Tanny O'Haley's Weblog

About The Howard County (MD) State’s Attorney’s Office

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 08:04:08 -0700

I know this is not my usual post about programming or vintage cars, but this needs to be asked.

A person in Maryland sent over 200 messages in one hour, including threats to a Virginia family and a representative of the Maryland State's Attorney General's office told the husband to:

Stay off the Internet if you don’t want to be harassed.

These messages were not the only messages sent. While waiting in the car at the courthouse in Maryland, the wife believes she was stalked by a convicted violent felon by the name of Bret Kimberlin (AKA "The Speedway Bomber") and they told the husband:

If you’re so concerned for your safety, stay out of Maryland.

I sent an email asking the State Attorney General, Mr. Broccolino if these statements are his policy and the policy of Howard County, Maryland. I have yet to receive an answer.

Why isn't the law in Maryland protecting people from a convicted perjurer and violent felon under the state law of Maryland? Why won't Mr. Broccolino answer my questions? Why does a family have to move and go into hiding because those who represent the law won't protect them?

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Thought I’d try out Hyphens

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 22:17:43 -0700

On 27 Nov 2012 what should appear in Google Reader but a post called Hyphenation works! by PPK. I'm trying a little experiment here in that I set text-align: justify and turned on hyphenation. It's pretty easy, you tell the browser which language to use with a lang attribute. I'm declaring the language on the html element.

Next you add the CSS.

text-align: justify; /* optional */
-webkit-hyphens: auto;
-moz-hyphens: auto;
-ms-hyphens: auto;
-o-hyphens: auto;
hyphens: auto;

I believe hyphenation makes justified text work on the web. Tell me what you think.

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Track Day on July 10, 2001

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:39:56 -0700

Some of you may remember last November I scheduled a track day with XtremeSpeed Track Events, but couldn't attend because of an unfortunate accident on Glendora Ridge Road. I was following my friend Doug around a blind right-hand corner and he had a head-on collision with a motorcycle who was on the wrong side of the road. I was following Doug a couple of feet too close and slid into Doug's car when I slammed on my brakes.

Last week I had the opportunity to reschedule my track day with XtremeSpeed Track Events. I had a blast. I was so excited I couldn't get to sleep and stayed up till 2:15 AM when I had to wake up at 4:15 AM. When 4:15 AM rolled around I hit the snooze button for another 20 minutes and ended up leaving my home around 5:20 AM to make the 120 mile trip to Buttonwillow Raceway Park in Buttonwillow, CA. On the way I stopped at the McDonald's in Valencia to pick up a quick breakfast and still made it to Buttonwillow Raceway Park by 7:35 AM, even though there was a very long line to enter the track. It cost $10 for admission to Buttonwillow Raceway Park.

After I parked, I went to the registration building, registered, rented a helmet for $10, bought a helmet sock for two dollars and signed up for instruction at an extra cost of $45. I attended the drivers meeting and was assigned to the beginner group. Since that this was the first time I had driven at Buttonwillow I also attended a mandatory first attendee meeting. Around 100 cars registered for the event. For the beginning and intermediate groups passing was only allowed on the straights and only if the car ahead of you did a point to pass. A point to pass means that the slower driver keeps his line and sticks his arm out the window pointing to the driver or drivers behind indicating which way to pass. Since I had one of the slowest cars there, I did this a lot.

Once the meetings were over we were ready to go. There were five groups: beginner, intermediate, advanced and super advanced. Each group got to run five sessions of five laps each on the three mile long track. The first session was a follow/lead session. After each lap in the follow/lead session, the car behind the lead car would peel off and go to the end of the line so that each entrant could follow the lead car around the track. We had more than five laps the first session to allow each driver to follow the lead car around the track. The beginner's group had three lead cars and approximately 25 entrants.

I met my instructor Douglas, who is a driving instructor for the LAPD, before the second session. He told me what to expect and that every so often he would make a course correction to my steering wheel and instructed me to not let go of the steering wheel. He immediately saw my long-time problem of turning into the corner too soon even though I knew I had the problem and was attempting to turn in as late as possible. He also saw that I was carrying too much speed into the corners and that I kept looking into the mirror at the cars behind me. I learned to ignore the mirror until I got to the straights and then look into the mirror and point to pass to let any cars behind me pass. Douglas helped me to turn in later, go wider exiting one of the turns and to learn the track. I could tell right away that I was going faster. The instructor session was well worth the $45.

I spent the next three sessions improving my speed, learning the track and having too much fun. On the fourth session I actually got so low on gas (petrol) that the engine shut off entering and exiting turns. I drove the car slowly off the track and was wondering what was wrong with my car when one of the other drivers asked me if I had checked the gas gauge. The car was almost out of gas! I was having so much fun I forgot to look at the gas gauge. Fortunately, the track has gas pumps that take a credit card and at $4.95 a gallon for 91 octane, you'll need a credit card. I bought around five gallons of gas which would allow me to finish the last session and drive to the city of Buttonwillow to fill up, which only cost $3.85 a gallon.

It was a hot, humid, long day and my shoulder hurt like the dickens, but I didn't care because I had so much fun. If you have the opportunity, I'd highly recommend XtremeSpeed for track day, the next track days are on July 30 and 31, 2011.

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Business Ethics and HP’s Handling of Legacy Palm Pre Users

Tanny O'Haley — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:00:00 -0700

My friend Eric Mack has a very good summary of ethics in Knowledge Management which I believe applies to the current problem Hewlett Packard has when they decided not to tell their legacy users that they would not get an upgrade to webOS 2.x OTA.

Here's how I currently define the argument for Ethics in KM

Knowledge Management is about sharing of knowledge, information, and experiences - an exchange of information and ideas. (We often call this learning.)

This exchange cannot occur without effective communication.

For communication to be truly effective, transparency must exist. Transparent communication is built on trust.

Any unethical behavior undermines trust which ultimately impairs communication which leads to the loss of sharing and the loss (or distortion) of information and knowledge.

The bottom line is that ethics is important to KM because of trust.

The problem is that Hewlett Packard was not transparent in their communication with their base users of webOS devices which comes across as untrustworthy. They announced three new products that are not ready to ship despite HP CEO Leo Apotheker having previously stated the following in an interview.

“HP will stop making announcements for stuff it doesn’t have. When HP makes announcements, it will be getting ready to ship.”

HP CEO: New Products Will Ship a Few Weeks After Feb 9 Announcement

They gave a vague "sometime in summer" ship date. Palm webOS products have missed many milestones in the past. See Flash by the end of 2009, webOS 2.x in fall of 2010 and then in winter of 2011. If you look at the failures in their demonstrations (unable to reply to an email for instance) you can tell that this is still a beta product.

This is not how to treat your customer base. They now say that year-old equipment is not capable of running the new OS. This is despite having previously previewed the new OS on equipment that was first sold in June 2009. As previous coworker of mine used to say "it doesn't pass the smell test."

I believe that HP should produce an OTA upgrade as a stopgap measure to keep their loyal user base . This will allow developers to upgrade their products for the new OS with the knowledge that there are still potential users to purchase their product and potentially keep many of their loyal user base using their old phones until HP is able to ship their new phones and Touchpad tablet device. To prevent user apprehension they should also state what mobile phone carriers they are negotiating with to carry their new devices. If these two things are not done I believe they will lose many of their loyal users.

What do you think?

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Track Day on November 20, 2010

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:34:41 -0700

I'm very excited about being able to run my MGB GT on a race track next month at Willow Springs.

Willow Springs has seven tracks.

Willow Springs Raceway (2.5-mile road course)
Streets of Willow Springs (1.8-mile road course and skid pad)
Horse Thief Mile (11 turn road course featuring major elevation changes, tight turns and canyon-like surroundings)
Willow Springs Kart Track (.675-mile sprint kart track)
Balcony Autocross
Speedway Willow Springs (1/4 mile with walls oval)
Walt James Stadium (3/8-mile high-banked dirt oval)

We will be using Horse Thief Mile, an 11 turn road course with decreasing radius turns, switchbacks and elevation changes. It should be like driving up Decker Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The price of $85 a day (with discount) seems reasonable to me. Your car should be in good condition with good tires, no fluid leaks, loose wires or loose body panels. If you have a convertible or roadster you will need a rollbar. A helmet is required and they have helmets available for use if you don't own a helmet. Since the track day starts at 7:30 AM my wife and adult children will not be coming with me (they like to sleep in on Saturdays). If you're interested in attending, check out the Extreme Speed Track Events registration page. I hope to see you there.

