“Just where does he get those wonderful toys?”

A couple of cool gadgets spotted from slashdot: the Handspring Treo is a combination PDA and cell phone. There’s another PDA/phone combo called the HipTop, which runs Java and also has options for a camera and MIDI synth. Wow. And lastly, there’s a review at Tom’s Hardware of 3Com’s new NJ100 Network Jack — a wallplate jack with a built-in 4-port ethernet switch.

A Message from Scott Adams

As a member of the DNRC, I occassionally receive the Dilbert Newsletter. Today’s had a thought from Dilbert creator Scott Adams that I liked:

My Holiday Message

I’ve written and rewritten this section a dozen times. My problem
is that no matter how much I write, I keep condensing it down to
the same thought: This holiday season, as we laugh and eat and shop
and enjoy friends and family, our soldiers are in Afghanistan
risking everything for us. Some of them won’t come back. The rest
will never be the same.

Every one of them volunteered. They think we’re worth it.

Let’s prove them right.

Amen to that.

Dynamic Form Controls

Some time back, I was working on some code at work where we wanted to dynamically disable and re-enable certain form elements based on other user input. Internet Explorer adds a “disabled” property to form elements that makes this simple. But Netscape 4.x doesn’t.

I eventually came up with some Javascript code that more-or-less simulates the ability to disable form elements in NS4. If anybody is interested, feel free to use my code in your own projects.