Brian Davidson

Understanding Object.assign

Sat, 23 Jul 2016 10:22:37 -0700

Redux is a powerful yet simple way of managing the state of your app, but it is a purely functional library. This is something that JavaScript developers may not have had much experience with and on its surface, sounds a bit odd. The purpose of Redux is to manage state, but one of the tenants of functional programming is you can’t alter state… so what’s up with that? To keep things functional, Redux makes heavy use of the Object.

Creating a tested React app

Tue, 28 Jun 2016 15:38:14 -0700

In this post, I’m going to step through getting a basic starter project going in ReactJS.

ES5 classes using Object.Create()

Sun, 12 Oct 2014 14:10:40 -0700

This is a follow-up to Classes in JavaScript

In my previous post, we learned how you can create classes in JavaScript using the new operator and a temporary constructor function. This post will show how you can use the Object.create() method to setup the prototype without using new.

Classes in Javascript

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 23:11:20 -0700

JavaScript doesn’t follow a classical inheritance model (although it can be made to do so), but instead uses a prototypal inheritance model at its core. See my introduction post on prototypes and objects if your not clear how this works.

Prototypes and Objects

Tue, 29 Jul 2014 19:28:19 -0700

The idea that everything is an object in JavaScript is a bit of a misnomer. A more accurate saying would be that nearly everything is or can behave like an object. The reason for this is because nearly everything in JavaScript comes from a common ancestor called Object. This relationship is expressed through prototypes.

Contact

Wed, 09 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Zen-Cart: Gimme a cart and hold everything else

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 15:25:08 +0000

It’s been 3 years since I wrote the little tutorial “Using Zen-Cart as a “Cart Only” System” and a lot has changed. The original tutorial was written for Zen-Cart 1.38 BEFORE they implemented the security token system for form submits. Since I moved to OpenCart as the shopping cart back-end for my main web project, I never bothered updating the Zen-Cart tutorial as I didn’t have the time or inclination to do so.

Equal heights on columns

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:23:34 +0000

Update: I have this post here for posterity, but you should probably just use flex-box in modern browsers.

Responsive Design Opt-Out

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:06:18 +0000

Sometimes you just want to view a website as it would appear on a desktop, the problem is, with responsive design, user agent queries are ignored and the site will re-size itself despite clicking the “View Desktop Version” option in your mobile browser. For the development of williamssound.com, I made it responsive using the typical combination of Media Queries and JavaScript but also wanted a way for a user to “opt-out” as it were.

Using Zen Cart as a cart only system

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:06:18 +0000

UPDATE – 12/26/2012 - This Post is WAAY outdated, please see my new post regarding this method. I’ve seen this question has been asked many times before on the Zen-Cart forums with the same answer given each time: “it is not meant to be used like that, just make your whole site in Zen-Cart.” Well, if you have ever used a CMS like Typolight, you know that by comparison, the “CMS” capabilities of Zen-Cart cannot compare by any stretch of the imagination.

Old Artwork

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:48:35 +0000

Buried in the recesses of my hard drive I found some pics I saved from a degrading 3.5” floppy. Both were made in 1991 using the state of the art PC Paintbrush IV+. The machine I was using was a VGA equipped 286 made by some company that went out of business a long time ago (started with a Z I think). At any rate, The first one was copied from a Sierra Interaction Magazine advertisement for the VGA remake of Leisure Suit Larry.

Visualizing Comcast Powerboost™

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:33:53 +0000

What Is Comcast Powerboost? After upgrading the firmware in my Linksys WRT-54G router to Tomato, I was watching the wonderful real-time bandwidth graph that shows you exactly how much data is passing in and out of the router. With this tool in hand, I thought I’d see exactly what exactly does “Powerboost” actually do for me. I’m not disparaging it, as I can see it doing good for people who frequently download smaller files, say, single mp3’s, large images, etc.

Tomato and VOIP

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:31:36 +0000

Something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile I finally got to do a week ago. That is install the custom firmware Tomato on our Linksys WRT54G v.2 wireless router. Prior, I had only been using the router as an access point and not the full up router/firewall it was designed to be. This is due to the VOIP router (Dlink 1120M) that was provided by AT&T( as a part of their CallVantage service) was presently serving that role.