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IE Only in this Day and Age

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:09:32 -0700

In this day, it is hard to believe that there are still sites that only work with IE. It doesn't really look like they want people to look at their claim information.

When I tried to access the site with IE 8 the site said that it couldn't validate my information. The reason is because my last name contains an apostrophe. The system does not allow apostrophes in a last name. An apostrophe is a valid name character! ...

Self Optimizing AJAX Object

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:45:00 -0700

In 2007 I wrote a self contained AJAX object that supports asynchronous and synchronous access with PUT and GET methods, text and XML and XSL tranforms. The impetous for making certain methods of the object self optimizing came from an blog post by Peter-Paul Koch on @media Ajax 2007 Day 2. The example used by Dan Webb is the following addEvent function.

function addEvent(obj,evt,fn) {
	if (document.addEventListener) {
	addEvent = function (obj,evt,fn) {
	obj.addEventListener(evt,fn,false);
	}
	}
	else if (document.attachEvent) {
	addEvent = function (obj,evt,fn) {
	obj.attachEvent('on'+evt,fn);
	}
	}
	addEvent(obj,evt,fn);
}

Rewriting a function at runtime is a wonderful way to avoid object detection and improve performance. From Peter-Paul Koch's blog post:

Basically, what happens is that the first time addEvent is called, the function determines whether the browser supports addEventListener or attachEvent. It then rewrites itself to a new function that uses the detected method to add the event. As a result, we only have to do the object detection once, which is much more elegant than doing it every time.

I realized that an AJAX object was a perfect place to use runtime function optimization. Consider the following createXMLHTTPObject function.

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2010 Old Country Tour

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 3 Apr 2010 18:00:00 -0700

A 100 mile scenic tour along some of the old roads of northern Los Angeles county. Steve, Gene, Mark, Luke (Mark's son), Doug and myself showed up. Gene brought his Spitfire with a GT6 roof. It's a very interesting car though it still has some teething problems. It dropped its muffler on the way over and Gene said that there was a vibration he though might be a u-joint. Because Gene couldn't trust his car, Gene left us and went back home.

It was a different run than the Santa Monica Mountain runs in that the turns were less twisty. It was the fastest as far as speed that I've been on. There were some wildflowers and the hills were green. We went past a place called Close Encounters Recreation Center. I don't know if it had to do with UFOs or something else, but this is a family site. There were a lot of interesting small stores on the way and a street called Wayuptop. It is a very nice run and I recommend it the next time it's planned.

Meet at Newhall Avenue and Highway 14 in the parking area to the west of the highway.
Head WEST on Newhall Ave toward Sierra Hwy.
Turn RIGHT at Placertia Canyon Road for 5.1 miles (to end of road).
Turn LEFT at Sand Canyon Road for 3.3 miles.
Turn Right at Soledad Canyon Road for 15.6 miles.
Turn LEFT at Crown Valley Road (at stop sign) for 0.4 miles.
Turn LEFT at Syracuse Ave (no stop sign, easy to miss) for 0.1 miles.
BECOMES Escondido Canyon road, continue for 2.7 miles.
Turn RIGHT at Ward Road for 0.1 miles. Note: Ward Road is very easy to miss. Look for the freeway overpass on the right. That's Ward Road! If you cross over the freeway while still on Escondido Road, you've gone a couple miles too far.
Cross freeway then turn LEFT at the stop sign to stay on Ward Rd. Continue for 0.2 miles.
MERGES with Sierra Hwy. Continue for 14.1 miles.
Turn RIGHT at Vasquez Canyon Road (at traffic signal) for 3.6 miles (to end of road).
Turn RIGHT at Bouquet Canyon Road for 18.0 miles (to end of road).
Turn LEFT at Elizabeth Lake Road for 1.1 miles.
Rest stop at Rancher's market (on right at 90^th Street).
Continue on Lake Elizabeth Road for 6.3 miles.
Turn LEFT to stay on Elizabeth Lake Road for 4.6 miles.
Turn LEFT at Lake Hughes Road (no stop sign, watch for it) for 23.2 miles.
End of run at Castaic Road.

2009 Day After Thanksgiving Run

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 1 Dec 2009 06:00:00 -0700

At 9:00 am we met at the Malibu Colony Plaza, 23841 Malibu Rd, Malibu, CA 90265. After about an hour and fifteen minutes of looking at cars and talking to each other we started the run. It was a gorgeous day. The weather was perfect and we had a nice turnout. Thank you everyone who came. After the run a bunch of us went to Rib Ranch in Woodland Hills. You really have to taste their ribs and Steve says the Tri-tip is pretty good too.

Follow along if you want to take the run.

Exit parking lot from rear, turn left on Malibu Road for 0.1 miles.
LEFT on Webb Way for 0.1 miles.
LEFT onto CA-1 N/Pacific Coast Hwy for 12.5 miles.
RIGHT on Decker Canyon Rd (CA-23) for 3.9 miles.
RIGHT on Lechusa Rd for 0.1 miles.
CONTINUE STRAIGHT onto Encinal Canyon Rd for 5.0 miles.
RIGHT on CA-1 N/Pacific Coast Hwy for 2.9 miles.
RIGHT on Mulholland Hwy for 7.5 miles.
LEFT at 'T' onto CA-23 (Mulholland Hwy / Decker Canyon Rd) for 1.9 miles.
RIGHT on Mulholland Hwy for 2.4 miles.
LEFT on Encinal Canyon Rd / Mulholland Hwy for 1.4 miles.
REGROUP at the Rock Store overlook, 0.5 miles past Kanan Road.
CONTINUE on Mulholland Hwy for 8.2 miles.
Arrive at: Mulholland Hwy & Las Virgenes Rd – end of run!

Morgan in his Caterham pressured me all the way up Decker then took off for a faster crowd. He can really move and there is no way I could keep up with him if he were in front. Here I'm waiting for the others to catch up.

Nate can make his Metropolitan move, considering it has an automatic transmission. Nate kept all four wheels on the ground, sort-of. You'll have to ask Nate.

Drawing Cars in my Youth

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 5 Sep 2009 18:07:37 -0700

I graduated high school a year early in 1973. Because of a mix up with my classes they didn't send me my diploma until August 1973. After graduating high school I went to the Academy of Automobile Design in Los Angeles. I went there a year and after Detroit laid off about 70 percent of the Automobile Stylists, I thought that maybe I should pursue a different career. I sometimes wish that I had stayed with it and graduated as an Automobile designer. When going through junk today that has been in the garage since I moved to our home in October 2005, I found a design I drew, I believe in 1974 when I was 18. I thought it had been lost many years ago.

I based it off the front wheel drive of the Saab Sonnet III. Looking at it now, I think I should have moved the windshield just behind the front wheel and given the mid section a little bit more length. After all these years, I still like it.

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2009 Vintage Motoring Independence Run

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 00:00:02 -0700

At 8:00 am we met at the Malibu Colony Plaza, 23841 Malibu Rd, Malibu, CA 90265. After about an hour and a half of looking at cars and talking to each other we left. The run was a lot of fun. Deer Creek is a gem of a road. The driving was brisk and the scenery was gorgeous.

Follow along if you want to take the tour.

Exit the Plaza through the rear exit turning left onto Malibu Road for 0.1 miles.
Turn left on Webb Way for 0.1 miles.
Turn left on PCH (North) for 16.6 miles.
Turn right on Deer Creek Road for 6.1 miles (becomes Pacific View Road, then Cotharin Road).
Turn left on Yerba Buena Road (at ‘T’) for 7.6 miles (becomes Little Sycamore Canyon Road).
Turn left on Mulholland Highway (at ‘T’) for 0.4 miles.
Turn left on Decker Road (at ‘T’) for 1.9 miles.
Turn right on Mulholland Highway for 2.4 miles.
Turn left on Mulholland Highway / Encinal Canyon Road for 17.3 miles.
Gather at overlook 0.75 miles past Kanan Road.
Turn right on Old Topanga Canyon Road for 5.6 miles.
Turn right on Topanga Canyon Road (at ‘T’) for 0.5 miles.
Turn right on Fernwood Pacific Drive for 2.7 miles.
Turn right on Saddle Peak Road for 3.2 miles.
Gather at top of Saddle Peak.
Continue onto Schueren Road (left at ‘Y’ toward ocean) for 1.8 miles *** CAUTION: HUGE BUMP NEAR TOP ***.
Turn right on Piuma Road for 6.4 miles.
Turn left on Malibu Canyon Road for 4.6 miles.
Turn left on Pacific Coast Highway for 0.7 miles.
Arrive at Malibu Colony Plaza – end of run!.

Here we are at the top of Saddle Peak.

There were a few more cars.

Jane didn't come with me on this run, something about a “semi-grueling 78-mile run through a variety of canyon roads, ranging from moderately twisty to vomit-inducing” didn't appeal to her.

May 2009 Saddlerock Ranch Drive and Tour

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:38:00 -0700

On May 16, 2009, the Southern California MG Club met at the McDonalds on Las Virgenes Rd in Calabasas, CA. Jimmy Nylund planned a nice tour for us to take in the Santa Monica Mountains. We spent a lot of time on Mulholland Highway as well as a short run on the Pacific Coast Highway. Jimmy took time to stop so that everyone could catch up.

We ended up at Malibu Wines for wine tasting and a picnic. Jimmy and Annette were gracious hosts. They not only put on a nice tour, but we also got to see Mr. Semler's antique car, horse drawn carriage and vintage Airstream trailer collections. When one of the MGBs sprang a leak in its oil gauge line, Jimmy made a temporary fix and later at his an Annette's home, replaced the oil gauge line with one of his own.

Follow along if you want to take the tour.

Head south on Las Virgenes Rd toward Agoura Rd, go 3.0 mi.
Turn right at Mulholland Hwy, go 9.7 mi.
Continue on Encinal Canyon Rd, go 3.4 mi.
Turn left to stay on Encinal Canyon Rd, go 5.0 mi.
Turn right at CA-1/Pacific Coast Hwy, go 2.9 mi.
Just past Leo Carrillo State Beach turn right on Mulholland Hwy toward Yellow Hill Rd, go 11.7 mi.
Turn right to stay on Mulholland Hwy, go 49 ft.
Turn left to stay on Mulholland Hwy.
The wine tasting is on the right at
Malibu Wines
31800 Mulholland Hwy
Malibu, CA 90265

All in all, my wife Jane and I had a very nice Saturday morning with the Southern California MG Club.

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Disneyland Celebrates Patrick’s Christmas

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:24:25 -0700

We just wanted to do something extra special for Patrick this year.

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Our Front Porch

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:24:51 -0700

Eating breakfast this morning, Jane and I thought we'd take a picture of the front porch as viewed from the kitchen through the dining room. Listening to Christmas music and enjoying each other's company. May you have peace this month and enjoy your Christmas time.

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Yogi’s Temptation

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:15:00 -0700

A couple of Friday's ago (5 Dec 2008), Jane and I left the gate open. Now usually Yogi doesn't go out the gate, but it had been left open too long and Yogi ran away. A nice couple about two miles from our house called me on Thursday and they had Yogi. It was a miracle! Until today, we hadn't heard from Yogi what happened. Here's the letter (he's a very smart dog) he wrote about his experience.

Dear Tanny and Jane,

I'm sorry I ran away last week. Sometimes we just get crazeeee notions in our heads I guess. I don't know what got into me. I just saw that opened gate and temptation overcame me and I ran. Let me tell you it was scary out there. After a couple of blocks I didn't know where I was or where I was going. I did know one thing, I had made a huge mistake. It was very cold, I was hungry with no food and cars were whizzing by so fast as I crossed three major thoroughfares, trembling with fear. It's a Christmas miracle that I didn't end up on the side of the road somewhere, injured or even worse!

I realize now, like never before, how fortunate and blessed we all are to have our wonderful warm homes, filled with family who love us so much, comfy beds, good food and each other.

Glad to be home.

Love,

Yogi

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Charles Joseph is Born

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:00:00 -0700

Emerson and Anna are the proud parents of a baby boy, Charles Joseph. Born December 11, 2008, 22 inches long, six pounds and seven ounces. Congratulations Emerson and Anna.

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I bought a 1971 MGB GT

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:44:41 -0700

Last Thursday, I bought a 1971 MGB GT, British racing green with overdrive and Rostyle steel wheels.

I drove the MGB GT from the seller's house to my house, then my wife Jane drove it back. She told me that I'd like driving her Taurus to work. It was strange driving back home in my Toyota Solara as the only thing we could hear were the tires. There seems to be a lot of mechanical noise produced by the MGB GT. On Saturday, we took a nice drive to Oxnard, then down Highway 1. We ate at a nice little place called the Malibu Seafood Fresh Fish Market and Patio Cafe. The prices are good and the fish is fresh and the ocean was a deeper blue than usual.

The car does need some work but it has been fun for my wife and I these last few days. Chuck said that I'd get to be very close with All Car Parts Ltd in Canoga Park, CA and I'm already getting to know them. The MG mechanic Darrin that I'd like to bring the car to was on vacation but will be back Monday. Since the car sat for a long time, I think it should get a major maintenance. We did discover that the floorboard can get very warm after driving a while. I may buy a MGB heat shield which is supposed to lower the temperature of the floorboard by about 30°F, making the car more comfortable to drive.

When a co-worker asked why I'd buy a car that leaks oil, with lights that only work in daylight and windshield wipers that don't work when it rains, I told her, “It's my mid-life crisis”, which seemed to satisfy her curiosity. I'm not sure why that explained it just as when people ask me about my name and I tell them that my mom is an artist. They go okay, and don't ask for more information, it just seems to explain it.

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I took the 2008 Web Design survey, have you?

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:50:51 -0700

A List Apart is taking another survey.

Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.

Take a few minutes and take the survey.

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I Finally Took a Vacation in 2008

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:53:20 -0700

Last month my family and I took a vacation. We visited my wife's sister and brother in law. My son picked us up from the Atlanta airport and with my Garmin GPS for directions, we drove to our sister and brother in law's new house in Alabama. As we came up the driveway we glimpsed their new home.

The house is big, much bigger than they thought it would be from looking at the plans. It is a beautiful home and they are gracious hosts. They live on a small hill right next to the lake.

Climbing up those stairs, the small hill and the stairs in the house to the great room is quite a workout. The steps go down to their dock.

The views were wonderful. Here's a flock of ducks crossing the lake during a quiet time on the lake. Usually the Bass fishermen are constantly going full speed from place to place.

The first day my son Patrick and stepson Josh had a wipe-out on the SeaDo. My son lost his glasses and we had to go to Birmingham to get a replacement pair.

My youngest son, Jonathan ponders the day.

Halfway through my stepson went back to Los Angeles. We decided to take the day before dropping him off at the airport and go to the Georgia Aquarium and Coke-Cola museum.

I thought that the Coke-Cola museum was more fun than the aquarium. Just before this picture was taken the bear rubbed my bald head. From the left, Josh, Patrick, the bear, Jane and Tanny.

After a busy day we drove back to Alabama. Overall it was a nice, relaxing time.

Thank you David and Judy.

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JSMin and JavaScript Conditional Comments

Tanny O'Haley — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:00:00 -0700

In Robert Nyman's post Conditional Compilation in JavaScript he noted that “Unfortunately, JSMin removes conditional compilation comments, but I believe this is due to not having been updated in a while, and not up to speed with modern web development practices”. So I took that on as a project. I took Franck Marcia's javascript implementation of JS Minifier and modified the javascript code to not take out Microsoft javascript conditional comments.

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Domino Directory Type Ahead

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:59:51 -0700

Update: 2009 Jan 22 - Added link to dirlookup.css.

