As a side note, I am assuming Weebly uses similar identifiers for all it's web sites when it renders the ${content} section of blogs, so if that is true then hopefully my scripts should work for your Weebly blog too. If not, let me know... and if you'd like to know more about this weebly.google.plus.js script keep reading...

I started by looking at the Google Plus builder and I noticed this <g:plusone> tag you can add anywhere on your website. However, I didn't want to have to manually add this to every single blog post, so I decided to do some scripting.

Weebly uses Prototype to abstract the horror of javascript, so it was obvious to me that I should just piggy back off this library. Prototype is very similar to jQuery, so I had very little problem with it and within a couple minutes I had Google +1 working on my Weebly site. However, all the +1's linked to the same content. Not to fear, using Google's +1 API I found it was very simple to specify the url you want to +1.

Also as a minor annoyance, it seems that Prototype and jQuery do not play well together. My post Nostaliga with CSS that included jQuery broke the Prototype.js script. Why? Because they hate each other! That ... and somewhere jQuery uses a global $ selector to call $(...)._each() function which instigates Prototype; however, Prototype has no such '_each' function which causes the library to error. I ended up spending a few minutes re-writing the sprite script to Prototype.js. I know... I know... whatever... lol. 

Lesson to be learned: don't use jQuery on your Weebly website and expect everything to work.

This problem is a good example of where we should transform divide and conquer into dynamic programming or implement a top down memory function. 

Congratulations, you have been invited to Dr. Bob’s Crazy-People Party for Quixotic Number Crunchers! Unfortunately, in order to enter the party house you must first answer a question. Since you know Dr. Bob likes Fibonacci n-step numbers you assume that will be the question. You decide to write a program to calculate Fn(x) for you so you won’t be stuck outside the party.

Fibonacci n-step number is defined as: 

          Fn(1) = 1, Fn(2) = 1
          Fn(x) = Fn(x-1) + Fn(x-2) + … + Fn(x-n)

 (Assume that if x <= 0 then Fn(x) = 0, also don't worry about x > n, Bob isn't *that* crazy)

Some Examples

  F3(10) = F3(9) + F3(8) + F3(7)
             = 81 + 44 + 24            # Notice, to find F3(9) we need to know F3(8) + F3(7) + F3(6)
             = 149                          # And likewise for F3(8), F3(7), F3(6), …, F3(1)

 (Hint: Fn(x) is recursive in nature; however, if you write the program recursively it will probably be too slow and you will miss the party if Dr. Bob asks for a high value of n or x)

The program should loop until it sees a non-number input for n or x. Example, in order to end the program type q for the value of n or x. See below for some input/output examples.

You can see answer source code here in php.

You are a florist and you've received a call from Emperor Palpatine, something about executing Order 66. Basically he wants you to deliver flowers to certain Jedi warriors. However, you must deliver the flowers in a specific order, the first bouquet should go to the highest ranking Jedi, the second bouquet to the second highest, and so on down the chain of rank until the last flowers are delivered to the lowest ranking Jedi.

In case you are unsure of rank (shame, shame), he has given you a list of Jedi names in two columns. This list compares two Jedi members and you should read this as, first Jedi rank > second Jedi rank.

Your list looks as follows:
       Windu Mundi
       Yoda Yaddle
       Yoda Poof
       Windu Obi-wan
       Yaddle Poof
       Obi-wan Skywalker
       Yoda Windu
       Yaddle Obi-wan
       Mundi Yaddle
       Yoda Skywalker
       Skywalker Poof

Note: From the first line we can tell that Windu is higher rank than Mundi. Thus we should also infer that anyone lesser in rank than Mundi is also lesser rank than Windu.

Return a list of names in order of rank based on this list above so you can deliver the flowers as the Emperor wishes. Be prepared to use another list in case the Emperor wants to add additional rankings to the list (don't just do this by hand).

You can see example source for this here. The trick is just to print higher in rank, yourself, then everyone lower in rank and you keep a memory array to make sure you only print yourself once.

I didn't get very creative with this one. Essentially, I asked the teams to find the two smallest prime numbers which has a pattern found from Wilson's theorem. See entire source code or read the code below for more details. The first answer for range 2 through 10 would be 5039 because:

  Answer: 5039
       -> 2 (2519) + 1 = 5039
       -> 3 (1679) + 2 = 5039
       -> 4 (1259) + 3 = 5039
       -> 5 (1007) + 4 = 5039
       -> 6 (839) + 5 = 5039
       -> 7 (719) + 6 = 5039
       -> 8 (629) + 7 = 5039
       -> 9 (559) + 8 = 5039
       -> 10 (503) + 9 = 5039

The teams had to find the next prime that matches this same pattern for range 2 to 10. And I think I asked to be able to check for other ranges besides 2 through 10.

