Photography Goals for 2010

A blog post over at Digital Photography School led me to start thinking a bit about what I'd like to accomplish this year with my trusty Nikon D50.  I picked the camera up several years ago and I love almost everything about it.  I find that because it's not the smallest camera, I'm not as inclined to take it everywhere with me.  I also worry about tempature changes during the winter months.  I do however want to do more with it this year than I have in any of the past years and I do enjoy myself when trying to get that "perfect" shot.

So - in the blog, the author lists 30 photographic goals that one could use as ideas for your goals for 2010.

Although I like all the ideas in the list - I'll offer up 10 photographic goals that I'm going to make for myself this year based on my favorites from the list.

1. Shoot a Photo a Day - I don't know that I could do this for an extended period of time, but I will do this through February to see what comes of it.  I'm more of a photo shoot kind of person, but this will be fun as it will challenge me to find at least one subject each day through the shortest month of the year.  :)
2. Prioritize your Goals - I like this idea.  I think it would be good for me to sit down and give some thought to finding out what I enjoy most about photography and then making a plan to devote more time to it.  I'd also like to save for a new Nikkor Lens this year.
3. Read a book per month - Again, I think this is a great goal to strive towards.  With so many areas to focus in on (no pun intended) it should be easy to achieve this goal. I'll post each month's book reviews up on this site.
4. Join or Start a Photo Club - I'll look around the Washtenaw area and see what I can find.  This will be a great way to get some advice and learn from others!
5. Share Online - this is something that I haven't been great at... I'm probably way to critical and I just need to share my pictures with others.  As you may have seen in a previous post, I've been working with Adobe Lightroom 3 and I really like it.  The ability to publish to Flickr makes it easy to accomplish this goal.
6. Create a Photo Book per Month - Well, a photo book per month may be a bit much, I will follow through with this one and set a goal to create at least two photo books this year.  If it goes well and I enjoy the final work, maybe I'll make more.
7. Get Published - This is by far the loftiest goal on the list.  First - it assumes that my work will be worthy of being published.  It's a good thing I still have eleven months to figure out how to accomplish this goal.
8. Develop a Post Processing Workflow - this will be key if I want to be able to capture the best pictures from a photo shoot and share them with minimal amount of effort.  I will spend time this month and next developing the way that works best for me.
9. Make Personal Post Cards - This will be the goal that I'll tackle in the month of January.  I received several Christmas Cards in 2009 from friends and family members and I didn't make the time to send cards back.  I want to give a personal thank you to each person and I think this may be a great way to show that I really appreciated the effort of my loved ones.
10. Take a Workshop - Yes, there is so much to learn!  I plan on taking a workshop, perhaps locally or maybe a photo trip to another state.

There you go... that's my list for 2010.  It will be challenging, but I think it will be great fun as well.

I'll post monthly summary entries to let you know how I'm progressing toward the goals.

Happy Shooting!

February is Album Writing Month

February is Album Writing Month!

Do you think you're up to the challenge of writing 14 tunes in 28 days?  If so, check it out.

For some history / more information - wikipedia can help out.

If you're not into writing an album, maybe you want to challenge yourself in different creative ways?
Let me know if you participate in any of these events, it would be great to track your progress.

Exercising the Hand...

No - it's not what you think.  Wow - get your mind out of the gutter....

I picked up the ProHands Grip Master Hand Exerciser.  It promises to help with hand control and speed for playing instruments. 

Take a look when you have a chance.  I like it - I think I should have got the lowest resistance first though, because this thing is kicking my hand's ass.  :)

site: Vintage Ad Browser

I love the look of older advertising.  It brings you back to another time and gives you a glimpse into Marketing campaigns and call to action methods that may have worked through the generations.

Check out Vintage Ad Browser when you have time.

Lightroom 3 Beta : Part Two

In the last post I took a first look at Adobe's Lightroom 3, a product that you can grab in Beta from the Adobe Labs website.  I was impressed by the layout of the user interface, the look was pleasing and it was pretty easy to find out how to perform tasks with little guidance.

The application is setup in five major modules; Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web.  I took a quick look at the first two modules in my first post.  I would like to tell you a little bit more about each of the modules now that I've had more time with Lightroom.

I'm finding that the library is a great way to organize photos.  An average photo shoot will result in several hundred photos, of which I'm pretty happy if I get one great photo.  (I'm hoping that the more practice I get the better I'll get at shooting, but I'll be the first to tell you that it's pretty much dumb luck right now).

As I was saying, I'll take multiple shots of one target and usually get one that I like better than others.  Maybe the lighting changed a bit between shots or I moved just a bit to get a better angle... there are many reasons why I'll have more than one shot of the same target in a photo shoot.  Lightroom has many ways to look at your catalog of photos.  The default view is the Grid View, there is also a Loupe View for looking at one photo at a time, a Compare View and a Survey View (I'll go a bit more into this view and options for flagging in the next blog post).  I wanted to touch on Compare view because this nice feature let's you compare photos side by side.  When in the Library module, select your photos, using CTRL to select multiple and then choose the X|Y button.  This will allow you quickly tell which of the photos you like best.

Once I was able to identify the photos that I wanted to organize into an area where I could re-visit at a later time, I found that within the Library module there is a way to catalog / organize photos into Collections.  Collections are a great way for me to go through my entire catalog and sort photos from specific photo shoots into organized groupings.  Below I created a new Collection called "Randoms".  To group a photo or multiple photos into a Collection, select the photos and then click the Collection drop down icon and choose "New Collection", you'll be asked to name the Collection and have the option of adding the selected photos. 

 

Another option on the Library module is located under the main Navigator and is called "Publish Services".  This caught my eye as I noticed that there were options for "Hard Drive", which I believe is a basic export locally, and the other was the ability to publish to Flickr.  After a little bit, I remembered my Flickr account password and I was able to setup the connection for Lightroom to publish directly to my Flickr Photostream. I did have to verify through Flickr that I wanted Lightroom to be able to do this, but once I did that it was as easy as putting in my login and password and choosing a default naming convention and publishing location.

 

With this feature setup, I was able to drag and drop a photo on the "Photostream" line under the Flickr Publishing Service and once I did that it is queued up for publishing.  Choose publish and as you can see in the photo above, there is a status bar above the Navigator that let's you know the progress of the upload.  This was an easy feature to setup and I could see how users of Flickr would like this integration.  I can only imagine that other Publishing Services will be added in the future, things like TwitPic, Facebook, etc.

While I was working within the publishing / sharing part of Lightroom, it had me thinking about the other modules, so I moved on to the Slideshow module.

 

This module is pretty straight forward, you want to show a collection of photos in sequence.  Select your photos, select from a default list of templates or customize to fit your needs, adjust options such as watermark information, shadowing, and many other options, perhaps add a soundtrack and your done.  Publishing output gives you two options, MP4 and PDF.

Within the Print module, you can print your photos.  Go figure!  The best part about this is the ease of which you can choose popular templates to print your photos in... just like the types that photographers offer in professional packages.  You can mix and match photos into a custom package, or print multiple sizes of the same photo easily, as shown below.

 

The last module is the Web module and it's by far the most exciting to me since it allows you to create Flash enabled pages to show off your work.  I'll go deeper into this section and more features to organize your photos on my next Lightroom post.

So far - I really like what Adobe Lightroom has to offer the photo hobbyist and professional photographer.

Rockin' out with the new Line 6 Spider IV

I recently picked up a new guitar amp called the Spider IV, from Line 6.  I was speaking to Andy about picking a new one up and then perhaps selling my older Line 6 AX2-212.

Today I finally unpacked the amp and set it up in the recording room.

The first thing I noticed after setting it up and plugging in was how awesome this amp sounds.  It's very loud (75W), but crystal clear and the tones are just amazing.  It makes me want to play and keep playing.