Around December 2006 I read a tip on Julian Robichaux's site about Google Suggest-type Lookups In Notes code he had written. I downloaded the code and thought that I could make a few improvements. I changed the code to:

Use Object Literal Notation.
Added highlighting/auto complete support.
Changed to code to dynamically create script elements for data instead of using the XML HTTP request object. Using script files gets rid of cross domain scripting security issues.
Supports multiple input fields instead of one field.
Supports the ($VIMPeopleAndGroups), ($VIMGroups) and ("Servers") views in addition to the ($VIMPeople) view.

I'm sorry it's taken a year and a half to publish.

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DOMContentLoaded for Browsers, Part V

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:05:48 -0700

For those of you that don't know what the DOMContentLoaded event can do for you, here's a brief description.

The DOMContentLoaded event allows you to add behavior or change the HTML of a page after the HTML has loaded and before the onload event which happens after the complete page, including images has loaded. This allows you to add menu, tree behavior, AJAX functionality or anything else without having to wait for all items on a page to load. You may have experienced the need for a DOMContentLoaded event on a page that includes drop down menus or a tabbed interface which doesn't work until all images have loaded. Using the DOMContentLoaded event allows you to add the behavior before images and objects have loaded.

When I originally added the DOMContentLoaded event handler to Dean Edwards' addEvent function, I wanted it to be just another addEvent type. Since then I've changed my mind and created a domReady() function. By separating domReady in its own module, it can used with most frameworks.

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WebSession Agent Class

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 10:00:00 -0700

Back in August 2007, Jake Howlett introduced a Web Session class for Domino Agents. I liked it a lot and saw the potential for reducing the amount of time to create web query open, web query save and web agents. I write a lot of web agents and often need to get query string, cookie and even form data. These items were missing from Jake's Web Session class. Also, the Web Session class required the programmer to instantiate the class when you wanted to use it. I thought that if you include the class in your agent you will want to use it. With that in mind, the Initialize function in the script library now instantiates a global web variable. I've added methods to get query string, cookie and form data items. With the advice of a co-worker I also protected the class variables by making them private and adding get methods for each variable. The only variables that I couldn't do this with were the lists that store query, cookie and form data information.

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DOMContentLoaded for Browsers, Part IV

Tanny O'Haley — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:17:31 -0700

When I originally added the DOMContentLoaded event handler to Dean Edwards' addEvent function, I didn't provide a way to handle calls to it after the DOMContentLoaded event handler ran. If a developer called addEvent(window, "DOMContentLoaded", myFunction) after the DOMContentLoaded event ran, the passed function would never run. This version fixes the problem so that even if you call addEvent for the DOMContentLoaded event and the DOMConentLoaded event handler has already run, it will run your function.

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Land line gone, VOIP is today’s phone service

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 1 Oct 2007 21:10:41 -0700

My land line cost around $60.00USD a month and I was tired of paying that much money for a service we rarely used. We wanted a "family" phone but didn't want to pay what we had been paying. I have been using Skype on my computer for about three years and have been happy with the improved quality of the service, so we decided to go with Skype. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Netgear Skype phone.

The Skype web site is pretty easy to use if you're going to download their software or purchase Skype Out. However, if you want to find out what you need to setup a Skype phone, you're in trouble. The information is very difficult to find. I finally bought Skype Pro for $36.00USD that gave me a $30.00USD credit for Skype In. I bought Skype In with the credit for $30.00USD and finally bought Skype Out for $29.95USD for a total of $95.95USD for a year of phone service.

The service is very good with excellent voice quality. I can't make 911 calls, but I can use my Cell Phone if I need to make a 911 call. So far the only problem I've had is accidentally hitting the off button when on a call.

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DOMContentLoaded for Browsers, Part III

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:47:14 -0700

The DOMContentLoaded event allows you to add behavior or change the HTML of a page after the HTML has loaded and before the onload event which happens after the complete page, including images has loaded. This allows you to add menu, tree behavior, AJAX functionality or anything else without having to wait for all items on a page to load. You may have experienced the need for a DOMContentLoaded event on a page that includes drop down menus or a tabbed interface which doesn't work until all images have loaded. Using the DOMContentLoaded event allows you to add the behavior before images and objects have loaded.

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Has IE7 Broken CSS Filters?

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 28 May 2007 16:20:33 -0700

I've noticed that text becomes difficult to read when I apply opacity or a drop shadow using a filter in IE7. Here's an image of a menu without opacity applied in IE7. Notice that because of clear type, the text is nicely rounded and readable. Here's an image of the same menu with opacity applied in IE7. You can see that the text is pixilated and less easy to read. It seems that if an opacity filter is applied to an element, the element's text is not displayed using clear type, even if the OS is set to use clear type. Here's an image of a div with a drop shadow applied. The OS is set to use clear type and has been tuned. Firefox on the left uses the OS settings to display the text, yet with IE7 on the right, the the text is very hard to read. IE6 with all its problems at least doesn't mess up text when a filter is applied to an element. I have an open ticket with Microsoft and the support person sent me an email message that told me the way to fix the problem is to not use the drop shadow filter. I don't believe that's a good solution. Has anyone else had problems with filters in IE7? ...

Memorial Day 2007

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 28 May 2007 15:48:42 -0700

I'd like to take this time to thank the many brave men and women who have given their time and lives so that I may have a tomorrow.Thank you and God speed. ...

I took the 2007 Web Design survey, have you?

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 22:04:11 -0700

A List Apart is taking a survey. I took the survey, have you?

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Virginia Tech Shooting

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:41:43 -0700

My wife and I extend our condolences and prayers to the victims and family of yesterday's senseless shootings at Virginia Tech. May the Lord quicken your physical and emotional healing. ...

It’s Ocean a Redesign

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 3 Mar 2007 12:00:00 -0700

Welcome to Ocean, a design I've been working on for about a month. I started out by going to Layout Gala for the structure. I chose a design with two columns on the right and a content column on the left.

<$DXContinueReading$> ...

Five Things You Might Not Know About Me

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 12:51:09 -0700

I've recently been tagged by Eric Mack. So here are five things you may not know about me.

I was Co-inventor of MailScout an email rule server.

In 1993 I was hired by Eric Mack and Bailey Williams to implement Eric's dream of an information gateway. This started out with pager gateways. As with many things I do that lead to a product, I was playing around with something that interested me. The cc:Mail email program had rules, but they were client based rules which meant if your computer wasn't turned on your rules would not run. I experimented creating the start of a scripting language for email. This enabled me to create an out of office rule that I could run while on vacation. After I got back from vacation, Eric and I got together and eventually created MailScout that had over 560,000 users.
I am sometimes asked for my autograph.

Some think that I am Richard Dreyfus the actor. I personally don't see it, but many do.
I went to the Academy of Automobile design to learn automobile styling.

When I graduated high school in 1973 (a year early) I moved back to California to go to the Academy of Automobile design which was run by Bruce Bollinger the creator of the Chevrolet Nomad. I wanted to be an automotive stylist, but in 1974 we had a gas crisis. There were long lines to get gas and you could only get gas every other day based on the last digit of your car's license plate. In the U.S. I was told that around 70 percent of all automobile stylists lost their jobs. With this information I decided that since I was just starting to draw that it might be better to pursue another career.
I used to stutter.

When I first started going to the Church on the Way in 1977, I stuttered. After about three months I stopped stuttering. Nobody prayed for me that I know of, but there was a lot of hugging. I believe that I was hugged out of stuttering.
I used to be skinny and have hair.

In 1977 I weighed 128 pounds and not only had a full head of hair but it went past my shoulders. When my oldest son discovered that I haven't always been bald in a picture (which I can't find), he exclaimed; you had hair!

Let's start a new meme. What are five things you think people know about you?

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Tabbed Interface

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 15:11:18 -0700

Update 18 Aug 2008: Added an openTabOfElement method and now check for the hash of the url and open the tab that contains the hash item. This also works for form validation routines when you want to set focus back to a field that contains an error. If the tab is closed you will get an error. To open the tab pass the element to the tabs.openTabOfElement method before setting focus to the form element.

