I often open a new tab in my Terminal to run an Ant task in, and often as not I forget to CD into the correct directory first and so I am greeted with this error:

Nathan-Mac:~ nathan$ ant database.start
Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!
Build failed

On my system, there’s only one main project that uses ant, so I almost always intend for ant tasks to be run against that project’s build.xml. So, I created a function that makes ant tasks “just work” no matter what directory I am in.

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I just finished a writeup on the necessary JS changes to support Facebook’s OAuth 2.0 upgrade, and then Hilary did a followup post on the server-side.

The upgrade enabled right now, but it gets forced out on October 1st. These two posts should give you all you need to know to get your site ready for Facebook’s upgrade:

Part 1: JavaScript - JavaScript changes for Facebook’s OAuth 2.0 upgrade

Part 2: PHP / Backend – Server Side changes for Facebook’s OAuth 2.0 upgrade

Also worth noting, there’s a lot of good information on Facebook’s Developer Blog.

I’ve seen a lot of confusion about this lately, so I thought I’d make a quick writeup to explain how facebook does it. (I’ll also give a quick tip on how you can do it yourself.)

What Facebook Does

Facebook is in a unique position compared to many developers looking to set cross domain cookies: The user visits both facebook.com and the other website. (more…)

Most anti-spam methods used by websites today are annoying at best. They use impossible-to-read captcha images, or they make users jump through some kind of hoop to get the email address instead of just clicking on it. This can mean lost sales and opportunities for you, because each hurdle turns away more users.

This article looks at how to use some simple HTML, CSS, & Javascript to protect your private information without making your guests jump through hoops.

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