Embedded flash objects have an attribute called ‘wmode’ which is usually defaulted to ‘window.’ According to Adobe, here’s their description of what it is:

wmode – Possible values: window, opaque, transparent. Sets the Window Mode property of the Flash movie for transparency, layering, and positioning in the browser.

• window – movie plays in its own rectangular window on a web page.
• opaque – the movie hides everything on the page behind it.
• transparent – the background of the HTML page shows through all transparent portions of the movie, this may slow animation performance.

Now to enable z-index’d elements in your page to display over the embedded flash, you need to change the wmode attribute to ‘transparent’:

<embed wmode="transparent" src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?
clip_id=431114&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&
color=59a5d1&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"
allowscriptaccess="always" width="300" height="224">

Actually, I didn’t figure this one out on my own. Full credit goes out to Julie Cousins:

I hope this helps!

Right now, I’m coding on Ubuntu which I hope to write another post on someday. But right now I want to address a problem I came across when I tried do a git clone and pull from the repository.

Usually, I would run this command:

git clone -o heroku git@heroku.com:myapp.git

Note that instead of “myapp” I entered the actual name of my Heroku app. When I run this command, the files for this app would be copied over to my computer so I can develop and debug locally. However, I came up to this little bugger of a problem:

Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

I tried my best to find out what the exactly was wrong and any solutions, but the best I could come up with was that the SSH key was getting rejected. The closest I came to finding an answer was on this thread. Basically you had to generate an SSH key then add it to Heroku. All these steps I followed from the Heroku docs for managing keys. However, I was still getting the Permission denied error.

I had to do more research. Then I came across this troubleshooter for SSH from github. Of particular interest was their note on “Issues when using sudo:”

You shouldn’t run sudo git unless you have a very good reason. If you don’t know if you have a good reason to use sudo, it’s likely that you do not have one.

If you are using sudo with git commands (e.g. using sudo git clone because you are deploying to a root-owned folder), ensure that you also generated the key using sudo. Otherwise, you will have generated a key for your current user, but when you are doing sudo git, you are actually the root user – thus, the keys will not match.

Simply put, if you are using sudo git, then also use sudo ssh-keygen.

I then realized that I wasn’t running as root on my system. *FACEPALM*

Using this info, I just performed these steps:

1. Run command line:

sudo ssh-keygen -t rsa

2. Use the default location, and don’t enter any password. (Basically, press the Enter key three times.)

3. When that’s done, run command line:

sudo heroku keys:add /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

4. After the key is added, run command line:

sudo git clone -o heroku git@heroku.com:myapp.git

After that last command, it should then pull in all your Heroku application files for you to work with!

Hope this helps!

I had been reading this book, Ruby: Visual QuickStart Guide. And while the QuickStart books have always been a great and useful read for me, trying to set up the development environment was a bit tricky for me. I’m more used to developing in a Unix environment for C and C++ or writing and uploading pages on my server for PHP and Javascript. At first I was under the impression that Ruby was strictly a web server-side language like PHP, so it was difficult for me to comprehend how to set up Ruby pages on my website. Rails would be the solution to this I would later discover.

A Rails project shouldn’t be the first thing you do to learn Ruby. While it is a great thing in and of itself, it doesn’t really work well for learners new to Ruby. However, through my personal experience and trial and error, I was able to finally set myself up with Ruby in a Windows environment.

First thing is first: Download and install Ruby. You can grab a Windows installer on the Ruby website, but here’s a link to their download page: http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/. There’s a One-Click Installer executable, which I used. The installer is pretty straightforward.

Next, for me at least, is to have an editor to actually code in. I personally love Notepad++. It is very simple and robust. I use it also for my web programming. I don’t know how I got anything done without it. I had tried to fiddle around with NetBeans, but it was a bit to complicated and overwhelming for a beginner. I might give it a go again after more experience.

