button below your posts. It will not add it to your pages. I just wanted people to be able to like my blog posts and not my pages.

What do you think? Have you used it? I have added the like button below. Feel free to like this post :]

Sorry for no updates!

Justin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:38:28 +0000

Hey everyone! Sorry for not updating in such a long time. I have been busy with work and also the outdoors blog. I also wrote a 2009 greeting card for my company. Can you find the Easter eggs? I have been busy learning jQuery and also am starting back in college. I only need four classes to graduate! I’m enrolled in two classes at NKU in the spring. I start back next week.

Anyway, lots of stuff going on. Work is picking up here. If you want to keep up with me you can follow me on twitter. If you want to check out my company more I have created both a twitter and facebook page. I have also used some FBML on the facebook page. If you’re not a fan yet and go to the Easter egg tab you won’t see the hint. That hint is for fans only :] Anyway what’s been going on with you? Leave a comment and let me know.

jQuery and WordPress: Using noConflict

Justin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:13:41 +0000

I have been using wordpress for a while and now I’m starting to integrate more jQuery into some of my blogs. Problem is I have been having problems with the code acting up. After searching I found the jQuery is now included in the core code for wordpress. More reading and I found that I need to use jQuery’s noConflict to make my code work in wordpress. Using noConflict your code will look like this:

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$j = jQuery.noConflict();

$j(function() {
$j("#sidebar #trigger").click(function(event) {
event.preventDefault();
$j("#box").slideToggle();
});
});

Basically anywhere you would have used just the $ sign you add in a “j”. The variable name can be anything some examples use $js I just chose $j.

Please sign up for my feed as I will be adding more wordpress and jQuery goodness!

Quick Twitter Tip When Changing Cell Carriers

Justin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:44:39 +0000

I have recently changed cell phone carriers and I guess that means I needed to update my cell phone at twitter because DM’s were not coming to my new phone. To fix this login to twitter and choose Settings -> Devices and choose “Delete and start over”. Next, enter your cell phone number and twitter will send a pin to your cell. Get the pin and enter it into the screen on twitter. Your cell phone will then be all set and you can get DMs through it or messages from users you have device updates turned on.

Hope this helps! My phone was quiet for a day before I figured this out! Kind of odd I know!