The next thing that caught my attention is the amount of options on this unit.

  

The unit comes with over 250 artist and song presets.  Yup, you read it right... feel like jamming out to AC/DC's "Back in Black" - there's a preset for it, tune to it and this amp will digitally model the amp and settings that were used for the guitar track of the song.  Don't worry though - it's not like Line 6 ties the hands of your creativity at all, each of these presets can be edited and saved as user presets. This is going to be really fun to experiment with...

 

Other features that make this amp attractive are CD / MP3 input that will allow you to jam along with your favorite tracks while playing them through the amp, ability to record using a direct out, built in tuner, foot control using one of the available foot boards (which I picked up as well, but I'll post another blog when I've had time to play with it a bit), built in Looper (frickin' love this feature!), and auto FX such as smart pitch shifter, auto-wah and more.

The Looper allows you to turn this amp into a sequencer, which is great for coming up with rhythm and lead parts and seeing how they sound before actually recording them.  It may also make it interesting for being able to do some live show looping.

Below is the older Line 6 amp, which I think I'm going to keep for a while longer, but I have a feeling that the Spider IV will be the amp of choice when practicing.

 

Rock on!

site: SongU

Have you wanted to learn more about the craft of songwriting?  Perhaps you're already a songwriter and you'd like to learn more about the following topics;

• Song Structure
• Lyric Writing
  
• Composing on Guitar
  
• Promoting Yourself as an Artist
• Creating and Submitting a Demo

SongU may have a course to fit your needs.  I've taken several courses through this site and found the content to be very good and the instructors very helpful.  They also have a way to submit your songs for review by industry professionals.  It's a great way to get some candid feedback on your writing.

From the website -

What is SongU.com?
SongU.com provides a unique opportunity to study songwriting with award-winning songwriters, make industry connections, and pitch your songs all from the comfort of your own home computer. With our user-friendly site, you do not need special computer skills or a high tech setup. At SongU.com, wherever you are...we'll bring the music industry to you.

Time to get the office in order...

I hooked up the new Linksys Wireless Broadband Router yesterday and it worked like a charm, allowing me to roam around with my laptop and browse the internet at blazing speeds... well ok ... not blazing, but not terrible either.  Here's an example from my office computer;

I love my ATT 3G Broadband card.  When I'm on the go, there is nothing like being connected. Sure at home it's butt slow, but I'm in a pretty remote area... no cable services, heck ATT doesn't even offer DSL out here.  When compared against the price of satellite internet - the value was much better with Mobile Broadband.

Tonight I installed my D-Link Wireless PCI card into my desktop computer in the office.  I was expecting to have to do some configuration since it had been a while since I'd used it, but it installed smoothly and found the wireless network and connected without problem.  Now I have internet in the office as well!

So, I'm sitting here thinking... if I'm going to get comfortable and get back into the office, I might need to upgrade my monitor.  I've got a 15" KDS Rad-5.  It's an older monitor, but up till now it has done the job nicely.  I think I can get a decent monitor now for under $200.

Let the hunt begin!

site: GDGT

Want to track the latest news about all the hot gadgets coming out?  How about interact with others who have the same gadgets you do?  That's where gdgt.com comes in.

Here is the link. 

I've added a couple of the gadgets I used to have and one that I currently have... I think it might take me a bit to get everything in there, but once it is, it will be a nice inventory of tech gadgets and resources for them.

site: This Recording

I figured I would share this site with you.  Maybe I've been under a rock (ok - or in a bar seat) too long to have noticed cool sites, but the content of this site caught my eye and made me feel a bit uncomfortable all at once.  I kinda liked it.  :)

http://thisrecording.com/today/2009/7/10/in-which-boy-meets-world-changes-our-understanding-of-cory-s.html

Enjoy.

Getting organized with Lightroom 3 Beta

I downloaded Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta today and I'm checking it out this evening.  The first thing I noticed was how nice the interface is laid out. 

Of course upon install and launch a nice brief tutorial screen walked me through what I can accomplish with the application.  Once done, it searched my hard drive and imported in all my pictures.

The bottom of the screen has a nice horizontal scroll bar for easy thumbnail viewing of my entire collection.  Double click on a photo to select it and once you do that you have a variety of options that will allow you to categorize your photos using keywords or edit your photos with Quick Develop options; White Balance and Tone Control.  It took no time for me to tweak a few settings to have a photo looking very nice and add in keywords so that I'll be able to reference this photo in future searches and find it easily.

 The Library Module, which is the default module when the application is loaded allows you to do what was explained above.  When clicking on the Develop module, you'll move into a world where an amazing variety of tools are laid out to let you edit your photo. Options to change exposure, lighting, detail, lens corrections, add effects, the options seem endless at first glance. 

I can tell that this is going to be an application that I'm going to enjoy spending a bit of time with... I'll take a deeper look at the Develop screen and move on to the other modules tomorrow, which focus on how to share and publish your work.

Hello Flex, how have you been?

I've been a fan and an avid user of Macromedia's (now Adobe) line of web products.  I began using Macromedia Flash in version 3, Dreamweaver at version 2, Cold Fusion when it was still owned by Allaire, , and was founder of the Ann Arbor Macromedia User Group (now FlashFocused - Ann Arbor Flash Platform User Group and headed by Misty Mills).

I was extremely excited to see products such as Captivate, Breeze, Flash Communication Server and Flex launch, and I participated in many of these product beta programs.

I was a bit crushed when Adobe purchased Macromedia in 2005, and shortly after my career took a change which had me doing more IT Management and Project Management work than web design and development.

Adobe has done a great job keeping the programs I loved alive and kicking.  I was extremely excited to hear that Adobe Flex was now about to be at Version 4!  I decided it was time that I became familiar with my old favorites and so I went and purchased Peter Armstrong's "Hello! Flex 4" book in eBook format.  This book is in workshop format and I hope to work through it this week and next and leave my thoughts on the book and Adobe Flex 4 in general on this blog.

After I'm done with the workshop, I plan to use the Adobe Flex SDK to build an application to track vendor and software / hardware maintenance contracts.  This will help me in my current job at Thomson Reuters and will also allow me to become proficient with an application that I really enjoyed before I took a break from the web work that I was doing from 2000 - 2005.

Hello Adobe Flex, how have you been?

Web Texting

Last year I had a couple friends that would like to text me to stay in touch.  If I'm being honest, I actually warmed up to texting.  It was an extremely easy way for me to find out what friends were doing and get a quick answer to a question such as the ingredients to one of my favorite drinks.  I have AT&T Broadband Wireless service and a Sierra Wireless 881 PCMCIA card that I would use to send texts.  I found that I had a charge of $0.20 per text.  Until I found this great little service.

Joopz allows you to register your number with them and send out texts from a web interface.  They must use a shared pool of SMS accounts to send the messages from as I've heard from friends that one downside is that it doesn't always come from my phone number (I think this is just a glitch in the software, I would imagine that it should insert your number in the "from" field, almost a form of spoofing an SMS number).  This is ok to me though, because as friends reply it returns to the Joopz pooled accounts and then finds it's way back to me.  The best part about this is that I can text (sometimes) delivering it as my number, and I don't get charged for sending or receiving texts through my AT&T service.

Joopz let's you send 50 free incoming / outgoing texts per month, or you can sign up for $20 for the year of unlimited texting!

It's worked pretty well for me.  Sure I don't get incoming texts as fast as I used to, since I have to check the web interface to see if anyone has responded to an open conversation, but for the price, it works for me!

Daddy plays the Squeeze Box, Mama never sleeps at night...

I found this little gadget more than a couple years ago.  In fact, there is a blog post on this blog about getting one of these if I ever owned a house.  Well - it's been three years that I've had the homestead... I think it's time to pick one up.

