Archive for November, 2011

Updated flexcal to 1.2.1; nothing major, just changed the Hebrew numbers to use the technically correct Unicode code points HEBREW PUNCTUATION GERESH (׳ ׳) and HEBREW PUNCTUATION GERSHAYIM (״ ״) rather than single and double quotes. Also similarly updated the Hebrew keyboard.

This doesn't belong in a programming blog, but I wanted this out there on the web.

I recently had a need for the Hebrew text of the traditional marriage documents, the ketubah and tenaim, and was very surprised that they are nowhere to be found, at least with my Google-fu. So I transcribed them and offer them with a liberal license to the world. The ketubah text is from Goldin's 1939 Hamadrikh and the tenaim text is that of haRav Feinstein (example).

Creative Commons License
These documents are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

tenaim (ODT)

tenaim (PDF)

ketubah (ODT)

ketubah (PDF)

This post is obsolete; since moving the code to github, the package is no longer being maintained. You need four files: flexcal.css, jquery.ui.subclass.js, jquery.textpopup.js and jquery.flexcal.js

There's been some interest in putting flexcal and all its dependencies into a single file (that would be jquery.ui.subclass.js, jquery.textpopup.js, jquery.flexcal.js, and flexcal.html). The problem with putting it all into a ZIP file is keeping it updated; I don't have an automated make-like system and there's no way I'm going to remember to keep the package up to date. So I created a PHP script based on Patrick Hunlock's Supercharged Javascript to pull the javascript together automatically, together with a script to create the HTML template (so no AJAX is needed and no flexcal.html).

Download the code.

I use Ulrich Mierendorff's aws_signed_request to create my Amazon Wishlist Widget. But Amazon just changed the terms of their API (which they do with frightening regularity). Luckily, it's a small change: each request now requires an Associate Tag in addition to the AWS key and encryption with the AWS secret key. But if you want to make money off Amazon, you need an Associate Tag anyway. So in the $params that are passed to aws_signed_request be sure to include a parameter "AssociateTag" => $tag. And now it works again. For now.

I guess the idea is to up the ante in Amazon's battle against state sales taxes—they've cut off the associates in states they're in conflict with, and now those users can't use the search API at all.

I hope they don't declare war on Missouri next.