I liked the tabs created in Sliding Doors of CSS, Part II by Douglas Bowman. Please read the article so that you will understand how to modify the CSS of the tabs. The tabs are very nice for site navigation, but I wanted to use it in a tabbed interface within a page without reloading the page. First I started with the markup for the tabs.

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Merry Christmas 2006

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:34:56 -0700

Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year! May the coming year bring you hope, joy and more than you can ask or think.

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XMLHttpRequest Permission Denied Error

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:06:51 -0700

Update: I'm now using xmlDocument instead of the div since the div does not support XSL transforms. You can find the new code with sample usage at the end at xmlreq.js

When I upgraded Firefox (I don't remember which version), the call I was using to XMLHttpRequest stopped working. I would get a "Permission denied to call method XMLDocument.getElementsByTagName" error when accessing the XML document. Yet, it worked in IE. The problem might be that I'm using a synchronous call instead of an asynchronous call. I have to use a syncronous call because the call is made from the onsubmit event handler. I have to wait for an answser so that I can continue checking the form or return a false to stop the submit. Or maybe it's that the javascript file is in a different directory. All I know is that is stopped working.

A few days ago I looked at the problem. I don't remember where I got the code I had modified to use a synchronous call. Here is the code I was using.

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I’ve Gone Pink for October 2006

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:49:45 -0700

I know it's a couple of days early to go Pink for October, but I don't have time to convert this weekend. Please take the time to donate to a breast cancer organization of your choice.

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Time Parser/Dropdown Combo

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 21:29:45 -0700

Here it is, all 468 lines of code to create a dropdown list time parser combo box for the web. I don't have much time to document, so here's what you need to use it.

Upate: 15 Sep 2006 - added link to dropdown.gif.

Update 18 Apr 2007 - Added Radix parameter to each instance of parseInt().

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Pink for October 2006

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 4 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

My grandma Ethel contracted breast cancer in the 1970's. She decided that she wanted to use natural healing methods to cure the cancer and went to Mexico to get Laitril treatments. When she finally came home it was too late because the cancer had spread throughout her body. I visited her three weeks before she died. She faded in and out of consciousness while I talked with her. The problem is that she could have lived longer if she had surgery instead of going to Mexico.

With that in mind, I'm taking Natalie Jost's encouragement to go Pink for October. In October this site will be very pink. I decided that I wanted to retain the current theme, but change the color to pink.

With my wife's help, I changed the hue and saturation of the sky image to make it pink.
I then took a sample pink (#EC7EF7) and went to The Man in Blue's (Cameron Adams) Technicolor page to get a color theme.
After many tries, I selected the colors for each item.
Wanting a lighter gray for the lines, I promoted the gray (#808080) color of the theme to a main color by double clicking it and chose a lighter gray.
Finally I created a new style sheet with the new colors.

In the whole process I found that Chris Pederick's Web Developer Extension for Firefox invaluable. The Edit CSS option allowed me to change the look of my site in real time and save it to Textpad, my CSS editor. While the majority of the CSS changes were made in Textpad, I was able to make fine changes with the Web Developer Extension.

Here's a peek at my first draft. I have till October 1, 2006 before I need to be finished, so there may be more changes.

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What would you do?

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 3 Sep 2006 20:45:57 -0700

Last week two journalists, Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, were forced at gunpoint to convert to Islam. I was thinking about this today and wondered, "if I were in the same situation, what would I do?"

Several years ago I had an experience with an ex co-worker. He said:

Jews are pigs and monkeys and drink the blood of Muslim children. America deserves what it gets because it sticks its nose in everyone's business.

My ex co-worker is a Shiite Muslim from India. He was primarily raised in New York and is an educated young man. I believe both his parents are doctors and he has a college degree. He is well liked. Despite the heinousness of what he said, I said nothing.

If I was in the same situation as Centani and Wiig, would I do as Peter (John 18:15-27) and deny Christ or would I do as Stephan (Acts 7:54-60)?

What would you do?

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Live Comment Preview Added

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 7 Aug 2006 18:06:17 -0700

I've been to a few sites lately that have live comment preview and found that it helped me write better comments. These implementations use a textarea element to input your comment and displayed an HTML comment below the textarea element. Not as nice as a full WYSIWYG editor, but much lighter in weight and easier to implement in a wide variety of browsers. With that in mind I thought that it would be a good idea to implement live comment preview on my site.

The first thing I did is determined what DominoBlog, my blogging system does with a comment. I found out that it converts < symbols to <, > symbols to >, [b] into , [/b] to , [i] to , [/i] to and anything that starts with http:// to { Link } with the word link an href to the URL. When parsing the URL, DominoBlog looks for a space character or the end of the line to determine the end of the URL. Each line is turned into a paragraph.

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Select tag overlap in IE, Part III

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:09:41 -0700

I've modified iehover-fix.js to use DOM methods to create the iframe shim instead of innerHTML. When using innerHTML the iframe, menus and sub menus were added, which in cases with a large menu tree could take some time. I usually use innerHTML to add a number of elements to the DOM because it is faster. In this case using DOM methods should improve performance since we are only adding one element for each dropdown or flyout menu and not recreating the menu list. I've also added code suggested by Alistair Potts that should work with https pages.

Update 15 Sep 2006: Added check to see if target element is contained in the li before removing the sfhover class to avoid flickering over select elements with a size greater then one.

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It’s our 230th birthday!

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 4 Jul 2006 14:10:06 -0700

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July. IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Read the whole document ...

DOMContentLoaded for Browsers, Part II

Tanny O'Haley — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:14:11 -0700

Update: 2006 Nov 28 - Changed code to support IE and https.

Update: 2006 Nov 21 - Added code to support IE and https.

Update: 2006 Jul 4 - Added Safari and KHTML specific code to load DOMContentLoaded events.

Update: 2006 Jun 26 - Code works in Opera 9. Now you can speed up onload events by using DOMContentLoaded/ContentReady events.

I modified DOMContentLoaded for browsers and addevent to handle browsers that add the DOMContentLoaded event and removed the requirement for a second external JavaScript file for Internet Explorer.

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Power Outage

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:09:40 -0700

Sorry for the site not being available today. The power company took down the power all day. The servers were unavailable after they ran for an hour and a half on standby power and shut down. ...

Select tag overlap in IE, Part II

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:01:30 -0700

How to use iehover-fix.js to correct the problem of dopdown menus going under select elements.

Update: Added conditional comment so that IE 7 is bypassed.

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DOMContentLoaded Event for Browsers

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:53:08 -0700

How I added the DOMContentLoaded event to browsers other than Mozilla. See DOMContentLoaded Event for Browsers, Part II. ...

Our Redeemer Lives

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 09:18:33 -0700

And God will raise our bodies from the dead by His marvelous power, just as He raised our Lord from the dead. 1 Corinthians 6:14 (NLT) Happy Easter! ...

The Calendar popup Goes Over Select Elements in IE

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 19:36:41 -0700

Notice in the example page for the calendar popup that when using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 and above, the calendar does not go under the drop down list but goes over the drop down list. If you look at Lea Smart's calendar popup, which is what I used as a basis for the Calendar popup, the calendar goes under the drop down list when using IE. All you have to do to make an element go over instead of under a select element in IE is add an iframe in the containing element, absolute positioned, the same size as your element with a z-index less than your element. Check out the code in calpopup.js to see how it works. ...

Date Input and Calendar Popup Instructions

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 16:32:33 -0700

Quick start for using the date input parser and calendar popup.

Update: 22 Jul 2006 Now use addEvent() to add the dateparse behavior. Added ability to set the drop down year menu to any start at any year.

Update: 3 Aug 2006 Added instructions on how to make click events work in Safari.

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Day of week in relation to last, this and next

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 3 Mar 2006 14:55:23 -0700

When researching adding next day of week to the date parser I had trouble with the ambiguity of the word next. I consulted a friend who is a college English professor and here's the result. last The closest day previous to yesterday. If today is Wednesday, last Tuesday would not be yesterday but eight days ago. Last Monday would be two days ago. this The closest day following today. It could be said that this is equal to this coming. If today is Wednesday, this Tuesday would be the six days from today and this Thursday would be tomorrow. next The day of the week in the week following this week, but not tomorrow. If today is Saturday, next Sunday would not be tomorrow but eight days from today. If today is Wednesday, next Thursday would not be in this week but in next week which would be eight days from today. ...

Date input and calendar popup

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 3 Mar 2006 13:50:01 -0700

I have created a date input and javascript calendar popup. First, I modified Simon Willison's A better way of entering dates to fix a few bugs and to allow more date output formats. If you don't have the message div, date-parse will display an alert instead of throwing an error.

I've also heavily modified Lea Smart's calendar popup so that it doesn't use document.write and adds the calendar container to the body element instead of the head element. While I was at it I cleaned up the html code that is used for the calendar...

Update: 22 Jul 2006 - Added holiday and day of week blockout masking. An addEvent() call to add date parsing behavior to an input field with a class of "dateparse" and the ability to set the start date of the drop down year menu.

Update: 31 Aug 2006 - Changed getFirstDOM function to set the day to 1 first then set the month and finally the year. This fixed a problem with the current day moving the month up to the next month and return the wrong first day of the month.

Update: 10 Sep 2006 - Changed table footer of calendar popup to display "Today is: Month Day, Year" or "Today is: Day Month Year" depending on the date format, with the date as a link. Changed title text of footer link from "Go to today's date" to "Go to current month". Modified calpopup.css to set the width of the footer td so that IE would not word wrap the text.

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Money Can’t Buy You Love

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 10:32:29 -0700

John Stossel has an interesting article called Life is getting worse and other myths in which he lists his "top 10 list of foolish myths". John Stossel's take on "Money buys happiness". A few of these myths have some truth behind them. For two or three billion people in the world trying to eke out a living on a dollar or two a day, money would buy some happiness. If you can't feed your family, money makes a big difference. But in America, research suggests that once your income reaches $50,000, more money won't make you happier. People say they'd be happier if they "just made 20 percent more," but "happiness researchers" tell me that such happiness quickly fades. A survey of 49 of the Forbes richest found they weren't any happier than the rest of us. One expert put it this way: "Even though no one can be blessedly happy without external goods" -- such as money and the things it can buy -- "we must not think that to be happy we will need many large goods." It was Aristotle who said that, and he was right. But what I really like is his take on marriage and what you do with your life. What does bring happiness? Marriage (not always, obviously, but on average, married people rate themselves happier than singles), deep friendships, belief in God, and purposeful work. Aristotle was right again: So long as you have the resources you need to take care of yourself and do good deeds, it's your own actions, and particularly the noble ones, that make you happy. I can say that my marriage to Jane has definitely made my life happier. What do you believe? ...

On Theft and Home

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 11:26:14 -0700

On October 27th of this year my car was broken into in front of my home. The thief left a beer bottle and took the leather jacket my wife gave to me as a Christmas present last year, my digital camera, iPod, Motorola Blue Tooth headset, and my check book. My check book contained a few checks, department store credit cards, health insurance cards and my Social Security card. I called my credit union and put a stop payment on the checks but I had forgotten about the store credit cards. They charged a bunch of stuff at Robinsons-May including gift cards. Then they had Robinsons-May pay for the bill with an electronic check from my checking account. Robinsons-May has not been very helpful. I did get my card canceled but they did not return the funds to my checking account. I contacted my Credit Union who was very helpful and at least they are investigating the unauthorized transaction and the funds have been returned to my checking account. We now park our cars in the driveway. Even in a nice neighborhood bad things can happen, so don't leave anything out in the open in your car as it may be too much for some people to ignore. When I was a child (not that long ago, I'm only 49), we never locked the doors to our home. Now it sometimes seems that we have to live in a fortress. We've moved into our home and it is very nice. It cost a lot more than I thought with the termite damage and the additional plumbing to the guest room attached to the garage, but it was well worth it. I'm very happy with the result. We have a beautiful home that is warm and comfortable. We love having company and we're looking forward to the new year and all the changes it will bring. As soon as I get another camera, I'll post some pictures. May the Lord bless you and keep you and give you wisdom. ...

Welcome Yogi to our Family

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 11:59:21 -0700

The contractor for our remodel, Bob Martin had moved from a house to a condo and felt that it would be better if his dog lived where he could run around. So welcome Yogi to our house. He is absolutely the friendliest dog I have ever met. It's been around 40 years since I've had a dog, so this is new to me. This little dog has a lot of love to give and I'm glad he's a part of our family.

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Not one, but two bicycles won!

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 12:47:49 -0700

My step-son won two bicycles at the Ventura County Fair and a seagull ordering a burger. ...

Windows are in!

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:46:50 -0700

The termite damage has been repaired, all the windows have been replaced and work continues. The doors come next. ...

In the light, a cactus blooms.

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 5 Jun 2005 16:59:46 -0700

After taking out six trees we still have a forest at the front of our property. Now with an abundance of sunlight this eight foot tall cactus decided to bloom. ...

How to help a PDA phone owner when they have a case of butter fingers.

Tanny O'Haley — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 17:12:50 -0700

I received a Treo 650 as soon as it was made available. The only problem I've had besides the low volume for headsets is that I have dropped the phone at least four or five times a week. My good friend, Eric Mack, sent me a FlexiSkin by Boxwave. Since I have received the skin I have yet to drop my phone. The only problem I've had with the skin is that is sometimes difficult to press the "P" key. I highly recommend having a case but didn't want a bulky case so I went for a skin. ...

We have the start of a plan

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:12:20 -0700

Our architect, John Hekhuis, has brought us a few sketchs. Here is the exterior. The floor plan. And finally the room attached to the garage. Sorry I didn't have a scanner available, so I snapped the images with my digital camera. ...

This blog has been hijacked for a good cause

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 05:30:00 -0700

Please join me in wishing Tanny well! Update: My good friend and brother in the Lord, Eric Mack hijacked my blog! Thank you Eric. I must thank my wonderful wife for the love, affection, and generosity that she gives me. I love you Jane! ...

The Renters are Out, Kind of.

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:01:43 -0700

After my wife and I got married last August, we decided to move into a rental property that we owned. It has been rented for at least 15 years, the last ten years to the tenants who just left. They are out of the house but still have property in the garage and back yard and we hope that it'll be gone soon. We have now started the process of remodeling. The architect and contractor have been to the house, a design is being worked on and we should start pretty soon. As you can see the front of the house has a lot of foliage in front of it, so much that you can't even see the front of the house from the street. I took this picture from the front yard moving back as far as I could, it's pretty overgrown. There's a lot of work to be done. The house is going to be gutted, doors are going to be moved, wood floors are going to be put in, and lot and lots of paint. The adventure begins and we hope to move in by mid-July 2005. ...

Microsoft Came Bearing Gifts

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 10:13:03 -0700

I arrived at work today and as I was walking by a cubicle I found a gift from Microsoft The basket included the following software: WindowsXP Professional with Service Pack 2 Microsoft Digital Image Suite10 Microsoft Money Premium 2005 Plus! Superpack Office Professional 2003 Encarta 2005 Deluxe The basket also included the following books: Windows XP Inside Out Office XP Step by Step Why don't other companies like IBM do things like this? For instance, the company I work for wanted replace our custom built employee portal and asked several companies for help testing their products. When the person in charge told Microsoft that they'd like to try Sharepoint, Microsoft said, "sure, we'll send out two people to help you set it up." However when IBM was approached we were told that it would take three months to setup Websphere Portal Server and cost us a million dollars! All we wanted was a proof of concept so that we could make an informed decision! When we originally looked at Blackberrys we did not have coverage at the building were I worked. We said "give us coverage and we'll take a look at them", they said, "buy 400 and we'll give you coverage." We did not purchase any Blackberrys until years later, when we had coverage. If we had been given coverage in the first place without the requirement to purchase we most likely would have purchased earlier. UPDATE: I found out that Microsoft gave the basket to us to give to the Red Cross as a raffle. Still very nice of them. I really believe that Microsoft has marketing to large corporations down. I think that the position is, if they give me products to try out and I like a product then I will recommend it to others and they will purchase the product. Over my lifetime in the company I work for I have received many products to test and of course I have only recommended products that I found to be usefull, after all it is my reputation on the line. If companies had never given or lent me products in the first place it may never have found a voice to promote them in the company. ...

Surveying the Damage

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 10:39:32 -0700

Here's what the road looks like today. You can see the boulders are gone and large sheets of asphalt have fallen away from the road. Also some sort of pipe that wasn't there before. There used to be an R/C airport runway in front of the awnings. It looks like the runway is about two to three feet under mud and rocks. I'm a little worried about this power pole. It used to be on solid ground and it's now leaning to the right. Also you can see by the darkness on the pole were it used to be buried in the ground and it looks like it's sunk a couple of feet. I hope we don't have a power outage. ...

Rains in Los Angeles, Road Out

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:21:50 -0700

I can see this out the back window of my house and decided to take a picture on the way to work. ...

Select tag overlap in IE

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 24 Oct 2004 06:57:47 -0700

Update: I have a new article that supports nested menus with instructions on use at Select tag overlap in IE, Part II. Please go to the new article as it give you information that is not available in this article. Sometime ago I was asked if I knew of an IE fix to hide select elements when postitioning other elements over them. Does anybody know of any javascript that will disable or hide the select element tag? The problem only occurs in IE when the dropdown menu overlaps a select tag in form. It appears that nother will override the z-index of the select tag in IE exept to hide it. ...

I’m married!

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 12:38:00 -0700

I was married on August 7th, 2004 and it's wonderful! Please take a look at the wedding photos, we had a great time. ...

I’m getting married next month.

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 21 Jul 2004 22:48:15 -0700

I'm excited and happy. For those of you coming to the wedding, Jane and I are registered at Bed Bath & Beyond. Another alternative is to dontate to World Vision International. Donate or support a child. If you do please tell us. Thank you, Tanny... ...

Pre-Remarriage Questions - Part 1

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 19 Jun 2004 09:52:13 -0700

I know it's been a long time since I last posted. I've been busy preparing for marriage. In preparation, my fiance and I have been reading Helping You Start Again by Bobb and Cheryl Biehl. It has been great! Here's a start. If you ask enough of the right questions before you remarry, your new marriage will start on a much more solid foundation. The questions my fiance and I have read from this book have stimulated conversation between the two of us and have caused us to think of things we would never have thought. I've provided just a sample of questions out of the first three sections. Financial If we inherited a million dollars, what would you want to do with it? What percent of our income would we give to the church we attend? Why? What percent of our income should we give to charitable organizations? How much income would you like us to make (together) this next year? Marriage and Family What are some activities that you'd like us to do together? How do you best communicate your feelings about something? When we disagree how should we settle it? How did your parents settle their disagreements Personal Growth If you could sit and chat with any person in the world, with whom would you talk? What three questions would you ask that person? What do you consider your three greatest strengths? What is your single greatest strength? A year from today, in what three to five areas of your life would you most like to be stronger than you are now? The other four sections are Physical, Professional, Social, and Spiritual. I'll provide more questions later. This book has been replaced by Getting to "Really Know" Your Life-Mate-to-Be and can be found at Master Planning Group International. Check out some of the other titles, they look good. Maybe you to can write a book... ...

South America Physical Map

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 18:30:38 -0700

If you attend First Lutheran Elementary School and need a map of South America for your Social Studies Physical map assignment.You can find it at: http://media.maps101.com/SUB/K_3/k3southamerphys.gif ...

Check out the latest SimpleQuiz

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 23:08:38 -0700

SimpleQuiz › Part XV: Numbered List Pairs I like answer "C" for the reasons stated so eloquently by sgd in comment 25. What do you think? ...

A word you don’t want to hear.

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 12 Apr 2004 13:23:50 -0700

A few weeks ago I went to the doctor to look at my ear. There had been a sore the size of a small freckle on the back of my ear. The reason I went is because it had been there for over three months. At first the doctor wasn't going to send me to see a Dermatologist, but I insisted because it had been there three months. When I went to the Dermatologist, he took a punch biopsy. It seemed more like a core sample to me. Last week the results came in and it was skin cancer. The doctor said it is 100% curable and the best type of skin cancer to get. They are sending me to a plastic surgeon so that the ear can be rebuilt to look normal. I'm glad my ear will look normal, but I'm still a little nervous. ...

How I got my name

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 7 Apr 2004 19:00:00 -0700

My mom is an artist and as she tells the story, she was painting a picture of a boat and there was a long shoreman working on the boat who they called Tanny. She liked the name so much that when I came along two years later she named me Tanny. As a child I did not like Tanny and would have much rather prefered to be called something like John or Bob. My mother also did not give me a middle name so I did not have another name to fall back on. I like my name as an adult. When I was in college class at church the pastor of that class said that my name meant treasure beyond price which is cool. :-) So either I'm precious or I have a sunken chest. ...

What We Can’t Not Know

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 4 Apr 2004 20:55:04 -0700

I have been reading What We Can't Not Know by J. Budziszewski. It's a hard read for me. It is not like most books I read where I start to read and continue read until I get to the end, usually in one day. This book makes me think. One tidbit that I've read today is about our deep conscience which causes us to recognize that we are designed. The mere recognition of design does three things for our moral knowledge. First, it vindicates deep conscience. If synderesis is designed as a witness to moral truth by a God who knows what He is doing, then its witness to this truth is reliable. Second, it confirms that we have duties not only to neighbor but to God Himself, to whom we owe the very possibility of the experience of anything good. Third, it informs us that just as deep conscience is designed, so the rest of us is designed; we are a canvass for His purposes. Its comforting to know that I have a purpose ...

May I invite you to come to church?

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 2 Apr 2004 17:40:09 -0700

Learn why there had to be a Passion. The Church on the Way ...

How I came to the Lord

Tanny O'Haley — Thu, 1 Apr 2004 18:31:50 -0700

It was December 18, 1974. I was 18 and lived in a small cottage in Ventura, California. This may seem to be an odd way to start the story, but I was in bed with my girlfriend. I told her about a dream I had the previous year where a cartoon bull was killing everyone of my friends who were also cartoons in a type of Roman coliseum. It really frightened me. She that said that she had a dream about the end of the world. I asked her about it but she didn't give me much information, so I thought the thing to do would be to hug her. At that moment in the corner there appeared a round object about three feet in diameter that was parchment colored with a black fuzzy border and a red mist covered the room. I felt fear and she sat up and started to pray in the name of Jesus (she was a back-slidden Christian). The apparition disappeared but the fear stayed. We drove to Oxnard where she knew of an Episcopalian church that kept its doors open as it was around 11:00 PM. I felt like I was looking through my body and my eyes grated as if there was sand in them. When we got to the church, she prayed and started to read a prayer book. I didn't know what to do, so I kneeled and ask God what to do. I had a compulsion to look up and on the cross there was a shadow of the figure of Jesus, but not a shadow, but the purest, brightest, whitest light I had ever seen. I then felt I should go and touch the cross. I went up and on my toes touched the bottom of the cross. Instantly I felt as if someone had put a sponge down my throat and washed me clean. I felt whole, my eyes were clear and I did not feel fear. At that point I got back down on my knees and told God that whatever he had for me, that's what I wanted. BTW, I've never done drugs and I never went to that Episcopalian church. After accepting the Lord Jesus as my Savior, I began attending the First Baptist Church of Oxnard. Though I didn't know it, I needed and received a Savior. My life changed and so can yours. ...

Oops, David Allen’s Blog

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 23:47:52 -0700

Last night I was talking with my good friend and brother in the Lord, Eric Mack. He liked what I had done for both his and this site and wondered if I could do a proof of concept for one of his clients, David Allen. After working into the night with a lot of testing, Eric and I had a prototype up and running. I added comments to the template, and a lot of CSS to control the content management portion of the Blog. I'm very happy with the result. Well, as always there are a few more things that could be done, but over all I'm pretty happy with the site. Eric and I tested all the links, one of which is a link to Buzz Bruggeman's Blog. Buzz looked at his Blog's referer log and discovered the URL to the Blog we were working on for David Allen. Buzz made a post, Robert Scoble made a post, and now the David Allen Blog is live! The last time I looked, in a few short hours there had been 1038 hits! If you have a Domino environment, I really suggest that you use Steve Castledine's DominoBlog database template. It is very easy to use and allows the developer a lot of latitude in creating the look and feel of your blog. ...