Latest Toy... extending the 3G love...

I decided to pick up a Linksys Broadband Router today at Amazon.com.  This little thing will allow me to plug in my AT&T Broadband Wireless card and extend the love to other devices in my home that have been internet starved.

Once it arrives I'll let you know how the configuration and setup pans out as well as speed tests.  I'm in a very remote area, so wireless signals on my broadband card are not very great.

Adobe still rocks... and I haven't forgotten...

See how Adobe products were used in the creation of the latest hit film "Avatar".

http://forta.com/blog/index.cfm/2009/12/21/What-Adobe-Products-Were-Used-To-Create-Avatar

Don't call it a comeback... I've been here for years...

I'm not sure why I love using this blog title, I guess it dates me a bit, back to the days of LL Cool J on my boombox radio (that I could not live without) and it brings back good memories.

Speaking of memories, we're almost through 2009 and I'm going to start using this blog for 2010 goals and activities.  So - stay tuned, more to come.

Nice Websites

These websites have really caught my eye and I have to give props!

Very nicely designed.

http://www.tnvacation.com/
http://www.bnlmusic.com

Looking for Broadband Internet in MI?

Here is a link that should help out.

Finding the perfect house - Step By Step

You'd think that this would be an easy process, right? You've saved up some money - or maybe you hit the lotto and you've got cash to burn! A house will most likely be one of the largest and best investments that you'll make in your lifetime. What an exciting time!

Step 1 - Find a realtor

Believe it or not, these guys can come in quite handy for getting you in-depth information regarding the house you are researching that Realtor.com won't list. When dealing with a realtor - if you are just buying a house, not selling, then you'll have to sign a "Buyer Agreement" with said Realtor, which basically just allows this realtor to work on your behalf during negotiations and such. The Realtor in this case would be known as the "Buyer's Agent". This is the situation I went with as I am currently living in an apartment.

Step 2 - Tell your realtor what type of house you want

Give as much detail to your realtor as possible about the type of house you want. Notice I did not say need, you should basically give the description of your dream house to your realtor. An example might be - brick ranch, with basement and two car attached garage, at least 1500 sq ft in size, on 2 acres of land, three bedrooms, two baths, fireplace and a pool! The more info that you give them, the more they'll be able to find.

Step 3 - Prepare to be flexible

Not all the listings that you're realtor will send you will meet your dream house criteria. At some point you'll have to prioritize what is "really" important to you and then you'll come up with the list of "needs"

NOTE: A good realtor will be sending you listings everyday - or at very least every two days.

Step 4 - Driving it home!

Once a realtor sends you a listing, you may want to do a drive by of the house to take a look at the outside condition as well as finding out what the neighborhood is like - there were quite a few listings that looked great on the web and looked like hell when I drove by them. A good rule of thumb for the neighborhood is to ask yourself these questions...

Would I feel good about having my parents come to see me in this place?
Would I feel safe about having my kids play outside in this area?

Living next to the liquor store my be a sure sign that this is NOT the place for you!

Step 5 - The Walkthrough

Ah, what a wonderful time this can be... the homeowner and the selling agent have hyped up this house as much as possible, so be ready!

Interesting points that I've learned;

1) Full basement doesn't mean finished or even mean that it is a basement you can live in. I walked through a house that listed "Full Basement" and found that it was 5 feet tall, no good for a guy who is 6'3" tall.

2) TLC usually means Tender Loving Care, but might as well mean Take Lotsa Cash or Total Loss Case because unless you are a contractor; the skill / money it will take to fix these houses up will break you faster than Drago broke Apollo Creed.

3) "Minor" is a MAJOR word. Minor damage should equate to "replace". I walked through a house that had "minor foundation work needed" which turned out to be a fifteen foot crack in the block foundation, about an inch thick.

4) Ignore descriptive words like "spacious" or "open concept" until you really see the place. Spacious apparently means something different to each person - I walked through "spacious" kitchens that were smaller than a walk-in closet.

5) "Water view" could mean that you have to be holding binoculars to "view" the water.

6) "All appliances included" usually means that the appliances are so old that the seller is buying new ones, or they can't physically get them out of the house.

There are many more - but I'll let you discover them on your own and I think you're getting my point.

Be sure to ask your realtor to have the house empty when you walk through - and by that I mean asking the current owners to not be present. The reason is simple, you don't want them to influence your decision about the overall feel or condition of the house. I walked through a house where the owner was present and he basically had a bit of a nervous breakdown while showing us the place, talking about why he loved the house so much and why he didn't want to leave but was "f-ing" forced to... and let me say it was not a comfortable situation.

There will be a time when you walk through a house and you just fall in love. It's perfect and you can see yourself living there! The picture below is the one that I found.



The next post will talk about what comes after you've found that perfect house... and how you just might find out how imperfect it really is...

Cheers!

Adventures in Home Buying

Sorry I haven't posted in quite a while - the reason is simple, my work permit has changed and I decided that it was time that I made a more permanent move to the US of A and bought a house.

Let me be the first to tell you that the home purchasing experience has been by far one of the worst events of my life. It has caused me more stress, loss of sleep and general anxiety than I ever thought it would.

I'm going to post about my experiences here and hopefully document my process / experience so that you never have to go through the same craziness that I have been through. I'll even give some tips on how much money you should really have "on hand" and some traps to avoid.

As it stands right now - I'm supposed to be closing on my first house this Thursday afternoon at 3:00pm. First - we need to start with what it's taken to get to this point.

Balboa is BACK

This christmas, while you're opening up your new gifts - you'll have a chance to see another Rocky movie! Aw yeah. I thought it was going to be possibly a match against his son, but nope - the overall premise of the movie is around a computer simulation that is broadcast on the news one day that can choose any two fighters at their prime and simulate the result. Pitching the current champion against Balboa the computer says that Rocky would win. This, of course, damages the ego of the current champ, gets Rocky reminscing and sets the perfect scene for a comeback of let's say a hmm... 60 year oldish fighter? Interesting. It's been done by younger. Look at George Foreman!

Ah well... either way - it's a Rocky movie. I'd be there if it was Rocky vs. Godzilla, Rocky vs. Bush, Rocky vs. SpongeBob ... I'll certainly be there to check this one out. Do I have high hopes of it being a fantastic movie that could compete with Rocky I - IV, no - I'm not an idiot.

Watch the trailer - http://rocky.com/

Warming the Globe

Will Ferrell - Bush on Global Warming on Transbuddha

A good laugh

From The Daily WTF? website.

http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/75718.aspx

Nachooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Last night I decided to take in the new Jack Black movie, "Nacho Libre" from the Director of Napoleon Dynamite and I must say - I liked it.

Jack plays a Padre who believes that he was made to wrestle, which is looked upon as a sinful sport because of its fans following their favorite wrestler is similar to the worship of a false idol. He finds a way to make his dream come true by wrestling to win money for the orphan children who live with the

Jack's antics are in the style that you would expect, a little over the top and there are also quite a few jokes that you'll need to be paying attention to understand.

As with most movies that I watch - you must be in the right mood to enjoy this flick. If you go in with your expectations set to high, you might be disappointed. I arrived at the theater just hoping to have something take my mind off everything else that's been going on lately and this movie delivered. There were lulls where the story was slow - but then there would be parts that would keep you laughing for a while.

I must say that my favorite parts came when Jack would break into tune, Tenacious D style.

Overall - 3.5/5

Installing ColdFusion w/ Windows Remote Desktop

If you're installing ColdFusion over a remote connection on Windows 2003 and the installer package seems to start but then just stop - it could be because you have SP1 loaded to the server and DEP is now blocking you from running the executable.

