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August 20, 2007

77% Optimus Prime

Keith Elder posted this earlier so I thought I’d take the quiz see which one I’d be.

And the results are:
I AM
77%
OPTIMUS PRIMETake the Transformers Quiz

Optimus Prime
Optimus Prime is the heroic leader of the Autobots. He is the personification of courage, strength, and integrity. His personal motto is that “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.”

Like Optimus Prime, you are good by nature. But beware because mischievous thoughts sometimes tempt you. You are inspiring, confident, and a natural leader. The Autobots have chosen well. In addition, you enjoy being one step ahead of your friends as far as trends and technology.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:50 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

July 4, 2007

I'm "Burning"

http://feeds.feedburner.com/johncblandii

That’s my new feed on FeedBurner.com. I’ve seen it and used it a few times but I’m pretty excited about using it for this blog. I’ll update the feed image to point you there from now on.

Feel free to drop my current feed and grab the new one.

Burn on!

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:20 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 30, 2007

Engadget: iPhone + Cursing = Marketing Scheme?

:-) This seems odd to see but I guess they have their reason(s). lol.

Read more.

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

Comments Open to Anyone

I decided not to wait a week. Akismet caught over 400, or more, spam comments and only 1 comment was legit. The funny thing is…MT’s spam tools are the one’s that marked the good comment as spam. :-D lmbo. Akismet had it at a +1 rating. :-)

So, your comments are now immediately published. If I start getting spam to go through and can’t get it fixed (which I HIGHLY doubt), I’ll go back to moderating comments. For now, I’m happy though.

COMMENT AWAY!!!! ;-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:09 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 29, 2007

CrystalTech's New Datacenter

I don’t, too often, blog about CT upgrades unless it is big. This one definitely falls under the “big” category. I’m not going to go over all of the points rather I’ll paste some of the notes from CT’s president Robert Cichon’s email to CT customers.

To learn more, see photos and view an interactive layout of our new infrastructure, check out http://www.crystaltech.com/CTdatacenter.aspx

From the interactive layout, here are some of the points I felt are key to this new facility:

State-of-the-art security measures

  •  2 full multi-leveled 24X7X365 teams, eliminating all invalid entry possibilities
  •  Motion-recorded video surveillance system and biometric retinal scanning with a
     man-trap entry point

Absolute best in environmental management

  •  Balanced air handling and optimized air distribution
  •  State of the art humidification system
  •  A+B cooling loops and heat exchanger bypass with redundant pumps

Massive redundant energy generation

  •  Multiple redundant diesel generators with on site fuel reserves
  •  Top-quality Uninterruptible Power Supply systems (UPS)

Increased performance & redundant communication infrastructure

  •  Multiple Tier1 providers with full 10 GigE connectivity
  •  Multi-gigabit fiber backbone with a separate “maintenance” network
 Separate and redundant core network systems

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:15 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 25, 2007

My Slowwww Comment Responses

Trust me…it isn’t just the fact that I am away from my blog that much. Moveable Type is HORRRRRRRRRIBLE at spam filtering. I mean really bad (version 3.2 at least)! I just spent the last 40 minutes deleting spam comments (over two or thee hundred). :-( That’s what makes me HATE this blog software.

The thing is, I have links all over pointing to this URL so I don’t want to switch. Version 4.0 is said to be better at spam filtering. I’d be OK with the current no-filtering if it actually allowed me to approve/”trust” commenters the trusted commenters could comment without needing approval (which, btw…this doesn’t work in MT, for me, either).

So, I have to constantly look for comments (since notification emails won’t send either) which I’m not to keen on doing. :-( I’m working on it though.

Anyways…this post is simply to notify my commenters/readers to be patient when commenting. Hopefully the next version of MT won’t suck in so many crucial areas. If you know of any way to help my issues (namely plugins or whatever), please let me know.

Thanks.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:28 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 11, 2007

Me + Jobing.com = New Blog

I’ve been setup on jobing.com for a little over a month and I am starting to go ahead and blog it up a bit more. Check me out on jobing.com for my thoughts on geek jobs, etc.

