Posted by Andrés on July 20th, 2010

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Viognier’s big comeback – July 23rd

This Friday July 23rd TWG will host our third installment of ‘good people drinking wine and talking to each other’. This event has quickly become a beloved tradition around the office. It’s our chance to gather a group of good people – friends, colleagues, and super interesting bon-vivants – to drink and learn about a great wine, eat some delicious things, and enjoy three short, yet spell-binding, presentations.

THIS FRIDAY’S PRESENTERS:

Dominic Bortolussi: Will recount the exhilarating tale of a white grape that was driven to near extinction from abuse and neglect. Viognier, a perfumed, and delicious white wine from the south of France is my summertime guzzler.. maybe you’ll like it too. Why not find out.

Shamez Amlani (La Palette, Kensington Sundays): Topic: Social engagement. Shamez stirs a lot of pots these days, between running La Palette to helping organize Kensington Pedestrian Sundays. Shamez will regale us with real-life stories from the trenches and remind us why it’s important to stay connected to community.

Mike Schaus (stichmedia.ca): Mike will present a synopsis and razor sharp analysis of the recent Old Spice commercial and online campaign. He’s pretty sure that online branding just jumped the shark with this one, and he wants to argue loudly with anyone who disagrees.

Pete Forde (dataliteracy.org): Pete believes that Open Data isn’t just for geeks and economists anymore, and that Data Literacy for all would change the world. He’s writing a future Oprah’s Book Club title about how to get rich, expose corruption and win the Order of Canada using just Excel, some rope and a stick of gum.

Rebecca Baran (rebeccabaran.com): Who takes great photos of great people, in natural light, and who has recently launched her own website, will (very likely) be here at the studio, taking photo portraits of the fully clothed or soft nudes.

—

Interested in attending future events? Sign-up at: twg.ca/wine

  Posted by jamie on July 16th, 2010

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JSONimal – Elegant DOM construction with jQuery

As part of my co-op term here at TWG, I’ve had the opportunity to try out new technology, approach interesting technical problems, and develop useful bits of code outside of client work. JSONimal was created on one of my ‘lab days’ focused on innovation and experimentation.

The purpose of JSONimal is to take the pain out of constructing HTML using Javascript.

What’s it do? This example should demonstrate my goal fairly well.

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$(function() {

    $.mktag("#demo").jsonimal([

        ["h1", {text: "JSONimal!"}],

        ["table",{style: 'border: 1px solid black'},[

            ["thead",[

                ["tr",{style: 'text-transform: uppercase'},[

                    ["th", {text: "one"}],

                    ["th", {text: "two"}],

                    ["th", {text: "three"}]

                ]]

            ]],

            ["tbody", [

                ["tr",[

                    ["td", {html: "<u>a</u>"}],

                    ["td", {text: "b"}],

                    ["td", {text: "c"}]

                ]],

                ["tr",[

                    ["td",[

                        ["a", {href: "http://www.google.ca", text: "Google"}]

                    ]],

                    ["td", {text: "b"}],

                    ["td", {text: "c"}]

                ]],

                ["tr",[

                    ["td", {text: "a"}],

                    ["td", {text: "b"}],

                    ["td", {text: "c"}]

                ]]

            ]]

        ]]

    ]).appendTo("body");

});

Which will add this to the body:

JSONimal!

For more information and examples, check out the github page: JSONimal @ github.

I also posted it as on the jQuery plugins page – but that just points to the github page anyway. JSONimal @ plugins.jquery.com

  Posted by Dominic on July 13th, 2010

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Rails Web Developer Quiz

Here’s a quiz we ran last year, at Employment.nil, Toronto first Ruby job fair.

See if you can get them all, I’ll post the answers in a couple weeks, and if you have your own favorite trick questions, post them here.

Javascript

1. An external JavaScript must contain the <script> tag, true or false?

2. What is the purpose of the the SWFObject javascript library?

Ruby

3. Given:

Are first and second equal?

4. True or false?

5. If ('1'..'10').to_a returns:

["1", "2", "3", "4", ..... "10"]

What does ('2'..'10').to_a return?

Rails

6. Given the following class:

What SQL is generated for the following queries:

XHTML:

7. The DOCTYPE declaration has no closing tag, true or false?

8. All XHTML tags and attributes must be in lower case, true or false?

9. There is a way of describing XML data, how?

10. What does DTD stand for?

AJAX:

11. AJAX functionality is achieved by using what object?

CSS:

