@jehovahuponyou Thanks (YouTube http://youtu.be/sKkPQ4lJZKg?a) #

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Then you’ll get to programming and realize that the documentation is pretty crappy, but specifically I want to address the idiosyncrasies of the USPS “test” environment.  Effectively, what USPS means when they say “test” is not a test of robustness of your application, but simply whether or not your application can build a sample request (an EXACT sample request), and send it to their server.  Yeah — it’s like asking a math teacher to write the numbers 1 to 30 on a sheet of paper (in order) before he/she can get hired.

The problem is, the USPS docs don’t tell you this, nor do they show you the sample request.  So, for others who are about to embark on a few hour journey finding these details on Google (or worse, emailing USPS directly …eeek) I’m going to sum up a few facts here.

The most laborious for me so far is the one I already mentioned above.  For a rate request, the docs show you a RateV3Request, but in testing you can only use a RateV2 request (which does not support package dimensions).  Also, you must use the zip codes 10022 and 20008 for origination and zip, as well as 10 lbs. 5 oz. for the weight, and “LARGE” for the size.  Everything else (LAUGH) you have leeway with.

If you don’t use these exact values, you’ll get responses like “Please enter a valid zip code for the sender” (which of course makes you think you wrote the XML incorrectly) or “The package size must be ‘Regular’, ‘Large’, or ‘Oversize.’” (even though you have “regular” quite clearly in the request.

The advice is to get to production as soon as possible, though why USPS would design things this way is beyond me, but them’s the cards, you gotta play ‘em.

I will add more here as I find them obstaclicious enough (yeah I just made up that word).

Amendment 1:  I should add that the issues about the documentation not mentioning the “canned” requests is only applicable to the PDF documentation.  It is stated quite clearly in the HTML versions.  Go figure …

My rejection was simply:

Hello Jeremy,

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after
reviewing your application, we’re unable to accept you into Google AdSense
at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.

Issues:

- Unacceptable site content

Looking around their restrictions, I really could not find a solution, as I couldn’t find any rule that I explicitly violated.  I posted a request for insight on the forums, and a very insightful user (wasaweb) pointed out my extensive duplicate content on http://jeremytharp.com/ and http://www.coffeecuphalfmoons.com/.  And it’s true — I use my blog’s rss to feed much of the content on my music site.

Since I want to keep the sites separate, I saw no reasonable solution, but then I discovered that recently Google began allowing cross-domain canonical URLs.  Eureka!  I simply set the canonical URLs on the pages on jeremytharp.com that fed from coffeecuphalfmoons.com to the appropriate page that fed the same content on coffeecuphalfmoons.com.  When I resubmitted the AdSense application, it was approved!

Keep in mind that there are a LOT of reasons you might get rejected from AdSense, but given that this was very simply successful, I thought I would share.

I also noticed an immediate reorganization of my site:jeremytharp.com results on Google (for the better).  I’m hoping it has some positive effects on PR on both pages as well.

A great joy of parenthood: rediscovering the magic that blowing on your hot food cools it down … #

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Celebrating the invention of the barcode: http://www.google.com/ (or is it www.| ||| | || |||| |.com? #

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Many people who wrote HTML back in the day remember the valign=”middle” tag from tables.  It was always easy to handle centering in tables.  In divs and boxes, however, it’s not so straight forward.  In face, the only somewhat relevant css tag is “vertical-align.”

Of course, many many people completely misunderstands what the vertical align tag is for.  It has nothing to do with vertical centering within an object.  It refers to how side-by-side objects center related to one another.

This article really has nothing to do with what vertical-align means, but it is certainly relevant to the above solution.  If you’re having trouble with vertical-align, google it and you’ll find a bajillions explanations.

So, the little snippet of brilliance I want you to see here is that, in fact, CSS DOES provide a way to do vertical centering.  What?  Didn’t you just say that it doesn’t?  I did.  But there is a pretty easy exploit, thanks to vertical-align.

So without any further buildup, here is the solution:

1.)  Use a strict doctype, because if you don’t, you’re an idiot.    j/k — if you don’t understand, check google.  I personally prefer HTML 1.0 strict, but use as you wish.

2.) Create a “div” element — any size, but definitely use a set width and height (px, em, % — it’s irrelevant).  It should have the css style “text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;” (I’m presuming, of course, that you want horizontal centering as well.  If not, substitute left or right — it makes no difference.)

3.) Create an element inside the div with the following style:  “vertical-align: middle”  Woohoo we’re done right??  No … not yet.  The object now has to be vertically centered to something.  And, intuitively, if somehow there were an object that is 100% in height and we were vertically centered to that, we’d be in business.

HEY WAIT A MINUTE!!!

4.) Now create a div inside your element with the following css style:  “display: inline-block; height: 100%; width: 0px; vertical-align: middle;”.

<div style="width: 150px; height: 90px; position: relative; text-align: center; background-color: pink; white-space: nowrap;">
<div style="display: inline-block; height: 100%; width: 0px; vertical-align: middle"></div>
<div style="width: 22%; height: 11%; background-color: skyblue; vertical-align: middle;"></div>
</div>

That will give you a blue box horizontally and vertically centered inside the main div.

You may ask yourself how it’s any better than just using margin-top: 44%; — and it’s not for a fixed width object, but it will work for a VARIABLE WIDTH OR HEIGHT object. (Think images!)

So there you go. That’s the solution. Exploit the one little vertical align ability CSS gives you — vertical align with the adjacent object that is 100% tall, bam — fluid vertical centering with variable dimension.