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February 26, 2006

Very Nicely Done

I am now using Eclipse for dev in many different languages. For a brief background, to the best of my knowledge, Eclipse was an IBM product that was released to the open source world not too long ago (in years). Since that time many plugins have been developed to support multiple languages (ColdFusion, Actionscript, Flex [still in development], Ruby, etc). This is mainly what I wanted to post in this category.

What I mean by the title of this post, “Very Nicely Done”, is the simple fact that IBM built a platform to which other “applications” (plugins) can run. It is a super sweet concept when you think about it. This isn’t the first time an application has been developed that uses plugins but none can touch Eclipse, in my opinion. I’ll list my reasons.

Continue reading "Very Nicely Done" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 7:02 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

February 24, 2006

Ruby Eclipse

I had to find an IDE to work with and what better way to do it than in Eclipse. :-) Come to find out…there is a plugin called Ruby Eclipse. I haven’t toyed with it much but as long as it allows me to edit the .rb files I’m good to go. It does have some error checking too so that is good seeing as I don’t know a lick of Ruby. :-)

If you already have Eclipse 3+ installed you can install through the Software Updates feature with this url: http://rubyeclipse.sourceforge.net/nightlyBuild/updateSite/. For complete instructions visit the Ruby Eclipse site (on sourceforge).

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:02 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Rails Apps come as MVC

After installing I couldn’t resist creating a test app. It was quite simple (see command line below). After installing I noticed something quite interesting while perusing the folders. In the /app folder they automatically install folders for the MVC (model, view, controller) architecture.

Continue reading "Rails Apps come as MVC" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:57 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Installing Ruby

It is official. I am now installing Ruby, as I type this post, after seeing a post on Jim’s blog about Rails 1.0. It is an old post from December but it made me go ahead and follow the link to the install page. Installing is quite simple too.

Continue reading "Installing Ruby" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:06 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 22, 2006

Is it all hype?

Well, I’m previewing a Ruby on Rails book so I decided to make it a category here. I’m mainly interested in seeing if it is all hype since Jim Jeffers raves about it. :-) As I learn more about this technology and toy around with some code I’ll be sure to post here. This will definitely come second to me learning more about C# but it will still get some major play for “reading material.” :-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:58 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

IE Bites: option disabled doesn't work

IE has once again bit the big one so I figured I’ll start posting my IE Bites messages here instead of IM’ing Cody or Mike and venting to them about IE. That is kinda like preaching to the choir. :-) Well, maybe not…the choir has issues too.

I’m working in IE 6 but forgot to test one piece of functionality before sending this site live. As usual, everything works great in Firefox so I had no idea there was even potential for an issue. Come to find out the disabled attribute for an option doesn’t work in IE. Here’s what I had to do.

Continue reading "IE Bites: option disabled doesn't work" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:52 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Flash 7 on Mobile? Can't be...

An article called Picsel beats Macromedia to putting Flash v 7 onto mobile was posted to the FlashLite mailing list tonight. The article talks strictly about Flash 7 content not Flash Lite with Flash 7 abilities. It is kind of interesting to think another company put Flash 7 on a phone before the creators of Flash 7. I’d like to hear Adobe rep’s speak on this topic. I’m sure the list will blow up tomorrow morning once everyone reads it.

The only thing it seems they would be missing is the Flash files interaction with the phones since Flash 7 has no way of hitting softkeys, etc but Flash Lite does. If they have Flash 7 working on a phone and the .swf can interact with the phone…whoa. That would be phat!

What are your thoughts here?

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:30 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 21, 2006

Whitespace Management

This is nothing but a venting post. I believe CF 8 should include much greater whitespace management. Maybe I’m the only developer out here who doesn’t know how to completely get rid of whitespace but I doubt it. I know there are custom tags, etc you could use to fix the issue but I’d rather not deal anything other than changing a setting or something.

Anyways, I hope the next version of CF does a better job of managing said whitespace. :-) The reason I’m venting is I just ran a file with 12,000 blank lines. I added cfsilent around my code and the whitespace reduced to the normal whitespace caused by Application.cfc.

