I’m John C Bland II

Husband, Father, Tech Author, Deacon.
Founder ofย Katapult Media, and full-stack polyglot developer.
Political Free Agents Podcast Host.

I create. I launch.

YouTube Channel

I post regular fun on YouTube like me playing the bass and anything else I find fun.ย 

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All project work goes through Katapult Media. Business is open. Let’s chat.

Scott Barnes won’t stop…Ryan makes funny…new term MSRIA

lol. That sums up this whole post. ๐Ÿ™‚

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. ๐Ÿ˜‰ BTW, Ryan…nice blog title (Rich Internet Application Mountaineer). Clever. ๐Ÿ™‚

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. ๐Ÿ™‚

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! ๐Ÿ™‚

———–
BTW, I never cared for the hype Apple promoted (“Microsoft, get your copiers ready”) but I seriously can’t ignore it in this case.

Sys-Con You Suck!

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? ๐Ÿ˜€ 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

I’m off the market…

Limelight (heart) Me

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. ๐Ÿ™‚

“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!

I’m on the market… – Client Response

I’ve had a few clients email or call wondering if they were a part of the “I’m on the market…”:https://www.johncblandii.com/2007/09/im-on-the-market.html post. Well, I won’t post a list of who is on or off but I do want to clarify a few things.

# That was purely a vent based on events from the whole year and based on a collection of projects running concurrently.
# Katapult has way more good clients than bad. We seriously enjoy some great relationships with local dev’ companies, Fortune 500’s (and lower), and other dev’ companies throughout the country.
# As stated in the post, it isn’t the people but how the business runs or how my clients client requires things.
# I’m not anti-NDA but it would be nice to take credit for some of the award winning things we’ve done. Yep, others taking credit, receiving awards, and not throwing us a bone at all.

As for Katapult, a few people (not just clients) have been confused here too.

# I’m not shutting down Katapult.
# Katapult will still do a light amount of client work (very, very light).
# Katapult’s focus will be on “our products”:https://www.katapultmedia.com/products.cfm (only a couple listed there). We have 6 products, logos and all ready to roll, and all of them have been on hold for client work. Finalizing these products is a top priority.

Hopefully that clears up a few things. If you are a client and you are reading this/the last post, feel free to ask if I was talking about you. I will definitely be open and answer honestly.

Thanks.

Google Sued For Crimes Against Humanity

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

and

HA!

“Read more”:https://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/21/google-sued-for-crimes-against-humanity/ and draw your own conclusion. ๐Ÿ˜€

LMBO
LMBO
LMBO

๐Ÿ™‚

Free ColdFusion 8 & Flex Builder

“Jason Delmore”:https://www.cfinsider.com, ColdFusion Product Manager, is “giving away 5 licenses of ColdFusion 8 and 5 licenses of Flex Builder to **non-profits**”:https://www.cfinsider.com/index.cfm/2007/9/4/Are-you-a-nonprofit-that-is-using-or-wants-to-use-ColdFusion-or-Flex#comments. This is an amazing move! Wait…not by Adobe…no, he’s doing this out of his own pocket!!!

bq. I am planning on buying up to five (5) ColdFusion 8 Standard licenses and up to five (5) Flex Builder licenses and donating them to good causes (on my own dime… not as a corporate donation.) Do you work for a worthy non-profit starting a new web project? Do you want the UI to be slick and the back-end to be world-class? Then I have the deal for you!
“Read more here”:https://www.cfinsider.com/index.cfm/2007/9/4/Are-you-a-nonprofit-that-is-using-or-wants-to-use-ColdFusion-or-Flex

Solid Jason!

Robert Hoekman / Voices That Matter Conference

“Robert Hoekman”https://www.rhjr.net is the original founder of Flash and Multimedia Users Group of Arizona (FMUG.az; now know as “Arizona Flash Platform User Group”:https://www.gotoandstop.org). I’ve known him for a few years now and when we discussed him turning over the group to me he made a comment about how much he has gotten out of being a Adobe user group manager. Most of the things he said I would experience…I have (articles, books, rubbing elbows with industry pros, etc).

What is amazing is how much Robert has done since then. He has really made a name for himself and has done a great job in his writings (“here”:https://www.rhjr.net/dto; new one on the way). Last year he spoke at Adobe Max (2006; which I thought was big for him since he had a book signing too) and now he’s speaking at “Voices That Matter: Web Design”:https://www.voicesthatmatter.com/webdesign2007/ with “some of the biggest names in web usability”:https://www.voicesthatmatter.com/webdesign2007/wdspeakers.html.

For more on what Robert will be doing, what he is doing now, etc you can listen to an “interview with Robert”:https://www.voicesthatmatter.com/webdesign2007/podcasts/Robert_FINAL.mp3 (linked from “conference homepage”:https://www.voicesthatmatter.com/webdesign2007) by the conference folks.

Congrats Robert! Keep up the great work.

Use the link below to buy his book. He makes a TON of sense in it (especially regarding “poka-yoke devices”:https://rhjr.net/theblog/category/kaizen/). I learned a few good points and only made it part of the way through the book (like I do all books).

Official Change: Me @ KM no longer

I haven’t “publicly” put it out so I figured I’d go ahead and make it happen tonight. My “official feed burner URL”:https://feeds.feedburner.com/johncblandii has changed to feed from this blog now. A “new Feed Burnder feed”:https://feeds.feedburner.com/katapultmedia has been created for for “Katapult’s new business only blog”:https://blog.katapultmedia.com/.

This is now where you can get all of my thoughts. My “former blog/url”:https://blogs.katapultmedia.com/jb2 is no longer going to have new posts. The last post will be a comment to this post.

So…it is official! I have moved. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Li-Ion 1600mA Extended Battery == 27 hours

My cell phone batter was terrible, literally. It would last 4 hours, sometimes, but less if I had my emails running and/or someone called. This was a problem for Tia (wife) since she couldn’t get in touch with me if I was gone beyond 3 or 4 hours. I thought about different things to help mediate this and a car charger was one. The other was to get a new battery.

Enter the “Li-Ion 1600mA Extended Battery”:https://www.t-mobile.com/Popup/Generic_Popup.aspx?action=image&accessory=6bd7f3a9-31f3-4d8c-b031-e05aa537024d. Now, when I got back from “our anniversary”:https://blog.johncblandii.com/2007/08/anniversaryhere-again.html the battery was here (with the new back) so I immediately took out my old one (which had died from the time we left the hotel, to the airport, a 45 minute flight, and a 45 minute drive home) and put in the new one. I noticed the battery was bigger and the back was extended like a half inch. This I didn’t like…actually…I was kind of down about that a bit. My small, sleek Dash now has a butt. ๐Ÿ™‚

I let the battery charge for a few hours and had to took it off around 7 (being generous…I believe it was more like early 6). My phone finally told me “The battery is critically low” (yes, it talks to me) around 10 last night!!! That’s 27+ hours! Wow! From 4 to 27’sh…NICE!

Anyways…just a word to those out there using a Dash…GET THE BATTERY! It’ll change your Dash experience.

Note:
I keep Wifi and Bluetooth off. I’m going to test it right now to see how it works with both of them on.

Coming to you new…

I am launching this blog for my own personal use. Currently I’m blogging at 4 different locations and I’ve wanted my own site/blog for some years (ever since jdeuce.com never took off; lol). Anyways…this is going to be my new home for blogging pretty soon. I’ll still blog on “jobing.com”:https://phoenix.jobing.com/blog_author.asp?author=6740, “gotoandstop.org”:https://www.gotoandstop.org, “blandfamilyonline.com”:https://www.blandfamilyonline.com, and “katapultmedia.com”:https://blogs.katapultmedia.com/jb2.

Look for blog content from KatapultMedia.com to transition here in the near future.