For whatever reason, when I first delved into JavaScript and AJAX a few years ago I picked Prototype as my helper library.

Since then I've written a lot of code requiring Prototype, so even though the idea of switching to something like jQuery has been tempting, the fact that I would either have to rewrite a whole bunch of code or include TWO 100kB+ JavaScript libraries has kept me away.

One of my main on-going projects required a resizable text area, and I knew that Drupal (This blog is a Drupal site) had just the right thing for it.  The problem is that Drupal's TextAreaResizer script is written for jQuery and it seemed rather stupid to include the whole of jQuery just to put a 'grippie' on the bottom of a textarea.  No other Prototype ports of this exist (At least that I could find) so I decided to give doing it myself a go.

Prototype Port of textarearesizer.js

Features:

• Simple, neat and unobtrusive textarea and iframe resizing
• Written for use with Prototype
• Tested in Firefox 3.0.3 and Internet Explorer 7
• Ability to specify a callback function after you have finished dragging

Links:

• Download (Snapshot of Subversion Revision 70)
• Subversion Repository (Recommended)
  
• Demo
• Original jQuery TextAreaResizer Plugin

Updates:

• Chrome fix: Thanks to Scott Falkingham

I currently carry two Mobile phones, one for work (Optus) and my own (3 Mobile).  Up until now I've been using two of my own 3G handsets with both SIM cards; a Nokia 6120 Classic and a Nokia E51.

3 only offer 3G coverage on the 2100MHz band, with a fall-back to Telstra's 2.75G (EDGE) network when outside of Metropolitan areas.

Optus have also only offered 3G on the 2100MHz band within Metro areas with a fall-back to their own 2.5G (GPRS) network, that is until recently.  In the last couple of months Optus have been rolling out their new rural 3G coverage, but like Telstra's rural coverage it will not be using the 2100MHz band.  To futher complicate things, rather than using the 850MHz band Telstra uses in the bush, Optus and Vodafone have chosen to use the 900MHz band.

Both of my phone handsets are dual-band UMTS with 2100MHz/850MHz support.  This means they work great on all of Telstra's network but only within Metro areas on everyone elses.

Introducing the Nokia 6121 Classic.

Well...it really has been a long time since my last blog entry.  Actually if anything this is my first real blog entry...

I'm a bit of an amatuer web 'coder' and generally, in the interests of learning as much as possible, try to code my own solutions for things rather than use someone elses.

I decided my far-from-finished BillShare Clone project needed a nice pretty modal-style popup box, and although I have written a similar thing before I wasn't entirely happy with it so decided to give someone else's a go.  I came across ModalBox, and it seemed to tick all the boxes - pretty, easy to use, lightweight; I started using it.

Although it worked very well, it failed at one crucial feature, the ability to have a modal appear on top of another Modal.  Frustrated, but inspired by it's design, I 'borrowed' some of it's elements (And all of it's CSS) and wrote my own from scratch.

sifnt Modal

Features:

• AJAH (Asyncronous Javascript And HTML) or 'Offline' filled Modals
• Multi-level Modal support
• Tested in Firefox 2-3.1, Safari 3 and Internet Explorer 7

Links:

• Download (Snapshot of Subversion Revision 66)
  
• Subversion Repository (Recommended)
• Demo Page 

Hi all

Well seeing that sam is soo slow at updating this blog i have taken the oppertunity to tell you all about the happenings in sams life.

Last night he anounced that he finally has a girlfriend again much to the distress of all those around. It is a good thing i suppose as it means that he has someone to pay him all the attention in the world but than i suppose we wont be seeing him so much for a while.

There's two big milestones coming tomorrow, both of which I've been eagerly anticipating - those two things are Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and Scrubs, Season 7.

I like to tell myself that I want Leopard badly, not because of the hype and the 'New Apple product' status, but because it has a whole bunch of features that I'm really looking forward to needing. In fact I'd go as far as to say that the features I'm looking forward to in Leopard fill in the the very few gaps I have found in the functionality of 10.4 (Tiger) which I'm currently running on my MacBook Pro.

Anyway, here's my list: