PDFObject
PDFObject 2.3.0 has been released and is available immediately on NPM and related CDNs. It continues to support all major browsers (even that pesky little IE11). There are quite a few improvements in 2.3, including switching to a pure iframe solution for more robust cross-browser support, and
e-learning
I have decided to retire the E-Learning Technology and Development Google Group. It supported 1070 members and 783 discussions from 2009-2024. 15 years! Prior to Google Groups, I had hosted a private e-learning development forum on pipwerks.com for about a year. It was a nice enough site, but the
Tools
I’ve been wanting to revamp pdfobject.com to make it more modern and easier to read. This type of revamp is also a great way to stay up to date on the latest trends, like static site generators. After surveying the field, I decided to play with some Vue-based
Apple Mac
I connect several hard drives to my MacBook Pro’s docking station. It’s always been a pain to manually eject the disks one by one before removing the MacBook from the dock. There are 3rd party apps that can handle this, but I didn’t want to install unknown/
ramblings
When I started my career in web development, there were essentially two browsers to choose from: Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. (Opera was popular in Europe but never caught on in the USA.) Web standards didn’t exist yet, and browser vendors implemented new features fast and loose, with little
Apple Mac Mini Server
In 2009, I started hosting this site on a Mac Mini colocated at MacMiniColo/MacStadium. While I had some experience with shared hosting (think cpanel and MediaTemple), most of my server experience at that point was with Microsoft IIS systems, which are largely GUI-based. I wasn’t familiar with Linux
ramblings
It’s hard to believe that I’ve run learnswfobject.com for nearly ten years. It’s easy to overlook now, but back when Flash was booming, before iOS and Android changed everything, SWFObject was a very important piece of web technology. According to BuiltWith.com, SWFObject’s usage peaked
Apple Mac Mini Server
In late 2009 I migrated all of my websites to my personal Mac Mini server, which is hosted in MacMiniColo’s data center (now part of MacStadium). You can read about my reasons for moving from hosted services to my own server here. I’ve never looked back, and have
emulationstation
Update: Somehow all of my screenshots disappeared. Sorry about that. RetroPie is a fun little arcade system that runs on Raspberry Pi. It includes Emulation Station, which allows the user to select games using a USB game pad or joystick instead of a keyboard. One of Emulation Station’s features
PDFObject
After almost eight years in the making (and nearly 7 years of procrastinating), PDFObject 2.0 has arrived. PDFObject is an open-source standards-friendly JavaScript utility for embedding PDF files into HTML documents. It’s like SWFObject, but for PDFs. Version 1.0 was released in 2008 and has enjoyed modest
Tips and Tricks
When developing web pages, I use MAMP.app or my Mac’s built-in Apache. Viewing the page means using an address such as http://localhost/mypage.html. If you use custom host names (especially easy with the excellent VirtualHostX.app), you may wind up with a localhost address such as
AppleScript
SCORM requires all of the course assets to be listed as a <file> item in the <resource> node. This is not evenly enforced — some LMSs don’t care of you do it or not — but is still a good practice. If you’re anything like me,