by John C. Bland II | Oct 22, 2007 | Java
*Busy, Busy, BUSY*
Work has been great but good Lord!! Having to come home and work on remaining client projects and two other business I’m part owner in has been HECTIC! Anyways…to lighter topics. 🙂
*Java here I come!*
At work we’re moving to Java (from PHP) for numerous reasons but from what I understand we already have some Java stuff floating around. So, here I come Java!
Now, we (UI Dev team) do have a few standing jokes about going to Java but I have had to admit my heightened interest in learning it. Here are a couple reasons why:
#) ColdFusion is Java. As most of you know, I’m a ColdFusion lover. Knowing Java means I can easily start leveraging Java where CF may be lacking. For example, in CF7 you couldn’t “natively” manipulate images so some people built some libraries which harnessed the Java image api(s).
#) Eclipse is built on Java. I want to do numerous things to improve my Flex Builder experience and knowing Java means I can now fulfill my wish(es). 🙂
#) Adding Java to my knowledge-base means I will have the 4 major backends under my belt: .NET, ColdFusion, PHP, and Java.
I could probably drum up a few more reasons but I said a couple then gave 3 so I’ll stop there. 😀
Anyways…I’ve been a bit silent (on blogging, that is) but no worries…I have a lot to say. 😉 Stay tuned.
by John C. Bland II | Oct 18, 2007 | Personal
First, I forgot my laptop at home. Ah well…they had one ready for me. 🙂 It felt weird being without my laptop…like really weird but when they slapped a fresh Dell Inspiron 9400 on my desk……..well……..that all went away. 😀 I’ll be getting a desktop with some sweet monitors too (I’ll take some pics of the office here soon…it is kinda cool).
Anyways…enough of the gadgetry. Everyone, that I met, is super cool at Limelight (LLNW). I mean they went out their way to help me make sure everything was setup (albeit a bit after I made it in) and numerous people went out there way to ensure I had access to everything I needed.
I’m in the UI Dev’ “department” (a corner of the dev’ office area) with Jake and Dave. They are cooler than a fan, both very quiet though. I’m used to people talking to me all day (namely Tia, my wife, and Lil’ John) or at least some form of chatter. 😉 Although I could hear people talking it was usually muffled in some way.
LLNW has a lot of stuff going on. I had my first assignments (yes, plural) given to me today and I ALLLLLLMOST completed one today between having no desk and using the previous developers laptop to setting up on a desk to learning the old code to porting everything from the old laptop to my new one to having to upload some test files my manager needed to see (nothing I coded; they just needed it online to test)….{phewww, taking a breath}….I dang near made it. 🙂 There was a list of 12 updates to a simple app and I have all but…mmmm…4 or so. {snaps fingers} I wanted to have a huge triumph today but coming close was good enough, at least they seemed happy.
So, those’re all of the highlights. What about the lowlights?
My only gripe is having to deal with non-classed Actionscript. The project is Flash 8/AS2 but all of the code is implemented in includes. “FusionCharts”:https://www.fusioncharts.com/ wasn’t difficult to use or anything but I had to mod some of their code to implement event dispatching (they use asfunction; ewww). It took everything in me not to rewrite the entire app as a class-based app but I refrained. This is just a “demo” anyway so I’ll probably end up rewriting it.
Yep…that’s all of my lowlights. Well, having “endless” amounts of snacks readily available is kinda a bad thing. 🙂 (uh oh waist line) lol
LLNW is doing some sweet stuff. I don’t even know everything that’s going on (not even close to it) but just a few mini-discussions with some folks opened my eyes a bit to the “massiveness” of their infrastructure, goals, and responsibilities.
Oh…1 more thing…THEIR SERVER ROOM IS UBER-GEEKY! I smiled all the way through it. LMBO. I don’t know why but I love server rooms and their setup is super sweet. It even includes an air-sucker-outer (so in case there is a fire, suck the oxygen out…fire has no choice but to go out). 🙂 NICE! Love it!
This is going to be fun!!!!!
Well, it is 12:30 and I gotta get some sleep. I can’t stay up late like I used too. 🙂 Tomorrow is a day of multiple meetings as well as some doc signing. Hopefully I get to code a bit between all of that.
