Hello, I'm   Jason

There are times where using a full JavaScript framework simply does not make sense. In these cases, you’ll need to use traditional, vanilla JavaScript to enumerate through the DOM. With ES6, the for…each loop is no longer valid. So, you’ll need to use a for…of loop. Let’s assume we have a div with a class of page-content. We may want to look for all links within that container and set the target of those links to a new tab. We can accomplish this like so:

Jekyll 4.0 was released on August 20, 2019. However, GitHub pages does not natively support 4.0 today. They currently support only version 3.8.5 today. There are ways to pre-compile you application using Jekyll 4 and deploy the contents to the gh-pages branch of your GitHub pages application. One way you can accomplish this is by using a GitHub action such as the one built by Bryan Schuetz. GitHub also limits the dependencies they support out of the box. So, if you’d like to use jekyll-admin, for example, you’ll have to pre-compile. I recommend that before starting to use GitHub Pages with Jekyll, you are certain you are aligning your dependencies with those found on GitHub Pages. The site https://pages.github.com/versions/ will help you with this.

There is now just 1 week remaining for the Call for Speakers for TechBash 2020. TechBash is an event geared towards web and software development, DevOps, and cloud technologies. We continue to feature speakers from a very diverse skillset and background. To submit for the event, you can visit the link over at Sessionize by visiting https://jasong.us/tb20cfp.

Come learn from Microsoft Regional Directors, Microsoft MVPs, TechBash organizers, and authors as you learn about software architecture and methodologies. The event takes place on Friday, June 5th, 2020 from 10am-4pm ET. To register, visit  https://www.2020twenty.net/softwarearchitecture/.

You can now register for Microsoft Build 2020. Microsoft Build takes place starting May 19th, 2020 at 8am Pacific and ends 48 hours later at May 21st, 2020 at 8am Pacific. You can register or login now by visiting: https://register.build.microsoft.com/

Last night, I ran into an issue with a container that was not expanding to full height. I could not understand why it wasn’t expanding properly. After tearing it down and rebuilding it by copying the CSS rules from my original, I noticed the height property. I had set the value for height to 100vw. Sometimes, when looking at something so simple in DevTools, it’s very easy to overlook typos. Be sure to double-check your values. In case you’re not sure what 100vw equates to, this is 100% of the viewport width, not height. I corrected the value to 100vh and of course it is now working as expected.

Static content generators are becoming more and more popular as there’s a drive to deliver content as quickly as possible from versioned source code to the browser. Jekyll is a static content generator that is written in Ruby and available as a Ruby Gem. Jekyll can be executed locally, on a server, within a cloud service, or within GitHub. Within this post, you’ll learn how to create a Jekyll theme using a Windows based PC. While the steps are the same if you are using a Mac or Linux machine, there are a few subtle differences for Windows such as the way you get started. Jekyll Themes are actually Ruby Gems. Wait! You’ve never created a Ruby Gem? Neither have I. We’ll go through this process together.

Technically, Visual Studio Codespaces has been around for several months. Back in November 2019, Visual Studio Online was announced. However, the name “Visual Studio Online” has lost its place in the Microsoft marketing repertoire for a second time. Visual Studio Online has recently been renamed to Visual Studio Codespaces.

Beginning on May 12th, 2020 at 12:00 UTC, speakers from around the globe will be presenting topics for a 24 hour period. During this time, there will be an international fundraiser for Direct Relief and helping those affected most by COVID-19. The content will be featuring cross-platform topics spanning many technologies. Learn from renowned speakers all over the world. Find out more by visiting https://devaroundthesun.org/.

I’ve been messing around more and more with GitHub Pages and Jekyll as of late. Jekyll is a Ruby application that is built to run and support GitHub Pages and other static websites. The purpose of Jekyll is to provide a lightweight static content generator that operates off of Markdown pages. Since GitHub Pages is great for hosting a blog, I was curious to see what I could do with it. The first step in my process was to see if I could migrate from my existing blog provider, CloudScribe, over to GitHub Pages.