So I have the language installed on my Windows computer and have a source code editor. Now what? I wrote a basic .rb file, but how do I compile it? How do I make it work? How do I say, “HELLO, WORLD!”? Well, in Windows, all the action is run through the console, aka the cmd command. To check if your Ruby installation is working, start up your console window by clicking your Start Button, then Run, type in cmd, then clicking OK. That black little console window will pop up and prompt you to enter in your commands. Type in ruby -v to see if the ‘ruby’ command works. If everything’s good, then it will show you what version is installed.

The Windows console is a bit rough to work with, personally having been used to the more robust console in Linux or even the awesome SSH client PuTTY. And it was even more difficult since the Windows console doesn’t recognize Unix commands. I am so used to ‘ls,’ ‘pwd,’ and ‘rm’ to navigate and modify files. I recently found a great looking one called git. It comes with git bash, which basically looks better than the Windows console in addition to recognizing Unix commands, a big plus for me! Using this console, I can run my Ruby programs with ease.

I am not a Ruby expert by any means. I am still completely new to it and learning it from scratch. This post is mainly to document my own experience with learning how to program in Ruby and hopefully help point other newbies in the right direction when getting started. If you have any personal tips or suggestions, please comment and let me know!

I think this feature was rolled out near the beginning of 2008, but I hadn’t really used it until recently. It occurred to me that I was posting some things that I wouldn’t want some of my contacts (i.e. work references, certain family members) to see or know about. It would obviously create some awkward moments if my younger nephew read about some drunken antics my friends and I might have gotten into. Or perhaps I might be sharing some intimate photos with family members that I prefer were kept private among us. So that’s the beginning of the concept of the Friends List: You have certain friends or contacts that you know through certain social circles; and within those circles they have certain levels of information and access that you prefer they have. You are essentially grouping and organizing your friends. This post will show you how I accomplish privacy filtering through friends lists.

First, you must organize your friends lists. Let’s keep it simple: group your contacts according to level of privacy. You might be first inclined to group them according to relation like Family, Friends, Work, College, etc. But for the sake of learning the basics of how the privacy filtering works, try to thinking of grouping them according to how much access they’ll have. Let’s keep it simple to two groups for now: Trusted and Restricted. The Trusted group will have members that you allow access and no others. And the Restricted group will obviously have members that are granted no access to your information.

To start a list and add members to it, click on the Friends link at the top of your Facebook profile and you should see something similar to this:

Click for bigger view.

This is through my own profile, so as you can see, I have several lists in place. But please note the ones titled Restricted and Restricted +. These lists contain members that I want to have no access to my photos, movies, notes, etc. I have a plus group because that one is further restricted to see only the barest of information on my profile.

Back to creating a list: at the left, should see the lists you may have or haven’t made. If not, you should still see + Create link. Click on that and you will be able to title a new list and add members to it as you see fit.

Another way to add members to a list is to simply go to any list view and click on the list drop down menu on the right of the member you wish to add:

Also note that you can add members to multiple lists.

So once you’ve created the lists, it’s time to start applying privacy policies on them. The procedure to set privacy access to your profile, photos, wall, etc is practically the same. For this example, go to your Profile Privacy page by clicking on Settings >> Privacy Settings >> Profile.

Your Profile Privacy Settings.

Anytime you see this lock: it means that you can adjust its privacy settings. Clicking on the drop down menu adjacent to it shows you these options:

The option we want is “Customize…” but I’ll go over real quick what the others entail:

• Everyone: This one is relatively new. It means everyone on the internet will have access, despite whether they have an account or not, nor if they are your friend.
• My Networks and Friends: This limits the number of people who have access to those in your networks and are your friend. This goes for the similar option People at [Network] and Friends.
• Friends of Friends: All of your friends will have access, and their friends in their networks will as well.

Click on the Customize… option and this pop-up will come into view:

This little screen is pretty self-explanatory. What we’re interested in are the Some Friends option under Who Can See This? and the Except These People option.

