Problem with automatically populating dropdown

I found the instructions here in the forum on how to Automatically populate a dropdown with post titles and it works like a charm, does what I need....

Except that it doesn't support validation if I make that text field (that gets replaced with the dropdown) a required field - the problem is in this line:

11	    //Adding initial blank value.
12	    $items[] = array("text" => "", "value" => "");

While I have entered the default text I want ("Please select your product"), and left the "value" => "" blank so that there should be no value (which should trigger an error on validation), the plugin still puts in the text as the value, negating the validation.

What can I do to make sure that the value stays blank and that the field is validated?

Thank you David..... I added your suggestion, but the value is still being populated with the text, instead of being blank, as would be needed to trigger the validation. I deliberately did not put in a default value, only default text.

So the question is, how can I modify the aforementioned code to have it *not* take the text and use it for the value?