To clarify, this is still my technical/business blog so don’t un-rss me. ;-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:25 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 7, 2007

Back on IM, Trillian Alpha

After N months of being off IM (probably around 2 or 3), I’m back. Google Talk was about the only IM I’d jump on with an occasional AIM for a client (specific client IM name). After being back on all IM’s (AIM, Yahoo, Google, MSN), I remember why I’d stay hidden at times. :-D

I love talking to people…really I do. It is simply the fact of being off for so long and having minimal IM contact to a day of 5 IM’s at a time (active)…it brings back memories. :-D

Anyway’s…notice all who have seen me gone for the longest…I’M BACK! ;-) 

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:44 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

November 26, 2006

Identikit on Numbers

One of our clients was spoken of on the hit show (at least in my house) Numbers tonight. Identikit.net has been one of our clients for a few months now (working on some updates for them) and watching Numbers tonight (TiVo recording) had me overly excited. :-)

They are looking for a killer/ring leader and they did a sketch of the person based on someone’s description. For the rest of the show they have shown a sketch produced by the Identikit system AND even mentioned it. :-) Now, we didn’t create the original application but we’re hoping to 100% handle the next version. I say this to say…it is merely cool that one of our clients (and current projects) is in use widely enough to make it on TV, especially a show I love. :-) Rock on!

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:02 PM | | 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 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)

September 23, 2006

Wise Advice: Never Fight a Bus!

Dude (Dudettes included), how is a Honda Accord going to battle a bus? Dumb huh? Sounds like something you’d see Johnny Knoxville doing on Jack(butt). Well, this lady wasn’t Mr. Knoxville but “she fought the bus and the…bus won!” :-)

Keith Elder and I were in the front two seats on the way from the Microsoft Employee Store to the hotel. Traffic was 100% horrific! I couldn’t believe how bad the traffic was. It was going to be a stretch for me to make it to the airport but I think I would have been right on time. Well, that is until some lady attempted to force herself into our lane while merging into traffic from an on-ramp.

Continue reading "Wise Advice: Never Fight a Bus!" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:09 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

September 22, 2006

Microsoft Dining Services?

They’ve provided some great food while we’ve been here. I was curious (not actively) who did the catering merely because Microsoft is a good client regardless of your industry. So this morning after eating breakfast I was checking my email and looked out of the window.

What did I see? A van riding by with Microsoft Dining Services on the side. I found this to be very interesting. It just goes to show what you feel being here: “Microsoft is HUGE!”

:-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:59 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 21, 2006

I got pimped!

You can view Keith Elder’s post about today here. He just passed me a note saying:

“Go here
http://www.keithelder.net
I made u famous”

:-) Thx for the mention on the post Keith! :-) You dotnetpimp you! lol.

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

September 20, 2006

Microsoft folks are cool

I’m here at the Microsoft Web Dev Technology Summit (a small event of 30 or so invited folks up here to Washington) and have met several Microsoft folks. All of them were cool. I honestly thought they’d be ultra techie or something but, well…some are techie but none ultra, most of them are very open to other worlds, etc. So far, it is a pretty coo experience. I can’t wait to go to “Campus” (Microsoft’s officesssssss [apparently it is huge; I’ll know tomorrow]).

I did find out today that we are going to get an employee discount from the Employee Store. Now that is sweet! Microsoft has been very generous, to me in particular this year. I’m not going to stop them either. Keep it coming Microsoft! :-) LOL.

I’ll post more as these days move forward. You can definitely tell, from talking to people, Microsoft is changing.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:14 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

September 16, 2006

How do you measure success?

This is always a tough one to slice. The first thing most people look at is financial success. While that is important I don’t think that is the bottom line. Although, this post is being written based on Katapult’s financial reports I viewed yesterday.

Fiscal YTD Katapult has done GREAT for a first year company with absolutely no funding. Yes, I’ve been doing this for years (through JDEV Inc. and freelance) but KM started out almost dead August 19, 2005. We had a little work coming in from freelance clients of mine/JDEV Inc. that we switched over to KM but the work was almost at a standstill. 1 year later we have 35+ clients with a steady 10+ projects running at a time. Does this mean KM is successful?

That is the question that has been on my mind for the last 24 hours. So, I’m kind of thinking out loud here but I’m sure some will be interested in the read. :-) (or at least I hope) Let’s read on.

Continue reading "How do you measure success?" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:16 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

September 7, 2006

Interakt acquired by Adobe

Man, this was a shocker to me. I didn’t expect it but I think it was the right move. Interakt builds some truly great extensions for Dreamweaver/Adobe products so naturally Adobe bought them and can now bundle them with their product(s). This is a great move for the community and Adobe.