These two options are very useful. If you have material that you want only a select few of individuals to see, sort of an “exclusive” group, choose the Some Friends option. For the things that you don’t want certain people to see, click on the Except These People field. You can add any number of individuals and lists to this which you can do by clicking on this icon:

With those two options in mind, you would use your newly created Trusted list in the Some Friends option. With this set up, now only the members of the Trusted list will have access and no one else. Some ideas in using this would include: Using a “Family” list so that only your family will see your family pictures; Using a “Best Friends” list to share those pictures from that party with and no one else; or a “Work” list to show the work relevant items only to your co-workers.

Those listed in this option will be able to see what you want them to see and no one else.

The Except These People section means that whoever is listed in this field will NOT have access or be able to see your items. Using the Restricted list here means that the members in that list will never be able to see your pictures. I use this option to limit what my co-workers and family can see on my profile and activity. I also have a Don’t Know or “Strangers” list with members that I met exclusively on Facebook or those I just met and don’t necessarily trust that much; I can limit what they can see as well using the Except These People section.

Those listed in this field will not see what you don’t want them to see.

That’s pretty much it! Now if you want to test it out and make sure the privacy settings are correct, there is a “View As” mode. Using this mode, you can see your profile how your friend sees it according to the privacy settings you have applied to them. To do this, click on hover over “Settings” at the top of any page and click “Privacy Settings.” From that page, click the “Profile” link. On this page you can see the prompt, “See how a friend sees your profile:”

Enter the name of the friend and then click on their name when it pops up. You’ll then be seeing your ‘limited’ profile according to how your friend sees it. This is a pretty good way to test your privacy settings. What I also do is create a second dummy Facebook profile and friend it. Then I apply the privacy settings on that “dummy” and view my profile to see if they work. I use an actual different browser to stay logged on both profiles at the same time.

So there you have it! That’s how you can control what your friends and family can see on your Facebook! I hope this was helpful and please feel free to ask me any questions!

First Version

My first iteration of my evolving resume. I just started learning to use GIMP, previously using Microsoft Word to create resumes. The upside is that I can get more creative with my layouts and use more fonts as long as I convert the final file to a PDF. The downside… I feel like it can get way too crowded and busy for HR heads to look at.

I thought it definitely LOOKED way cooler than my previous resumes, which were restricted to less fancy fonts and ::shudder:: “tabled” formats.

I also REALLY liked my last minute inspiration for a “</resume>” tag at the bottom of the page. I had a lot of white space to fill. I initially was thinking of a graphic of some sort that represents me, but I decided that an kind of image would be distracting and just went with a simple text, that being a closing HTML tag noting the “end” of my resume.

Second Version

The second version. I changed the font for the blocked text mostly because I thought it was a bit too small and wouldn’t read well when printed. It would be this version that I started having friends look at to give me their critiques.

Third Version

Started to really flesh out the resume from here. It’s not aligned properly because I went for another layout as you’ll see in the next version.

After some critiques from some friends, I followed a format that worked for them on their resumes. That is, their job history divided up under Experience Headings. I thought this was pretty cool since an HR head sees a LOT of resumes and usually have to skim through them in less than 30 seconds. My job history before was listed chronologically, but it was cluttered and a hiring rep wouldn’t be able to cypher the best details of myself from it.

By using the Experience Headings, I can state 3 of my best attributes that describe me as well as highlight for the hiring rep what they really want to know from a resume.

I had to add 2 more positions to my experience history so I can have a third heading. I had to pretty much pull out my freelance work and school experience, which I think helps since that’s where most of my programming and developing skills came from.

I decided to take out the bullets and go with blocked texts, mostly because it became a pain to align texts with the bullets and also to save some space.

The References section was also taken out because, really, if an employer needs one, they’ll just ask for it despite it being said on my resume or not.

Fourth Version

The current version of my resume that I’m using.

I tweaked the layout a bit. Instead of dividing it into two columns like before, I went for a more row-like format with sub-columns. That way I could fit in more, such as the Objective.

