Wordpress has pushed conventional wisdom by building an iPhone applicition that completely interfaces with their base functionality: writing blog posts. Being able to write a blog really isn’t something revolutionary, but the mobile and flexibile empowerment given from a cell phone breaks the traditional tethered mold.

Maybe it’s just my brain trying to fight off impending sleep (it’s roughly 3 am here) but I feel like this app will motivate me to become a more spontaneous blogger. Possibly even a more informative blogger. Who knows. The point is, Wordpress really uped the ante and I salute them for that.

Praise aside, I’m assuming this isn’t a WYSIWYG. That’s fine with me, but what about those who don’t know HTML? Since this is a brand spanking new app on a completely new platform, we can assume it’s coming sooner or later.

Kudos Wordpress.

Thanks to Eloy for the Wordpress tip.

Group A

In typical fashion, Portugal comes out on top, followed by a solid effort from Turkey.  In Group A there wasn’t much drama, and everything happened as predicted.

Group B

Group B has a nice little cinderella story going on.  Croatia took out the heavily favorited German squad in order to lead the group.  The Germans were able to regroup however to maintain a bid in the quarterfinals.  It’ll be interesting to see how they play against the Portugal powerhouse.

Group C

Group C is the largest talking point of the Euro’s thus far.  The Dutch took out both Italy and France to solidify it’s place at the top of the Group.  Italy narrowly escapes the group stage.  Meanwhile France sits on bottom with 1 point from a Nil-Nil tie with Romania.  The French must be deeply disapointed with their efforts.

Group D

Finally Group D is led by Spain who swept the group with wins.  Russia comes off with a solid 6 points to move on to the quarterfinals.

QuarterFinals

Germany vs Portugal

In my opinion, this is one of the top matches to watch in the QuarterFinals.  The consistent, displined Germans up against the touch and style of the Portugese.  It’s the first quarterfinal to be played and might very well be the making of the most entertaining as well.

Croatia vs Turkey

The second game of the quarters involve Croatia and Turkey.  Croatia is on a high from their undefeated group stage (including a reserves win against Poland) so I foresee them having the added motivation to pull off a win against Turkey.

Netherlands vs Russia

After such a surprising effort in the group stages, I don’t foresee the Dutch stopping anytime soon.  I see them beating Russia readily to move onto the semifinals.

Spain vs Italy

Ordinarily I’d immediately call for an Italian win, especially after the World Cup showing.  With their form in the group stage though, this semifinal spot is up for grabs.  Will we see the Italy against the Dutch, or the Italy that played the French.  Spain might be able to pull one out here, but it’d be an interesting bout.

As we close in on the All-Star game, it becomes your duty (as a baseball fan) to vote for who you want to see in the All-Star game. Let’s take a look at how it’s shaping up so far.

In the American League, we have:

First Base:

Kevin Youkilis (Red Sox) - 926,758 votes
Justin Morneau (Twins) - 678,037
Jason Giambi (Yanks) - 437,656

Second Base

Dustin Pedroia (Red Sox) - 809,144 votes
Ian Kinsler (Rangers) - 512,894
Robinson Cano (Yanks) - 512,045

Shortstop

Derek Jeter (Yanks) - 1,218,881 votes
Michael Young (Rangers) - 533,582
Edger Renteria (Tigers) - 365,269

Third Base

Alex Rodriguez (Yanks) - 1,109,916 votes
Mike Lowell (Red Sox) - 584,563
Miguel Cabrera (Tigers) - 379,813

Catcher

Jason Varitek (Red Sox) - 681,451 votes
Joe Mauer (Twins) - 630,372

Designated Hitter

David Ortiz (Red Sox) - 1,216,879 votes
Hideki Matsui (Yanks) - 672,267

Outfield

Manny Ramirez (Red Sox) - 1,179,884 votes
Josh Hamilton (Rangers) - 922,220
Ichiro Suzuki (Mariners) - 696,176
Vladimir Guerrero (Angels) - 610,877
Bobby Abreu (Yanks) - 545,852