Had to get it off my chest. ;-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:09 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ajax App: cfQuickDocs

cfQuckDocs is PHAT. It is built on ajaxCFC that integrates LiveDoc content for ColdFusion. For my daily use it is invalueable and way better than LiveDocs in terms of speed. LiveDocs still has a place but I am definitely a believer in cfQuickDocs.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:58 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 20, 2006

class...Reserved in IE?

I guess so. It doesn’t seem to matter in Firefox or Safari but having a function paramater called “class” in IE will cause it to spit on you. Let me show you what I was doing.

Continue reading "class...Reserved in IE?" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 4:40 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nathan Strutz Speaks on CFEclipse

Nathan Strutz sent an email to AZCFUG regarding his preso this week. Below are his comments:

“I’m presenting CFEclipse to the AZ CFUG this Wednesday, Feb 22! Please come, show up, attend, and be present for my first CFUG presentation ever!”

Continue reading "Nathan Strutz Speaks on CFEclipse" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:26 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dreamweaver 8.0.1

For those of you who use DW 8 this will be useful. There is now an Updater for 8 which addresses several bugs/issues.

Adobe (Macromedia), THANK YOU FOR THE CLOSING TAG AUTO-COMPLETION! :-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:58 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 19, 2006

Apollo?

I just posted on MMUG Lyris (the user group managers list) “Adobe, please buy Multidmedia.” as a plea to have desktop abilities natively in the Flash IDE which turned up a couple response. Peter Elst who, in a nut shell, stated MDM is great but
bc.. “I believe there is nothing technically stopping Multidmedia from writing an exporter for Flash 8, not sure if they would need some sort of partnership agreement for it but even without it its relatively easy to write a C-level or other Flash extension that integrates the Flash IDE with Zinc (especially since they’ve got a command line version).”

This would be super sweet to have Zinc in the Flash IDE which would GREATLY improve testing and the entire app dev process.

Continue reading "Apollo?" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:11 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Socom 3: New Clan

Well, we disbanded ShadowClique to join a larger clan. Now we are a part of Crime Experts which is pretty coo since the leader (Bk-Live-Wire) is hilarious. This cat is from like New York or something and pretty much speaks his mind but can absolutely back up his mouth on the game.

We played yesterday and had some sweet games. I had to get back to work so I could finish this ColdFusion site for a client but I kept Socom on so I could see when ShadowMunkey got on. He did jump on and we all ended up getting some games in but after jumping rooms we ended up in a try out room for another clan. They kept buggin’ to get us out so I bounced but Munkey and Wire stayed. They were on the Seals team so they weren’t aware of the buggin’. It was bad too because I was clowning. I had 7 kills in like 2 rounds which boosted me to the top of the stats chart.

So, look for ShadowMunkey and ShadowTactics on Crime Experts from now on. Holla…

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:04 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 17, 2006

Google's Private Lives

An article popped up on one of the mailing lists today talking about Google and the new possibility they opened up for the government to access our files/information. I’m not the one to read online articles very often but this one was quite interesting.

The bottom line: Google Desktop now has the ability to upload files from your computer to their server(s). The files can and will be turned over to the government, if so requested, to comply with the law. Your files are encrypted but Google has the encryption key. They explain fully how everything works in their privacy policy but most non-tech saavy folks won’t understand it anyway. You can also delete files from their servers with the click of a button but accessing the file(s) again will upload it to their server. Last but not least you have to turn it on by default which also means you have to agree to their privacy policy.

Read it for yourself

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:05 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

XAML... Flash Killer?

(In response to Cody B.’s post)

Ok. Let’s separate the two really fast and end the debate. :-)

XAML more-so equivalent to Flex than Flash. Flash can do some great things but it isn’t even comparable to Flex and they are in the same product family @ Adobe. Some thought Flex would be a Flash killer but it isn’t. For 1, Flex is built on the Flash player. It doesn’t have a physical timeline for you to utilize but MovieClips are still around so you can do things like onEnterFrame, etc.

Continue reading "XAML... Flash Killer?" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 16, 2006

Whopperettes.com

Have you seen the BK commercial where the ladies stack up to make a burger? Well, now you can control the Whopperrettes and make your own video. They did a very nice job with the video work in Flash.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:45 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

FernandoZanatta.com

A friend of mine, Fernando Zanatta, has a fresh new site design. I love the light bulb he uses. The color is very smooth.