A lot of the experience summaries got rewritten and cut to give just the gist of it all rather than cluttering the whole thing up.

I took out the gray header background to make the resume more printer friendly. While I like a contrasting background, I think it’s more practical to make the resume easier to print and read for more technical head hunters.

Fifth Version

I decided to make a more simple and straightforward version using Word with less fancy fonts and layouts.

It spilled over into a second page, kind of breaking the “One-Page-Only Resume” rule. I think that can be forgiven in some exceptions.

I made this mostly because I figured that some hiring managers read resumes on their blackberries or some portable device. Also, by creating it in Word and then converting it into PDF, I’m able to preserve the actual “text” in the file; meaning that the PDF can actually be “searched” through (Ctrl-F) for keywords.

Before, on GIMP, I saved it as a Postscript (.ps) file and then converted it to a PDF. Unfortunately, you couldn’t really distinguish the “text” with search mechanisms.

And that’s what I got. I’m always looking at my resume to see what it is I could be missing or how I can always improve it. Got any suggestions?

I remember in the old-school gaming days of SNES and Sega Genesis when graphics were limited to sprites and pixels. 3-D graphics are wonderful, of course, but I do miss the artistic aspects of the old days. I didn’t know much about the technical jazz behind all that until I read this article by Smashing Magazine, “The Mystery of CSS Sprites: Techniques, Tools and Tutorials:”

The term “sprite” (similar to “spirit,” “goblin,” or “elf”) has its origins in computer graphics, in which it described a graphic object blended with a 2-D or 3-D scene through graphics hardware. Because the complexity of video games has continually increased, there was a need for smart techniques that could deal with detailed graphic objects while keeping game-play flowing. One of the techniques developed saw sprites being plugged into a master grid (see the image below), then later pulled out as needed by code that mapped the position of each individual graphic and selectively painted it on the screen.

Sprites were displayed over a static or dynamic background image, and the positioning of the sprite was controlled simply by the hardware controllers. The term was coined because the sprites seemed to “haunt” the display and didn’t really exist in the graphic memory.

That’s pretty cool, and makes a lot of sense. Programmers back then were working with a very limited amount of resources, so having one big sprite map to save memory is pretty ingenious.

The article goes on to state that sprites continue to be used today in web design. It mostly came out of the need for an easier and more efficient alternative to Javascript rollover menus:

In 2004, Dave Shea suggested a simple CSS-based approach to CSS sprites based on the practice established by those legendary video games. In this case, multiple images used throughout a website would be combined into the so-called “master image.” To display a single image from the master image, one would use the background-position property in CSS, defining the exact position of the image to be displayed. Any hover, active or focus effects would be implemented using the simple definition of the background-position property for the displayed element.

When the page is loaded, it would not load single images one by one (nor hover-state images per request), but would rather load the whole master image at once. It may not sound like a significant improvement, but it actually was: the main disadvantage of the onMouse effects is that JavaScript-based hover effects require two HTTP requests for each image, which takes time and creates that unpleasant “flickering” of images. Because the master image is loaded with the whole page only once with CSS sprites, no additional HTTP requests are needed for hover, active or focus effects (because the image is already loaded), and no “flickering” effect occurs.

Consequence: CSS sprites reduce HTTP requests and the loading time of pages. This is the main reason why CSS sprites are often used on websites with heavy traffic, where millions of page impressions would need “only” a tiny fraction of what could otherwise be 30,000,000. Hence, CSS sprites are commonly used, particularly for navigation (such as for hover effects), icons and buttons.

This is way easier to implement and saves much overhead on the servers when serving millions and millions of views.

It then shows the sprite maps of some of the big web sites like Amazon, Google, and Apple. It is a very interesting look at the behind-the-scenes tricks of the trade of web design.

You can easily see how Apple uses this sprite map for its rollover navigation menu.

While Google’s sprite map may seem small and simplistic; really think about how many times those stars and other graphics are used on the site.