I think the best part is the team stays together so it is the same company but driven by a major corp, including financially. :-) I can’t wait to see what these guys do with Adobe backing them.

Read more about the acquisition here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:15 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 2, 2006

Personal Blog

There are times and places for certain posts and I’ve been refraining from posting here regarding different things like family, etc, etc. I do some but I tend to keep it business, for the most part. Well, it is time for me to start blogging on a personal level and Tia is ready to blog as well. Who is Tia? My wife and President of Katapult. She hasn’t blogged before but she always has great things to say about life, love, etc so a blog is perfect for her.

For those that don’t know, we have a personal site (here) which is horribly outdated but is still our site. :-) We have attached a blog to this site here. You can find us talking about school, life, love, and you can find (soon) some of Tia’s excellent quotes. She seriously has some great quotes that she’ll start posting soon.

Well, check the personal blog out to keep tabs on us personally. Enjoy!

Posted by John C. Bland II at 7:10 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

August 22, 2006

Give Atlas a name...

Add your feedback here. Microsoft is listening to your comments and wants help in naming Atlas. Atlas is a code-name but I honestly think it should stay as Atlas. It is a good name and is getting a lot of play. Kind of like Apollo with Adobe (not related to Atlas; it is something completely different).

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:51 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 18, 2006

BRB

I know I’ve been missing in action but I’ll be back soon. Katapult has hit a small growth spurt (13 active projects right now; not including internal apps which would bring it around 17 or 18) and it is taking up a lot of my time. We’re hiring a project manager in the upcoming week(s) so things will get back to normal soon.

So…bare with me. BRB

:-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:56 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 21, 2006

Real World Flex Seminar

This looks to be a great event, in terms of learning. I think KM might show up in there to sharpen our flex skillset. We’ll have to discuss.

Oh, you can get a discount if you are part of an Adobe User Group. You can join FMUG.az, in which I manage, to get the discount code OR any other local UG in your area.

“Learn about the fastest way to create rich Internet applications (RIAs) with the newly available Adobe® Flex™ 2. This one day seminar will delve deep into the central workings of Flex so that the seminar delegates can integrate this timely new technology into their applications, creating powerful interactive content.”

Read more and register here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:09 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Microsoft: We won't be evil, either

So, Microsoft has been moving from M$ to Microsoft, or at least trying. One of their first steps is to change the company perception in the consumers mind. Well, that is a pretty big task and I truly believe they are making software free (SQL Studio Express, Visual Studio Express editions, Virtual PC, etc) to get rid of the $ in their name.

Now that I’m “back” into Microsoft technologies (started out with Frontpage if that’s considered a technology; j/k), I am closer than ever to Microsoft and becoming active in the .Net User Group maling list so this is all very interesting to me. I’d def’ like to see Microsoft turn the wheels and become the great company we know they can be and continue to innovate in ways that improve…well…life, since we’re all connected through this thing called the Internet anyway.

Ok…enough of my ramblings. Read the article (excerpt and link below) and checkout the announcement on Microsoft’s site here Announces Principles to Guide Future Development of Windows.

“We’ve learned that people care not only about what we do but about how we do it. So, our goal today is to be principled, transparent and accountable in our design of Windows as we go forward now and in the future. The principles that we’re announcing today assure customers, our industry and regulators alike, that Microsoft is committed to developing Windows in ways that advance innovation for consumers and preserve important and robust opportunities for competition.”

Read more here.

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

Grid7 Venturecast #1 - James Archer

James Archer of Forty Media and Fruitcast on how he started two successful companies.

More info: www.grid7.com


powered by ODEO

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:47 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

July 17, 2006

Monkeys, Monkeys, and more Monkeys!

This is just plain ol’ funny. I don’t believe we’re monkeys but it is funny none-the-less.

Check it out here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:30 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 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)

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 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 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)

May 21, 2006

Bit by the spam bug...

Ok, I didn’t blog for like a week or so and ended up with 30 or so spam comments. :-( That’s not coo. I’m going to beef up the security a bit if this happens again. I have to force comments to be approved but it may come to that since I definitely don’t have time to implement one of those nice squiggly line image authenticaters (I think that’s the technical name, really…I think it is; j/k). :-)

Just an FYI here…

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:33 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 18, 2006

Jermaine Herron: Always loved...

