I just competed (and finished! – I’m Hitman666) a Topcoder Scavanger Hunt.

Anyways, you have the instructions on how to play on the link above. I’ve really missed these kind of “hacker games”, like back in the days I was very active on hackits.de, but that site is long down now. Anyone playing similar games today, which you can recommend? I made my own for the project on university: http://nikola-breznjak.com/challenge/.

The questions were quite cool (no, no answers here, you’ll have to research it yourself):

• How many ‘Albert’ monkeys died in the US Space program?
• What was the original name of Nintendo’s Super Mario?
• How many female fighter pilots were there in the original Star Wars trilogy?
• How many different combinations of coins are possible for the US dollar?

I’m a big fan of Stack Overflow and I tend to contribute regularly (am currently in the top 0.X%). In this category (stackoverflow) of posts I will will be posting my top rated questions and answers. This, btw, is allowed as explained in the meta thread here.

My quesiton was:

I’m wondering how can I show (get) disk space usage and monthly bandwidth transfer on my website in the same way as it’s shown when I login to my cPanel account. Is there an api from cPanel for this or is this a general method to do so? I’m using PHP.

This answer, by user richsage, was:

cPanel/WHM has an API which offers access to both the elements you’re looking for. See the API docsfor more details. The bandwidth and disk usage modules in API 1 output HTML, however API 2 has anaccount summary method which will return the diskused parameter in the appropriate format (XML/JSON as requested).

Awesome short video about JavaScript event loop

One cool thing I didn’t know is that you can defer something right after the end of the stack. So for example the code below in the setTimeout function would print to console “done”, right after “hi” and “testing”:

console.log("hi");

setTimeout(function(){
    console.log("done");
}, 0);

console.log("testing");

I just read a great post on WebTools Weekly newsletter about how to convert a JavaScript switch statement into a function lookup. Here’s the full content from there, so be sure to check it out if you like it (it’s one newsletter a week, and no – I’m not affiliated with them in any way).

Because of the problems inherent in using JavaScript’s switch statement, many developers and reference guides will recommend avoiding switch constructs and instead using something called amethod lookup (also referred to as a lookup table or even dispatch table). Let’s convert a switchstatement to a method lookup, so we can see how this is done. Here’s our switch:

function doSomething(condition) {
  switch (condition) {
    case 'one':
      return 'one';
    break;

    case 'two':
      return 'two';
    break;

    case 'three':
      return 'three';
    break;

    default:
      return 'default';
    break;
  }
}

(JS Bin example)

All of this is inside a doSomething() function, with a condition passed in. The possible values are ‘cased’, to define the return value. This is cleaner than a messy if-else construct, but can we clean it up even more? Here’s basically the same thing in the form of a method lookup:

function doSomething (condition) {
  var stuff = {
    'one': function () {
      return 'one';
    },

    'two': function () {
      return 'two';
    },

    'three': function () {
      return 'three';
    }
  };

  if (typeof stuff[condition] !== 'function') {
    return 'default';
  }


  return stuff[condition]();
}

(JS Bin example)

In the demo, you can see four logs in the console, one for each valid condition and then another one to demonstrate the default condition when the argument doesn’t match one of the methods.

You can see why people like this technique. It’s clean, elegant, and seems a little more sophisticated without being more complex. I’ve only scratched the surface on this, so here are a few good resources to read up more on this subject:

• Don’t Use Switch in Programming JavaScript Applications by Eric Elliot.
• Using Dispatch Tables to Avoid Conditionals in JavaScript by Josh Clanton

I’m a big fan of Stack Overflow and I tend to contribute regularly (am currently in the top 0.X%). In this category (stackoverflow) of posts I will will be posting my top rated questions and answers. This, btw, is allowed as explained in the meta thread here.

