2014-06

Using the Logitech Presenter R700 with a Mac

[2014-06-28] hardware, presenting, computers, mac

Recently, I was shopping for a presenter (a remote control for PowerPoint, Keynote, etc.) and liked the Logitech Presenter R700 (a newer European-only version of the R800) best, due to its design and its integrated display with a countdown. Alas, Macs are not officially supported for this device. Thankfully, they can be made to work together, as explained in this blog post. I also mention how my configuration file can be adapted to an R800.

Installing web apps natively

[2014-06-25] dev, javascript, clientjs

Web apps have been around for a while, but the ability to install them as if they were native apps is relatively new. This blog post takes a look at what’s currently possible.

SimpleHTTPServer: a quick way to serve a directory

[2014-06-23] dev, webdev

Python’s SimpleHTTPServer is the classic quick solution for serving the files in a directory via HTTP (often, you’ll access them locally, via localhost). This is useful, because there are some things that don’t work with file: URLs in web browsers.

Curbing Online Abuse

[2014-06-21] social, computers

Curbing Online Abuse Isn’t Impossible. Here’s Where We Start” by Laura Hudson describes how online abuse was curbed in the battle-arena game League of Legends, published by Riot Games. The following insight is interesting:

Firefox Electrolysis (one process per tab) is back

[2014-06-18] browser, dev, firefox

Electrolysis (e10s) [^1] is a project to add a one-process-per-tab architecture (similar to Google Chrome’s) to Firefox. It was put on hold [^2] in early 2012 and is now being resumed.

Multiple return values in ECMAScript 6

[2014-06-14] esnext, dev, javascript

If you combine the features “property value shorthand” and “destructuring”, ECMAScript 6 gives you an elegant way to handle multiple return values. This blog post explains why that is useful and how it works.

The ECMAScript 6 schedule changes

[2014-06-06] esnext, dev, javascript

Allen Wirfs-Brock, editor of the ECMAScript 6 specification, recently mentioned on Twitter that the schedule for ECMAScript 6 has changed slightly.

2014-05

Checking whether a value is an integer in JavaScript

[2014-05-26] dev, javascript, jslang

Integers lead an odd life in JavaScript. In the ECMAScript specification, they only exist conceptually: All numbers are always floating point and integers are ranges of numbers without decimal fractions (for details, consult “Integers in JavaScript” in “Speaking JavaScript”). In this blog post, I explain how to check whether a value is an integer.

Implementing a raffle in JavaScript

[2014-05-23] example, dev, javascript

Understanding the four layers of JavaScript OOP

[2014-05-13] dev, javascript, jslang, video

JavaScript OOP is baffling: on one hand, there is a simple core, on the other hand, there are some really weird things going on. I’ve been pondering for a long time how to explain it well and I think the best way to do so is via four layers: single objects, prototype chains, constructors, constructor inheritance. The first two layers are JavaScript’s simple OOP core, layers 3 and 4 are where the complications start.