If you like your whiskey straight from the bottle then I won't bore you with lots of details and you can skip straight to the source code or the index.html. 

Just so you don't call me a liar, note that this version doesn't have prototype in it, even though I said I was experimenting with it. As it turns out, I did away with it and used jquery instead long ago. Weebly doesn't like jQuery so I made a Prototype version to keep from breaking some other stuff I have. You've made it this far, so if you want to see more details then keep on reading... 

In the first scripts I wrote, I set background positions using javascript instead of css. This was slow, the code was more complicated and it was restrictive because my sprite images had to follow a strict width and height pattern.

So in the second version (what you see here), I simplified the javascript greatly by creating a column and row for each sprite in css. Not only did this work better and faster, it allowed me to statically set sprite locations and abstract locations from the javascript coding. Just another case where I should have KISS'ed. Below is a paste bin of the two major components of what you see here. First the sprite.css

And here is the animate-sprite.js to go along with it.

Thus, only a programmer can access the data. Those same programmers whom likely don't fully understand the information collected and stored within the database. Programmers care about stuff like, structure, performance, security, servers and whatnot but data is just data. Later programmers will use an ORM to piece back together the data which was broken apart into a relational database only to re-structure the data into an object format. I could go on and on here, but my point is: SQL can be really stupid. Objects are easy. Resources are easy too. This got me to thinking... 

Not too long ago I was skimming a research paper about HTTP Database Connector (HDBC) because about two years ago I came up with an idea. The idea was simple. A lot of data is accessed via the web, thus why not just access your data via a RESTful web data source instead through a custom built application fetching off of back end SQL database(s)? At the time I thought the idea to be revolutionary, but I'm certainly not the first to come up with this idea though: JasonDB, CouchDB, Google RestDB.

I think most anyone can understand objects, especially subject matter experts (SME) on particular objects, e.g. a chemist understand the toxicology of lead and mercury but knows nothing about SQL. Let's use an example to illustrate. Both ways we just want to get the price of a wheel for a specific car. 

Accessing and manipulating data shouldn't be difficult. I think using REST as a gateway framework to our data sets, we keep things simple for the poor programmer (sucker) who has to design a web application around the data for the people that actually make use of the data.

Unfortunately, sleep mode did not work well with the media center (IR receiver, wake-up stuff) and furthermore could be confusing and frustrating. Following the Keep It Simple Stupid methodology, disabling sleep mode seemed the best option at the time. The thought occurred to me that if I could decommission this media PC then I would save electricity.   

It also just so happens that Kitty, my lovely wife, was in the market for a new computer, thus I formated the old media center computer instead of buying a brand new PC ($400+). Given all these conditions, in a mixed up kind of way I ended up saving money with a Boxee box - yes, I can be a real a tight-ass sometimes. 

Institutions already using Blackboard Learn or Vista/CE could leverage their existing system to popup an easily accessible content management system for the university. Think about how you share and backup files right now? Sending emails, sharing usb drives, mapping windows or mac network shares? (Try sticking a usb stick into your iPad). Using Blackboard Drive with the Content Collection could potentially simplify and standardize how users share files within the university. There are other hidden benefits too: backups and accessibility. Any flies you put in the Content Collection is backed up so you can worry more about making files than loosing them. Your files are accessible anywhere via the Internet by just logging into Blackboard normally and browsing to the files stored on the website.

Granted you don't get the benefit of the Blackboard CMS, but you could leverage other tools that support WebDAV, e.g HTTP Commander. This all boils down to a useful combination of tools to enhance education. The teacher spends less time on focused on technology (with questions like, how do I share my files?) and more time teaching.

Currently there are few options for mixing course evaluations and Blackboard (depending on your wallet size) and therefore other universities might have an interest in this extension. You can download the B2 from the open source project page. See video below for an eight minute introduction.

Researching the API actually took longer than the actual coding. I felt before writing this web application, I should know some Blackboard best practices first. The open source community was quite helpful and can be found on projects.oscelot.org. I did notice that Hibernate did not want to integrate due to classpath issues in tomcat and ActiveObjects did not work well with Oracle. The B2 should be database agnostic and is designed to work with both SQL Server and Oracle based Blackboard installs. The Spring framework was used for routing Controller actions. There is still a lot of room for improvement but it's a good start I believe.