In the National League, we have:

First Base

Lance Berkman (Astros) - 1,046,249 votes
Derek Lee (Cubs) - 771,516
Albert Pujols (Cards) - 700,777

Second Base

Chase Utley (Phillies) - 1,284,961 votes
Mark DeRosa (Cubs) - 589,637
Kazou Matsui (Astros) - 523,335

Shortstop

Miguel Tejada (Astros) - 726,835 votes
Hanley Ramirez (Marlins) - 607,528
Ryan Theriot (Cubs) - 583,433

Third Base

Chipper Jones (Braves) - 1,110,171 votes
Aramis Ramirez (Cubs) - 726,973
David Wright (Mets) - 655,105

Catcher

Geovany Soto (Cubs) - 969,853 votes
Brian McCann (Braves) - 578,276

Outfield

Alfonso Soriano (Cubs) - 1,088,866 votes
Kosuke Fukudome (Cubs) - 918,262
Ken Griffey Jr. (Reds) - 775,759
Carlos Lee (Astros) - 587,027
Carlos Beltran (Mets) - 518,838

Just a reminder, you can vote 25 times before the cutoff date on July 2nd (11:59 EST).  Get to voting to ensure your favorite players are in.  Also stay tuned to AskLG for periodic updates of vote statistics.

You can vote for All-Star game online, here.

(Courtesy of MLB: AL | NL)

For those who missed the party today, here’s a quick WWDC rehash.

Firmware 2.0

First, there is a new iPhone firmware version coming out in early July.  It supports a host of new applications from the app store.  Most of which are cool, some are silly.  The firmware now allows full integration with iWork and support for Word, Excel and Powerpoint (the new one).  In an effort to allow events to occur when you don’t have an application running, the firmware will ‘push’ information to a special service in the new firmware.  This way only one process runs (instead of a bunch) which helps save battery life.  Next up, it supports bulk deletion/editing of contacts, email, and the like.  Speaking of contacts, you can now search all of your contacts to find who you need.  Finally, enterprise users can distribute applications over their intranet instead of making it public to the world.  The new firmware is free to all iPhone owners and $9.99 for iPod Touch owners.

MobileMe

MobileMe is replacing the old .Mac access.  For $99/year, you can completely link your mac desktop, mac laptop, iPhone, and iPod.  All email sent to your mobileme account will be pushed to all of your devices supporting email.  You get 20G of space on your iDisk as well.  It’ll be based at Me.com once the site gets updated.

iPhone 2

The new iPhone gets a facelift with a new plastic black (or white) back and a moved camera.  It’s thinner than the previous iPhone.  As suspected, iPhone 2 gets 3G access.  Also, it supports GPS.  It has a beefier battery to support these new features such that you can talk for 8-10 straight hours, or 5 hours via 3G, or 5-6 hours of web browsing, or 24 hours of audiophile pleasure.  The 8Gb version is $199 and the 16Gb version is $299.  Both will drop on July 11th.
Thanks to Gizmodo for live imagery and Cali Lewis (with ustream)for the audio stream.

Well if chatting was ever considered a party, then Party Chat is for you!  Akshay, Google employee and inquisitive coder (hmm synonyms?), built a chat room bot running on Google Talk.  Just to make sure we’re on the same page, this bot will give you the power to talk to groups of people at once.  I understand the widget on Google’s personalized page (iGoogle) does this, but Party Chat is better.  Not only can you chat with tons of people, you may also chat with people who aren’t on your friends list.  A common interest could draw you in or maybe even a common friend.  The point is, it’s like a chat social network (more like IRC) using something most of us already have: Google Talk (Gmail).

