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June 29, 2006

Art of Greg Martin

Wow! This this site (namely the gallery) is pretty clean. It is very minimal, which is refreshing. The animations are smooth and the reflections add a nice touch of “class” to the layout.

Check it out here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:09 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

IE 7 Beta 3 Released

“This morning we released IE7 Beta 3 for Windows XP. This version includes improvements in reliability, compatibility, security, and a few end user features. Give it a try at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx.”
- Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager

You can read more here. I’m heading over to download the latest now since Beta 2 is currently broken on my system. :-) lol. I’m not sure what happened but IE 7 freezes on startup now. So, Beta 3 is right on time! ;-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:56 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

June 28, 2006

Flex 2 Video Player (with cool videos)

In light of the Flex 2 news, I finished this little video player app just to show how Flex 2 can interact with Flash Media Server 2 for streaming videos. There isn’t much visually to see but check the source (right click->View Source) to see the code (which there isn’t much code there either; lol).

Click here to see the app.

Let me know how autoinstall works for you. It should be upgrade you with no problems. If you are on Windows Vista Beta 2, run your browser in admin mode…this worked for me.

NOTE:
This is on a dev version of FMS so 10 concurrent connections are allowed. If you get an error or it can’t connect…tough cookies. Check back again later. :-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:35 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Flash Professional 9 AS 3.0 Alpha

Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0 PreviewA preview of the next release of the Flash authoring tool, scheduled for release in 2007, extends the capabilities of Flash Professional 8 to include support for the new ActionScript 3.0 language in Flash Player 9.

Adobe Labs - Homepage

I'm installing it right now so I can see how it works out. It'd be super sweet to use Flash 9 in the Flash IDE and spit out some Flash projects in Player 9.

Blogged with Flock

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:48 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Flex 2 is released!

Developers can get started with Flex 2 immediately by downloading a free tryout of Flex Builder 2 or by downloading the Flex 2 SDK and using it with an IDE of their choice. Flex Data Services Express, a free product version of Flex Data Services 2, lets developers deploy a single application on a single, nonclustered CPU to take advantage of data services and messaging capabilities.

Adobe - Adobe Flex 2: Purchasing options

Ok...in my last post I said Flex 2 is on the way. Well, it is here. :-) It is time for me to see how the autoinstall feature works.

Get down with Flex 2 and let's see what you can do!

Blogged with Flock

Posted by John C. Bland II at 4:01 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Flash Player 9 is here

File size: 1,324 K
Download Time Estimate: 2 minutes @ 56K modem
Version: 9,0,16,0
Browser: Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, and CompuServeDate
Posted: 6/27/2006
Language: English

Adobe Flash Player Download Center

If 9 is here...that means Flex 2 is on the way. :-) Get ready!

Blogged with Flock

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

June 25, 2006

Vista Beta 2: Software Install Review...coming soon

I have a list (2 pages) of my trials/trib’s with installing and running software on Vista Beta 2. Look for this either tomorrow or one day next week.

Thanks.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:31 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Code Igniter ROCKS!

I FINALLY got around to using CI on a real project and it met my expectations and then some and then some more and the a tid bit more than that. I didn’t get to toy with the database interactions, since the project used a CMS we built a while back for a client and it posseses a data access API, but everything else…pretty nice.

I did have problems with the URL’s. My main problem was not fully understanding .htaccess (IIS man here). It is Saturday night so I couldn’t get with our hardcore PHP guys to get help so I went to the net. CI has great documentation which had a .htaccess example which I tweaked a bit to fit our needs. Let’s geek on some code real quick.

Continue reading "Code Igniter ROCKS!" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:38 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 23, 2006

Bob Parsons on Domain Kiting

35 million names registered in May. Only 8% of registrations were paid. 32million were part of a scam. It's called "domain kiting."

Domain kiting continues out of control!The numbers are now in for May 2006 and the domain kiting problem continues to rage out of control. In fact, it’s as bad as ever.92.3% of May registrations were kited domains!Consider this: Just over 35 million names were registered for the month of May. Of those just over 2.7 million were permanent registrations. That means that 92.3% of all domain names registered were part of a scam now known as domain kiting. These names were kept off of the market, they were used to generate search engine revenue – AND BECAUSE OF A LOOPHOLE ICANN REFUSES TO ELIMINATE – those 32.3 million names were used without being paid for.

Hot Points – A blog by Go Daddy CEO and founder Bob Parsons


Whoa, this seems to be a pretty big thing. It is my first time hearing about it but it is worth the read.

Blogged with Flock

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:19 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 19, 2006

Best of Google Video

This is absolutely hilarious! Take 5 minutes out of your day and treat yourself to a laugh.

Men in coats - Best of Google Video

Blogged with Flock

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

June 18, 2006

Windows Vista Beta 2 Install Experience...Finale

WOOO HOOOOOOOOOO! :-) Vista is installed and am blogging from it right now. There are tons of new features/updates over build 5308, which is what I upgraded from. I will only touch on a few, while my email downloads, then get some quick work done (don’t you just hate deadlines?). :-)

Continue reading "Windows Vista Beta 2 Install Experience...Finale" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:56 PM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Windows Vista Beta 2 Install Experience...3.0

:-( Being that I’m on 3.0 you should know it didn’t work. I’m looking at an error right now. :-(

“Setup failed to open the Windows image file.”