Using sprites comes down to using the background-position property of CSS. Instead of explicitly stating an <img> object, you would create a block-level element and its background-image and background-position CSS attributes. I decided to give it a whirl and implement it.

Nice little spirte map, huh? I pasted together my avatar images into one using GIMP. After a couple of hours of fiddling around with the CSS, I came up with this:

Here’s the HTML code:

<ul id="sprite">
    <li id="spritepanelA"><a href="#1"></a></li>
    <li id="spritepanelB"><a href="#2"></a></li>
</ul>

And the CSS:

#sprite { position: relative; }
#sprite li { padding:0; list-style:none; position:relative; top:0;}
#sprite li, #sprite li a { height:50px; width:50px; display:block; float:left; margin-right:10px;}
li#spritepanelA a { background:url(/wp-content/avatar_spritemap.png); background-position:0px 0px; }
li#spritepanelB a { background:url(/wp-content/avatar_spritemap.png); background-position:170px 0px; }
li#spritepanelA a:hover { background:url(/wp-content/avatar_spritemap.png); background-position:110px 0px; }
li#spritepanelB a:hover { background:url(/wp-content/avatar_spritemap.png); background-position:50px 0px; }

What really confused me was the second panel. I had to reverse the background-position of the regular link and hover aspect. I really couldn’t figure out why that was happening. Maybe I’ll discover it later. But in the end I got the effect I was going for. The hover links are all calling the same sprite map, and thus making a call to the server once instead of four times (two for the each link and the two more for each hover image.)

CSS spriting is a great little tool for web designers. It takes a little bit getting used to in order to figure out exact pixel positions on the maps, but in the end you get a way to effectively load pages just that much quicker.

I’ve been working in the banking industry for the past six years, and I learned a lot about how to handle my own finances. Seeing many many many customers with overdrawn accounts and hit with countless fees, I feel a little pity for them since they don’t know how to handle a debit card. And now most of you are in/done with college. As adults, we pretty much have to take care of our own money situations and have checking accounts. While it goes without saying, the basic principle to handling a checking account is to never ever withdraw more than you have in your balance, aka OVERDRAW YOUR ACCOUNT. You will be hit with crazy NSF (Non-Sufficient Funds) and/or Overdrawn fees, which can amount to $35 each, depending on your bank. So keep track of your purchases!

But here are my other little tips that you may or may not know:

CASHING CHECKS
- I always try to cash a check out first and then deposit the cash. Cash will post IMMEDIATELY to your account balance and is there to spend. This also avoids the trouble having a bounced check deposited. This will always generate a fee for you from your bank, even though it wasn’t your check that was bad. This leads me to…
- Always try to take the check to the bank it was from (it will always say who on the check) and try to cash it there. Depending on the bank, you shouldn’t be charged a fee for not being a customer since it is THEIR check. You WILL need two forms of ID. And most banks ask for your thumbprint on the check for fraud protection (aka stolen checks). Doing this also lets you know if the check is bad or not, but due to privacy rules, the bank cannot say that there is no money in the account; they can only usually say “We can’t negotiate this check at this time. Please check with whomever wrote you this.” Now you can go see that poor bum who wrote you that bad $.05 check and punch his face.
- Primary forms of ID that banks will accept: Driver’s License, Motor Vehicle Administration ID Card, Passport, Military ID.
- Secondary forms of ID that some banks will sometimes accept: Employment ID, Student ID, Credit Card, Bank debit card.
- Forms of ID that banks will NOT accept: Membership IDs (i.e. Sam’s Club, Blockbuster), Social Security Card, Birth Certificate.
- If it is a form of ID that is acceptable, make sure it has NOT expired! Banks cannot accept expired ID! They don’t put them on there for nothing!

DIRECT DEPOSIT
- I also have my work direct deposit my paycheck. This means that on payday, they will deposit my pay directly into my account. The money is there immediately for me to use. Therefore, I don’t have to have a check that I need to go personally and deposit and then wait for it to clear. Direct deposit is the way to go; easy and no hassle.
- Not really a banking tip, but more of a savings one: have a portion of your paycheck direct deposited to your savings or money market. That way you don’t see the cash in your checking and will be less likely to spend it. SAVE SAVE SAVE!!!!