12. Should you clear floats?

13. How do you properly clear floats?

14. How do you write IE specific css?
Bonus: what is the problem with this?

Everything – Multiple Choice

15. Rails: Which of the following is not a form helper method?

a. text_field_tag
b. text_input_tag
c. text_area_tag
d. hidden_field_tag

16. What’s the default REST HTTP action verb for updating an existing record?

a. PUT
b. UPDATE
c. POST
d. PUSH

17. Which of the following is not a core Rails package?

a. ActionMailer
b. ActionController
c. ActiveRecord
d. ActiveResource

18. Which of the following is not an instance method of Object?

a. to_a
b. to_i
c. taint
d. hash

19. Which of the following is not a valid render option?

a. :update
b. :partial
c. :string
d. :file

20. Which of the following is not a valid ActionController filter declaration?

a. before_filter
b. clear_filter
c. after_filter
d. around_filter

21. Which of the following is not a valid ActiveRecord callback type?

a. before_create
b. before_validation_on_create
c. after_destroy
d. before_validation_on_destroy

22. XML is to XHTML as this is to HTML.

23. The keys of a model’s attributes are stored using this data type.

24. This is the RFC 2324 definition for HTTP status code 418.

24. Bonus: what does this do???

  Posted by Andrés on May 11th, 2010

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Good People Drinking Wine and talking to each other – Rioja Recap

Good people; check. Drinking (great) wine; double check. Talking to each other; yes!

TWG would like to thank:

Anil Patel: for sharing his expertise in working with Google Apps/Salesforce.com/Echosign.com and other SaaS tools for his small, yet influential non-profit, Timeraiser.ca. Check out their full IT portal here: http://it.timeraiser.ca. AND a big thanks for pitching in a case of the delicious Ontario white wine blend called Sibling Rivalry.

Rob Ballantyne: for sharing his photos, experiences, and deep rooted passion for Rioja wines. Not to mention the delicious bottle of 1987 Lopez de Heredia, Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva, and the bottle of 1995 Gravonia by Lopez De Heredia.

Rebecca Baran: for her flattering photo booth shots, and persistence in getting all our guest’s in front of her lens. Check her out at http://rebeccabaran.com

And to all of you; our guests, colleagues, neighbours, and fellow creative professionals: thank you for making the second installment of “Good People Drinking Wine and Talking to Each Other” a resounding success.

Until next time, (we’re thinking 2 months)
Your friends at TWG.

*all photos by Rebecca Baran

  Posted by Dominic on May 3rd, 2010

5 Comments

May 7th – Good people drinking wine and talking to each other

Friday May 7th:
Another jam-packed installment of ‘good people drinking wine and talking to each other’

Please RSVP to join a hand-picked group of good people – friends, colleagues, and super interesting bon-vivants – to drink some great wine, eat some delicious things, have your photo taken, and enjoy three short, yet spell-binding, presentations.

PRESENTERS:

Dominic Bortolussi & Rob Ballantyne: Will talk about and offer wines from the magical kingdom of Rioja. Where new world meets old world, unicorns run wild, and where countless people found their first love of wine. Maybe you will too. For the first dozen or so people who arrive, there will be tasting glasses of a ’1987 Tondonia Gran Reserva’ from the renowned Lopez de Heredia vineyard. For those who arrive later, you’ll also get crazy good wine, but it won’t be 23years old.

Anil Patel: Topic: Decision-making when thinking about Software As A Service (SaaS) tools. There’s a difference between Open-source versus an Open-Architecture, and connecting people and content is what matters most, not who owns the software.

Andres Aquino: Will announce the impending launch of our brand spanking new commercial web-application. PostageApp – “The easier way to send email from web apps”.  PostageApp, which started as a side-project to solve our own email problems, seemed a good candidate to sell as a service. Andres will highlight the major pain points in PostageApp’s development and how we overcame them.

Rebecca Baran: Who has recently launched her eponymous website, will be here at the studio, taking photo portraits of the fully clothed or soft nudes.

SUMMARY:

It’s an early thing. Short and sweet. There will be tasting glasses of wine, as well as other alcoholic and non-alcoholics things. Cheeses and good nibbles will be all around, but it’s not meant to spoil your supper.

And then … at 7:00 pm, our encounter will end, and you will all move on to your dinner reservations and vegetarian yoga classes, full of cheese and ideas, a good wine buzz, and fun people to stalk on Twitter or Facebook over the weekend.

THE VENUE:

Our studio, in the Burroughes building, at 639 Queen Street West. Suite 502. We’ll jimmy the door to stay open, but buzz us at 5002 if it’s locked when you arrive.

THE TIME:

Friday, May 7th
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

ATTENDEES:

There will be neighbors in the building, entrepreneurs, graphic designers, fashion designers, industrial designers, web developers, animators, film-makers, gamers, writers, musicians, painters, wine lovers, comic book lovers, maybe even foot lovers – all stylish, vivacious and friendly people. So you should be here.

You’re strongly encouraged to bring along equally amazing people too.

  Posted by Georges on October 16th, 2009

1 Comment

geeks + beer + friday = ?

Every so often a text editor war will flare up in the office. We all have our favourites, but no one likes vi the way Scott likes vi.

Here’s the first in Dr. Tadman‘s twelve part lecture series on how vi will make your life better:

Click For Full-Size Image