Our lives are complex.  Our jobs are complex.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet that your job is more complex than most of the jobs at NASA in the 60′s.  We’ve got project schedules, implementation goals, deadlines, deadlines and more deadlines.  Business is moving faster and pushing harder than ever.  Fortunately, we have a bevy of tools to help us stay on top of things…right?

Because I couldn’t execute on a project without Microsoft Project, and I couldn’t get through my day without an inbox and a ticketing system and about a thousand ever-so-slightly-tweaked drafts of this plan or that diagram, all piled in a corner to make room for this other diagram or that other plan which was, for the moment, higher priority, oh and you do remember which revision was the most recent, right?  After all you did print five copies in 20 minutes last week and now it’s Tuesday and you need final sign-off on the updated diagram and business plan before you can launch Phase 1, and the meeting is upstairs but there’s a new high priority ticket that just came into the system, so maybe if you just….

It feels like it’s easier to reach critical mass these days.  All the tools that are supposed to be making it easier to communicate and easier to stay on top of things can take on lives of their own, and before you know it you’re buried by the very things that are meant to save you from ever having been buried again.

I just watched an exceptional speech on Inbox Management by Merlin Mann, I highly recommend it for anyone who, like me, has no idea what’s at the bottom of their inbox, or how to make sense of it.

The video got me thinking about productivity pitfalls.  The biggest one for me is this: often, I get lost in the woods.  Instead of identifying the path and then doing the work of putting one foot in front of the other, I’m overwhelmed by the size of the trees, the density of the forest, or the roughness of the terrain.  I seize up, and where I could be taking the first small step of many, I only stand and stare at the massive task in front of me, as if my only options are to finish it all at once or to quit altogether.

What are your productivity pitfalls?

Hello, My name is David, and I’m a PC…Oh, if only it were that simple.

I’ve been working in IT for over a decade, and in that time I’ve had experience with just about every computing platform out there.  My first Linux variant was Redhat 5.1, “Manhattan”, which was brand new when I installed it in mid-1998.  I’ve used Windows predominantly on the job.  In the mid-2000′s I bought my wife, who is a teacher, a Macbook.  This was her first laptop, and I did it because I wanted one, but I couldn’t justify it for myself.  Why couldn’t I?  At that point, I perceived disparity in the core functionality.  My job at the time was managing a Windows 2003 based Datacenter, and I couldn’t justify a divergence into an operating system that would take away some of the tools I used daily.

In addition to some loss of functionality, the Cost to Hardware Spec ratio made me cringe.  I know how to comparison shop, and like any good geek I know how to price parts.  Looking at a Mac and a comparably equipped PC is an experience that will make even the faithful waver.  In fact, it’s one of the most commonly cited arguments against the Mac in those internet pubs and coffee shops that we call “Forums”.

It’s a lot easier to ignore cost when you’re buying a gift, and a schoolteacher has no functionality gaps when considering Mac OS.

It goes without saying that, since the release of OS X, the Mac has edged the PC out on security, on reliability, and on visual appeal.  These facts certainly contributed to that purchase.  Who among us, whatever job they have, wants to come home from work and do more of what they just did for 8 hours?  In that sense, buying my wife a Mac was a win.  My “Tech-support” time for her computers in the last 5 years (she’s on her second Macbook now) is under 5 hours.  Total. That is compelling.

While it was easy to buy one for her, I couldn’t overcome my objections to buying one for myself.  That is, until a week ago.

The penny-pincher in me struggled with the purchase.  I agonized over specs, I even let my eye stray to the Dell website and compared price with some identically equipped Windows machines.  Temptation to go down the cheap road was strong, but I’ve realized something important about Apple over the last year.  If you listen to the podcast, you’ll have heard me talk about it a time or two.  Vendors of Windows machines sell hardware and software, Apple sells a single product.  The distinction may seem irrelevant at first, but I assure you, it makes all the difference in the world.

Windows is a software platform that is robust, capable and universally available.  A Mac is a product, owned by a single company from soup to nuts (or salad to cake…or perhaps, Amuse-bouche to mille fueille).  The point is, with a Windows operating system there’s someone in charge of ensuring that user experience is top notch, provided the work to make it top notch fits within the development budget.  With the Dell (or HP or Sony (God help you)) computer running Windows there’s someone in charge of ensuring that user experience (which includes such consideration as hardware specification and build quality) is top notch, provided they can sell the device under a certain price point. There are two problems with this model.  First, there’s no central figure held responsible for user experience from a holistic perspective…that is to say, no one person owns the whole “PC”.  No on at Dell is held responsible for OS functionality when they say “I believe this product is adequate, and can carry our Logo.”  Second, and more importantly, neither the development budget for Windows nor the competitive PC market allow much room for going “Above and Beyond” on build quality or functionality.