In my junior high to high school years there was one friend I could count on. He was someone I trusted, worked with, and laughed with. Our days, little did we know, were numbered. Eventually we went our own ways but it wasn’t a choice. Jermaine chose the street life and I stayed on the same narrow path I traveled before. We were still good friends but by our sophomore year in high school our lives were different.

Continue reading "Jermaine Herron: Always loved..." »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:05 PM | | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

May 13, 2006

What a week

I had a crazy week which kept me from blogging about Desert Code Camp, new Adobe Labs releases, etc. I’ll play catch up on Monday or so.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 7:50 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 1, 2006

Amazon Flex RIA

There has been word for quite some time (before merger) that Flex department folks were working with Amazon to rebuild their site using Flex. It was purely for showcasing Flex’s ability. This dates back to Max but no one has said anything about it since then. I guess someone decided to go ahead and make the RIA.

Click here to see app. It is nicely done in several manners. There are a few tweaks it needs but all-in-all it is a good showcase of the abilities Flex possesses.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:33 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

April 27, 2006

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I just got this from my buddy Cooper. It is quite funny. Somehow he finds/gets ahold of some super funny and coo videos. This is one of them.

Check it out here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:49 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

FMUG.az Preso: Flex 2.0 by Jesse Warden Follow-up

The preso went great last night. Jesse was a rock star as usual and Breeze was only slow at certain times (namely screen sharing). Hopefully the recording doesn’t show up with the same lag but either way Jesse handled it well, showed great examples, and even made us laugh (go figure; a guy nicknamed Jester made us laugh). :-)

The preso recording URL hasn’t been released. As soon as I get the URL I will post an update to this post as well as update the gotoAndStop.org site.

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

April 24, 2006

Adobe Labs locked down

Hrmmm…this is an odd move. Adobe labs has been locked down to a Notification page, see here.

I was on my way there to show someone the Flex store (needed URL) and found an email addy/country request page. I hope this doesn’t mean all of labs will be shutdown from now on. Maybe it is a mix-up. This kind of contradicts the fact that labs is supposed to be publicly available.

Maybe I’m freakin’ for no reason but…what’s up Adobe?

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:47 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

April 19, 2006

Back to normal

For the past 4 and a half months I was a slave to my desk/computer. A huge project came to KM in December which through several things off and for 4+ months I was working Monday - Thursday from wake-up to the weeeeeee hours in the morning. I decided to end it with 2 weeks of straight work (14 days straight; minus a couple Sundays where I barely touched the PC).

This week is the beginning of my normal schedule. I am back to a 9 to 5 (or whenever I wake up to 5 really) and it feels great. I’m happier than I have been in a long time and really look forward to getting off work which is a little odd, to be honest. The good thing is my family gets me again and I get my life back. No more am I a slave to this desk. :-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 7:30 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 13, 2006

Google Calendar Beta

Google has launched Google Calendar which now gives you calendar functionality on the web. Kind of interesting to me since Outlook 2003 doesn’t work for me in Vista. :-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:19 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

April 12, 2006

Allaire CF 4.0 docs still around

I was online doing some searching and found an Allaire doc for CF 4.0 on Macromedia’s site. For whatever reason I thought they would have redone them as Macromedia or something. :-) Either way…very cool to see how it was done way back when.

Check out “Developing Web Applications with ColdFusion” here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:10 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 11, 2006

CrystalTech is providing Linux servers

CrystalTech is now offering Linux dedicated servers at a very reasonable price. It is amazing the strides they make to stay on top of their game. CrystalTech is our choice for web hosting and we don’t see this changing any time soon. If you are looking for a great web host be sure to visit CrystalTech.com.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:54 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 1, 2006

Stock Photos provided?

I’m a part of this new business opportunity (outside of KM) and am working on a slideshow. Well, I am designing it as well so I went to the Stock Exchange a couple weeks ago while I was creating comps to grab up some imagery. Well, I am finally signed on, etc so they sent me some stock photos they have on CD.

WOW! I have never worked with anyone or on anything where 14 CD’s were filled with all sorts of photography, sorted by type, and of excellent quality. Although this post doesn’t reveal what I’m doing, with who, or the biz opportunity it goes to show some people (clients, partners, businesses, or otherwise) can be prepared for a venture. :-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:13 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

March 26, 2006

Mix '06 vs Max '05

A lot of people on lists, etc were wondering how Mix (by Microsoft) compares to Max (by Macromedia). Well, I was at Mix ‘06 and Max ‘05 so I’ll do a slight comparison. In my comparison I’ll remove any bias I may have as an Adobe Users Group manager. One other thing to note is when I say Macromedia I mean Macromedia..not Adobe. We have yet to see how Adobe will do things. Let’s get started.