DEPOSITING CHECKS
- Know when the business date ends. It usually is around 5PM for my bank. Most banks close at that time, but others (like in stores such as Safeway or Giant) will most likely be open until the evening as well as on the weekends. But note this: depositing a check after the business date ends means the check doesn’t get sent to the processing dept until the next business day. So if you come into a branch and deposit a check on Friday at say 6:30PM (cut off time is at 6 on Fridays at my bank), do not expect it to post over the weekend. The next business day is Monday and it will be sent that afternoon, and clear by Tuesday morning at the earliest.
- Checks usually clear by the next business day. If it is out of state (look on the check), then it will most likely take another 1-2 days. Depositing a check does NOT mean it is good to spend right then and there! Like I said, cash the check and then deposit the cash! It may be more of a hassle to go to the other bank (heck it may be impossible if there aren’t any branches in your area), but you should try to do it that way if you want to avoid some possible hassles.

ATM
- This should be obvious, but I’ll post it anyway. When using an ATM, try to use your bank’s ATM. Using another bank’s ATM will result in paying a $1-$3 fee per transaction from that bank for using their ATM. And depending on your bank, they might impose a foreign ATM fee on their side as well. Use your own bank’s ATM and get your cash for free. If there is no ATM around, you can also go to a grocery store, buy something, and use the debit option with cash back. You spend a little bit, but at least you get something and not throw cash away to the bank.

DEBIT CARDS
- Debit cards and ATM cards are two different things!!! Debit cards usually have the Visa logo on them, meaning you can use them to make purchases at merchants that accept Visa cards (in life and online). ATM cards are ONLY for ATM withdrawals! They cannot be used for purchases.
- Using a debit card will automatically authorize the bank to place a hold on those funds in your account. Buying that $5 meal with a debit purchase will mean that a pending $5 will post to your account. So if you had $4 in there, you will most likely be hit with a NSF fee. The only way I usually counteract this is to deposit cash the same day to avoid the fee.
- But really, you shouldn’t try that. Instead, try to always keep a $100 buffer in your checking. Don’t risk going in the red. That’s more of a personal tip than anything.

BRANCH BANKING
- As a bank teller, I can personally say that the mantra that you can “catch more flies with honey” works. If you hate dealing with a teller/banker, just be nice and polite and they will be courteous as well. If they aren’t, always ask for the manager, but always always ALWAYS be firm, polite, and not raise your voice.
- If you get hit with an overdraft fee, talk with the branch that you opened your account at. If not, any branch is fine as well, but the personal relationship with the branch personnel usually helps. If they know you, they are more receptive. Even though you know it is your fault for incurring an overdraft, be polite and ask the bank rep if it is in any way possible to reverse the fee. If this is your first, state that it is and that you will be more careful. Most reps can see how many times you have had your fees reversed, so be honest. If the rep cannot help, again speak with management. Be firm and state that you would appreciate the gesture of a fee refund. Do not abuse this! Meaning do not just overdraft all the time and expect your branch to refund you each time!
- The relationship with your bank helps with this instance, so if you can, try to visit your local branch a bit more frequently to make yourself familiar to the staff. As a banker, I love having customers who I know and treat me with respect and care. I always reciprocated that back to them when I could (this means making exceptions!)
- I might go into what these exceptions are, but I predict people reading them and go ahead and abuse/misuse the tip. These exceptions are usually on a case-by-case basis and I’ll probably grant it to you if: you are polite, have a great relationship with the bank (i.e. long banking history, steady balance, little to no overdrafts). I can’t/will not grant them to you simply because you have an emergency (too many fraud cases use that excuse, and they’re total liars! Way to ruin it for the rest of us, jerks!) or I know you personally outside of work.
- Also, if you get a teller trying to recommend you something, please don’t be mean! This is their job, but they are also looking out for you. We only recommend services that we think you might need. They won’t pressure you, so if you politely decline, they’ll of course thank you for your business with a smile and hope to see you again next time.