Find out more info about the feature here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352

The workaround that I found was to log off and then remote back in, you should then be prompted with a popup window that will allow you some configuration options to allow the Installer package to run correctly.

In Search of the Right Road

I ran across this while looking at the Digital Photography School blog that I recently was introduced to by Garrett, one of my co-workers.

I found it very moving and thought I'd share it out. I think of myself as a compassionate person, but lately I've found myself being less caring and these pictures and audio made me appreciate what I have.

Vongo = No Go

This is my experience with the service Vongo, and why you should think twice about signing up for the service.

Last Thursday evening I decided to give Vongo a try. If you're unfamiliar with Vongo, it's a service that allows you to download "DVD Quality" movies to your computer to enjoy at your own leisure. The service cost is $9.99 per month and you can select movies from their extensive library of second rate movies.

I installed the software, there is a client install that is needed for this to work. Signed up for my account, gave my credit card info and was all set to go. They charged my card immediately for the service, there was no "FREE" trial.

I took a look at their movie listings and noticed right away that they had older, crappy movies available for the service price - but then had newer DVD release movies as a "pay per view" option. Oh and then I noticed that they were part of Starz and even offered a "view live feed" of Starz Network movies.

WTF?

So - I decided that I'd try and grab one of their older movies to at least check out the quality. Added a movie to my download manager, and BAM - nothing. It acted like it was trying to connect and then just dropped the movie out of queue. I tried this several more times with the same result. I tried the live feed option - and BAM - nothing!

At this point it was about 1am, so I decided to contact tech support, emailed through their contact form in the client software and was greeted with a message that said my issue was sent and that a representative would get back to me in 24 hours.

As of last night - I had heard nothing. No email, no call... nothing! That's 5 days - with no contact.

I decided that this was a big waste of time and effort, so I tried to cancel my account through the client software - which just tells you to call Customer Service to cancel your account.

I waited on the phone for 35 minutes, which was filled with an annoying "your call is important to us, please wait" - every 20 seconds! No information like what number I was in the queue or my approximate wait time.

Finally someone answered - and I was able to cancel the account.

This was by far the most unprofessional experience I've had with any company, next to Comcast.

Take my advice and steer very clear from this company and it's services, stick with reputable companies like NetFlix for your movie needs.

Tasting Model-Glue

No, this is the not the same model-glue that I used to eat in grade school, this is the framework for ColdFusion!

After watching Joe Rinehart's video tutorial that he did in preparation for Adobe Developer Week, I decided that it was really time to take a look at a framework to assist with my development projects.

To get started with this framework visit the website and grab the files.

Next - take a look at the QuickStart Guide - this is a sure way to get you up and running with Model-Glue in no time.

This is where I started.

I copied the application template directory and pasted it into my web root. Renamed the folder to my application name and made the changes as in the QuickStart Guide. I should make mention that I had to add these lines into the ModelGlue.xml file as they weren't there in the files that I had downloaded.

Are they really needed? Not sure, I've only been messing with this for a little over 10 minutes. I'll get back to you on that.

So - after making those changes and the change to the Application.cfm in the root of new application folder, I figured I was ready to go.

Launch browser... point to new application directory... BAM - Error.

For some reason it couldn't find the /ModelGlue/ModelGlue.cfm template.

Weird. Tried changing some things around and still couldn't get it to work.

Thought about it a bit more and thought I'd double check my mappings in my CF Administrator just to make sure that there wasn't some hokey mapping causing all my frustration. Well - there was!

I had a mapping for "/" set to my CFMX root instead of CFMX7 root.

Once I deleted that mapping, it worked like a charm!

Now it's time to turn one of my older applications into a lean, mean, Model-Glue fighting machine! I'll post about my experiences along the way.

Music Sharing and a Different Look

Steven Page from BNL (one of my favorite musical groups of all time) speaks out about music sharing and how it's been around for a long time, just the technology in which the sharing happens has changed. He also speaks about the formation of the CMCC (Canadian Music Creators Coalition) and how they are taking back some of the control over their music. Overall a very nice breath of fresh air.



Page on Canada AM

AjaxLaunch / AjaxWrite - thinkFlex!

Ajax is the craze, we all know this... it was the buzz word for 2005 and will continue to bring buzz in '06. The reason is because it allows and encourages the building of full blown web applications that act more like desktop software. No page refreshes, direct server connection for data refreshes in real time. Usually a short initial load time and then you're good to go!

Reading Slashdot today I read a post about AjaxLaunch.com creating web based applications that will compete with the office suites. They mention M$ - but in reality - it is designed to compete just as much with OpenOffice. They plan to launch a new application each week through this website - so keep it bookmarked and keep checking back often.

The first application that they've launched is called AjaxWrite and is a web based competitor for Word. Over a broadband connection it took about 15 seconds to load the application and delivered an application feel that was very similar to Wordpad. Toolbars were there and looked just like the Office toolbars, core functionality was already there and they've promised to keep building on it to add in the more advanced features. I was able to open up my M$ Word documents with a bit of formatting issues, make changes and then resave the file back down to my machine. Overall it just seems like another HTML editor - but there are HTML editors with more features out there already. I guess the selling feature is that it works with *.doc files - but since it doesn't have some of the more advanced features - it sometimes messes with your original documents.

With Office 2007 being delayed and planning to ship in 2007, that gives AjaxLaunch a great head start to get something up and running that may actually have people using it - although they have lots to do to get it up to something people will see real value in.

You know who this is really cool for? Adobe! What I don't feel has happened yet is that people haven't realized the powerful applications that you can create with Adobe Flex. However with Adobe announcing that Flex Data Services and the Flex SDK will be free when released out of beta it should get some attention. It's the fastest way to create applications that can tie in to your existing web application architecture and deliver a rich experience to your web customers.

If anything - Ajax will prove to web users that RIA's are not only the future but are definitely the way to go. Sooner or later web developers will also see that the fastest way to get up to speed with delivering RIA's that enhance the user's experience even more and take RIA's to the next level is the Adobe Flash Platform.

Party in the Potty

Do you feel the need to jam in the shower? Do you wish that you had some tunes kickin' while you "downed what you got!"...

Check out this great review at Alan Williamson's site.

http://alan.blog-city.com/slim_devices_squeezebox.htm

When I get my first house - I'm SO getting one of these!

Top Ten Reasons I Love Being Single

With Valentine's Day just passing, I couldn't help but notice the extra stress it put on my friends. I also couldn't help but notice how I could have cared less about the day - to me, it was Tuesday, end of story. This got me thinking though, about how much I enjoy being single, and without further adieu, here are the top ten reasons (in no specific order) why I LOVE being single!

10. If I want a PSP - I get a PSP.
9. The tempature in my apartment is set to MY comfort level
8. If I sleep in / am late for work / take a day off - it affects only me.
7. I don't get told when to "come to bed"
6. When I do go to bed, I get just as many blankets as I'd like, no more - no less
5. If I'd like to go see a movie, guess which one I'll go and see? Yup - the one I want to...
4. I don't have to ask permission to play a video game
3. I don't have to feel guilt about hanging out with the boys
2. I don't get in trouble when I forget "certain dates"
1. If I want quiet time, I'm able to have it without being pestered with questions like "whatcha thinking about" - which, by the way ladies, when you're guy answers "nothing" - that's what he really means, so stop analyzing the crap out of everything.

Hometown Lovin'

Well - my hometown got some great press on ESPN today.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs05/news/story?id=2316573

Protect your privacy - or else.

How far do you think this if off from being reality?

http://aclu.org/pizza/

IE Public Beta

Read about the public beta announcement.

Take the tour of the new features of the beta and wonder why it took so long to copy Firefox.

Download the new beta version and put it through the paces.

via rail goes wireless

Ah, it's nice to see this from a Canadian fixture.