So here’s how it works:

First, add a partychat bot to your Google Talk list.  So in the invitation section of Google Talk (in Gmail), invite “partychat#@gmail.com” (where # is any number from 0-9) to chat with you.  For instance, you could add “partychat0@gmail.com” or “partychat1@gmail.com” or “partychat2@gmail.com” and so on.  I’m sure you get the idea.  Each one of these bots will allow you to join exactly 1 chat room (at a time).

After you’ve added that friend, start a conversation with the bot.  First, create an alias by saying “/alias nickname”  where nickname is what you want to be called.  For me, I use either “/alias Will” or “/alias HoltkampW”.  Once you send that message, the bot should let you know your name has been changed.  This is an important step since the default name is your email address.  It’s annoying to be talking to ReallyL33TGuy12345@gmail.com.  I have no idea who that is!  Change your alias to your name or something to uniquely identify yourself in a less obtrusive manner.

Next, you’re going to want to either join or make a chat.  To make a chatroom, you type in “/make ChatRoomName”.  For example, I made a room for AskLG using “/make asklg”.  If you don’t want anyone to come on in whenever they feel like it, then you can also make it password protected.  By sending “/make ChatRoomName RoomPassword”, the room becomes protected from me and all the other unwanted users.  Now if you want to join someone else’s chatroom, you simple type “/join OtherChatRoom”.  So to join our chat room, type in “/join asklg”.  If the room is password protected, type in “/join OtherChatRoom RoomPassword”.  Simple right?

Once you’re in the room, just type in what you want to say.  Everyone in the chat will get the message.  If you have your Google Talk setup to log your messages (as in not ‘Off the Record’) then you can get all the messages going on in the chat when you’re not online as well.  Also, the bot will tell you when people join or leave the channel.  Convenient.

Obviously you might not want to be logged in all the time, so you can leave the party.  To do so, type in “/leave” and you won’t get any more messages.  If you really don’t want to leave but want to end those pesky messages for a small amount of time, you can set the bot to snooze.  Typing in “/snooze 45m” will make the bot stop sending you messages for 45 minutes and “/snooze 1h” will let you sleep for another hour.  I’m sure you get the idea.

This is some really easy stuff to remember.  If you ever get lost though or want to know more commands, just type in “/commands” or “/help” and information will come up to guide you.

As always, AskLG has a party room.  Join up with the command “/join asklg” and come hang out.  Hopefully some entertaining people (like myself) will be around to keep you company while you’re bored at work, or home, or wherever you are.

Be sure to hit up TechWalla (Akshay’s blog) for late, breaking news on PartyChat.  I’d also like to give a shoutout to Eloy’s GTalk status (”PartyChat@gmail.com LIVES!”) for making me inquisitive.

Side Note: It is also important to note that you MUST have GTalk (Gmail) to get all this to work.  If you’re not a GMail user yet, hit up Gmail’s website and make an account.  You’ll be glad you did.

Today we’re talking about how to manage tasks and projects in your life.  In today’s world, we are constantly under the barrage of projects, tasks, meetings, deadlines, and social life.  It’s hard to remember all of the things you have to do on any given day.  Luckily, your computer is here to do the heavy lifting for you.

Calendars

Obviously, people normally organize life via calendars.  We’ve done this for a very long time.  Some people have huge calendars on their desk, small calendars on their wall, and even calendars in a binder.  Calendars do come in many forms, including electronic.  Since we’re all about technology here, we’ll be covering the electronic form.

Desktop Calendars

There are two main types of electronic calendars: desktop-based and online-based.  Desktop-based calendars don’t require an internet connection.  Being connectionless allows these calendars to be always available as long as you have physical access to the computer.  If you’re at work though, it makes it much more difficult to access the calendar events from your home computer (and vice-versa).  Most of the popular desktop email applications have calendar’s built-in or via plugins.  Microsoft Outlook (Windows only) has the calendar built-in.  Mozilla Thunderbird requires a plugin.  If you don’t use desktop email applications then Sunbird and iCal (Mac only) are powerful alternatives.