NSF
- Ah, yes… the dreaded Non-Sufficient Funds fee. There’s also a UAF (Unavailable Funds Fee) and Returned Item (you wrote a bad check) fee. But basically I want to cover the NSF fee.
- I get a good amount of people who come to me, crying about how they overdraft their account with some pretty creative excuses. You can tell me all sorts of sob stories, but it all comes down to this: We are only supposed to give fee refunds if it was due to a bank error. You are responsible for your account, and basically you should know how much you have and how much you can spend. It is not our fault you are spending money that isn’t yours!
- I am not totally heartless. I’ll grant courtesy refunds, as covered earlier, if you aren’t a complete jerk and haven’t had a history of constant NSFs.
- I hear these A LOT: “The bank shouldn’t let me overdraft my account! They only let me overdraft my account so they can make money off of me! I got charged $35 for overdrawing my account for $1.05?!” Yeah, those crack me up. I know you’re upset. I know you don’t like being in the negative. But I know that you need to know the rules; we give you the rules and regulations of the account when we open it. Here are my responses to those complaints:
-The bank shouldn’t let me overdraft my account! I kind of agree with you there. Personally, I think people should know that they have the option to opt out of using overdraft. What? You didn’t know that? Yeah, we try not to advertise that mostly because yes, we make money off the fees, and that’s how I get paid! But on the other side of it, I think it helps consumers be more responsible/less whiny if they can select to not be able to overdraft. But I also say this: We cannot tell every time a person is about to go into the overdraft if they are willing to or not. There are times when people will go into overdraft and are willing to pay the fees due to emergencies. Like they really need gas or they really need cash for something, the times where they need the cash and are willing to pay for it rather than face some dire problem where it could get worse without the money. Some simply don’t want the embarrassment of having their card rejected. If we set it up that no one is allowed to overdraft their account all the time, not only will the bank lose income, but I can see people complaining to us that they really could use the money. I mean essentially, you are using credit that you didn’t have to apply for (although you do have to pass a background check and a “soft” hit on your credit history).
- They only let me overdraft my account so they can make money off of me! Well, duh! Yes, we make money off of it! But why not? You are essentially using money that’s not yours, like credit! You have to pay for the service! And I’m able to still get paid because of it. However, I want to point out that you can usually avoid the large, crazy NSF fees by setting up Overdraft Protection. This means linking your checking account to either a savings or credit card/line of credit. If you should overdraw your checking account, a set amount (usually $100 increments) is transferred from the savings/credit card/line of credit to cover the amount drawn and not put you in the negative. And the fee is usually a lot more reasonable ($10 per transfer at my bank). Of course, you need to make sure you have enough in your savings/credit card/line of credit to cover the drawn amount, but you shouldn’t be spending more than you have in checking anyway, right?
- I got charged $35 for overdrawing my account for $1.05?! Yes. It may seem ridiculous, but again it’s money that isn’t yours to spend. Most of the times in these cases I’ll grant a fee refund, but if you yell at me for stuff like that, you are screwed. That’s why I suggested the $100 buffer to keep from getting into this problem. And most of the times I see this, they could have been avoided by not spending aimlessly at fast food joints and other such wasteful places. That’s why you should: BUDGET.

BUDGETING
- I recently got into working within a budget around May this year. This was in part thanks to Mint. This is a great free online money management application. I link all my bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and even my 401k to it. If you can access your accounts online, Mint can access them, pull your transactions, and show your financial activity in some very helpful, informative, and comprehensive ways. You can categorize your purchases, and therefore see how much you spend on say Food or Gas each month. There’s a budget tracker too, to show how much your spending in regards to how much you set aside for that particular budgeted item. I use it all the time and highly, highly recommend it. It has helped me keep track and pay down my debt and I’ve been able to cut a lot of costs down. I also just love the interface. You can read more about Mint from here.

