Simon Dvorak.com

Some of you (there is someone out there right?) may have noticed that this site does not validated lately as I have claimed in the footer. This is due to the fact that I use Blogger.com to make my posts. Their recent site redesign added the long awaited ability to make comments on posts. (yay!) However, the link they generate to the comment posting page contains un-escaped ampersands in the link, a no-no under the XHTML transitional DOCTYPE that I am using.

What can I do? Besides the email I have into Blogger…nothing really. I don’t validate and that is annoying considering the I’ve done to follow standards. Also, considering Blogger’s new “standards based” redesign I would expect them to generate standards compliant code. Alas, this is not the case and if I want to continue to use Blogger’s service I will continue to not validate.

If Blogger doesn’t offer any suggestions, perhaps I will switch over to Wordpress. It has more features and, like Blogger, is free. I’ve stayed away from it because it requires the use of a database and PHP support from your server. I didn’t want to have to mess with that on my simple personal page. However, my hosting company provides those services for free so maybe it is time I bit the bullet.

What do you think?

UPDATE – I recieved an email from Blogger stating that, in fact, there was currently no way to escape the “&”. I have installed WordPress…However, I need to spend some time with it to create a CSS design for it. Keep your eyes peeled.

Just wanted to thank Dennis Nomer of Enlightened Systems for changing form1.submit() to document.form1.submit() in a link at the MetroList website and thereby making house hunting 110% simpler for those not using IE.

Thanks, Dennis!

Position is Everything has a very interesting article on an alternate method for clearing floats.

As the article explains, typically floated elements inside of a box will overlap the borders of the containing box if the containing boxes content isn’t enough to push down the bottom edge of the containg box. Internet Explorer is an exception, as it will resize the containing box to enclose the float. However, the peekaboo bug often crops up in these situations.

The method explained in the article uses the css 2 property :after to add an invisible character after the float to clear it, thus eleviating the need for an extra <div> in the markup. Brilliant!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything here. This is in part due to the fact that Allison and I have been quite busy with the joys of looking for a house to buy. Not fun. Especially in the Californian real estate market.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the details of the housing market here, let me shed some light. A few days ago a house in our price range appeared on the MLS real estate listing service. I had my agent make an appointment that day and we met to go see it. When I arrived, I had to wait in line to get in as there were two other agents showing the house. After seeing, we decided to make an offer. We offered $8000 ABOVE asking price of $342,000. Still, we didn’t get it! Turns out this house, having been on the market 24 hours, recieved 10 offers and the price went well above the asking price. Back to the search!

I have been working on a Flash game for a promotion at work. The concept was an animation of a toy top combined with some sort of game. Turns out, toy tops move in very unpredictable ways making any near realistic simulation fairly complex.

Enter Jim Bumgardner. His site is full of terrific actionscript based Flash animations that model physical interactions. His input has proved invaluable in the creation of the game.

Thanks, Jim!