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3566411

patenting common sense

Here is a great read on Internet News about Amazon being awarded three more patents for areas of their mega-site.

This really got me thinking about what people can patent.

Here's the short of it; If you have a "wouldn't it be cool if our app did this?" idea, think about whether others may be using it or not - then file a patent.

hoping to cash in

some may call it heartless...

I call it "strictly bizna$$"

I'm preparing to take delivery on my pre-ordered X-Box 360 within 10 days. I've been keeping a close eye on prices on ebay and they are finally starting to creep up there. The system - which I've paid $399 + tax for, is now grabbing almost $550 for a pre-order on ebay.

My hope is that I'll be able to capitalize big time on a lack of supply for the christmas demand.

I'll be picking up my new toy on Nov. 22 if all goes well. I'll then keep it in it's box and post it up on ebay the first month of December. I'm hoping to draw close to $800 for the system when it sells. I will also be offering a trade option - where I'd take a high end, used Digital SLR camera or a very used D1 camcorder. I would never buy these items myself due to the high price tags - but I would love to have them.

Ah.. and if things don't go well (i've heard rumors) - I may be pushed into the second wave of pre-orders that won't make it out until a December delivery - well that would just mean that the supply is even LESS than what I think it will already be and the demand even HIGHER, which all equals more benji's for me!

Here's a tip - you may want to do something similar for the PS3 coming out next year. I know I will be purchasing a few of those on pre-order.

cf open source / free applications list

I know quite a few people that don't want to get involved with ColdFusion for their web work due to higher investment costs than languages such as PHP. Some say that the community isn't as active and that there aren't a lot of free resources out there. Well - here's a growing list I stumbled across.... enjoy.

lock down

I've spent the majority of the weekend locked in my room, pounding out freelance work that I've been putting off. My hopes are that I'll have time to get all of it done and put the pictures up from the conference as well as talk a bit about my fav sessions. More to follow.

- not one to leave you hangin', I'll leave you with this recent birthday.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/guess-what-just-turned-34.html

Happy B-Day email...

blogging big time

Very interesting read over at Internet News.

http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3557266

It's nice to see some numbers starting to come forth about just how many corporations are blogging. Personally - I feel it is one of the best way for knowledge sharing available.

back to the mitten

to quote a friend's lyrics - "back to the mitten, on a rickety bird"

I'm back in Michigan - and back at work!

The tour of Los Angeles by Night on Wednesday evening was fantastic. It started out by going to Universal Studios City Walk, then to Downtown Hollywood (Walk of Fame, Sunset Strip), Beverly Hills, Commerce City and then back to Anaheim. Very well worth the $49 price tag for 5 and a half hours of checking out some sights.

I made a ton of new friends at this year's conference and it was so nice seeing the friends that I've kept in touch with over the four years I've been going to the MM conference. I really look forward to good times with Adobe at the reigns and welcome the future with open arms.

I will be posting about the sessions that I attended that really hit home and what I learned, I will also get the pictures up over the weekend, for right now - it's back to work and trying to catch up on freelance that is past due.

the tour

I'm officially done with the conference, but now I'm waiting in my hotel room to go on an evening tour of LA with VIP Tours. I'm pretty excited about it - as I'll get to see some great sightseeing attractions. I never made it to the ocean this week - which is just sad, but that's what happens when you don't get a rental car / have time to use one.

I'll post pics tomorrow and hopefully I'll have the slideshow up and working on the new site.

max: Day 3

Well - it's officially over. Another great conference has come to an end. I always get sentimental when it draws to a finish. You make so many great friends at these conferences and it's hard to say goodbye till next year.

I fly back to Michigan at Noon (cali time) tomorrow. I'll be arriving around 8pm. Looking forward to getting back to my normal crazy life. See you soon.

little bit of paradise

We had quite a good time last night at Disney's California Adventure. Macromedia's special event was another top notch show and a great chance to mingle amongst your peers, share a couple drinks and just have a great time.

You can expect many more pics once I get the slideshow up on my new site.

where do I start?

View from the conference center balcony

what a day!

There is far too much content that I've taken in over the past two days to blog about in one post. I'm in between events right now. We had sessions from 8am - 5:30pm and then a Sneak Peeks session at 5:30 that ran until 7:00pm. I'm back in the hotel room right now, but only for a couple of minutes - because the first buses to Disneyland leave at 7:45. I'll probably head down around 8:00 or 8:15 to avoid the rush.

In a nutshell - today's sessions were split down the middle between ones I found useful and ones that I wish I hadn't went to... more on that later. In the meantime, here are some pics.

My view for the sneak peeks. Hopefully some of the screenshots that I got will turn out.

I'll post lots of pics up from the California Adventure once I get back this evening.

community visibility event

I just got back from the Sponsor's Reception / Community Visibility Event at MAX, which has us User Group Manager that were able to make the trip to MAX talking with attendees and letting them know about the User Group Community and how it can help. Macromedia gets people to talk to us about the User Groups by having us give away raffle tickets to people that ask us question or show an interest in the Community. Once we give out all the tickets, Macromedia raffles up a bunch of schwag and they even gave away a copy of Studio 8!! Below is a picture of people gathering around for the raffle.

Below is Ed Sullivan giving away some of the goodies.

Tonight is going to be a quiet one, in the room. I am going to try and get some of my review projects done and play around a bit more with Flex Builder 2 - which is proving to be very impressive.

let the fun begin

Well - it's day one here at the Macromedia Conference. I'm on the lunch break and thought that it would be the perfect time to blog, seeing as I just got out of the keynote session which was a great one!



The keynote started with a presentation from Ze Frank. It was hilarious and got things going. Ze was followed by Stephen Elop, CEO of Macromedia, who thanked all the people out there that have made Macromedia what is today and asked us all to stick around for the ride to come, assuring us that we wouldn't be disappointed. Kevin Lynch handled the majority of the keynote with help from other MM employees, including one that I had the pleasure of meeting on Saturday evening. After showing a bit of Flex Builder 2, which was announced in Alpha at the keynote, Bruce Chisen, CEO of Adobe Systems, closed out the session with a great pep-talk like presentation on how things will only get better in the future.

Macromedia announced Macromedia Labs, which is a freely open developer portal, used to deliver the very latest builds of upcoming products and other assets directly out to the public in the fastest means possible. This site is live as of today and YOU can grab Flex Builder 2 Alpha and start playing with it! Yes - Macromedia rocks!

Yesterday I enjoyed the Community College, where I got to mingle with fellow User Group Managers and finally put some faces to the names. Team Macromedia members and Macromedia employees were also there. After learning some about Flex Builder 2 and the Flash Platform, it was off to the conference reception. Following the reception, Macromedia put on a User Group Manager appreciation event at Dave and Busters! It was a blast. Do you remember the skit that Dave Chappelle / Charlie Murphy did about playing basketball with Prince? Well - a very similar thing happened when I decided to play Simon Horwith at pool.

More on sessions later... I gotta run.

now raining

Ok, so the sunshine from this morning didn't stick around too long. It's now gloomy and raining. Proof that I've been working too much and not having fun. =)

sunday morning sunshine

Today is registration day at MAX. Registration starts at Noon. Community College begins at 1:45, that means I have some down time to get caught up on some work, begin putting my portfolio site into place, study a chapter or two and maybe even get in some "quality" time with the PSP.

I should get to work - lots to do before Noon.

the move proves to be a smart one

So - I went downstairs around 9pm - hoping to meet some MAX attendees and talk Macromedia, only to be swarmed by White Sox fans fresh from the game vs. the Angels.

I decided that I should go over to the "official" Macromedia MAX conference hotel - the Mariott, which is physically just across the street. Boy, was this a great decision.