My quesiton was:

This is the part of the code for one of the radio buttons:

$("#new").click(function(){
    if( $('#new').is(':checked') )
        $.jGrowl("You already have this option selected!", life: 1500});
    else
        changeOption(1);
});

Now, I understand that the else part will never run, because the radio button will be already checked on click event. What I’m wondering is, is there an event which would let me capture the state of the radio button (which is about to be clicked) and therefor determine if he is not yet clicked, and if so change the option to this newly selected one.

The answer, by JOPLOmacedo, was:

Use the mouseup event instead.

$("#new").mouseup(function(){if( $('#new').is(':checked'))
        $.jGrowl("You already have this option selected!", life:1500});else
        changeOption(1);});

The fiddle.

Edit
Even though the mouseup event works, it seems more logical to use the mousedown event. Here’s that fiddle.

Here are my notes (on Croatian) from the DevArena 2014 hosted by Ekobit. The bolded bullet points were, you guessed it, topics. All in all, a very well organised developers conference.

• Otvoreno o softerskom inženjerstvu i profesionalizmu
  • Leveli
    • level 0: continuous integration, unit testing
    • level 1: TDD, refactoring
    • level 2: coding standards
  • Testing stuff
    • https://github.com/Moq/moq4 – mocking library for .NET
    • Unit testing FTW!
    • http://sandcastle.codeplex.com/ – doxi iz unit testova; New => Help Project
    • Ne diraj ako nema testova, osim Right click => Extract to Method in VS
    • CodeRush & ReSharper
    • Code Contracts
• Application insights
  • za sad jos samo u preview modu i samo za web http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26099664/vs2013-application-insight-for-desktop-applications/26544013#26544013
  • ALM – application lifecycle management
  • omogucava provjeru dostupnosti, performansi, koristenja
  • cilj: smanjiti MTTD (mean time to detect) errora
  • servis se obavezno vrti na Azureu
  • Add New project => Web performance and load Test project
  • log4net nugget + insights appender
  • Visual studio online
  • Azure is the way to go!
• PRISM
  • instalacija preko NuGet-a
  • poznat još https://cinch.codeplex.com/, ali je kao jednostavniji, dok Prism (kompleksniji) im je jako se dobro uklopio u to dok su morali napraviti samo neki dio aplikacije da bude naplatni
  • napravljen po TDD i postoji source code
  • https://unity.codeplex.com/ i http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd460648(v=vs.110).aspx => bootstraping
  • prism inace ima sljedece patterne
    • addapter
    • app controller
    • command
    • composite and composite view
    • DI
    • IOC
    • Event aggregator
    • Facade
    • Observer
    • MVVM
    • Registry
    • Repository
• Razvoj web i mobilnih multimedijskih aplikacija na HTML 5 platformi
  • http://middle-earth.the-hobbit.com, https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/gallery
  • web browser će postati OS
  • video, audio tag
  • Grafika na webu:
    • Canvas
      • samo elementarno, requestTimeFrame
      • problem skaliranja slike
    • SVG
      • skaliranje slika
      • svaki element moze imati neki filter, npr. blur
      • ima animacije (<set>, <animate>)
      • IE 10 ima probleme s animacijama
    • ChartJS, CanvasJS, EASEJS, Fabric, Paper, Processing, Kinetic, JustGauge, $.plot chart
    • WebGL
      • grana OpenGL-a
      • direktan pristup GPU – high performance, but compli freakin cated
      • https://github.com/begedin/DiceAndRoll – PHASER!
• Što je novo u XAML-u i XAML alatima za Visual Studio
  • NIŠTA
  • CPU usage tool with support for WPF (update 2 u VS2013)
  • .NET Managed Memory Analyzer
• IoC i DI
  • Inversion of Control
  • Dependency Injection
  • Unity IOC, Windsor, Structure Map, nInject
  • AOP – aspect oriented programming

I’m a big fan of Stack Overflow and I tend to contribute regularly (am currently in the top 0.X%). In this category (stackoverflow) of posts I will will be posting my top rated questions and answers. This, btw, is allowed as explained in the meta thread here.