Tooting my own horn - Eric Mack Online

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 15 Mar 2004 20:36:27 -0700

I have been helping my good friend Eric Mack with his blog over the last few days. Like my blog, Eric's blog uses the ProjectDX Domino database created by Steve Castledine and used by Ed Brill. Unlike the design used on this blog, which is elastic based on the text size (IE users can change the text size by selecting the menu item View, then Text size), Eric's blog is based on a fixed design. An elastic design helps the designer keep an optimum line length for easier reading and better comprehension. We actually did the design last year and it was one of the first Web Standards designs that I helped create. At first we got it working with IE (which I no longer do, I try Mozilla Firefox first, then make it work in IE), then we have attempted to make it work across other browsers. Safari is still problematic and I don't even want to test it in IE Mac which has so many float bugs its almost impossible to create a good Web Standards/CSS design. It seems to work pretty good in IE 5.01, 5.5, 6.0 and Mozilla. Eric and I also worked on a print style sheet. If you look at this blog in Print Preview you will see that the navigation on the side and bottom are gone and the two background images used on the page are also gone. However even though I've turned off letter-spacing, IE still carries it over from the screen style sheet to the print style sheet. :( We were running out of time when I decided to create a print style sheet for Eric and I really should have done it as a standalone style sheet like I did with my blog. It really does work better this way. As it is the main style sheet works with all media and the print style sheet tries to turn things off. I'm pretty happy with the design and more importantly Eric likes it too. ...

Nights

Tanny O'Haley — Mon, 9 Feb 2004 19:15:05 -0700

Nights are lonely and so empty. Nights with you and I'll be fine. Days are filled with hope, and someday, you'll be mine. ...

Picture of my fiance and I when we went to see my Mom in January 2004.

Tanny O'Haley — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 10:38:27 -0700

I took my fiance to see my Mom. She lives in Oakhurst which was beautiful. There was snow, the air was clear and we had a good time. In the picture my Mom took I think I look like a racoon. Jane looks great! She actually likes my crazy family a lot. This is the second marriage for both of us. Jane is a widow and I was divorced June 1996. We both have children and we are learning how to blend our two families together. Dr. Dobson of Focus on the Family has said that only one in five blended families succeed. I hope we succeed. We have already taken pre-married's class at the church we both go to and are in counseling with a pastor who is familiar with blended family issues. I really want our marriage to succeed. It took me a long time to discover Jane. I have been careful and thoughtful in the process of choosing a mate for life. I have not been swayed by passion (maybe just a little bit) or just a desire to be married. This may seem cold but I don't want to experience the failure and pain of divorce a second time. It wasn't good for me and it wouldn't be good for Jane. If you are planning to get married, I heartily recommend taking pre-married's classes as they are very helpful and will help you to preserve your marriage. January 3, 2004 ...

Web Standards and this template

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 28 Dec 2003 16:39:20 -0700

I'm committed to Web Standards, though sometimes it can be frustrating to create a reliable layout. Tables make it so easy but I really like the benefits of Web Standards. Structural HTML Smaller file sizes Ease of design change through CSS Flexiblity However it is very difficult to create a page that follows Web Standards when the Domino template I'm using doesn't support it. I really believe that Web Standards is the future for Web Designers. See CSS Zen Garden ...

I’m thankful for all that God has done.

Tanny O'Haley — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 15:07:12 -0700

I'm so thankful this year. God has supplied my needs. I've been healthy and have finally reduced my debt down to one bill. No more credit card bills. Yeah! I received a promotion at work and I find work enjoyable. My two boys are doing well and growing way too fast. May the Lord bless and keep this season. ...

Thoughts on marriage

Tanny O'Haley — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 13:55:19 -0700

Thoughts on marriage and companionship. ...

IE 5, 5.5, and 6 on the same PC.

Tanny O'Haley — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:20:41 -0700

While developing a project I needed to test using different versions of IE. It was difficult finding computers with older versions of IE on them to use for testing. I went to friends and a few old boxes but I was never able to test with IE 5.01. After reading an article at Chicago Web Design, I found a way to install different versions of IE on the same PC and run them concurrently. Here's a screen shot of IE 5, 5.5, and 6 running concurrently on one PC. You can tell that it is running each idividual version of IE because there are specific CSS bugs that only each version of the browser will render. This seems like it would be a great tool for a developer to validate that a Web project works with specific versions of IE. Ryan Parman has created downloadable files with just the files needed to create multiple versions of IE. Just download the zip files. This site also has some very good information on the process. I created a directory called "ieold" and extracted the zip files into it. The zip files created an IE501SP2_NT and an IE555SP2_NT directory. Just run IEXPLORE.EXE in each directory and you get the respective versions. There are some caveats, so read the whole article. It works great! I'm now able to test new code with older versions of IE on one PC. If you're brave, it looks like you can even run IE 3.0 and 4.01. ...

First test entry

Tanny O'Haley — Tue, 11 Nov 2003 20:31:21 -0700

Well here is my first entry. I really don't have anything to talk about, I just needed an entry to help me design this site. ...

Tanny O'Haley's Weblog

About The Howard County (MD) State’s Attorney’s Office

Thought I’d try out Hyphens

Track Day on July 10, 2001

Business Ethics and HP’s Handling of Legacy Palm Pre Users

Track Day on November 20, 2010

IE Only in this Day and Age

Self Optimizing AJAX Object

2010 Old Country Tour

Other Links

2009 Day After Thanksgiving Run

Other Links

Drawing Cars in my Youth

2009 Vintage Motoring Independence Run

Other Links

May 2009 Saddlerock Ranch Drive and Tour

Disneyland Celebrates Patrick’s Christmas

Our Front Porch

Yogi’s Temptation

Charles Joseph is Born

I bought a 1971 MGB GT

I took the 2008 Web Design survey, have you?

I Finally Took a Vacation in 2008

JSMin and JavaScript Conditional Comments

Domino Directory Type Ahead

DOMContentLoaded for Browsers, Part V

WebSession Agent Class

DOMContentLoaded for Browsers, Part IV

Land line gone, VOIP is today’s phone service

DOMContentLoaded for Browsers, Part III

Has IE7 Broken CSS Filters?

Memorial Day 2007

I took the 2007 Web Design survey, have you?

Virginia Tech Shooting

It’s Ocean a Redesign

Five Things You Might Not Know About Me

Tabbed Interface

Merry Christmas 2006

XMLHttpRequest Permission Denied Error

I’ve Gone Pink for October 2006

Time Parser/Dropdown Combo

Pink for October 2006

What would you do?

Live Comment Preview Added

Select tag overlap in IE, Part III

It’s our 230th birthday!

DOMContentLoaded for Browsers, Part II

Power Outage

Select tag overlap in IE, Part II

DOMContentLoaded Event for Browsers

Our Redeemer Lives

The Calendar popup Goes Over Select Elements in IE

Date Input and Calendar Popup Instructions

Day of week in relation to last, this and next

Date input and calendar popup

Money Can’t Buy You Love

On Theft and Home

Welcome Yogi to our Family

Not one, but two bicycles won!

Windows are in!

In the light, a cactus blooms.

How to help a PDA phone owner when they have a case of butter fingers.

We have the start of a plan

This blog has been hijacked for a good cause

The Renters are Out, Kind of.

Microsoft Came Bearing Gifts

Surveying the Damage

Rains in Los Angeles, Road Out

Select tag overlap in IE

I’m married!

I’m getting married next month.

Pre-Remarriage Questions - Part 1

South America Physical Map

Check out the latest SimpleQuiz

A word you don’t want to hear.

How I got my name

What We Can’t Not Know

May I invite you to come to church?

How I came to the Lord

Oops, David Allen’s Blog