Check it out

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 15, 2006

macgyver.com - Random Fortune

Keep refreshing the page to get some random fortune. :-) There are some pretty funny one’s in there.

http://www.macgyver.com

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:40 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

State board eliminates evolution lesson plan

CNN.com reports a lesson plan dispute in Ohio. The bottom line is another fight between evolution and intelligent design. One of the quotes in the article talks about an event last year that was quite funny to me.

“Also last year, a federal judge ordered the school system in suburban Atlanta’s Cobb County to remove from biology textbooks stickers that called evolution a theory, not a fact.”

Is it not a theory? Has something changed in the last 8 years since I was in high school? Last I checked it was a theory and no one has proven it to be 100% fact or I KNOW I would have heard from someone “they found a monkey with car keys” or something to prove evolution is the truth. Obviously I’m being funny, maybe not one of my better jokes, but you get what I’m saying.

Continue reading " State board eliminates evolution lesson plan" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:56 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Freedom, Mobile Ajax?

That’s right…Ajax is going mobile. I read today on Marco Casario’s blog about Majax (Mobile Ajax) and it sounds pretty sweet. The product is offered by Opera and is called Freedom. I’m not going to go through all of the details because I don’t know them but it is, in my opinion, a cash cow for Opera, pay-per-view services.

Read more about the Freedom announcement and draw your own conclusions. :-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:39 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Course Genie

I accidentally went to Google.com instead of Gmail.com a little bit ago. In doing so my Google homepage showed up which has Macromedia News aggregated. One of the listings was for Course Genie. In my own words, Course Genie is a tool you can install and use within Microsoft Word to create courseware SUPER easy.

I watched the 1 minute demo and was pretty impressed by the simplicity. All you do is set a style on the different headings of your document, click generate, and let it do what it do. :-) In a couple seconds it will tell you all work is complete and you can view your info in the browser. It has fully functional navigation, table of contents, and graphics. You are apparently supposed to be able to do Flash as well but they didn’t show this in the demo.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:28 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 14, 2006

Downloading Files with Save As...

Now this is plain old sweetness! :-) One of our clients needed the ability to download images for their site (mind you this is Flash) by right clicking on the image and clicking “Save As…” just like you would in an html-based site. This poses a problem in Flash.

  • Context Menu’s (the right click menu) in Flash has a problem with subelements (mc’s, etc that aren’t a direct decendent of _root).

Continue reading "Downloading Files with Save As..." »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:40 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Grid7 Labs Launches

“Grid7 is a community of internet professionals working together to implement projects that generate recurring passive income.”

Checkout the new Grid7, fill out an app, and start rockin’ some code with some super smart folks.

More about Grid7 on Scrollin’ On Dubs.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:33 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wildcard Cert Install

We had the hardest time installing our wildcard cert. Installing regular certs are easy but a wildcard cert posed a few issues. The process to install the cert for an IIS site is the same whether it is a wildcard or not. The difference is you must manually configure your server bindings. I know…how do you do this and what are they? Those were my first two questions. I know what a binding is but in reference to managing them….{insert scooby doo noise here}.

Continue reading "Wildcard Cert Install" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 5:04 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

C# & Flash Differences: Event Listener Assignments

Ok…me coming from Flash I was expecting some sort of method (or 3) in C# used for adding/removing event listeners and dispatching them. Well, I was terribly mistaken. :-)

While I was working on the Simple Calculator I decided to jump ahead in the dev process and peep some of the code Visual Studio was creating for me with the visual changes I was making. In doing so I found the InitializeComponent method which init’s all of the buttons, menus, etc.

Continue reading "C# & Flash Differences: Event Listener Assignments" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:12 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 13, 2006

Buntel Bounces

After a long stint with ColdFusion (10 years or so), Tim Buntel will be leaving Adobe for personal reasons, nothing related to the Adobe merger. He has found a way to combine his passion for technology and teaching children. He didn’t give much information as to this new gig but he is definitely moving on to better things. I wish Tim well in his new venture.

Tim’s blog post

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:03 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 8, 2006

SimpleCalculator.exe (Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha)

Ok. I got started on the calculator and I must say, again, Visual Studio is the best IDE I’ve worked with. It is thoroughly amazing in more than 1 way. Cody B. has always said it is the benchmark for IDE’s and I must publicly agree with him. I wish I had something this smooth for ColdFusion…heck, AS while I’m at it. :-) Let me detail a few things about the app dev so far.

