I run a completely Windows free shop. That has it's good points & bad, but I'm not going to get into that question. For now, I just want to talk about my recent experience upgrading from openSuse 10.3 to 11.2. openSuse 10.3 has been my OS of choice for quite some time. Sadly, however, it has reached the dreaded "end of life" stage wherein all support, repositories, updates, etc... have disappeared completely. I have to admit that I dreaded the upgrade process, having more experience with Windows upgrades than with Linux. However, I am happy to report that this upgrade was the smoothest thing since lubricated ice.

I haven't been this excited since I got my first python script to work. The reason is that I've recently been messing around with a technique for creating javascript widgets or badges, popularized by Kent Brewster and known as Case Hardened Javascript. You can read more about Kent's excellent work here. Essentially, case hardened javascript is all about segregating your widget from the rest of the web page. It allows you to embed a widget in virtually any webpage using a single line of javascript, without needing to worry about whether the javascript will have an adverse effect on your page.

The widget below shows all "gigs" posted on craigslist relating to web development in the last 24 hours. The data initially comes from a Yahoo Pipe, which you can access here. That's also the reason why it takes so long to load. The Pipe actually pulls the RSS feeds from each craigslist locale, which means it's accessing something like 75 different feeds. I should probably figure out a way to discretize those feeds. In any case, the widget can be added to any website via this code:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://hibbittsconsulting.com/published/Widget3.js"></script> Feel free to use it on your own site, just copy & paste the above code and place it wherever you want it to show up in your html body.

OK, this is totally off topic, but for all of us super-geeks, today is a very special day. CrossOver for Linux and Mac is being offered as a free download. Today only, you can go to CodeWeavers website and download a copy of their flagship products. It's apparently not much more than a marketing ploy wrapped in a political statement, but hey, I can't say no to free software. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, CrossOver is software that lets you run Windows applications on a Linux machine or a Mac. There are some free alternatives, but CodeWeavers is a commercial application, and it really seems to do a better job than most of it's competitors. Especially since Linux has gotten mainstream enough that Target is offering a $300 laptop with Linux preinstalled, interoperability has become a very serious and important issue.