I had very good conversations with many MAX attendees at "deGrees" and had a very great night talking with Sho, Art and Bill. Good stuff. This is what MAX is all about - getting to rub shoulders and share thoughts and a drink with peers in the industry.

Awesome time - fantastic conversations about Flex Builder 2.0, AJAX, CSS, Flash, and ColdFusion and there real world usage.

I can't wait till tomorrow.

welcome to MAX!

A very nice welcome. The convention center is a two minute walk from the Anaheim Hilton and Marriott. This is a big change from the last two years. Here's a pic of the welcome banners - ready for the attendees to start flooding in.

the challenge

Ok - so Starbucks is seriously going to make some cash from me this weekend. Here is my first, delicious White Chocolate Mocha, which I grabbed as soon as I arrived. Notice that they even put my name on it... oh yeah - they know how to suck you in.

One of the challenges that I have for myself while here at Macromedia MAX is to finish, or heck - even get started on my portfolio site. I've just purchased SlideShowPro and will use that within the site as it will save me a ton of work and the component is hot!

The second challenge is to write for another certification exam. I've brought along my CFMX study guide, but haven't yet decided if I'll write for that or for DWMX 2004. Either way - I should be hopped up on Starbucks for the entire trip - life is good.

anaheim

I've arrived in Anaheim, just checked in at the Hilton and I'm running downstairs to grab a White Chocolate Mocha. Yes - there's a Starbucks in the hotel. Kevin - hurry up and buy stocks, I feel that they may be on the rise very soon. =)

Tonight I plan on preparing a bit for the conference, finishing off a couple of tech review for a couple upcoming Dreamweaver books and getting in some CF study time.

The flight was fine, hotel service has been great, bus ride here from LAX was a hoot. More to follow, with pics.

Let the fun begin.

the best $20 you'll ever spend

http://slideshowpro.net

Seriously. If you're looking for a way to present a slideshow of pictures - this is your best bet!

Several people that I know have used it for their portfolio sites - as the tool is extremely customizable and will save you tons of time in making a professional way to show your work.

Saved time = more time for gaming.

This one's a no-brainer!

max 2005 sessions

Here are the sessions that I'm currently signed up for at MAX:


Mon - 8:00 AM
Flash 8 Professional Authoring for Mobile Developers

Mon - 9:15 AM
What's New in Flash 8

Mon - 1:30 PM
Advanced ColdFusion MX 7 Features Exposed

Tue - 8:00 AM
Art of Encoding Video

Tue - 9:15 AM
Flash Lite 2.0 Evolution

Tue - 2:45 PM
Object-Oriented ActionScript

Tue - 4:00 PM
Developing Hybrid Applications with ColdFusion and Java

Wed - 9:30 AM
Building Expressive Content with Next Generation Flash

Wed - 1:30 PM
Integrating ColdFusion with Flex

Wed - 2:45 PM
Flash on Every Screen

october is...

Conference Central!

I'll be making the drive up to Toronto next weekend (Oct. 8th) for DesignFest. Should be a great time, hope to see some of you there.

The weekend after that I'll be making my first trip to California for the annual Macromedia conference, affectionately known as Macromedia MAX.

This will be my fourth year in a row and second year as a User Group Manager.

This year's conference is in Anaheim, CA and I can't help but be a bit geeked about finally getting to California.

Hope to do a bit of sight seeing while I'm there....

Just for a bit of history:

2002 - DevCon 2002 happened in Orlando, FL. It was the first time I'd ever been to Florida, the trip was awesome and the highlight was when my co-worker took me to Daytona Beach so that I could see the ocean for the first time. New food: Oysters & Crab. Favorite Quote from the trip: "Heidi is my favorite month!" Who was on the trip with me: Matt Smith. Met some great people who I've managed to stay in touch with over the years. Other memorable moments: trying to beat up Scooby Doo for dissin' me at Universal Studios, staying up late drinking with the ladies from NASA, front row seats to Elvis Costello that almost cost me my life - thanks Matt

2003 - Macromedia MAX took place in Salt Lake City, UT. The extreme opposite from the previous year as far as weather goes, but it was just as great of a trip. Highlight: Passing my Flash MX Developer certification after partying all night. New food: Buffalo. Favorite Quote from the trip: "it's called Burt's Tiki Lounge?" Who was on the trip with me: Bryan Springer & Adrian Pittman.

2004 - Macromedia MAX took place in the deep south, New Orleans, LA. What a trip! I'll always remember this one, because I was crazy enough to drive down there! I seen quite a few places while passing through and took lots of pics. Highlight: Riverboat Cruise on the Mighty Mississippi. New food: Alligator. Favorite Quote from the trip: "i'm lost, can you help me get back to the hotel?" Who was on the trip with me: Bryan Springer & Adrian Pittman.

2005 - only time will tell.

doing the DEW

Pepsi is giving you the chance to be one of the lucky people to WIN an X-Box 360!

http://pepsi.yahoo.com/everyten/home.php

They are giving one away every 10 minutes!

What does that mean to me? Well - that I've been downing a lot of DEW lately as I try to help my friends win!

Why would I help my friends win and not myself? Simple - I've already pre-ordered my XB 360 through the local GameStop - so I'm "good to go!"

With the Platinum version of the system that I ordered, I also pre-ordered the following games:

NHL 2K6
FIFA 2006
Project Gotham Racing 3
Call Of Duty 2

I'm really looking forward to the release of this system.

Meet your Match: Macromedia Studio 8

With the upcoming launch of Macromedia Studio 8, they have designed this very cool site to show off some of the new Flash 8 features.

http://www.macromedia.com/software/studio/experience/

The new Dreamweaver and Fireworks programs have some great reasons to upgrade to the latest versions as well. With a pre-order upgrade price of $399, this is definitely on my wish list for the near future.

Do you appreciate great architecture?

If you do, you will definitely want to pay a visit to Galinsky

They have a collection of some of the most beautiful modern buildings, as well as directions on how to experience them!

I found this link via http://www.zo-d.com/blog/ as I was browsing for some tips.

sometimes it's nice to start your day in a happy way

and what better way than the Great News Network!

http://www.greatnewsnetwork.org/happy-news.php

All the good news, all the good time.

Are you fed up with Spam?

I bet you're not as fed up with it as my friend Matt St. Amand!

Check it out.

Great post, Matt. I couldn't agree more!

the mac goes back

Just a mere 17 days after purchasing my new Mac Mini, I'm returning it today for several reasons, but the largest being that Apple has just upgraded what you get for $599!

Apple Store

You can now get built in wireless($130) and bluetooth($??) capabilities as well as double the RAM($80)!

On top of all that - I'll get the Tiger OS, which will save me another $130. That's a lot of savings!

CompUSA in Ann Arbor is still selling the old versions of the Mac, and they come loaded with Panther. Buyer beware - because Apple used to have a "Up-To-Date" program that would allow you to purchase an older system and then upgrade the version of the OS for $10 - $20, however that offer ended on July 22nd. I think it is completely horrible that CompUSA is still selling the old versions and that you can't upgrade the software at a discount. I plan on sending a message to CompUSA corporate and Apple regarding the situation.

Luckily - I am within the 21 day return policy. However, because I paid CASH - I get to wait 10 business days for CompUSA to get me a refund check.

-- update: I just got back from CompUSA and I got three different answers back from three different people regarding how quickly I would get my refund. The first said two weeks, the second said within 7 days, the third said four weeks. Let the waiting begin.

no cube talk!

I sit on the outskirts of a 70+ rep product support department. I'm used to working in an above average, noisy environment. I have a new pet peeve...