BTW, I won’t blog about specific projects I’m working on unless they are public and I have approval. It is just a formality and cool by me. 😉
by John C. Bland II | Oct 16, 2007 | Software
“The biggest upgrade to Mac OS X is almost here. Over 300 new features will make everything you do more productive and more fun. Mac OS X Leopard—it’s the world’s most advanced operating system. Advanced.”
– Newsletter from Apple
That’s right…it is almost here! You can “see more of Leopard here”:https://www.apple.com/macosx/.
Why am I posting? Well, I (internally) said I’d get a Mac when Leopard was released. 🙂 It won’t be immediately after but I definitely didn’t want to get one until Leopard came out.
So…I guess I’ll have a Mac here soon (probably in November or December; no rush). 🙂
PS – I don’t want to hear it Mike!
**CORRECTION**
The date is 10/26/07…not 24. I’ve updated the title and file name.
by John C. Bland II | Oct 15, 2007 | ASP.NET
“ScottGU posted about the ASP.NET MVC Framework”:https://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/14/asp-net-mvc-framework.aspx and I have to say I’m highly interested in seeing this in action. I’m pretty busy at this second so I haven’t fully reviewed his post or watched the “video Scott Hanselmann blogged”:https://www.hanselman.com/blog/ScottGuMVCPresentationAndScottHaScreencastFromALTNETConference.aspx.
We’ll see how the framework is seen by the community. I, for one, am not big on web frameworks, other than “CodeIgniter”:https://www.codeigniter.com/ which flippin’ rocks, but Microsoft being behind/building one raises a strong eyebrow (in a good way).
What’re your thoughts on it?
by John C. Bland II | Oct 14, 2007 | ColdFusion
I’m working on an article for “Fusion Authority Quarterly Update”:https://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly/ on ColdFusion 8 .NET Integration (draft due tomorrow) and I’m pretty impressed by the integration. My only desire is to see CF come up a little more in the area of what it can do (basically nix some of the can’t do’s) and debugging. I’d love to see the next version allow us to control a little more, natively convert more data types, etc, etc, etc.
So, is there anything specific you’d like to see in the article or in the next release of ColdFusion? If time doesn’t exist to get it into the article, I’ll do my best to answer it here.
More to come…
by John C. Bland II | Oct 14, 2007 | Software
They no longer require Live Bookmarks to be the one place to store subscriptions. Firefox allows you to set which program should run to subscribe to the feed. Now, it pops open IE7 and I have to click Subscribe there so it isn’t seamless but it makes a good argument for me to jump back to Firefox; merely to combat my “IE7 woes”:https://www.johncblandii.com/2007/10/ie7pro-are-you-killing-ie.html.
We’ll see.
PS. If you know how to use Firefox to subscribe to Vista feeds, seamlessly, I’d greatly appreciate some tips. 🙂
by John C. Bland II | Oct 14, 2007 | General
I’m about as sick of this discussion as I am with “Silverlight vs Flash”:https://blogs.katapultmedia.com/jb2/2007/08/silverlight_vs_flash_stop_it.html so I’m going to say it one more time for Scott Barnes since he thinks I haven’t taken a stand. I told’em I wouldn’t respond anymore on his blog (or any other blog for that matter) then “he responded to my comments with some falsehoods”:https://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2007/10/14/rich-interactive-application-the-plot-thickens-adobe-s-not-happy.aspx so here’s my last thoughts and comments on RIA vs MSRIA as well as my thoughts on Scott Barnes.
[this post got super long; I’ll do a quick summary here then you can read it if you want]
Scott has closed his mind to other possibilities. He says he’s open to Adobe tech but only blogs about negatives. RIA is RIA and will always be. MSRIA is fine but they shouldn’t acronym it as RIA…be original and transcend the market instead of going about it by reusing a predefined term.
Disclaimer:
This post is very argumentative…no denying it. Again, only read it if you are Scott or feel like hearing a rant, seriously…it is pure rant.
TRUST ME…I WON’T SOAPBOX ON THIS ANYMORE (beyond responding to any comments).