Internet Calendars

Internet calendars provide accessibility and flexibility.  As long as you can access the internet, then you can get the same calendar experience from any computer you use.  This is appealing to most people since the event information is available almost anywhere.  Google Calendar and Yahoo Calendar are popular web-based calendars.  Based on personal experience, Google Calendar has served me well.  They have an easy to use interface and provide calendars for popular events like national holidays, sports team schedules, and city events so you’re always in the know.

Making the most of your calendar applications

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could use the connectionless abilities and ease of use provided by desktop calendars but also have the information available online?  Well, we can but it takes a little work.  A little while back, I wrote a how-to guide synchronizing a desktop calendar with an online calendar (and vice-versa).  You can further synchronize calendars by merging them all online using FuseCal.  FuseCal is for people who would like to combine work and life related events into one convenient location.

Task Management

Being able to manage your life is a big deal.  At work you always have these projects coming and going.  Also there is just so much to do at home!  After work you need to go to the grocery store, or pickup your kid from school, or take little Johnny to baseball practice.  With all these events occurring, its hard to keep up with simple tasks.  This is where one company, Values of N, has got it down.

Stikkit

Stikkit is an online tool empowering you with smart sticky notes.  We’ve all used sticky notes (or something similar) to keep track of things we need to do during the day.  We’d write down notes about a quick meeting with Joe at 3pm, or even to pick up milk after work.  These tasks are simple enough to exclude from our calendars, but important enough to write reminders.  Stikkit provides you with an infinite supply of virtual sticky notes.  You can write all the tasks you have to do throughout the day, and check it later to get an synopsis of what needs to be done.  It automatically builds a calendar of events.  Stikkit is handy, but I prefer to use another application called Sandy.

I Want Sandy

I want Sandy, or Sandy for short, is made by the same people as Stikkit and therefore revolves around the same principles.  I find it more flexible than Stikkit though.  You are given your own little email address (something@something_else.iwantsandy.com) to send information.  So if I wanted to remind myself to pick up milk after work, I would send an email to my special email address with the subject line saying “Pick up milk at 5:20pm”.  Sandy would then send me an email or a text message (depending on how she’s setup) to remind me to pick up milk.  Once the event is setup, then you no longer have to do anything.  You can even tell her how early to remind you.  By default, she reminds you 15 minutes before the event takes place.  So at 5:05p, I’d be getting a text message reminding me to pick up milk.  Convenient reminder, since I wouldn’t even be at my car yet.  Sandy also allows you to export your calendar of events.  You can combine them with other calendars using FuseCal, or just subscribe using an online or desktop calendar (covered in my Calendar How-To).  All of your tasks in one place, on your calendar, with reminders just in case you forget.  Thats how you really get things done.

Getting Things Done

Getting things done, or GTD, is a concept based on task management and efficiency.  David Allen created this method and has since written a book explaining it.  There are tons of resources online about this concept, namely Wikipedia, 7P Productions, and 43 Folders.  If you are, or become, a fan of GTD, then there are a few tools available to achieve this.

Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk allows you to create, tag, and plan out tasks.  You can be reminded via instant messenger, text messages, or email.  In the case that you have many tasks all over the city, you can view a map of where the tasks are located so you can plan the best route to finish them.  Since you might be out and about, Remember the Milk has a mobile web-enabled interface as well.  Even if you’re not into GTD, this is a great task manager where you can create your own little system (via tagging) to keep yourself organized.

Tracks

Built especially with GTD in mind, Tracks is an open source method for task management.  Tracks allows you to group items by projects and tags.  Each project can have several different tasks.  All of these tasks can have a due date and moved when completed.  If you’re computer savvy, you can download the software and set it up on your machine.  If not, there are a few online solutions available.  Tracks.Tra.In is a free setup implementing the Tracks software.  GTDTracks also implements tracks software, but costs a small monthly fee (NOTE: Temporarily not accepting new registrations the last time I checked).

