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October 24, 2006

Max 2006: Keynote

Can you say “Blue Man Group”? Everyone…at the same time…BLUE MAN GROUP! How sweet is it when BMG opens up the conference keynote? I’ll answer this one. It is SHAAWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET! :-) Greg Rewis forewarned me Monday “be sure to be there @ 8:30” and I’m glad we took his advice. Of course, we have to go watch a whole show now. They were on for a good 20 to 30 minutes but it was 100% great!

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Posted by John C. Bland II at 4:29 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 20, 2006

CF_GoogleMap

Blayter has created a Google Map custom tag and has finally released it to the masses. The documentation seems full and extensive but he says he still has more work to do on it.

Check it out and hit him on on his blog with some comments.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:23 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

October 18, 2006

DCC: Register Now!

Desert Code Camp is ready for registration. The schedule has been set and the sessions are “finalized” (to the best of my knowledge).

My session is in room 201 at 9:15 AM (Beginning Flex 2.0). I wish I had more time to do more sessions but I just don’t.

Come join us and have a little fun geeking out. ;-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:22 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 16, 2006

Vista: Solitaire is tight!

If you aren’t on Vista, sorry for the tease. If you are, take the time to play one game of Solitaire. You’ll be thoroughly surprised!

Read more from Tim Heuer’s post.

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

Vista: Running an MSI Elevated

I had some probs intalling Atlas on my new laptop so I posted to the .NET UG and Tim Heuer hit me back with this snippet.

Msiexec /I

(that is a capital “i” not and L)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:27 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Desert Code Camp: Beginning Flex 2.0

I will be speaking on October 28th at Desert Code Camp on Beginning Flex 2.0. Last time I did 3 sessions but I simply do not have the time prepare three sessions. So, hopefully I can get a very solid preso setup and ready to rock for folks who attend my session. This time I didn’t make the mistake of setting the session title to something non-specific. Hopefully those who have tentatively registered are expecting to see Flex 2.0. :-) lol.

So, those that can’t make DCC can watch my preso live via Adobe Connect. Go to this url 30 minutes or so before the preso and I will let you in. I will do my best to facilitate both the online and in-person crowd but keep in my the in-person crowd will hold precedence in terms of communication since I’m right in front of them.

I’m excited about DCC. My only regret is not doing more than a beginning course. I wanted to do a Flex+Rails preso but I simply do not have the time to get familiar enough with Rails to speak with any sign of intelligence. :-)

I hope to see you there!

PS - For session details, visit the DCC site or click here for this session.

** Update **
The time is at 9:15 in room 201.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:20 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 14, 2006

Inspiron 9400 ROCKS!

That’s right. I am rockin’ a Dell Inspiron 9400 and…well…it is actually rockin’ me! I’m loving this thing. This laptop allows me to work just as efficiently as I do on my desktop (Dell GX240; bought in 2001 but still rockin’). The specs are comparable but better on the 9400 though. The best part is using Vista (RC2) and getting to see Aero (the glass theme that comes with Vista). It is soooooo nice. Alt+Tab has live thumbnail previews of the application. Seriously…it is a live thumbnail. I had a client site open that has a Flash animation and in Alt+Tab it actually showed the animation running. Windows Key+Tab is the infamous Flip3d which is amazing. It has a live preview as well. Enough about Vista. Back to the lappy.

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Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:59 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 10, 2006

Google drops the dollars on You Tube

Another major deal for a site that could’ve been built in a week and a half. :-( I guess we need to stop all client work and build one of these so that site can get bought out. :-) lol.

BTW, it was for 1.65 BILLION. It is a stock deal so it is tax free. I wonder if, after this deal, someone will consider Facebook’s request for 2 Billion (or whatever ridiculous amount it was).

You can read more (and hear for a short time) about the call between Google and You Tube over at Techcrunch.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:13 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

October 9, 2006

A Concise Guide to the SWF File Format

This is pretty interesting. I don’t get into the 1’s and 0’s (left Assembly alone a few years ago)anymore so this was an interesting site. I’m not sure how they obtained this information but it seems like they just dumped the contents of a swf.

Check it out:
File format
File reference
Terminology

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:16 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 6, 2006

Google Blog Search

I just ran across this in the GMail news feed. This is pretty much Google lending their quality search engine to the blogging community.

With this post, I’m going to try to ping them. We’ll see if it works or not. :-)

Check out Google Blog Search.

Update
Moveable Type didn’t throw any errors or anything so I assume we pinged Google Blog Search successfully.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:42 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 5, 2006

Weird Al: White & Nerdy

Man, this dude is hilarious! Check it out here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:34 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 4, 2006

AOL is Free & The APP IS TIGHT!

“Introducing AOL® OpenRide™, the newest AOL software. So much more than just a Web browser, its breakthrough four-pane design will revolutionize the way you use the Internet. No more jumping from one window to the next — everything you need is right there the moment you need it. And it’s absolutely free. Simply put: You’ve got to see it to believe it.”
- free.aol.com

Take a tour if you don’t want to install it. I just installed the app on Vista and it isn’t the smoothest start up but it is def’ an improvement on their old software. This is great work by AOL.

The slow startup was due to the browser loading. For whatever reason it opened two tabs (yes, tabbed browsing) automatically. My video card isn’t that great either so some of the transitions aren’t as smooth. I ordered a new video card yesterday so I’ll check it again in a couple days. :-)

Check it out though. This is a very nice app!

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:20 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 1, 2006

Refresh Phoenix Unconference

Come in December, Phoenix will host the Refresh Unconference. Pretty much anyone can speak that is approved. Here is some text from the homepage of the wiki.

“The concept of this conference is to loosely structure things. The general topic is something to do with the internet or technology, most likely web related, but from there it’s open. If there’s something you’d like to present simply add it to the list, if there’s something that you’d like to learn more about add it to the list of suggestions and maybe someone else will pick it up. Basically the idea here is just to collect a bunch of smart people together and allow them to talk about what ever is interesting to them. If you’re an expert on something it might make a good topic, as would a simple demo of something cool that you’ve made.”
- refreshphoenix.org

I have suggested the topic “Flex’ing Rails (Adobe Flex powered by Rails) - John C. Bland II (and Rails guru)” but I need a solid Rails guru to present with or to build a solid Rails backend. Anyone interesting just hit me up offlist.

I assume they will update the Wiki with the conference dates, etc.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:41 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)