MacBook Pro Screen Goes Bonkers

Last night I got home and found I'd forgotten to plug in the power to my MacBook Pro and left it on without putting it to sleep. That's happened before; it usually just shuts down on its own.

This time, it went to sleep on its own but the screen looked like it was on a psychedelic journey of some sort. All sorts of shapes everywhere and they seemed to be enlarged portions of apps I had open earlier. Some were even flipped upside down and even stranger, they were skewed to appear as if they were angled back and away from me (think hallways in really old computer games).

I woke it from sleep and as I moved my mouse the screen would sometimes redraw a little, but nothing got any better. I took some video, and pulled some screenshots from it. The first is what it looked like shortly after I woke it up.

I tried hooking up another monitor to it, but that didn't have the desired effect. So I used command+tab to move through applications (all by guesswork since the screen would update to more garbled mess) and I would press command+Q to quit the apps. Sometimes I held command+W to close windows, just for good measure. I was working blindly after all, so who knows what it was doing.

I tried clicking in the upper left where the Apple logo would be, and it seemed a rectangle appeared that would be the submenu. So I put my mouse where Log Out should have been but that didn't work. I tried the keyboard shortcut too to no avail. So in the end I had to resort to pressing the button and hoping for the best.

Much to my surprise it started back up normally, thank goodness!

Hopefully that never happens again... It was quite scary to think I may have to travel on Tuesday for 2 weeks and not have a laptop with me all that time.

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Twittervated

I was hoping to be twitterpated like most Twitter fanatics seem to be, but instead I'm twittervated.

If you laughed at this at all, you can so relate!

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Twitter hates me

I've tweeted from twitter's home page in Firefox 2, Opera 9 and Safari 2. None of my tweets today are showing up.

Now its "over capacity".

Ugh, as a twitter newbie I'm so not impressed...

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Happy National Regex Day - 5 Tips for working with Regular Expressions

Happy National Regex Day!

To celebrate I'd like to share some tips for working with Regular Expressions that have helped me over the years I've been using them. I've got 5 tips to share today (#1 is already in the post on Ben Nadel's blog that I linked to but thought it worthwhile to repeat here, sorry if it is a dupe for you...)

Tip #1, for Dreamweaver Users: If you're a Dreamweaver user and need to build a regular expression, start learning about the Server Behavior Builder. When you create a server behavior, Dreamweaver generates a regular expression to match the code block(s). If you're in a hurry (or especially if you're just learning regular expressions), the regexes Dreamweaver generates can be a good starting point. You'll find the regexes it generates are in your user's Configuration in .edml files (which are XML files).

Tip #2, for CFEclipse users (assuming this works in other flavors of Eclipse as well): When you use the Search dialog (ctrl+H on the Mac), there's the obvious Regular Expression checkbox. With your focus in the Containing Text field, press Ctrl+Space to get a handy regex cheat sheet.

Tip #3, a Workflow Tip: When trying to come up with that perfect regex, take the time to build a static page or two that has what you want to match in it. Essentially, create a use case document. Then use your favorite regex capable Find and Replace tool to work up to creating the perfect regex. For instance, if you have a huge string to match, start by trying to match only the first 5 characters then add on to your regex and test again. When you've got it matching your use cases, then go ahead and plug it into your ColdFusion or JavaScript code (you don't use other code right? ;-))

Tip #4, Debugging Regular Expressions: You'll most likely find yourself debugging a regex at some point or another, and for me its usually because I missed a use case. (That's when its time to update the use case document.) Any time I've got a regex that isn't quite working right, I trim it back. In other words, I do the opposite of what I described in the first part of my workflow tip above. Stop trying to match what you really want to match in its entirety, take a bit away from the regex at a time until it starts matching your use case file. (If you didn't make a use case file, now is the time to do it!) Then build that regex back up again little by little until you have it matching everything you want.

Tip #5, Application Comments: In the case of using a regex in an application (versus in Find and Replace), always, always make a comment on what that regex means in plain English terms and why you need to use it in the first place. Sooner or later, someone will look at the regex and quite possibly have their eyes glaze over -- it could be you! So do yourself and others a favor and take a couple minutes to comment it. If you're extra geeky you'll have your comment refer to your use case file so they can actually see exactly what the heck that fancy string of characters is supposed to match.

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UPDATE - CFGRID wrapping text

A few weeks ago I posted about needing to wrap text in a CFGRID's cell. (Read the original posted that I just updated...)

The code I provided didn't work in IE (figures!) but I've since added display:block; to the rule and it works for me...

Here it is, new and improved:

div .x-grid-cell-text{white-space:normal;display:block;}


I'm interested in hearing if anyone has a better fix, or if this doesn't work right for some use case or browser.

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Rock Band

Note to self: I am not a Rock Star. I should never attempt to kick like one (again).

Note to anyone over 30: Learn from the above. Repeat it at least 3 times.

Note to anyone who kicked anyway despite the above: Epsom salt baths help with sore muscles.

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Wrapping text in CFGRID that uses format="html"

I Googled. I googled some more. I found lots of blogs where people asked in the comments how to wrap text in a CFGRID tag, but either no answer was given or the format was Flash.

Well, for the sanity of those on the same mission I was on, I shall blog the solution that satisfied my quest. (It may or may not satisfy yours depending on what you're trying to achieve.)

A simple line of CSS did the trick in my use case:

div .x-grid-cell-text{white-space:normal;}

UPDATE: To fix IE, add display:block; to the rule above.

That's it, one line of CSS. Hope it helps!

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Adobe Sells ColdFusion

It's true; Adobe sells ColdFusion. In fact, they have for a few years now. Ever since they acquired Macromedia.

Gotcha...Just like last time.

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