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jQuery roadblock

jQuery problem:

<table>
<tr><td>one</td><td>two</td><td>three</td><td><a class=”foo” href=””>click me first</a></td></tr>
<tr><td>one</td><td>two</td><td>three</td><td><a class=”bar” href=””>click me second</a></td></tr>
</table>

What jQuery would allow me to click on "click me second" and change the color of the text "click me first"?

It’s a little more complicated than that. The real source has a plus image on the first row. Once you click that I use .hide() to make the plus go away. I create the 2nd row which has a minus image and a plus image. If you click the plus image, it disappears and creates a third row. The minus image, should 1st) cause the immediate plus image above it to appear 2) then disappear its own row. All plus images have a class of "addrow" and minus images have a class of "deleterow" I thought prev() would be doing it but I get nothing. Specifically .prev(‘.addrow’).show();

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Kindle – Killing paper books forever

I’ve declared for some time now that we are in the midst of a revolution and no one realizes it. That revolution is the death of books. Much like CDs replaced LP records in the early 80s, we will look back at this time and say that in the 2010s electronic books replaced paper books. Paper books will become the thing of collectors. It will take 20 years to realize this as the Kindle and the Apple iPad work their way into schools. Once we get one generation of children through the school system primarily reading text books on e-readers instead of paper, traditional books will die.

I was going to buy a Kindle at the beginning of the week but Amazon was conveniently "temporarily out of stock." I did not realize this meant that Amazon was releasing a new Kindle at only $139! They also improved the contrast on their $189 model (the one interesting me but I was reluctant because I wanted the contrast of the $379 model). Amazon is taking pre-orders to ship on August 27th. I can’t wait!

Update: Did you know you can buy the Barnes & Noble NOOK ebook reader (WiFi + 3G) on Amazon? And the Sony Digital Reader? Note that each are a pound while the 6 inch Kindle is 8 ounces. And of course the Apple iPad Tablet (64GB, Wifi) which weighs in at a pound and a half.

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53 Years of Nuclear Bombs

How many nuclear bombs have been exploded? Many people would say, "One, over Japan" when it fact it was two, one over Hiroshima and another over Nagasaki. Would you believe that Britain has exploded a nuclear bomb in the United States? Would you believe that in 53 years 2053 nuclear bombs were exploded around the globe? I find the following video unsettling. It left me feeling hollow in my chest and subtly angry.

[Source, Isao Hashimoto, 1945-1998]

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flickr iPhone app 99% upload then fails

My iPhone refuses to upload a picture using the flickr app. It gets through 99%, reports complete, then says "Upload failed. Try later. Try again." Not much on The Googles about this. However, I believe the answer is in Flickr’s monthly upload limit for free accounts. After upgrading to Pro, my upload worked flawlessly. To the flickr iPhone app developers, your error message needs to be altered to encourage the purchase of a pro account.

View pictures mainly from my iPhone at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mccaughan and see excellent photography from Cathy with a real camera at http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticpsychology.

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The Power of Computing

Computing tied to a single computer or location is undeniably an artifact of the past. The Cloud with its risks and uncertainty is where data should live as the risks far outweight the risk of maintaining that data on a single, fixed location piece of hardware. For a family that keeps all its digital records (photos, documents, etc) only on the home computer, a housefire or even something as mundane as a failed harddrive can wipeout a lifetime of family history.

The Cloud gives us data accessibilty and security with machine independence but from time to time we do require a specific machine which may not be at our current location. The ever presence of connectivity through devices such as the iPhone, Droid, and iPad eliminates the distance between where we stand and the physical computer. For example, I just used Team Viewer from my iPhone to log into and control my home workstation for downloading "Native Flutes for Relaxation" from Amazon while they were offering it for free. That’s coo! Oh, then I made this post from my iPhone. Mobile computing is now! Tomorrow computing and access will be so ubiquitous and transparent that most people won’t even recognize their activities as "computing" or "Internet" as we do today, similarly to how people breathe without thinking about oxygen.

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On Time Management/Organizational Tools

I’m a huge fan of Jott. I don’t know how Siri (recently acquired by Apple) slipped through my radar. I now have Siri and am very excited. SpringPad and I have this oddly tenuous relationship which I’ll explain in another post. I think SpringPad has incredible potential and should be appreciated by fans of Evernote.

Like Stephen R Covey’s First Things First and David Allen’s Getting Things Done, none of these tools do any good if you don’t use them. And by use them, I mean fully. For instance, in Gmail I frequently flag emails to review later but then I may not review them. The same thing can happen with any of the tools above. I fill Jott with voice notes and text memos daily. Like sharpening the saw, a review is critical. One of my mantras is "15 minutes a day for proficiency." It comes from preparing for juggling shows. If I wait until the day before a performance and try to cram several hours of practice in, I don’t perform well. If I spent 15 minutes a day for those same number of hours, I perform very well! That 15 minute mantra applies to all things in life be it learning a skill like guitar, a language like Spanish, losing that extra weight, reading a book, writing a business plan, or just keeping your life in check.

Trying to get organized while living our crazy lives often feels a bit like trying to balance your checkbook while going down a water slide. You can’t do it and your checkbook gets really soggy. Feels like a catch-22; too busy to organize, must organize to not be so busy. That’s were 15 minutes a day comes in. We can spend 15 minutes just staring into space. Even exhausted, we can muster 15 minutes. And now, I will spend 15 minutes reviewing my notes in Jott.

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Everybody stop! Hey, what’s that sound?

I’ve spent 40 years thinking I was hard of hearing or just dim witted because I could never fully make out the lyrics in many songs particularly of the rock, punk, or heavy metal genres. No one told me my headphones just sucked. I finally splurged and bought myself some Skullcandy Full Metal Jacket (FMJs) earbuds for the iPhone and am hearing sounds in my music I never knew were there before! (I’m also going to quit complaining to my children that they listen to their music too loudly…even if they do.)

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Suggestions? iPhone password/data keeper

When my beloved Motorola v3xx bit the dust, I bought an iPhone with the promise to myself that I would use it as a business tool to facilitate building iPhone apps for my clients. I have not talked about my iPhone experience much but that’s coming. In the meantime, know this: 1) Steve Jobs is a user interface genius! and 2) I love my iPhone!

Over the past few years, I endeaved to eliminate paper from my life using cloud tools such as Google Docs. The iPhone seems to be the missing link and has helped me take the last steps toward cutting the umbilical cord to paper. Meeting notes go straight to my iPhone. Todo lists, via Jott, straight into the iPhone. The iPhone has helped make my already digital world even more digital.

Now I need a secure password/data keeper for the iPhone. I’m considering SplashID, 1Password, and iAccounts. What are your recommendations?

Related: Best password manager programs for your MacBook and iPhone 3G
Review: Secret keeper apps for the iPhone