My quesiton was:

I am searching for a substitute of the WebBrowser control in .NET which can handle HTTPS. This question is similar here on Stack Overflow, but none of these controls offer HTTPS.

btw, just to mention, I tried all these

GeckoFx – development stopped
Se7en – this is actually continued GeckoFx
Webkitdotnet – no one replying on forum

but none of them support HTTPS, so I’m kind of stuck here :/.

Also, to mention, WebBrowser control that comes with .NET framework works just fine with HTTPS, but the reason I can’t use it is because my app uses a lot of javascript that IE refuses to render, and for example Firefox (gecko engine) or Chrome (webkit) work just fine.

So, please if someone knows a good control that can do this (can be Webkit or Gecko wrapper, it doesn’t mind, as long as it’s not an IE wrapper).

This one I answered myself:

After long googling I finally ended up using the same as I was using before. So Webkit fromhttp://sourceforge.net/projects/webkitdotnet and I ended up purchasing a SSL certificate for my domain and now all is fine.

I’m a big fan of Stack Overflow and I tend to contribute regularly (am currently in the top 0.X%). In this category (stackoverflow) of posts I will will be posting my top rated questions and answers. This, btw, is allowed as explained in the meta thread here.

My quesiton was:

What is the difference between javascript window and jquery $(window)?

I tried in the Chrome console and I get this: 

So, I would conclude is “just” a window object wrapped in a jquery object in a way that then I can use jquery’s functions on it (like height(), width(), etc…)

The answer, by user Elias Van Ootegem was:

When you write $(window), you should know that that piece of code is going to run on the JS engine. Ever why jQ objects all have parentheses around them? Simple because $ is a function object. Basically you’re calling the $ function, and passing the native global, or window object to it as an argument.

If you browse through the jQ source code, you’ll see that it’ll pass that object on to many internal functions and in the end, it’ll return a jQ wrapper object.
So yes, your assumptions are pretty much correct.

Love you Apple, I really do, but this video is just too true! Since you’ve allowed that I install iOS8 on my beloved 4S (unfortunately the best and last normal sized phone you’ve made [I know it’s not your fault, it’s what market demands, but still it “feels” wrong]) I have all but good words for it. Slow this, slow that, apps crash which never before crashed, the list goes on… Sure, I understand, my phone is 3 years old so what you’re (subtly) saying is that I should update. But why should I, if I’m perfectly fine with this one (and Androids just don’t resonate with me) go and buy a new one? That being said I think you should really allow us (and yes, there is more of us) to downgrade to iOS7.

There, my 0.02$.

IDIOTS from BLR_VFX on Vimeo.

I’m a big fan of Stack Overflow and I tend to contribute regularly (am currently in the top 0.X%). In this category (stackoverflow) of posts I will will be posting my top rated questions and answers. This, btw, is allowed as explained in the meta thread here.

My quesiton was:

So, this morning I got the following error:

{"errors": [{"message": "The Twitter REST API v1 will soon stop functioning. 
Please migrate to API v1.1. https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/overview.",
"code": 68}]}

Since I was using the tmhOauth twitter api I went to look if there are updates for it, and as it seems there is an issue listed here.

I’m using the api to update the status with media like this:

$code = $tmhOAuth->request('POST', 'https://upload.twitter.com/1/statuses/update_with_media.json',
        array(
            'media[]'  => "@{$image}",
            'status'   => "{$text}"
        ),
        true, // use auth
        true  // multipart
);

I found notes that I should just change the link to use 1.1 instead of 1 but it’s still not working.

I actually answered this one my self after finding the solution:

My main problem was that I didn’t read the docs fully! While the change in the url from 1 to 1.1 was sufficient I missed the point by not looking that the new url for update_with_media, as explained in thedocumentation, is https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/update_with_media.json, namely it’s api instead of the old upload subdomain.

So, now my api call looks like this and all works again:

$code = $tmhOAuth->request('POST', 'https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/update_with_media.json',
        array(
            'media[]'  => "@{$image}",
            'status'   => "{$text}"
        ),
        true, // use auth
        true  // multipart
    );

Hope this helps someone.