Whenever I talk about the Mac advantage with Rev, our conversation turns back to two things over and over again.  ”Build quality” and “polish”.  Build quality, in the sense that we use the term, refers to the hardware and manufacturing methods used when creating a Mac computer.  Build quality on Macs, especially in the last 7 years, has been consistently superb.  Polish is a little more subjective.  Things like ambient light sensors that dim displays and keyboard backlighting are a start.  A minimalist GUI with intuitive controls contributes to the image of “polish”.  Even the experience of buying a Mac is clean, from the moment you walk into a Mac store or log onto the website, there’s a casual yet sophisticated atmosphere.  Straightforward, smooth, self confident, unencumbered.  This didn’t happen by accident.  It’s part of an image.  Apple is a company that takes their image so seriously that, when hiring for each Apple Store location, they choose employees by personality, appearance, and background that best coincide with the target audience in that geographic region.

All of this quality and image is pretty expensive.  In fact, Mac’s have an average 20% markup over a similarly equipped PC in most cases.  It’s this markup that allows Apple to create a top of the line product with superb build quality, and the best user experience currently available in consumer computing.  It’s their superb build quality and peerless user experience which keep people coming back year after year to pay 20% more than they have to.

The title of this post is “Anatomy of a Switcher”, so there’s one question I’m obliged to answer before I end.  Why did I switch?  Anyone who still complains about feature parity between Macs and PC’s is either a hardcore PC gamer, or just not paying attention.  Gaming aside, PC’s and Macs are capable of the same performance, they can run the same applications or ones that are so similar you wouldn’t know it.  That is no longer an issue.

If feature parity isn’t an issue, what are the remaining barriers?  Personal preference and cost.  I don’t know anyone who’s ever driven a Honda, then driven a Mercedes, and said “I prefer the driving experience of the Honda.”  People like Hondas for a lot of reasons.  Cost, reliability, cost, reputation, cost, fuel economy, cost…the list goes on.  But if you eliminate cost from the equation, the comparison is a no-brainer.  Mercedes Benz has built a very successful business around selling a product with the same core functionality, superior build quality, and a peerless user experience, to customers who don’t mind paying a premium.

As a geek, I’m on the computer a lot.  I’m definitely a power user.  Because I’m on the computer so much, I have no problem buying expensive peripherals.  My keyboard is what connects me to my computer.  My mouse is an extension of my hand.  There’s no question of deriving value from the slight premiums that a cordless rechargeable laser mouse will extract from my bank account, I use it more than 8 hours a day.  Likewise, when I really consider the satisfaction I get using this MacBook Pro, from the solid feel to the beautiful physical design, to the BSD based operating system and flawless UI, do I need to worry about that 20% premium being squandered?  Do I need to be concerned that I won’t appreciate it enough to justify the additional cost?  No.

If I prioritize user experience over cost (as I believe all power users, and maybe all geeks, should), I don’t mind the luxury tax.  The markup is irrelevant.  The product is superb, and I’m happy because of all those things that Windows users “can totally live without.”  I made the switch, and I haven’t found a reason to look back.

Incidentally, it’s about a 14% markup from a Luxury Accord to a Luxury Mercedes C series sedan.

You can follow David Eagle on twitter, or email cdeagle [at] gmail [dot] com.

So I just wanted to share some of the apps I’ve been playing with and how they’ve treated me.

Marvel App

In execution, I love the Marvel Comic Book app. The transitions, quality, comic browser all great. My problem is that, literally, all of the comics I care to spend my money on digitally (entire other conversation) are Dark Horse. Ok yeah that’s not a mark against the app, but against Marvel, but I still think it’s relevant.

Secondly, I found a comic I was interested in: Wolverine: Origin. The trouble however was twofold. First of all if you’ve read a trade vs the entire series bundled, you know that it’s much more enjoyable to just buy and handle the one piece of merchandise. However with the app you have to buy each trade separately. So for wolverine, to prepare myself to read the entire thing, I had to purchase all 6 trades, 1.99 each. That brings me to my last gripe: price. Why in the world am I being charged the same amount of money as if I buy off amazon? Yeah, $12 digitally or $11.50 off amazon free shipping. That right there prevented me from bothering. If it’s cheaper in non digital form I’m going to buy non digital.

Get the Marvel Comics app in iTunes

Headline

This is a really beautiful and well executed Google Reader app. It let’s you sync so you can read your blogs offline. I’ve only got two issues with it. First of all you can filter by unread. This wouldn’t be an issue if it ordered by date of publication but Google doesn’t always update every feed all the time so often there will be 5 or so posts buried somewhere in the mass of posts I’ve already cycled through. And secondly the only share option is email. You at least need share to google friends, let alone Twitter and Facebook. If those two issues were fixed this app would be a must buy, as of right now it’s just nice.

Get the Headline app in iTunes

Netflix

This app is still crashing on me but I’m going to temporarily write that off as growing pains. Really my only issue with the netflix app is that the movie browsing interface is seemingly just an implanted safari window. This produces a few annoying issues. Namely it’s slow. Now I haven’t tested netflix.com in true safari, but in the app the experience feels unnaturally slow. You also can’t do things like star movies. It just feels clunky. But to be honest, I have streaming video from a large library of movies and television, why should I be complaining… right?

