UPDATE: iTerm version 0.9.5.0821 has been released which is intended to fix this. I haven't tested it. I just upgraded to iTerm version 0.9.5.0820 from 0.9.5.0611 on Mac OS X Leopard, and found that iTerm had forgotten or lost all of my preferences and bookmarks. I fixed it by; quitting iTerm going to ~/Library/Preferences/ moving net.sourceforge.iTerm.plist to net.sourceforge.iTerm.plist~ copying iTerm.plist to net.sourceforge.iTerm.plist starting iTerm See larger image

Jakob Neilsen has written about the 10 best application UIs of 2008. And NZ-made Xero comes in at #10! First of all, congratulations to Xero, the Team and Rod Drury! Neilsen is recognized as one of the leading usability, analysis and UI design experts in the world. So his recognition of Xero, from little old NZ, is significant. He went one step further and used Xero as an example of how to implement lightboxes / modal dialogues well.

jQuery for Designers and Themers is a fun interactive session at DrupalCon San francisco on getting started with jQuery. It is targeted at designers and themers but is suitable for anyone with a decent understanding of HTML and CSS — no programming experience is necessary. It doesn't include any PHP, and only basic programming concepts are introduced. The session is early on Tuesday 20 April in room 307 (Commerce guys) at DrupalCon SF at 8:30am.

In January 2009 I wrote and released jQuery.dashboard() plugin, which extends jQuery to quickly and easily create dashboard UIs like iGoogle. A handful of people have using it for a while, but in December 2009, it was announced that CiviCRM 3.1 would include a dashboard feature utilising jQuery.dashboard() plugin! CiviCRM 3.1 was released late January 2010. (So this blog post is a little late!) You can try it out yourself at CiviCRM's Drupal demo site.

The jQuery.dashboard() plugin for jQuery provides a framework that makes it easy for web application developers to create highly configurable dashboard-like user interfaces (similar to iGoogle) in their web applications. Jump straight to the demo. jQuery.dashboard() requires jQuery UI 1.7's (the new 1.6rc6) Sortable library, which in turn requires jQuery UI Draggable, core and jQuery 1.3. jQuery.dashboard() requires that a number of serverside callbacks be defined where the current user's widgets per column and minimized status are made available and saved, and where settings for each widget can be retrieved and saved.

It is not too late to sponsor DrupalSouth. BUT, there is room for only a few more sponsors and sponsorship closes this Friday 27 November. So if you want to sponsor contact us now! All sponsors get Logo and link to company profile on sponsors page Detailed company profile on the website Entire team profile on the website Swag in the attendee pack 1 free registration Platinum sponsors get Largest logo on every page on the website Flexible advertising options on the website and at the event Large and prominent printed logo at the venue and on printed materials Acknowledgement in all announcements and media releases Featured article on the website, distributed to all attendees Gold sponsors get Large logo on randomly alternating pages on the website Printed logo at the venue and on printed materials Acknowledgement in some announcements and media releases Silver sponsors get Logo on randomly alternating pages on the website Logo in most printed materials There is room for just 1 more Platinum sponsor from $1000, 2 more Gold sponsors from $500 each and several more Silver sponsors from $200 each.

While checking out Raincity Studio's drupal work on SpreadFirefox.com I found myself becoming agitated by the bright orange color palette. I whined a little about the design then realized my monitor is partially to blame. The model I have of Dell's 30" LCD monitor (Here's the newer model) has a whopping 1:1000 contrast ratio. Is that what makes firefox-orange so damned bright? In these photos I've tried (not completely successfully) to capture the difference between the Dell monitor and th MacBook Pro monitor:

Yesterday in an informal COSC208 (C and C++ programming) lecture at the University of Canterbury, discussion broke out on how to teach and learn coding Style. Here are my 2 cents; I believe it's not possible to effectively teach & learn Style with single-developer programs that have a clearly limited life span -- such as all code written for COSC208 and most undergraduate university papers. Once the paper has finished and the grade has been determined, who is going to maintain the student's code?

Oliver Rist 'reviewed' Mac OS X Leopard and his article was slashdotted. Disclaimer I'm writing this on my second MacBook Pro, in our house we also have MacBook white (My fiancee's), an iPod Shuffle, an Airport Extreme base station and an Airport Express with Airtunes. Although I wouldn't agree with you, it wouldn't surprise me if you took me for a JAFAF (Just Another Fucking Apple Fanboy). However I make an effort to keep a realistic view on Apple's products and if I felt that an open source operating system could enhance my workflow as much (or nearly as much) as Mac OS X, I would switch, but currently there isn't.

UPDATE: Buddhika Amila Sampath created the Light Fantastic theme, not Joshua Brauer. Joshua is the maintainer. I recently searched on Themebot for a great contributed Drupal flexible-width theme for DrupalSouth.net.nz and found Light Fantastic. Joshua Brauer maintains the awesome Light Fantastic theme, which was created by Buddhika Amila Sampath as part of the Google Summer of Code 2007. Screenshot of Light Fantastic on the DrupalSouth website: See a larger image.