Woah, thats a ton of info…

Yes, I’ve briefly mentioned way too many services for everyone to use on a daily basis.  I do urge you to look at some GTD applications and maybe even Sandy.  One of them should be able to help you keep your life organized.  Calendars are a great way as well and typically serve in a supporting role.  You can keep your all aspects of your life together using a multitude of solutions.  Personally, I use Sandy mixed with iCal synced with Google Calendar to manage my meetings and projects.  I haven’t been late since.

In part two of this series, we’ll be taking a look at how to take command of your social life.  So many people, so little time.

Recently, I stumbled upon an article discussing Generation Y.  It was harshly criticizing my (Yeah, I’m a Y’er) generation’s beliefs and ethic.  Intrigued, I set off to research the public opinion of Millennials.  Many people chastise us, and a few (surprisingly) defend us.  As a Millennium, I feel I need to discuss our image as perceived by the public and make some justifications/corrections to the whole situation.

Background

Generation Y is the group of people born between 1980 to 1993-ish.  They are the largest generation since the Baby Boomers with a population nearing 75 million.  They’ve been dubbed “Generation Y”, “Generation WHY”, “Generation Next”, “Millenniums”, “Boomlets”, “Netizens”, and quite a few other names.

According to a Deloitte study, they are defined as: techno-savvy, confident, optimistic, independent, goal oriented, success driven, lifestyle centered, diverse, entrepreneurial, connected, impatient, and community-minded.  Thats fine and dandy, but not all things are thought to be good with Gen Y.

Public Opinion

Public opinion, especially the corporate opinion, of the next generation of workers paints a faint, dismal picture of what is yet to come.  Generation Y has the unique distinction of being considered spoiled.  When they were younger, many were rewarded for everything they’ve done.  In little leagues, every team was full of winners and trophies were doled out to every player.  In order to employ Millenniums, bosses must speak like a therapist.  Coaching this generation rather than bossing them around.  There must be special awards given for good work.  Since they are spoiled, they are also narcissistic.

Netizens love themselves and are caught up in their lifestyle.  All personal needs go before corporate wishes.  So in this odd generational shift, work is actually scheduled around life events.  This leads us to a “I’m sorry, but I can’t work late since I’ve already made plans with friends” type of mentality.  This process can manifest itself in job decisions as well.

Generation Y isn’t loyal.  They could care less where they work as long as they have a job.  Their narcissism makes them seem like they are worth more to the company than they actually are.  They are serial job jumpers, running from one place to another.  Since jobs mean so little, hard work is strictly voluntary.

Their work ethic involves music, fun, and flexibility.  They won’t work hard to earn what they think they deserve.  Don’t even mention overtime either since their night is already planned and the company doesn’t mean enough to make them stay.  The constant rewards growing up as children led them to believe they should always get what they deserve and don’t have to work hard to obtain it.

What Gen Y Is Really About

Being part of the Millenniums, I don’t agree with some of this widespread perception of my generation.  Look at how we are toted as spoiled.  In a sense, it’s true.  Growing up people weren’t as harsh on us as others generations were on their children.  After seeing the pains of our parents and watching the news though, we have come to realize the harsh realities of life.  Through our experiences out on our own, we’ve become optimistic realists.  We know life might throw us lemons, but we’re hoping instead to get thrown limes for our margarita.

This notion of bosses giving therapy treatment is a tad absurd.  It’s true, all of the yelling and threatening the older generation allowed isn’t going to work with us.  We simply aren’t scared of bosses as much and could care less about how things used to be done.  The only thing we’re truly scared of these days is failure.  Just because we don’t respond to the classic threat methods doesn’t mean you can’t tell us we’re doing a terrible job.  When we’re told our performance is bad though, justification is mandatory.  My generation thrives on information, to a fault perhaps, and must know exactly why the company believes we’re performing badly.

On the same token, we demand respect in the workplace.  If we have ideas, we expect management to hear us out.  It’s fine to not run with our ideas (again, justification is needed) but we feel the need to contribute to the team.

