After two years of on and off work it is my pleasure to announce the release of the Cardinal Store Locator plugin for WordPress. This plugin is built on top of my jQuery Store Locator plugin with the WordPress Settings API and offers all of the same settings via the WordPress dashboard in addition to integrating with core WordPress features such as custom post types for location data and custom taxonomies for location categories and ...(Read More)
It had to be different this year; something had to change. Winter in Minnesota requires and demands both physical and mental resilience, even for people who’ve lived through it for many years. The cold and darkness takes a toll in so many different ways that even the hardiest of residents will complain about it at some point. February of 2014 for me was one of the lowest points I’ve experienced in my life and I ...(Read More)
Since version 2.0.0 of the jQuery Store Locator plugin I’ve included an option to handle query string parameters but I haven’t provided many details on how to take advantage of it. I thought I would take the time to provide an example so people aren’t stuck having to dig through the plugin code to understand how to use this option. The primary use for using query string parameters with the plugin would be to set ...(Read More)
A couple of months ago I assisted someone with a paid request to implement my jQuery Store Locator plugin with a database of over 50,000 locations. I hadn’t previously done this and wanted to share the solution I came up with for the benefit of anyone else who might be wondering how to proceed in the same situation. The key, of course, is to integrate with a back-end language but coming up with the appropriate ...(Read More)
I’m happy to announce that a major new update to my jQuery Store Locator plugin has been released and is now available on GitHub. Version 2 is a complete rewrite based on the “basic” plugin pattern of the jQuery Boilerplate. The overall file structure has changed, several of the plugin settings have changed and all of the CSS is now prefixed to avoid potential collisions. In other words, you’re not going to be able to simply replace the ...(Read More)
No matter how many years of experience you have, it seems that there is always something new in the world of programming. It’s a constant process of learning, as programming languages, scripts, tools, software, methods and best practices evolve. Depending on the project, the work can also become abstract and quite challenging; especially when trying to come up with something unique or doing something new for the first time. Every programmer occasionally gets stuck and ...(Read More)
I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I first published my Google Maps store locator JavaScript code. I’ve had several requests for an updated version and that post has definitely received more traffic than any of my others. I’ve finally created a new version of the locator using Google Maps API version 3 and this time I’ve turned it into a full-on jQuery plugin. I re-worked almost everything in the code but I ...(Read More)
Microsoft finally released a browser that supports some CSS3 properties. As usual they’re in catch-up mode, but IE9 still isn’t exactly on par with the rest of them. If you check the compatibility chart on findmebyip.com you’ll see there are still some red Xs compared to the other major browsers. What’s the deal with text shadows? Anyways, it might be good enough for now but there’s one gigantic problem that, at least to me, resembles ...(Read More)
* UPDATE: I’ve re-worked this code and have created a jQuery plugin based on it. Recently, I was tasked with creating a “store” locator for a local financial institution that has several branches in the Twin Cities area. The problem was that there wasn’t a chance I’d receive access to their server or database and would need to make a special request if I needed access to a server-side programming language. Because of a tight ...(Read More)
MODx is an up and coming PHP/MySQL content management system that’s easy to use and has plenty of nice features. The project began in 2004 as a fork of Etomite. I’ve used it for a few projects now (not extensively) and think it works great for small sites; sites with less than ~15 pages that don’t have a lot of dynamic content. I really like the direction that MODx is headed but there are certainly ...(Read More)