Gary Haran.com

Well it has been an exciting few weeks gearing up for the launch of Standout Jobs. The launch went smoothly and the DEMO2008 presentation was a success. Quite a few companies have already joined us since launching monday.

Standout Jobs is much more than just a widget happy career site. Here are top 3 features least discussed in blogs everywhere:

1. Save time by posting to numerous job boards easily. Once you’ve typed up your job offer it’s as easy as clicking a few checkboxes to have your offer appear on various popular job boards.
2. Track how well each job board works for you. The dashboard keeps statistics on how well each board does so you can do more effective targeting.
3. Easily bookmark pertinent data about candidates. You can search the web for candidates and add any pertinent urls to their profile with just a few clicks using a fancy bookmarklet.

As someone who has already recruited candidates for a few companies I’m happy to be a part of the crew. It’s always fun to build valuable tools that save people time and money. As a programmer there is no better feeling than knowing what you build is useful to others.

Recent Buzz Surrounding Standout Jobs launch and financing

DEMO: Standout Jobs launches Reception to help recruiting
Standout Jobs is to HR what Basecamp is to PM
Standout Jobs Launches RECEPTION(TM), a Self-Serve Web-based Employer Branding and Recruiting Product, at DEMO Conference
Will Standout Jobs stand out?
Congrats, Standout Jobs!
Standout Jobs Secures $2 Million Financing from iNovia Capital

My party dip is even mentioned at Montreal Tech Watch.

Not only am I know for being a foodie but the people I work with are all foodies. Just today Vinh made some cheesecake for us and the Akoha team.

As you can see even our horned pony and guard cat are “stunned at the extent of our gluttony”.

I’d show you a picture of the party dip but it looks really bad. For those who aren’t lactose intolerant here is the recipe that’s been asked of me on quite a few occasion.

Gary’s Sensational Party Dip

Preheat oven at 400F.

• 1 1/2 pound of browned ground beef
• 500ml of sour cream
• 500ml of salsa
• 600 grams of (preferably old) grated cheddar

Set aside half of the cheddar. Mix all ingredients together in an oven proof roasting pan. Add remaining cheddar on top. Cook for 25 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving with nachos.

Writing cross-browser bookmarklets is an exercise in patience. You may hit a few problems along the way if you don’t know about these things. So here are a few things that could save you some time building those awesome bookmarklets:

Know “your” limits

Well not your limits but those of the worst browser in the world. Every Web Developer I know hates Internet Explorer for a multitude of reasons. Here are a few more reasons to hate it:

Reason #194716

URLs cannot be more than 508 characters; spaces count triple because they must be encoded => %20.

Solution:

Use the ternary operator, use one letter variables for frequently used items and look at using with() to reduce longer namespaces.

Reason #194717

You cannot use prompt() in a bookmarklet. The popup blocker sees it as a threat for your security.

Solution:

Rely on selected text instead of prompts. Tell your users to move on to a better browser out there.

Void any calls that return something

Any function that returns something like a window.open call should be voided. What this means is that the call will not return a value like it usually does to let you know if the action succeeded or not. You see when you have a return value your url changes to that url value. So if your popup opens your page changes to http://true. Not exactly want you had in mind is it?

Solution:

void(window.open(url))

Functions can be stored in variables too

Checking that a functionality exists prior to calling a function is a good way to make something cross-browser while reducing the size of your bookmarklet.

Getting the user’s selected text:

var selection = '';
if (window.getSelection){
  selection = window.getSelection();
}else{
  selection = document.selection.createRange().text
}

Adding ternary operators to one line this:

var selection = (window.getSelection ? window.getSelection() : document.selection.createRange().text);

And finally using a single character variable name to store it to make it even shorter:

var g = window.getSelection, s = (g ? g() : document.selection.createRange().text);

Happy coding!