Why is it that people feel the need to converse (out loud) with a person that is two cubes away from them for long periods of time? I'm not talking about just a "hey, I need this..." or even a "hey, how's it going..." - I'm talking about

U1: hey, I think I drove by your house last night...
U2: yeah..
U1: there were no lights on...
U2: i was out...
U1: you're lawn is looking great though... what are you using to keep it so green? One time while applying weed and feed I felt really sick... it was weird.
U2: Yeah, I've worked really hard on it this year...
U1: - so how come you weren't home... were you out?
U1: How's your new (b/f : g/f)?
U2: Awesome... they are SO cool.
U1: Cool - I had (food) for dinner last night. It was yummy.
U1: I went to bed around 1am. How about you?
U2: I was up so late partying... heheh
U1: Sometimes when I go to bed I giggle.
U2: You're weird.
U1: Sometimes I don't.
U1: I like the color yellow and wish I lived in a little pink house.
U1: Did you like the song "Pink Houses" - isn't it cool?
U1: Oooh - I got a call. Hello, (company name) support, can I have your phone number starting with area code, please?
U2: Gotcha!
U1: Hahahah... I can't believe you got me... you're SO funny.
U2: Ha! I'm good.
U1: So - what are you doing tonight?

... and it goes on - and on- and on!!! It never frickin ends! I've grown used to most things in the corporate environment, but this one is really starting to get to me.

I know, I know - headphones, right? A programmer's best friend.

Well - I've tried it and it works for a while... but when I take them off - the convo is still going strong.

Maybe I'll introduce the newbs to the office instant messaging app - as it's such a nice low decibal solution. =)

Trimming the fat - Adobe Reader

This is an oldie but a goodie!

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11041

Shows you how to rename the plugins folder and then copy over only the basic ones needed. As the article states, you may need more depending on what you use Adobe Reader for and the type of PDF's you're working with - but this worked fine for me and it loads files so much faster!

XHTML2

Sure it's still a long way off ... but I found this interesting, so I thought I'd post about it.

While browsing on Pete Freitag's blog I found a link to this presentation on what to expect from the next version of the XHTML spec.

As I'm still working on getting the most out of XHTML + CSS in my sites this won't be of any particular use right now... but it's nice to see what lies ahead.

more with Mini

When deciding to purchase the Mac Mini I wondered if I should get the faster version (1.42Ghz) for the boost in processing power. I've read that the slower model (1.25Ghz) has a faster spinning HD. 5400 rpm on the slower model vs. 4200 rpm on the faster model.

If you're thinking about purchasing one - my suggestion to you is to still go with the 1.42Ghz model. The reason? Simple - the HD size. The 1.25Ghz model comes with a 40GB drive. The 1.42Ghz model comes with an 80GB drive. The real difference comes when you start up your machine for the first time and notice that the OS and the installed Applications take up over 15GB of space!!

I would have been very disappointed to get home and find out that I only had 25GB left on the 1.25Ghz model.

Food for thought - if you're thinking about purchasing.

First Day with Mac Mini : Initial Thoughts

As I rushed home on Monday evening with the purchase of the Mac Mini under my belt, I knew that I had purchased it for a specific reason and that reason was testing. I also knew that it was now 6pm and I would still have to set the computer up in a given location and begin the daunting task of trying to learn how to use OS X. Part of me was excited. Another part was frightened and didn't feel like doing a ton of work to setup and start using a new system.

I sat the cubed box that the Mini comes in off to the side of my regular sitting area in the living room and unwound a bit with some dinner and television. After dinner I ran downstairs and grabbed a network cable so that I could connect the new system to my router and configure it to use the internet. I hesitated slightly as I went to grab my Dell Flat Panel monitor from my parents room, just "knowing" that it would probably be a beast to get it working with the new Mac. I collected all the items I needed and gathered them around my recliner, opened two TV tables, one for my laptop PC and one for the shiny new Mac. It was time, and I was ready.

I reached for the Mac Mini box as eagerly as if it was christmas in July. As I opened it - the first thing I noticed was a very well designed box about the size of a CD case embossed in foam protection. The silver box with white Apple logo caught my eye right away and as I opened it I found that it contained all the software installation CD's for the operating system and applications that were loaded. "Very nice", I thought. I lifted the first layer of foam (in which the CD's were held) and there was the Mac Mini safely surrounded by another layer of foam protection. As I pulled it out I noticed that it also had a thin layer of plastic protection on the actual unit which I removed slowly and it revealed a pristine little machine. I could help but notice how well made this little computer seemed to be made. It weighed in at 2.9lbs, but was built like a rock. No rattling of moving components inside, just "strong". I looked back in the cubed box hoping that there was more for me to find, and there was! Under the layer of foam protection that held the Mini was yet another encasing that held the power supply and cabling as well as the DVI -> VGA adapter. "This is slick packaging", I thought again. You have to understand, I've bought many brand new computers and NOTHING even compares to the presentation quality that Apple put into the packaging of this system. It was impressive. Impressive enough that I'm writing about it! I wondered if as much time had been put into the keyboard packaging and design. It had. The Apple keyboard was also protected by foam on the two edges (not a big deal as most keyboards are), but also had the thin layer of plastic protection right on the hardware that needed to be peeled off revealing another perfectly crafted item. The keyboard is USB and had a nice plastic USB cover that protected the end of the cable from dust, etc. Again - these little things impressed me quite a bit. But there was more to come...

After unpacking the Mac Mini, I couldn't help but think about all the times that I'd heard the saying "it just works" when referring to Apple products. I quickly found the DVI -> VGA adapter and took a look at it. It was designed very well and simply instered into the DVI slot on the back of the Mini. It has nobs on the side that allow you to screw it down tight - these nobs are built right into the adapter and aren't like the kind that you'd find on PC adapters - yes the one's that end up getting stuck or unscrewing nuts from within your PCI / AGP cards because the threads seem to have seized somehow and the adapter is now part of the card. Anyone who's worked with computers a bit will know what I'm talking about. This was very cleverly and carefully designed on the side of the adaptor and designed to be extremely easy to use. I plugged the monitor cable into the DVI adaptor. I hooked up the PC based USB mouse and the new Apple keyboard. I plugged in the network cable too my router and found the power cable for the Mac Mini and plugged that in. Crossed my fingers and turned it on.

OS X welcomed me with open arms as the machine started with a wizard that walked me through registering for a new Apple account. No need to configure a network card - all was setup and working, it had already grabbed an address from my DHCP server and had already communicated information to Apple. Registration was a breeze and within 5 minutes I was greeted with the OS X desktop. "that's it?" - I was shocked at how easy it was to setup and the presentation of all the components. Basically Apple did a good job because they made it extremely easy for anyone to pop out a new system and get up and working with it in no time.

Now that the machine was working - I needed to get to work and complete some of the testing that had to do. But wait - I didn't even know how to install software on a Mac or launch an application. Good thing that the OS X interface is also VERY intuitive. Browsing around a little had me locate "Finder" - which when clicked on listed my home directories and Applications and much, much more. This was a good start. I then located System Preferences, from which I could configure certain parts of the system. Safari caught my eye - so I launched it. BAM - browsing the net I downloaded an application called TextWrangler which is a powerful text editor that I needed to install for my testing. To my surprise, once the download was done a window popped up telling me to drag an icon into my applications folder ( I knew where this was now.. .) and it would install the app, and it did. It mounted as a drive to my system and installed the software from there. Once finished with the installation, you can just eject the mount and move on. Again - the system just kept impressing me. I think some folks may be a bit shy when they find out that the OS X backend is Unix, but don't be... things couldn't be easier. What's nice about it - is that if you do have 'nix knowledge, you'll be able to use it in this new found land! I was able to find "terminal" and I felt right at home. It's like having a linux box with the world's best GUI. It was good - and I was happy.