While we are narcissistic and do schedule work around life, the nexters genuinely care about who they work for.  We will work overtime if there is an actual reason to.  We will put in the hard work if we feel the need is justified.  We will do anything management asks as long as we’re given reasons why.  The point is, blind obedience has long passed the corporate world.  Nowadays, obedience is a trait that must be earned by our employer.  Even then, we’re always watching our backs to ensure the obedience is never taken for granted.  If we’re going to go out of our way for the company, we expect the same in return.  Since we are looking out for ourselves, we’ve been labeled with disloyalty.

Generation Y can be loyal, but we aren’t naive.  We’ve seen our parents get cut after being loyal for so many years.  Personally, my dad was let go after putting in 17 years.  He worked all the overtime asked of him, some of which was without pay.  He put everything he had into the company.  17 years later, they were downsizing and said he made the most money in the local management pool so he had to be let go.  Growing up where layoffs were the norm, Generation Y knows the game.  We know it happens all the time, especially when the market isn’t great.  As a gut response to the market, we no longer look for long-term achievements.  We live for today and tomorrow, not 10 years from now.  I’m not sure if taking that mentality is good or bad on our part, but it is definitely something engrained in our personality.  We aren’t the next on the chopping block, and we’ll be at the next job if we feel we’re close in line for the cut.  If things are great at work though, we’ll happily stay.  We aren’t jumping for the sake of jumping ship.  We just look out for ourselves, which is something our parents didn’t do.

What does Gen Y bring to the world?

Our generation is all about solutions.  If we don’t know how to do something, we will educate ourselves.  When we were children, we were told “knowledge is power” so we took that to heart.  All the information in the world is on our cell phones and laptops which we frequently tap into to find answers.

We are also persistent.  We’re determined to be the great at everything we do (or at least care about) so we’re constantly changing and tweaking our behavior.  If management thinks we did something poorly, then let us know.  If we’re told why we performed badly, then it won’t happen again.  The constant fluctuation and change in our generation will either make us one of the best or worst groups ever.

This change we’re so used to brings a different culture to the work place.  We aren’t focused on working a set regiment of hours.  Instead, we work based on performance.  At the beginning of the the day or week, we set goals to achieve.  Once we’re finished with our goals, then the work day is done.  This could be before our ’set hours’ have passed or after their done.  Overtime is no big deal as long as we’re making huge strides in our work and have reasons to stay.  We’re very much goal-oriented and success driven.

Don’t misunderstand me though, we like to have fun.  In high school and college, our parents (our role models) told us to study hard if we want to get ahead.  Listening to their advice, we worked and worked and worked.  Everyone needs a break after all that work, so we learned how to party hard, in a limited time frame, as well.  We’re a constant mass of energy that is always on, always ready, and always busy.

We expect work to be similar.  We want to work hard and party hard while on the job.  I mean, work is just an extension of your life right?  Many companies have put in gyms, foosball tables, ping pong tables, host parties, and have other ‘fun’ activities.  So yes, we might play a little ping pong on company time.  Many might think it’s a waste of corporate money, but I’d like to offer an alternative way to look at it.  Everyone at one point or another gets a mental block or hits a mental wall during the work day.  This is stereotypically known as some form of “writer’s block”.  Instead of sitting in our cubicle being bored while we wait for this block to pass, my generation likes to see it as a time to brainstorm.  We go pick up those ping pong paddles and play a few games.  This partying hard mentality lets the mental block pass, gives us more ideas, and keeps us happy.  We can collaborate with coworkers, talk about projects, and whatever else is going on.  This multi-tasking filled break helps us to give the company a better product or service, so we’re all winners right?  Some people are thinking: “Well, they’ll always play and stop working.  We can’t give them games.”  This is far from the truth.  The Millenniums are realists, remember?  We know our job, salary, bonuses, and such are all based on our performance.  We know what we need to get done and how to get it done.  At the end of the day, we might have played an hour or two on the job, but all the work management pushed off on us will be finished and will be the highest quality we can produce.

