Author Archives: joanwolk

About joanwolk

3 things I like: theater, food, geekery. 3 things I don't like: clichés, blisters, coffee.

IE9, JQuery/JavaScript, and broken select boxes

Posted on 18 January, 2013

I hope nobody else has this problem, but just in case, here’s the thing I had to diagnose this afternoon: a few select boxes (those things that drop down a list of options and you choose one) were immediately closing … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Berlin Geekettes: Women in Tech panel, part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L53XYBGho2k

Oops! I was in such a hurry to post the video yesterday that I didn’t realize it was only the first half of the talk! Here’s part two.

Continue reading →

Video | Posted on 28 August, 2012 | 1 Comment

Berlin Geekettes: Women in Tech panel from Campus Party Europe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzOJ9ouPbLg

Here’s the video for the Berlin Geekettes panel I spoke on last Thursday at Campus Party. I hope the sound is ok; the acoustics of the space left something to be desired.

Continue reading →

Video | Posted on 27 August, 2012 | Leave a comment

I Am Rails (And So Can You!) at RuLu 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2KeHOtgUUk

I don’t know if the video from Campus Party Europe is up yet, but this from when I gave the same talk at RuLu in June.

Continue reading →

Video | Posted on 24 August, 2012 | 2 Comments

Ordering CSS pseudo-elements (and pseudo-classes)

Posted on 2 May, 2012

Look out for the order you use CSS pseudo-elements in, or you may not get the results you want. Today, I found that using li:before:first-child doesn’t work to style the :before pseudo-element on my first li, but li:first-child:before does. Rather … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

I’m amazed

Posted on 15 April, 2012

Wow! I had no idea my talk would generate so much interest, and so much traffic to my blog! It’s really strengthened my resolve to write here regularly. I want to continue being a resource for budding programmers, and (dare … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

How I taught myself to code and got a programming job in under a year

Posted on 14 April, 2012

I gave a talk at Rails Girls Berlin today about how I learned to code all on my own and turned it into a job. There have been several requests already to see the slides, so I wanted to get … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Using cookies in RSpec tests

Posted on 16 August, 2011

I spent way too long today figuring out why a test for my update method was failing. Short answer: RSpec cookies don’t play nicely with Rails 3 testing, or at least not with Rails 3.1.rc5. The relevant bits of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

GitX tip

Posted on 28 July, 2011

I was using a version of GitX from what appears to be the original source at gitx.frim.nl. It’s been acting really weird, doing things like not hiding the program and not responding to simple requests for new windows, and I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New mistake of the day

Posted on 27 July, 2011

Today, I made git commits on no branch. I didn’t know it was possible, but apparently so! It happened when I opened a second shell of the directory I was working in, and I assumed that it would maintain the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments