Christian Heilmann

Author Archive

Have I got tabs for you!

Thursday, May 17th, 2007

One of the guys I keep dragging into the limelight of the web (the last time with an A List Apart article on font resize monitoring) is my colleague Lawrence Carvalho. This time he has an amazingly versatile tab interface based on the YUI on offer.

a draggable and closeable tab in action

There are many tabs solutions out there, including my DOMtab but Lawrence’s beat mine hands-down:

  • Based on design patterns described in the YUI Design Pattern library (Drop invitation, Spotlight, Fadeout)
  • URL Fragment aware (ah I have that, too) – highlights targeted patterns in the URL
  • Uses Event Delegation
  • Allows for deletion of tabs and re-ordering of tabs – including dragging a tab from one tab group to another!

Check out the example page to see the different implemenations.

[tags]tabs,dom,javascript,interface,lawrencecarvalho,draganddrop[/tags]

Working in the valley for the next 2-3 weeks

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

I will fly to San Francisco on Monday to work in Santa Clara and stay in Sunnyvale for the next 2-3 weeks. So far my stops beside working are:

  • Go to Stanford and give a talk on web development (invitation by John Foliot)
  • Visit the Flock offices to talk shop and pick up schwag.

Anything else I should be doing while I am there? I got a rental car and a cheap hotel room :)

[tags]visit,silicon valley[/tags]

Casting online shadows – my presentation at BarCamp Paris

Saturday, May 12th, 2007

Christian Heilmann giving a presentationChristian Heilmann giving a presentation

Just finshed giving my BarCamp Paris presentation written on the Eurostar on the way over:

It talks about how people go online, what they do to get known and how online communication and its non-human nature can paint a totally wrong picture of who you are. I am chuffed as this is my first non-tech presentation :)

Photos by Gonzague Dambricourt

[tags]online identity,barcampparis11,yahoobarcampparis11,identity,commenting,emoticons,communication,security[/tags]

Come and witness another Web Standards Group talk

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

On Wednesday the 16th of May I’ll be giving another free talk at the WSG UK meeting on JavaScript. It is free, I promise not to bore you with too much code, and we can get totally leglessmeet up for a quiet drink at the Bricklayer’s Arms, the fabled location for the Pubstandards London afterwards.
On the more interesting side, Steve Faulkner will talk about JavaScript and Screenreaders after me!

Speaking of which, Pubstandards is the following day, so you might as well stay in there.
[tags]webstandardsgroup,wsg,london,free,talk,presentation,pubstandards[/tags]

The joys of online shopping

Monday, May 7th, 2007

As I am about to head for the US and work there for some weeks I thought I use the opportunity to buy some stuff and get it delivered to the office so that I have it without having to carry a big suitcase full of stuff.

Alas, I cannot, as the reason is that on both of the web sites I tried to order from you can only use US credit cards. The calls to the call centres went like this:

“Hello, I am trying to order some clothes ($500 so far), so that they are in the US when I arrive but I have a UK credit card”. “Oh I am sorry, we cannot accept those, but I can give you the address of our UK branch if that helps” “how would that help to get them to the US?” “Let me ask the supervisor…”

So please please please with sugar on top: if you want to be an international company that wants to make money online then take on Visa cards from anywhere in the world, that is the idea of having a Visa Card!

[tags]ecommerce,idiocy,rant,credit cards[/tags]