Generation Y perceives themselves as a commodity.  We have to sell ourselves and our work to get ahead of the millions of competitive peers in the work force.  Not getting things done on time or doing them poorly just doesn’t sell well, so we constantly try to push ourselves to the limit.  This is why we need feedback from our bosses.  We will try out different things, expand our horizons, learn new techniques, but we need to know if it’s working.  We need to know if we’re doing a good job.  Form letters, emails, and gift cards aren’t the type of feedback we want.  My generation needs personalization and quality information.  We need the boss to come tell us we’re doing a good (or bad) job.  We need specific cases when we have excelled or done poorly and reasons justifying both cases.  Like I mentioned earlier, we’re constantly changing ourselves so feedback and information is crucial to our work process.

Conclusion

While some public perception is correct, much of it is given a negative slant.  Maybe this is due to push back from the Baby Boomers and Generation X in attempt to force us to conform, but there are no reasons for us to go the way of our parents.  We’re rebels and here to stay.  Companies need to adapt to this changing mentality or we’ll form our own companies and drive your business away.

In order to find out what the public perception of my generation is all about, I read quite a few articles.  CBS News, Time Magazine, Entrepreneur.com, Wikipedia, and Deloitte had the best information and what was used in this posting.  If you want more information, you should definitely go check them out.

Legendary Scripts is a new segment here at AskLG designed to solve some typical web design issues.  Here, I get to play around with Javascript in order to make simple solutions to mundane or difficult tasks.  Today I’m releasing two new scripts.  The first script is a spam hider to help prevent spammers from getting your email address.  The second script focuses on tooltips.  Using CSS and a little Javascript, you too can have tooltips on your website.

LegendarySpamHide

Objective: Bots troll websites daily trying to obtain more email addresses to spam.  In response, many developers implement spam security mechanisms to prevent their (and others) email addresses from being snatched.  LegendarySpamHide provides another layer of security against these spammers without losing key functionality.

How It Works: First, LegendarySpamHide parses your web page looking for a ‘mailto:’ link.  Once a mailing link is found, it changes the email address to ‘nospam@nospam.com’.  When a bot comes around, it finds this address and not the real email.  The real email address is stowed safely away in Javascript, and exchanged when a legitimate user mouses over the email link.  This way, no functionality is lost and the bots can’t nab your address.  Cool.

Example: I practice what I preach.  Here’s my email address.
Note: Firebug or some other plugin might help see what’s going on.  It’s hidden, I promise.

Download: [drain file 7 url]
Side Note: I am having issues with it working in Firefox 3 Beta 5.  Then again, a ton of things don’t work in FF3 yet.

LegendaryTips

Objective: When you hover over a link, a little information bar pops up called a tooltip.  This information is designed to provide more details about where the link goes.  The tooltip that is displayed by your browser is just so ugly.  Seriously! Wouldn’t be nice if it was sexier?  This is what LegendaryTips achieves.

Now, there are my solutions to this problem and most of which can be found online for free.  Almost all of these solutions require you to include an extra ’span’ or ‘div’ to your links.  That’s too much of a hassle and I’m too busy (lazy, maybe?) to actually do that.  Instead, LegendaryTips takes care of all that for you in one automated process.  Awesome, eh?