Continue reading "SimpleCalculator.exe (Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha)" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:55 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

February 7, 2006

A Simple Calculator

Ok. I don’t know how to create anything other than a command line app right now but I dreamed about the app I want to build. Oh…so you know I dream and talk about code in my sleep (my wife gets some good jokes at my expense) all the time.

I’m going to build a calculator just like the one in Windows. It won’t have the scientific side of things but it will give you the core functionality. I think this will challenge me since I don’t know how to use the WinForms yet. Once I get it going I’ll post it here so folks can check it out.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:46 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 6, 2006

Thirsting for an App

Ok. I’m learning C# but I am too bored with the examples in the book and am ready for something new, more advanced and phat. I’m fine learning and doing sample apps but I want to use C# in production.

A couple weeks ago, just for the heck of it, I looked into C# and database interaction. It was a bit daunting with all of the new ways to do things. I come from a ColdFusion/PHP background (in terms of db interaction) so I’m used to using datasources and simple functions (php) not connection strings. That was my first hang up but I eventually got it after finding the right help info. From there…what do I build? I just made it so you could run a select query against a database and it would output the results. So, how cheesy is that? It is utterly useless and even made Cody B. (your resident C# guru) ask questions about what it does.

Continue reading "Thirsting for an App" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:53 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Flex 2 Beta 1...The Cooking Show

Cooks? Yep, it fried my CF install. :-( lol.

Ok. I have had CF 7 dev on my local PC since it came out and it worked perfectly fine until I decided to try out Beta 1 (link may expire sometime soon). Everything (flex & cf) was working fine but I couldn’t just install Flex Builder without installing the Enterprise Services and CF Updater…No! I had to install everything they gave me which was umm…turned out to be…umm…DUMB! :-) Flex hosed my CF dev version and started throwing an error on a td tag and when I tried to open the administrator. WTH? (that’s Heck in case you were wondering).

Well, needless to say I download CF again tonight and am reinstalling. No need in trying to fix it…just get rid of it and reinstall. Hopefully this install will be fine but we’ll see.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:17 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Zinc 2.5.0.10 Released

Multidmedia spit out a new build for Zinc. I looked through the list of fixes, etc but did not see a fix for the memory leak issue. If you aren’t familiar, Zinc fails after roughly 24 hours…why? If they knew they would fix it…don’t you think? :-) Well, some people don’t think so so they have turned to apps like Screenweaver.

Anyways, this is supposed to be a positive post. Zinc has a new version so check it out, update your current version, and run some tests. I’ve had several issues already but hopefully they are user related. :-) If I find out otherwise I’ll blog it.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:09 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 5, 2006

Socom 3: My Best Game Yet

Last night I got down with my boy De’shon (aka ShadowMunkey) on Socom 3 and was doing terrible. Partly my terrible play was caused by this blog. :-) I couldn’t help but work on getting MTTextile and MTCodeBeautifier up and going. After too many failures I decided to focus on the game and made a pretty sweet comeback.

Continue reading "Socom 3: My Best Game Yet" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:30 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Port Numbers

I’ve been saving this file on our servers desktop for some time but I truly want to delete so what better way to preserve the contents of the file than to put it in a post. :-)

Continue reading "Port Numbers" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:36 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 3, 2006

IE PNG Hack

Yep, that's right. There is a way to get PNG support in IE before IE 7 is released. I'm going to check it out as soon as I get a chance. Cody showed me a site he did that uses it and it looks sweet!

Checkout Cody's blog for more info.

Ever try to use those wonderful transparent PNGs? Ever tear your hair out when after seeing how beautiful it looked in Firefox, Internet Explorer made an absolute mess of it? Then read on.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:22 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 1, 2006

Flex 2 is here...

Well, I'm about a day late on blogging about this but Flex 2 Beta 1 was release last night. It came available about 9 last night, AZ time. There is some incredible promise with Flex+CF.

I downloaded everything and installed it last night. Although I was quite busy I couldn't resist at least compiling a Flex 2 Alpha project. Well, that bombed. Apparently several tags have been stripped in place of others so I had a good amount of errors.

As I dive into it more I'll post my experiences.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:57 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)