(more…)
by John C. Bland II | Oct 14, 2007 | Software
I wish “it (IE7Pro)”:https://www.ie7pro.com/ could answer because IE is starting to move up on my Most Annoying Software list. I’ve enjoyed IE7 as my main browser for some time now and it has been great. Obviously Javascript debugging is no fun in IE, unless you’re using ajax.net which has amazing debugging, but I can use ServiceCapture and/or Firefox to help there. Other than that, I was fine with IE7…well…until now.
I hope IE7Pro isn’t the culprit but I have to start somewhere. Basically, IE is shutting down unexpectedly so it is very unstable in my book. I’m writing this blog post in Firefox because I’m nervous IE might fail on me, like it has done before while blogging, and Movable Type may not have had a chance to autosave my latest (so I lose work). 🙁
My question to anyone out there using IE7Pro: have you experienced instability in IE7 after installing IE7Pro?
I’m not a plugin kinda guy (in my browsers) so I have the bare minimum plus the IE Developer Toolbar and IE7Pro. The Dev’ Toolbar has been solid for almost 1.5 years so I doubt it has gone haywire.
Thoughts?
by John C. Bland II | Oct 13, 2007 | General
lol. That sums up this whole post. 🙂
Quick Background
Scott Barnes is a former Flash/Flex’er who now has a job -with- as a Microsoft Evangelist. Ryan Stewart is a former full time developer who now has a job as an Adobe Evangelist.
Ok…so the whole thing about what RIA stands for has been a debate for several months this year. Macromedia coined this term in ’02 -or ’03- and has driven the market for years. Now Microsoft has Silverlight and have attempted to undercut (now) Adobe by changing the RIA acronym.
I’m posting here because of “Ryan’s funny posted here”:https://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=1080. I thought it was a good jab. 😉 BTW, Ryan…nice blog title (Rich Internet Application Mountaineer). Clever. 🙂
Ryan’s post was in regards to “Scott’s post here”:https://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2007/10/10/why-i-choose-to-use-interactive-not-internet-in-ria.aspx about why he uses RIA…errr…MSRIA. 🙂
Scott posts about MSRIA every month or so. I have noted, on his blog [comments], that I do believe Interactive better suits some applications BUT “Aaron commented (same post as above)”:https://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2007/10/10/why-i-choose-to-use-interactive-not-internet-in-ria.aspx#5392019 that Rich implies interactivity…I agree. That takes my whole “Interactive fits [at times]” statement out.
Anyways…lemme cut through the garbage and get to the point. Microsoft, YOU CAN’T HIJACK ACRONYMS then argue how right you are over the creator. Now, if RIA was a dead acronym…ehhh…maybe but Adobe has the torch and CLEARLY coined RIA to be Rich INTERNET Application. I don’t care about docs you have showing “Rich, Interactive Web Applications” (“post here”:https://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2007/07/25/we-gave-birth-to-ria.aspx) from way back when…RIA exists because Macromedia coined it.
“RIA is RIA”:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Internet_application unless it is an “MSRIA”:https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/apr07/04-30silverlight.mspx? {insert Scooby Doo confused noise here}
Scott…just leave it alone! 🙂
———–
BTW, I never cared for the hype Apple promoted (“Microsoft, get your copiers ready”) but I seriously can’t ignore it in this case.
by John C. Bland II | Oct 13, 2007 | Apps
I know…pass the file already but there are still a couple bugs I need to figure out before doing so. I’d like this to be a Google-esk Beta (a 1.0 release labeled beta so when it messes up I can say…BETA!). 🙂
Why the post? Well, I have the MAX videos converted and I wanted to publish them online. YouTube failed to upload a 33 MB video (well within their limitations) for me…I don’t know why but it did. I tried uploading through Movable Type and it failed. 🙁
So, I figured…just use UploadIt and guess what? IT WORKED! 🙂 Yes, I could’ve used FTP…I know but I figured I’d use the new tool. There were a couple snags (shakes fist at PHP) with it but for the most part everything was perfectly fine.
More to come…
by John C. Bland II | Oct 12, 2007 | General
I can’t believe such bad writing would come from a once respected company. They had an article recently about how they dropped CFDJ for Silverlight DJ because of the changing trends away form CF. Now they read “a blog post from Tim Buntel”:https://www.buntel.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/10/8/ColdFusion-Whos-Who about him moving to the Flex team and created an article titled ‘Is Adobe “Officially” Killing ColdFusion?’
