Select namespaced elements in XPath without specifying the namespace. Every once in a while you need to get to an XML element that is tucked within some namespace or another, but you really are not in the mood to deal with namespaces. You really don’t want to mess with XmlNamespaceManager or its ilk; or maybe [...]

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The ESV Bible REST Web Service The English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible is a literal word-for-word translation from Crossway Bibles, who have made it available via a REST web service. There is no charge for non-commercial applications, such as on a personal or church website, though use is limited to 500 verses per [...]

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Load jQuery in a Firebug session. When debugging or poking around in sites where jQuery is not already used, I had been pasting the following code into the multi-line FireBug console and hitting Run. This makes jQuery available for debugging, etc. j=document.createElement("SCRIPT"); j.src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.pack.js"; document.getElementsByTagName("HEAD")[0].appendChild(j); If you use Firebug, this is a handy way to make [...]

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The charting in Flex is a pretty good tool, but there are a few small features that it would be really nice if it had. One of these would be the ability to have a chart series that changed colors depending on it’s value. Conditionally colored charts are something that a lot of us (and [...]

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Update: had a case-sensitive bug in the code. Fixed now. A simple Javascript bookmarklet shows password field values. In form fields where a password is entered, it is usually obscured by asterisks or bullets to prevent someone from seeing what you type. This is a great feature but where a long password is being typed [...]

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Major Updates To jQuery John Resig and the jQuery team have been busy releasing jQuery 1.2 and a bugfix version 1.2.1. jQuery Version 1.2 Version 1.2 is a major update to the popular Javascript library. Many new features were added and a few were removed, so updating existing code may be required to use the [...]

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John Resig and the jQuery team have released jQuery 1.1.4. This release addresses bugs, improves performance, adds some functionality, and deprecates some functionality in anticipation of changes upcoming in jQuery version 1.2. Both standard and packed .js files are available at code.jquery.com. jQuery Bugfixes This latest release addresses 53 problem tickets (including those fixed in [...]

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jQuery Ajax jQuery, John Resig’s Javascript library, makes Ajax easy for beginners and professionals alike. This article dives into using the various jQuery Ajax methods. Ajax Basics Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, or Ajax, has become a catch-all term for client-initiated communications with a server. Specifically, Ajax usually refers to requests sent from a web browser [...]

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Javascript Frameworks Abound Do we really need another Javascript framework? There’s the Dojo Toolkit. It’s mature and includes the kitchen sink. Then there’s Prototype. It’s wildly popular and several popular UI layers are built on top of it, including script.aculo.us, Rico, and others. Of course, you can’t leave out mootools. It’s UI library, moo.fx, can [...]

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Getting started Creating graphs with Adobe’s Flex 2 is a pretty simple task, just throw together some short XML and you’re done. But like most “easy” technologies things get a little more difficult when you want to do more advanced things like making sections of the graphs stand out or keeping multiple graphs in sync [...]

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