December 2008

The Quick Tabs module allows you to create blocks of jQuery-powered tabbed content (like those found on Facebook) with ease, specifically views, blocks, and even Quick Tab blocks (within another Quick Tab block). The latest version of the module features AJAX integration, which allows you to choose whether all tabs should load on page load or load on tab click (which optimzes page loading times).

DEMO: See the Quick Tabs in action on the top of my frontpage.

This article documents my use of Quick Tabs, especially on how I used CSS to theme a custom tab style, and highlights a few other important considerations for web developers. For general installation and configuration documentation, visit the module's official project page.

ARTICLE OUTLINE:

• Creating custom tab styles with Quick Tabs 6.x-2.0-rc1
• Upgrading tab styles from 6.x-1.0-beta1 to 6.x-2.0-rc1
• Ensuring global theme compatibility with Quick Tabs
• Theming a Quick Tabs block within another Quick Tabs
• Using jQuery blocks and AJAX compatibility within Quick Tabs

US News and World Report recently released their pick for the Best Careers in 2009. Selection was based on criteria such as job outlook, average job satisfaction, difficulty of the required training, prestige and pay.

• See the complete 2009 Best Careers list and report card here.
• See the explanations for changes to the 2008 list here.
• See the list of Overrated Careers here.

UPDATE: As a holiday present, I've attached a working tarball of my entire TinyMCE setup below which took me a few months of trial-and-error to perfect. It's powered by TinyMCE 3.1.0.1 and has this media plugin along with many other goodies installed and WORKING flawlessly with ZERO glitches. FF3 is your best bet for non-erratic behavior and proper execution of TinyMCE's JS code. Simply place the tinymce folder under ../sites/all/modules/ and follow TinyMCE module's regular instructions to install. Cheers! (2008-12-17 06:04:51)

Embedding online videos in a blog entry via Drupal may be a bit tricky, especially when the pre-bundled "media" plug-in is not enabled in the original plugin_reg.php file of the TinyMCE module. Read more

I came across an insightful talk to Harvard Business School MBA students by Mark Sellers, the founder and managing member of Sellers Capital, LLC, a Chicago-based money management firm incepted in 2003 which runs a long/short equity hedge fund and other private investment partnerships.

Here's an excerpt from his talk with advice I've never seen anyone mention before that shows the reality of becoming an equity guru like Warren Buffett...

You have almost no chance of being a great investor. You have a really, really low probability, like 2% or less. And I'’m adjusting for the fact that you all have high IQs and are hard workers and will have an MBA from one of the top business schools in the country soon. If this audience was just a random sample of the population at large, the likelihood of anyone here becoming a great investor later on would be even less, like 1/50th of 1% or something. You all have a lot of advantages over Joe Investor, and yet you have almost no chance of standing out from the crowd over a long period of time.

And the reason is that it doesn’t much matter what your IQ is, or how many books or magazines or newspapers you have read, or how much experience you have, or will have later in your career. These are things that many people have and yet almost none of them end up compounding at 20% or 25% over their careers.

Recently, I got this story through one of those chain emails family and friends circulate to one another. It's pretty intriguing, but I got to say, it's also quite a waste of beer... Read more

Check out the attached article by John T. Reed for a great read if you are remotely interested in real estate investing or would like a reality check from "get-rich quick gurus" (whom I call modern day snake-oil salesmen).

John was a real estate investor for 23 years. He worked as a real estate agent and as a property manager managing office, industrial, farm, and residential properties. He is also the author of 20 real estate investment books. Reed holds a bachelors degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point and a master of business administration degree from Harvard Business School. Read more

This is pretty shocking... A recent news report shows that 1 in 7 homes in my hometown (San Jose, which is part of Santa Clara County) have property values "underwater" as a result of the current housing recession. In other words, 1 in 7 homeowners' home values are below what they owed on their mortgages.

Here's a map showing areas of Santa Clara County most affected by homes going "underwater" (click image to enlarge). I am from 95120, which has been minimally affected. Not sure why but most of the hardest hit areas happen to be on the east side. Go figure.

Read more