How stupid is that!?!? I spoke to Tim personally at MAX and he said he was moving to the Flex team to add a CF view to help with integration. Why couldn’t Sys-Con simply interview Buntel?
The article has a quote from an industry professional who completely speculates on the demise of CF. Why no name? They also reference “some in the ColdFusion community” saying “Adobe’s destruction of ColdFusion” started with them “pulling the plug” on CFDJ. Ha!! How did Adobe pull the plug on the magazine if they were only an advertiser/supporter? 😀 LMBO…HILARIOUS!
Ok…enough with the jibber jabber. Sys-Con…you are officially on blast…YOU SUCK! Sys-Con is a complete joke at this point. You don’t name people who quote, no legit sources are given, and you speculate. Stop being childish and return to being a respected publication!
Other Views
“Ben Forta”:https://www.forta.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=94F51C6E-3048-80A9-EF2C3656C1AA8C37
“Tim Buntel”:https://www.buntel.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/10/12/From-whence-such-idiocy
“Jason Delmore”:https://www.cfinsider.com/index.cfm/2007/10/12/Is-Adobe-Officially-killing-ColdFusion
by John C. Bland II | Oct 11, 2007 | Flash Platform
Grant, and the guys at gSkinner, has done it again. If you have a need to use Spell Checking and have a pretty penny to spend on it, this is probably your best/fastest solution.
“Read more here”:https://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2007/10/spell_check_eng.html
by John C. Bland II | Oct 5, 2007 | Apps
My boys over at “Elevate”:https://www.elevatevc.com had me thinking for a bit about a solid way to upload large files for their clients. I know…FTP, right? Nope. You guys know clients! Some clients know how to FTP but not everyone.
I toyed around with the PHP settings in the CMS but I couldn’t open it up to the large file sizes their clients sometimes use. Also, with HTTP you always run the risk of the client hitting refresh or closing the browser.
The thought came up to use Flash. Well, for all of those nay-sayers who claim Flash breaks the browser paradigm…I agree here. The upload happening on top of HTTP in a small side widget may be confusing since they would still be able to do other things on the page (ie – which opens them up to (again…) refreshing or closing the browser.
So, while I was at MAX I thought of a clean way to do it.
(more…)
by John C. Bland II | Oct 5, 2007 | Ajax
I’ve used “Adobe Spry”:https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/ a few times and I think it is the easiest Ajax library to use. Well, I finally caught up on my RSS reading and the “Adobe Labs Latest Releases feed”:https://weblogs.macromedia.com/labs/index.xml showed a new Spry update. So, I went to the site to check it out and oooooooohhhhhh ahhhhhhhhh. 🙂 It isn’t just amazing but it does look MUCH better.
**Logo**
**New Site Design**
by John C. Bland II | Oct 4, 2007 | General
Well, maybe it isn’t love (yet) but I have, as of 45 minutes ago, accepted a job with “Limelight Networks”:https://www.limelightnetworks.com. So, I am officially off the market. 🙂
“Limelight Networks is a leading provider of high-performance content delivery network services. Limelight digitally delivers content for traditional and emerging media companies, or content providers, including businesses operating in the television, music, radio, newspaper, magazine, movie, videogame and software industries. Using Limelight’s content delivery network (CDN), content providers are able to give their end-users a high-quality experience for rich media content, including video, music, games, software and social media.”
– “source”:https://www.limelightnetworks.com/about_us.html
I’ve pondered this decision for a little bit now (interviewed over two weeks ago or so) and it seems to be the right fit. I’ll be working with the Flash Platform (yummy…FMS here I come) on the day to day but also working with PHP, Ajax, and I’ll even get to do some Silverlight, maybe/hopefully. They just went IPO in June 2007 and a lot of people are enthusiastic about this stock. It is low right now (9 bucks) so I can get a lot of stocks for a lil’ bit right now. LLNW being newly public is exciting. I have several sweet ideas for apps that could help boost revenue or at least popularity and possibly boost stock. We’ll see how things go and I’ll keep everyone posted (for that not under NDA, etc).
Anyways…that’s the news!
