Everyone Loves Free Icons
jim @ 9:53 am — Filed under: 
‘Nuff Said. Go grab ‘em.
OK. So the segway just doesn’t excite me all that much. But THIS THING looks like something I want.
7/31/2006
7/30/2006
7/25/2006
Guess who’s back?
dennis @ 3:48 pm — Filed under: Guess who’s back, back again. Dennis is back, back again.
That’s right - Dennis is back on the Big Halo band wagon just in time to ride into the playoffs. I was aware the Angels were on a terror since the All Star break, but once I started watching again they went on a 3 game slide. so it was Jay (Dre’s fan) who brought it to my attention that the halos are now in a two-way tie for first place in the AL Worst, I mean West.
I will remain on the wagon until the Angels win the 2006 World Series (or until the Rally Monkey falls). GO HALOS.
7/21/2006
And the ping pong merrit badge goes to…
greg @ 5:22 pm — Filed under: 
Jay!
Big winner this week in game 2 of the finals 21-17. Congrats and don’t wear the burger king crown everywhere this weekend.
7/17/2006
The Playoff
jay @ 9:43 am — Filed under: This article in the NY Times Magazine was written by one of my great high school friends Adam Stein. Its a great read and so indicative of his remarkable sense of humor and literary ingenuity. What a joy to get to read his stuff about being a dad when I can’t be in New York to experience it myself.
Way to go Ads.
Being a father of a preschooler on the west coast is somewhat different, but we can all relate to the preschool interview horror and the uncontrollable comparisons that run through your head as soon as your child gets of preschool age (and beyond).
7/11/2006
Smart Quote Me On This
jim @ 5:56 pm — Filed under: So at one time or another most programmers out there have had to deal with embedding characters, encoding types, content types and some text just plain mismatching. It’s never fun because it usually means you have to make some major changes in your database or your end file. That was the case today when I was working with Tim on bringing some XML into flash. It started off fine, but when we realized the case of the Microsoft Smart Quote had made it’s way into the database, I felt like hurting someone quickly.
Long story short, after no luck in embedding, setting content types and tweaking the heckout of flash, I found this post on php.net that saved the day.
< ?
function all_ascii( $stringIn ){
$final = ”;
$search = array(chr(145),chr(146),chr(147),chr(148),chr(150),chr(151));
$replace = array(“‘”,“‘”,‘"’,‘"’,‘-’,‘-’);
$hold = str_replace($search[0],$replace[0],$stringIn);
$hold = str_replace($search[1],$replace[1],$hold);
$hold = str_replace($search[2],$replace[2],$hold);
$hold = str_replace($search[3],$replace[3],$hold);
$hold = str_replace($search[4],$replace[4],$hold);
$hold = str_replace($search[5],$replace[5],$hold);
if(!function_exists(’str_split’)){
function str_split($string,$split_length=1){
$count = strlen($string);
if($split_length < 1){
return false;
} elseif($split_length > $count){
return array($string);
} else {
$num = (int)ceil($count/$split_length);
$ret = array();
for($i=0;$i< $num;$i++){
$ret[] = substr($string,$i*$split_length,$split_length);
}
return $ret;
}
}
}
$holdarr = str_split($hold);
foreach ($holdarr as $val) {
if (ord($val) < 128) $final .= $val;
}
return $final;
}
?>
Example usage:
Thank you anonymous friend, you are my hero.
7/6/2006
Magnus Effect
greg @ 2:12 pm — Filed under: 
If you ever wondered why Art is difficult to beat at ping pong, I have nailed it down to a specific scientific concept.
Check out the Magnus Effect entry on Wikipedia.
I am currently searching for the opposite effect to nuetralize his game.