Why? I would assume it copied it over to Windows.old since I had the ISO extracted to a folder on my desktop. I was so close. It even restarted Windows, booted to Windows Setup, and showed the setup screen with the normal poor graphics due to not all colors being used. :-( I just knew it was going to work.

Well, I guess I’ll move this to my new HD and try from there. Hopefully I get better results so my next post will say something to the effect “Vista Beta 2 is SWEET!” :-)

BTW, for those that think this post should’ve been a dot “release” like most have issues with .Net 3.0 (low blow…I konw; lol; it’s my blog though…nothing anyone can do about either, lol)…this was a marketing decision. ;-)

LMBO! :-) (those from AZGroups.com know what I’m talking about)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:26 AM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Windows Vista Beta 2 Install Experience...2.0

Ok. It is getting…well…is late and I still don’t have Vista even close to beginning an install. Instead, I’ve even taken a few steps back after taking a leap forward. No need for dramatics…let me just explain the issue(s) at hand.

(for my 1.0 attempt go here)

Continue reading "Windows Vista Beta 2 Install Experience...2.0" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:56 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Windows Vista Beta 2 Install Experience...1.0

I say 1.0 because I have no idea if this is going to work or not. We’ll see though.

So far I’ve had no luck. Really, it isn’t Vista’s fault though. I was using a trial ISO app, two actually, and thought all files were extracted. Well, they weren’t. Let’s dive right into what happened. :-)

Continue reading "Windows Vista Beta 2 Install Experience...1.0" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:01 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

June 17, 2006

FreeCell built in WPF

Microsoft is starting to make some of the new development technology for Windows Vista available to programmers through Community Technology Preview (CTP) releases. To start introducing this technology to you (and have a little fun with it myself), I decided to recreate the game FreeCell using the January CTP and Visual Studio 2005 Express. In this article, I will try and describe my experiences on this brief one-day journey and how much fun it turned out to be!

Coding4Fun: Designing FreeCell using Expression and Visual Studio Toolsets

This article is a pretty interesting read about using WPF to build the popular, in my mind, FreeCell game. He wasn't set out to rebuild FreeCell but actually "wanted to understand the workflow in designing an application in collaboration with a developer."

Check it out. I'll be posting some more great things I see about WPF and/or .Net 3.0.

Blogged with Flock

Posted by John C. Bland II at 7:18 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 16, 2006

Stephen Elop leaving Adobe

Stephen Elop to Remain with Adobe Through the End of Fiscal YearSAN JOSE, Calif. — June 15, 2006 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that Stephen Elop, president, worldwide field operations, will leave the company at the end of the fiscal year. Elop, former CEO of Macromedia, is responsible for the company's global sales organization including field marketing, customer care and professional services.

Adobe - Adobe Press Room: For immediate release

First Bill now Stephen. Who's next? Donal Trump? :-) j/k

Blogged with Flock

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:17 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ClickUrban.com - Great City Resource

My wife's hair dresser wanted to know when Mike Epps would be in town (which is tonight and tomorrow if anyone was curious) so we jumped online to search. I COMPLETELY forgot to checkout Click Urban so it took me a little time to find the theater he will perform (Tempe Improv) and times.

If I remembered ClickUrban.com I would have saved about 20 minutes of my life. :-D lol. So, I figured I'd share the link with everyone else. It is a great site that is on the rise.

Click Urban

Blogged with Flock

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:26 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 15, 2006

Bill Gates is leaving?!?!?

REDMOND, Wash. — June 15, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that effective July 2008 Bill Gates, chairman, will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company announced a two-year transition process to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates’ daily responsibilities, and said that after July 2008 Gates would continue to serve as the company’s chairman and an advisor on key development projects.

Microsoft Announces Plans for July 2008 Transition for Bill Gates: Working full time at Microsoft through June 2008, Gates then will continue as chairman and advisor while increasing Foundation efforts; Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie to assume expanded roles.

Blogged with Flock

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:23 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How hard is it to cancel AOL?

This audio clip is quite funny. :-) The AOL guy was terribly desparate to retain a customer. :-D

Putfile - AOL Cancellation

Blogged with Flock

Posted by John C. Bland II at 7:44 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 14, 2006

Flock Browser

Flock is a free web browser that makes it easier than ever to share photos, stay up-to-date with news from your favorite sites, and search the Web. Take our tour to learn what’s different about Flock, then download the beta to get started - and please tell us what you think.

Flock — The web browser for you and your friends

Seriously…this browser is thoroughly sweet. All I can say is download it and install. It is based on the Firefox codebase, so I was told, but it is much more expressive. It has a built-in news (feed) reader, Flickr bar (you can drag photos to the bar and it willl post to Flickr), and you can even blog from it.

