Drupal 7: Load content nodes into a modal overlay using AJAX

January 19, 2012 by jason

For one of our current projects we are building a website where the design dictates that most of the content is presented using a dropdown menu approach. Normally, a dropdown functions best when all of the content is already loaded on the page, and just relies on javascript to animate the display and hiding of each dropdown element.  For this design, it is pretty obvious that requiring all of the overlay content to load along with the initial page is excessive for both load times, as well as complicated for the CMS organization and structure. AJAX to the rescue!

HTML5 and the Video Tag

January 12, 2012 by jason

This week I have been stressing about embedding videos in HTML 5 using a cross-browser compatible solution that conforms to the latest mark-up guidelines.  After looking around at multiple resources, it became apparent that the current browser usage patterns require at least one fallback option in order to include all the different mobile devices, and older browsers still in use by a large segment of the population.

Wysiwhat?! Learning to speak web lingo...

January 4, 2012 by jason

No matter how tech savvy you may be, there is often a language barrier when discussing internet technology. Sometimes it stems from a brand new technology that no one has really heard of. Other times it can be a simple issue of "How do you pronounce that word anyways?". Lets take "Wysiwyg" for example. I find myself using that word pretty often when trying to explain to a potential customer how they will be able to change/add content on their own without coding knowledge.