How It Works: First, LegendaryTips parses your web page looking for links.  If the link has information in the ‘title’ field, then it builds a tooltip.  When the link is moused over, the tooltip is shown.  Viola!  Not only does LegendaryTips show you the tooltip, but it moves too!  The tooltip will actually follow the mouse around until the mouse moves off the link.  These tooltips are completely style-able to your liking by CSS.  For added ease, the CSS can be in an external file or even in the LegendaryTips Javascript code.  Flexibility is great right?
Example: How about a nice tooltip link.
The CSS used in this demonstration is:

#LegendaryTip {
background: #111;
color: #07E;
position: absolute;
left: 0px;
top: 0px;
display: none;
font-size: 14px;
border: 1px solid #333;
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For those that aren’t in the know, let me update you on NBA Playoffs:

• Lakers swept the Nuggets.  Bryant’s 31 points were too much for the Nuggets to overcome in Game 4.  I personally would have liked to see the Mello and Kobe scheme to continue, but the Lakers were bound to win.
• Boston and Atlanta continue to battle it out.  The series is tied 2-2 which leaves me scratching my head.  How does the most dominate team in the NBA fall to a tie with the 8 seed?  At least it makes for interesting headlines.
• The Hornets took out the Mavs tuesday night.  Chris Paul was play phenomenal pulling off a triple-double in Game 5.
• The Pistons and 76ers are still ticking with Detroit up 3-2.  I haven’t watched or paid attention to them, so I’m not sure what the deal is there, but I didn’t expect either team to blow away the other.  Think it’ll go to a Game 7 anyone?
• The Spurs beat the Suns tuesday night in a great game.  I enjoyed a few moments of this series, especially seeing Shaq in the playoffs again.  Tony Parker’s 31 and Tim Duncan’s 29 points propelled the Spurs to victory.  Same old story with these two teams huh?  The Suns have so much talent to not fare better.  Oh well, there’s always next year right?
• Orlando beat Toronto.  Dwight Howard finished with 21 points to power the Magic to a 102-92 win.  I’m sure everyone is still in shock.
• The Rockets made a comeback tuesday against the Jazz.  It’ll be a hard uphill battle for them to win 2 more games.  I’m sure the Jazz will lock it down soon enough to ruin the fairy-tale.
• The Cavs are up 3-1 on the Wizards.  King James should finish out Arenas and the Wizards fairly soon (tonight?).  I have no doubts in that. 

The NBA playoffs used to be this grand spectacle.  It used to be something I looked forward to and watched in anticipation of the next big shot.  This year, I’ve been feeling a different vibe.  Not one of happiness, excitement, or jubilee.  No, a feeling of boredom.  Don’t get me wrong, there are a few reasons I’ll continue watching.  Tony Parker pitted up against Chris Paul will be one of those.  Hoping for a cinderella (unrealistic) comeback for my Rockets is another.  The point is, after the SA/Suns game, I’m not motivated to watch.  I’ll catch the “good” plays on ESPN, check scores online, and go about my day.  Where’s the playoff excitement this year people?  Is it there, but I’m the only one not feeling it?  The real question is: are you excited?  Are you going to watch every game?  Let me know.

Early in January, I was a naive, young blogger who thought it would be a glorious idea to post updates about my life each day I spent at college.  True to form, I stayed the good path which led to a completed journey today.  68 days later, I have grown enough to realize how difficult these daily posts are.  There just isn’t enough to talk about, or at least not enough you would care about.

Yeah, but thats cool with you right?  You wanted posts that help your life out.  News thats makes sense.  Articles with more relevence.  Ying to your Yang?  Who cares if I had a great day or if my day was crap.  It’s OK, I blame society not you.  Seriously though, starting tomorrow I am all about tech, sports, humor, and other relevant articles.

If you do have some desire to follow my life online, aside from blog posts, be sure to hit up HoltkampW.com.  It has links to every social site I’m involved with.  If you’d like to figure out what I’m doing on a daily basis, then be sure to get a Twitter account and follow me.  I might even follow you.  maybe.. possibly.. probably..

Thank you for bearing with me these past few busy weeks.  Thank you for subscribing, reading, and googling for AskLG.  Thank you for being there.  Hopefully you’ll enjoy what’s next to come.  Besides, there are some ideas churning in this crazy little head of mine that you might like.  Maybe one day soon I’ll take off my hat and release them to the wild.  We’ll see soon enough.