I went to the Flock hompage, right clicked, click Blog This, and a window opened. I am typing this blog entry within Flock and am not even having to touch Moveable Type (which is what this blog uses).

Wow…this is sweet! I think this may be my new browser.

Blogged with Flock

———————————Update———————————
Flock IS my new browser. I have officially switch on both computers.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:15 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

June 13, 2006

Windows 98 user...who are you?

Ok…I am compiling a Flash app that is HUGE so it gives me like 5 minutes to do whatever until it is compiled, seriously. KM didn’t start the file so it is pretty messy and has TONS of assets in it but that’s here nor there.

With my extra minutes I decided to check the KatapultMedia.com stats. Low and behold…we had 1 visit from a user on Windows 98.

I always see at least 1 user on 98. Are you serious? It is still alive on someone’s computer? This is probably my Grandpa looking at my site. I know he’s still on 98 but I will see to it he gets an upgrade sometime soon. He is the only one I know still on 98 though. Now, there are two people I’m at least aware of on 98. So, I only have 1 question for this user.

WHO ARE YOU?!?!?!??!?

(Ok. One more…)

CAN I BUY WINDOWS XP OR VISTA (when it comes out) FOR YOU?

:-) LOL. No substance to the post. Just another way to waste time between compiles. {insert laughing smiley face here; lol)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:13 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Geek Love: "There's Two Sides to Every Story"

This is flippin’ hilarious! This is a clear cut representation of geek love. It goes left a little with the convo but is funny all the same (some may find it tasteless but it is simply humor…laugh a little).

Check it out here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:53 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 12, 2006

Virtual Tradeshow on Ajax

Ajax conferences are popping up everywhere and it makes you think. Is it [ajax] here to stay? Obviously it is but all of these conferences somewhat solidify it, to me at least. Anything a company can pay to have their employees learn is more tangible than something that may be a fad. That isn’t a knock against open source. I like “SOME” of the open source movement (will save why for another post when I have a good amount of time) but you don’t see the majority of Fortune 500’s (or even 1000’s for that matter) moving everything to open source, and for good reasons.

Anyways, let me stop there before this post gets way off course. :-)

Continue reading "Virtual Tradeshow on Ajax" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:48 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"Chase" Schema passes the test

Chase? This is the codename for our upcoming content management system. The database schema is about 95% complete. We are working on a few more tweaks but I couldn’t wait to put the schema to test…so I did.

Continue reading ""Chase" Schema passes the test" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:31 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 7, 2006

Identity 2.0 by Dick from Sxip

This is by far one of the best preso’s I have every seen. It isn’t necessarily the content of the preso but Dick is a GREAT presenter. The content is pretty slick as well.

Identity 2.0 is about working with single sign-on, etc for authenticating a user in the same general manner as a store would validate you as someone who can buy alcohol. Sxip seems to be a leader in the 2.0 phase of identity. I won’t act like I know a great deal about this so I’ll stop here and let you hear directly from dick.

Checkout Dick’s OSCON 2005 Keynote here.

For more on Sxip go here.

For more on Dick go here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 6:54 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 6, 2006

The Apprentice: Sean, You're Hired!

Yeppers, everyone knows that infamous phrase now. Well, maybe not with Sean’s name in front of it but you get my drift. It has been a truly great season for The Apprentice. Tia (wife) and I watch it faithfully every week. I say week because TiVo is my best friend. ;-) If Tia listened to my Father’s Day request I’ll have the new DT model (dual tuner) which would be GREAT! (I’ve always wanted to say this) …but I digress. :-)

Sean, I thought, did a great job throughout the competition. No one is a Randal Pinket (he was a rock star in season 4), in my opinion, but Sean was solid throughout. Until the final show I wasn’t sold on which one I felt should win. Towards the end I truly thought Sean was more fit for the job. It is late so I won’t run down my reasons why. Instead, you can read Bill Rancic’s blog here where he details a few reasons that I agree with 100%. As we know, Bill was the first winner and has been in the boardroom, on the other side this time, many times this and last season.

So…Sean, congrats! Enjoy your time with Mr. Trump and take some time for the new flame, Tammy, in your life. ;-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:58 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 4, 2006

KatapultMedia.com v1 Launched

You’ve already seen the design (same as this blog) so nothing new there. Mainly we have a minimal amount of content and some imagery for our portfolio. We are still working on the portfolio details but you can view some of the sites by clicking on the icons. Tell us what you think.

Check it out here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 5:27 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

June 2, 2006

2Advanced does it again!

That’s right. V4 is gone. V5 has launched and is a SWEET site. It is much cleaner, easier to navigate, and much prettier than previous sites.

Check it out here.

Want to keep tabs on what 2A is up to? Read their new blog called PLAT4M.

Check it out here.

Enjoy!

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:25 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

June 1, 2006

AbolishTheNWord.com

This isn’t just a nice site for the normal reasons. The site speaks to change, education, and reminds us who we are, where we came from, what life our ancestors lived here in the US, and who we came from. I won’t get all philosophical since the site speaks for itself.

Check it out here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:49 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)