Continue reading "Mix '06 vs Max '05" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:37 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 23, 2006

Back and Bloggin'

We are back and I am going to be bloggin’ like a mad man to get all of this information off of my brain. There are several key things I will be bloggin’ about.

  1. WPF & WPF/E vs Flash/Flex
  2. .Net vs All (CF, PHP, etc)
  3. Microsoft’s directions
  4. Thoughts on changes Adobe should consider

More may come up but that is a handful in and of itself. This will all happen over the next couple of days, probably Saturday. Check back soon for my Mix06 wrap-up.

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

March 20, 2006

I am not alone...

I told my wife I felt a lil’ funny coming here because I seen as an “Adobe-head” rather than a Microsoft geek. Mainly I was thinking in terms of conversation with other developers who are well-emersed in Microsoft technologies blowing my mind with common dialog since I don’t know as much about .Net, etc as I do about Adobe (Macromedia) technologies. I am completely comfortable, don’t get me wrong, but it felt a little odd.

Continue reading "I am not alone..." »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 4:47 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mix '06: XAML/Expression

In a nutshell, XAML is MXML Microsoft’s way. The output is different but the same. What I mean by that is XAML can be used for desktop apps, mobile phones, web, etc. I’ve really noticed some things, and learned, by seeing how Microsoft does things in terms of integration and interactivity, more on this in a future post. Keeping in focus here, I finally have an idea as to what Expression is and how it relates directly for Flash/Flex.

Continue reading "Mix '06: XAML/Expression" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 4:03 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 15, 2006

Mix '06

We’ll be heading out Sunday to Las Vegas, NV to enjoy Mix ‘06 by Microsoft. This will be my first Microsoft event or conference and I am looking forward to seeing how the giant does it. While I’m there they will no doubt wow me with some of the new toys they have and simply educate me more on the possibilities .Net, etc bring to the table.

I’ll be blogging from Vegas so keep reading. :-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:45 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 14, 2006

crapulous

I was on Gmail and this came across the wire.

crapulous: sick from, or marked by, excessive drinking.

I think that word is right on. :-) For whatever reason the word “crap” stands out which is what I assume crapulous folks feel like. :-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:59 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 13, 2006

GoDaddy: Business Registration

It is kinda like “Duh?!?!?” The idea is instead of seeing normal WhoIs information you see a specialized page with your information on it. I checked with Network Solutions but didn’t see anything about it on their site. We only use GoDaddy and NetSol so no other registrar has any relevance to me right now. :-)

Checkout an example from GoDaddy here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:17 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 2, 2006

Where do you stand?

I’m not the one to get political or take sides but I’d like to see your thoughts. I’m an avid believer in prosperity. I truly believe the wealth is available for anyone to take. People that are crazy paid will never hear me gripe about them making that kind of money because if one can do it another can. So, let’s get into my gripes with prejudice in this arena.

Continue reading "Where do you stand?" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:04 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm Hungry!

I don’t know what it is but as of lately I have been super hungry for knowledge. Currently I’m reading books on C#, Ruby, and Delphi, in that order, with a Perl book in the wing. The funny thing is I’m soaking all of this stuff up like a sponge where normally I’d have to re-read it or do examples for it to sink it.

Either I’m stepping into my prime as a developer or I’m having a mid-career crisis and these new challenges are my Harley. :-) Regardless of the reason, I’m loving my job right now and all of the new things I’m learning. As I improve or do more in Delphi I’ll create a category and post about my experiences.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:16 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)

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)

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

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)

February 5, 2006

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)

January 22, 2006

Me on Flash Remoting @ FMUG.az meeting

I will be speaking on Flash Remoting this coming Wednesday (1/25/2006) for FMUG.az. Come check me out. Hopefully the preso helps some people learn the ease of using Remoting without all of the hoopla involved.

See you there! (Breeze is available too.)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 21, 2006

New Blog

Well, I attempted to blog with Fusetalk and I liked the look of it and the ease of use but there were several issues I had with it. I'm not going to bash their software because it is great work...it just doesn't fit me.

So this is now home. :-) Grab some RSS, etc and look for some sweet posts coming soon.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 7:09 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)