Now all of these tips don’t apply to all banks, of course. Different banks have different rules, but these tips have helped me keep in the positive and then some. I’m only sharing what has worked for me. I’m not rich, but I do have enough to live contently for a while, stress free. You can too, if you exercise discipline, restraint, patience, and good manners. If you have any banking questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Cash Money, originally uploaded by vyxle.

Okay, not really free, per se. I just got my Economic Stimulus Payment direct deposited into my account. It’s nice to get a little padding in my cash flow.

Now what am I going to do with my newfound booty? There are several suggestions out there. I should either pay down some of my current debt or sock it away into my emergency savings funds (which I have slowly been building back up)… I really like the idea to “invest into career development.” That could actually be what I really need right now.

But isn’t the point of getting this cash to spend it? You know, help actually stimulate the economy? Okay. I’m down with that. What to buy? What to buy? Make a large purchase? Or spend it on a number of random smaller purchases? Food? Gas? Clothes?

Um… I actually have been wanting to get a new digital camera. Maybe I should do some research first… but I’m inclined to get a Sony Cyber-shot. I don’t know why, really… the Sony brand has just been growing on me, I guess.

Well either way, I’m glad I have some extra cash!

I’ve had my eye on this phone, the Sony XPERIA X1, for over a month now… To think that over a year ago, I didn’t think I’d want all the cool features that I have on my Sidekick 3.

I use my phone a lot. I use it to take pictures when I don’t have my digital camera. I use it to browse the Internet (that in itself provides cumulative hours of distraction by checking e-mail, Facebook, news, and Flickr). I used to use it constantly for instant messaging, but I’ve recently cut back on that to put my time to more productive use. I use it to listen to my mp3s all the time. I use it to hold plenty of notes and information that I need on the fly (contacts, dates, wireless network keys, urls, personal information, etc). Yep… my phone is more of a mobile device than it is a phone.

I had thought about getting an Iphone… but I’ve been really reluctant to get it. It looks really nice, but I think what kept me from buying one was its lack of a QWERTY keyboard. I need that thing. Bad. I am not a single-handed texter. And I have no intention of becoming one. The touch interface keyboard on the Iphone looks nice, but I prefer the physical one.

The XPERIA X1 has a QWERTY keyboard… PLUS a touch UI. I would love to have that. And it runs on Windows Mobile. Not too sure if that’s a good thing or not since I haven’t had much experience with it… but I’m sure that I’ll have way more capabilities with that than my Sidekick (like getting my e-mail directly via POP rather than having it forward to my T-mobile account). And it has a sort of ‘flip’ on it to reveal the keyboard, which is more of a personal preference than anything. So yeah… I’m really excited about this phone, er, mobile device.

Hehehe, this is such a great video… at least for web designers and coders like me.

Lyrics:

Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry
easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration
a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation
if you have animation
use with moderation
cause search engines can’t index the information
display the logos of all your associations
highlight your contact info that’s an obligation
create a clean design you can use some decoration
but to try to prevent any client hesitation
every page that they click should provide and explanation
should be easy to understand like having a conversation
when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination
but make sure you use correct color combinations
do some investigation, look at other organizations
but don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation
design done, congratulations but it’s time to start construction
follow these instructions when you move into production
your photoshop functions then slice that design
do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned
please don’t use tables even though they work fine
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time
make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
remove font type, font color and font size
no background colors, keep your coding real neat,
tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
better results with xml and css
now you making progress, a lil closer to success
describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won’t validate
check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly
some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox
title everything including links and images
don’t use italics, use emphasis
don’t use bold, please use strong
if you use bold that’s old and wrong
when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that’s the real kicker
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
design and code right man I hope you get the picture
what I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
if it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter
everyone will want to follow you like twitter
competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter
if you trying to grow your company will get bigger
design and code right man can you get with it