I did quite a bit that night - found out how to work with Apache (preloaded) and upgrade the version of PHP that comes with OS X. Worked within, and installed applications. Browsed the web and setup email. Changed System Preferences and learned quite a bit about the desktop layout. This was all accomplished in a period of four hours.

Overall - my initial thoughts are very good when it comes to the Mac Mini, Apple and OS X. They've really managed to impress the heck out of me and who knows - if I grow to like it even more - there may just be a G5 in my future.

nadon goes mac

I made the leap yesterday, and have started an adventure in a new world called Macintosh.

I purchased a Mac Mini.

Weighing in at 2.9 lbs and costing me $680 ($599 for the Mac Mini and $30 for the keyboard) I figured that this was the perfect way to introduce myself to the world of OS X, while also filling a need I had for testing software on Mac.

I purchased from CompUSA in Ann Arbor. The experience was a good one, as there was an Apple Store rep there at CompUSA who was more than happy to take some time and answer any questions that I had. Some of those questions:

q: Can I use a VGA monitor?
a: YES! The Mac Mini comes with a DVI -> VGA adapter that allows PC users who already have a monitor available to them to connect that up to their Mac.

q: Do I have to buy a special keyboard and mouse?
a: NO. You can use any USB keyboard / mouse with the Mac. Even a two button w/ scroll mouse works just fine. If you buy the Apple keyboard you'll notice that it comes with an extra USB port on it, so you could just plug your mouse into that and that way you would have one USB port free on the Mini.

q: What about speakers?
a: The Mac Mini has a regular headphone jack that you can use with external speakers or with headphones. I also found out that it has a built in speaker as well.

q: I do quite a bit of media production. Creating music / movies on the PC using Sony's Vegas Video and Acid Pro 4.0. Is there similar software for the Mac?
a: YES. Mac is made for media production. The Mac Mini even comes with some software that will help you get started like iPhoto, GarageBand, iTunes, iDVD, and iMovie - which are all part of the iLife Suite.

q: Will Mac Mini be able to handle the heavy processor load for music / video creation and editing?
a: KINDA. Mac Mini was made to accomplish exactly what it did with me - get a PC user to check out the "other side" of the playground. It's not a "power" machine by any means. It has a laptop processor and comes with 256 MB ram installed. (can be upgraded very easily to 1GB for $114 through Crucial - thanks for the tip Kevin!) When doing music creation in GarageBand, for instance, you may notice a difference in speed if you're working with anything over 5 tracks. Also - although iLife comes with iDVD, you won't be able to burn DVD's unless you add in the Apple SuperDrive to the Mac Mini. These points didn't sway my decision too much as part of the goal of purchasing the Mac is to check out the software - and if I like it, upgrade to a G5 system later this year.

q: Networking? Does it support it?
a: YES. Mac Mini comes with a built in 10/100 network card, so you can just plug it into your hub/router and you're ready to go! You can also get the optional AirPort Express to give you wireless freedom.

q: Warranty?
a: 90 days - full. 1 year limited, with the option to buy Apple Care Protection for an additional $150.

q: Will it make me cool?
a: YES. As soon as you make the purchase you'll notice that people, starting with the clerk, will start treating you different. It will have nothing to do with you just spending $680. You'll have entered a secret club and should get your handbook with special Mac slang cheat sheets and instructions on how to do the Mac Mini handshake within a couple of weeks.

I think if I had signed up for Apple Care, they would have thrown in a decoder ring and lapel pin... but oh well.

With these questions answered I was prepared to make the leap... and I did.

Next post: First look and initial thoughts...

closer to the dark side...

I've been tossing around the idea of getting a Mac for quite a while now. Recently I have contracted for a project that will allow me to purchase it. Now it's time to figure out which kind to get and how heavily to invest my time in learning the OS. I'm familiar with Linux, so I'm assuming it won't be a huge leap to get things up and working but only time will tell.

At this point I'm thinking about picking up a MiniMac to "test the waters" and if I fall in love may purchase a laptop later this year.

The initial use of the Mac would be for testing purposes of a new beta product as well as setting up Apache / PHP for testing. I'm figuring that this may also become the computer that I'm able to record my music on... filling a double purpose.

Check out the system that I'm looking at here.

Having a GIANT in your corner

I swear - I really dig Mark Cuban and what he stands for...

Been reading the Grokster news lately and came across this article on ZDnet.uk and think that it's great that Mark will help this company out in the upcoming Supreme Court fight.

Most of the statements that he says are right on about the death of innovation due to companies like the RIAA or MGM just using all their resources to crush everyone cause nobody in the world has the wealth to be able to afford to stand up to them and fight a fair fight.

Other courts have already came to the conclusion that the companies that make the P2P software should not be held responsible for what people trade over them and now maybe this company will be able to stand and fight a bit longer.

Success = Hard Work and Determination

I've been reading quite a bit lately (actually - when don't I?) about being successful in business and I came across two very inspiring stories.

The first is a blog post from Mark Cuban, talking about how in business you only have to be successful once and that's reason enough to never give up trying. You can read it here.

The second is from Jeffrey Fox's book, "How To Make Big Money In Your Own Small Business", and talks about how some people think that success or being great at something always looks like it comes easy to that person. In particular Jeffrey talks about the baseball superstar, Ted Williams and how he was asked

"how come hitting a baseball came so easily to him. 'Simple,' answered Ted Williams. 'I take a thousand swings a day.' Ted Williams went to batting practice, to the locker room, to his kitchen, to his bedroom swinging real and imaginary bats. He took 1,000 swings a day. Ted's 1000 swings were probably 900 swings more than anyone else. And 1,000 swings a day is why hitting "came easy" to the great Ted Williams."

Installing Fusebox 3 Apps with CFMX7

Just a note, in case you are installing Fusebox 3 apps on a CFMX 7 server, you may need to edit the index.cfm file to change the variables.fuseboxVersion which is set to check if it is less than 700, to less than 800. This has been addressed in the Fusebox 3 core files by basically checking to see if it's version 4.0 (lt 450) or 4.5 (lt 500) and if not it forces the use of the latest core files for FB3 which would be fbx_fusebox30_cf50.cfm. (fbx_fusebox30_cf50_nix.cfm if using a Linux based system)

I found this out when I was trying to get the Wireframe Viewer/Editor ver. 3.9992 beta installed and all I would get was a blank screen when I brought up the index.cfm file.

Oh and while I'm speaking of it, the Wireframe Viewer/Editor can be found here and pretty much rocks my world. It can be used while sitting with a client to wireframe a site and gives the client the actual "click through" that some like to see. It will also help in a big way as you'll be able to layout the entire site with pages that should be included and the entry and exit points for each page - allowing you to give a certain level of sign off on what the client really wants right from the start!

Office 12 and XML Standards?!

There's a whole heap of stuff going on in the industry these days. Apple computers getting Intel chips, Adobe and Macromedia kissing, making up and proposing marriage.... and then I stumbled across an article about the next version of Microsoft Office that will use XML as the default standard for document formats.

You can read more about views on this here.

I love that MS is calling it "Microsoft Office XML Open Format"

I want my...
I want my...
I want my MOXOF please....

I'll be interested to see what other open formats they'll claim and then tack the M$ name on.

They'll probably start a new community - the Microsoft Open Source Community. Membership will only cost $129 and you'll get a *free* copy of XP!

Sarcastic comments aside, I am excited to see this happening as I'll be able to leverage content created with MS software much easier.

If you're interested in getting news regarding the next version of Office as it comes available, you can sign up here.

NADONweb: A new home

I've recently moved NADONweb over to a new web host. I'm excited about this as I'll actually be able to get some work done on it now. The new host has CF7 installed - so expect to see a bunch of the new ColdFusion features in use.

I'll also be posting more about the FLiP process as I prepare to get this site up and running.