Patrick Tulskie

I decided to start writing a little series of articles based on the lessons I’ve learned in writing code the uses twitter, using twitter itself, and just generally getting the most out of it.  This is the first one, and maybe there will be more depending on how I like it.

The Problem – Why You Should Care

Other sites that you pull content from are not always going to be reliable.  They could be down, running slow, or some other possible problem.  If you are using something like twitter to display your status on your site but you have a lot of other content you want people to see then it would be wise to use client-side scripting to get the content.  You might be saying in your head “Oh but I have this sweet PHP script that does that for me.” but you should tell that voice in your head to shut up and just listen.

Read More…

Welcome back to the saga of Patrick’s battle with the Chinese.  When we left our hero, he thought he had battled off the Chinese internet registrar and the government in a few short emails.  Alas, he was wrong.  Carol had one more thing to attempt to sell to him.  Sensing that this was a scam of some sort, and not really caring about who looks at his lowly blog in China, he decided it would be fun to start messing with them.

If you haven’t read the previous posting about this nonsense then you should probably do so.  Basically a Chinese company contacted me with some nonsense about someone wanting to buy my name in China and wanted to know if I would allow this.  I said no, and they started trying to convince me to register the names with them… and then this happened…

Read More…

UPDATE: I had taken this down since I didn’t want to blow my cover but it looks like they realized I was onto their game.  I believe this company that has contacted me is actually just trying to screw people in other countries out of money by threatening them with fake companies.  If that’s not the case and they are reading this then I’d like to see some proof otherwise.  The rest of the emails will come shortly when I have time.

I know.  I know.  There are plenty of questions going through your head right now upon reading the title of this… How could this possibly happen?  Why do they want some Irish/Polish mixed name?  Don’t they have enough to do with the Olympics this year?  How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop?

Well, I’m as bewildered as you are.  Let me start at the beginning since it was only this morning and I am pretty sure I can re-count it.

I woke up to my blackberry going off next to me for an emergency email.  No one sends me emergency emails, with the exception of the Chinese government, so naturally I had a look see.  I skimmed it quickly and determined it could wait until morning because they did not say anything about me needing to wake up immediately and get dressed.

Read More…

I won’t sit here and proclaim myself to be some god of Grease Monkey but I do know a thing or two about Java Script.  Basically, for those of you who are clueless as to what Grease Monkey is, it’s a plugin for Firefox that allows you to manipulate certain pages you visit using Java Script.  Now that we know what it is and have tons of ideas flowing through our heads, let’s just do something kinda cool.

Today we’re going to beat up on certain gallery pages that use images of the format “imageName.sized.jpg”.  What I mean by this is – we’re going to take the page (which is usually filled with junk) and replace everything with just the full size image and the caption.

Let’s get some assumptions out of the way:
You know SOME Java Script, the site you’re visiting also has the non-sized images in the same directory as the sized images, and you don’t care what else is on the web page.  We’re also assuming there is only one caption with no “id” and we only have a style class to work with.

Ok?  Ok.  Let’s go.

Read More…

Dawned on me the other day that this blog was kind of a pain in the eyes to read.  That’s what I get for not taking the time to make my own theme for Wordpress.

What I did was I made most of the fonts on the page black, but this had some negative affects in terms of not being able to read the text on some of the black spots on the page.  I’m working on it, I know.  Just want to let everyone know I’m aware.

One of the other things that was pretty annoying was the slow page load time when my twitter status is loading.  I handled that with some PHP to verify the URL of the page you’re looking at and I also moved the javascript to the very bottom of the site before the end of the body tag.  This makes sure that only pages where the twitter status is shown will actually load the javascript AND it also makes sure that the rest of the page loads in a timely manner so you don’t need to wait around for my status if you want to read something else.

Just some usability metrics that I had to handle and I thought I’d mention them.  I’ll be doing another article on the PHP used to handle the twitter status probably later on this week.

A screen name is something you use to communicate with friends and the internet at large. It is who you are when you sit down at the keys and get to spreading your word. Some people are more than comfortable to step away from this screen name and get out there into the real world. Afterall, that screen name has done nothing but chat on AIM, Yahoo Messenger, or something else along those lines. Sure it might have a few frags in Counter Strike, but unless you are playing competitively, no one really calls you by THAT name.

There are the other people that dwell on the internet and use it for socializing or a means of communication with people in the outside world. Social networking and building communities and websites with a “screen name” can draw away from what you have actually accomplished and steal away some of the recognition you deserve.

Read More…

One might ask themselves why they landed here. Why are they reading this? Well. Truth be told, I’m not entirely sure. It’s a good thing you did land here though because this place might just be the best place you’ve ever wound up on the internet. No I’m not being arrogant… I did say it “might” be.

I’m not entirely sure where I was going with that. Anyhow. This is just the customary first post on the blog, but I would encourage you to return soon. Add it to your RSS feeds. Just do it. I mean at the end of the day, it’s just another feed and you might learn a thing or two.

If you’re ever so slightly aware of my normal style then you know that I usually have an orange site. Well, now… I don’t. I decided to go with a green layout this time around and I guess it’s all part of the new change and trying to freshen up my image. Enjoy.