Get the Netflix app in iTunes

ABC App

I wanted to drop as quick one on the ABC App. Really my only issue is that they limit you to the 5 most recent shows (I guess it’s this way on the website as well?). Really ABC? This makes the app completely useless to me. I was going to use this to explore new shows to watch, but if I’m mid season and I have to watch some random episode, I’m out. They’ve even got commercials! It really just feels like a baseless executive decision, which really turns me off to this app.

Get the ABC Player app in iTunes

WordPress App

I’m really enjoying this app. I’ve used it to actually write all of my iPad blogposts (although to finish this post i had to use a pc). Only issues are lack of any kind of formatting options (bold, italic, headline) and the inability to resize photos. Now you can write HTML in here for formatting, but the keyboard layout makes it highly frustrating. Other than that I also use it to moderate and reply to comments. You can save local drafts, publish them, and even setup pretty much every wordpress blog you have access to. Oh and there is an annoying bug that 90% of the time the cut/copy/paste dialog doesn’t show up. I’ve found some tricks to force it to show up, but they’re not reliable, and i shouldn’t be relied on to hack the planet to use an app.

Get the WordPress app in iTunes

That’s it. I’m hoping to go over more obscure apps, or some games, next time. The iPad app store still feels really bare. I’m not sure if it’s just too early or if some app makers are waiting for OS 4, but the selection really feels lacking right now.

So my first day with the iPad was only a half day and a work day to boot. Most of my day was spent in dev meetings. I would say that during the meeting the iPad was very useful but I’m not seeing anything that makes it indispensable.

I was able to pull up any website we had during our dev meeting. Not only did everything come up good, but I was really happy with the quality of the iPad/Safari browsing experience. Additionally, during the meeting I was able to take care of IMs and emails with ease. It’s important to note however that i was already able to take care of both of these tasks with my laptop. Which brings me to the first annoyance with the iPad. Unfortunately my 2007 MacBook pro doesn’t output enough power to charge my iPad. This really isn’t that big of a deal, but if you think that I’m missing out on a bit of a charge every time I go to sync my iPad, it’s kind of annoying.

Once I got home I tried out the netflix app. I have to say I was very disappointed. At first I was having a great time checking out the streaming, but I decided to start an episode of the office while I worked on some chores. Over the course of roughly an hour I had to hard boot the iPad 4 times during netflix streaming. I tried multiple episodes, but each one would eventually freeze up permanently and even sometimes have visual artifacts on the screen. I’m not sure if it’s just my iPad or if it’s something with netflix itself. I’m hoping to figure at out, but either way: no bueno.

That’s about it for my first day. If I had to give it an X/10 I’d say a solid 8/10.

I bought an iPad. Ok ok, I. Don’t need you badgering me about it. It’s pretty dang cool and you’re a jerk so, there’s that. Anyway I’ll try to keep you updated on how it goes. I’ve got my first work meeting in 30 minutes, hopefully I’ll get some good use out of this paperweight.

Oh, and I wrote this on the iPad.

I can almost see it…The first ray of sunlight flashes into the sky, fragile and alone in the early morning gloom. Beneath the dawns first light, a hopeful city, awake and restless, stirs. The air is thick with anticipation. The young, with the confidence of the untried, are positive that a bright future is theirs to grasp. Even the old, who know from long and bitter years that nothing ever changes, can feel the thrum, the vibration of millions of hearts beating to the same rhythm.

To an American, the candidates seem politically indistinguishable. While their foreign policies are practically identical, their domestic policies varied enough to excite the youth, and the more progressive elements of Iran, in the weeks leading up to the election. Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, the incumbent, was intent on maintaining the status quo, as he had for the previous 4 years. Mir Hossein-Mousavi supported increased freedom of dress and culture, and the privitization of the presently government run media companies. Contrasted with Ahmadenijad’s “Vice Police” (An initiative started in November of 2007, the Iranian police created a list of “Vices” which they intended to arrest people for, including “makeup, un-islamic dress, and decadent movies”) Mousavi’s call to relax the strict Islamic code of dress and behavior was refreshing.

In the weeks leading up to the election, Pro-Mousavi youth held rallies, Mousavi’s Facebook page was frequented, word spread over the internet and through universities, via text message and commercial, by word of mouth and flier. As the somewhat less conservative candidate emerged and gained a vocal following, fundamentalists struck back. On June 1st, a Mousavi campaign office in Qum was torched. The Jerusalem Post had reports of another candidate being the target of a failed assassination attempt. In the streets, things were heated.

It was in this condition that the sun found the city of Tehran as it rose on election morning, Friday, June 12th. Though the day proceeded peacefully, the seeds of dissension were being sown from the very start. Cell phone service was patchy, text messaging was completely unavailable, and world news organizations have reported that high powered “electronic jammers” were used to interfere with (in fact, completely stop) their transmissions, effectively silencing them. No government agency has taken responsibility for any of these conditions, but many Iranians believe that the inability to use text messaging on election day was a ploy to suppress the young vote, by Ahmadenijad, who’s voter base consist primarily of Middle-aged and older Iranians from rural communities.

Because of the tremendous voter turnout on election day, the polling places were forced to revise their closing times more than once. Reports on election day vary, though they all describe lines of people stretching down city blocks, waiting to vote, some also include reports of militia men intimidating voters. These claims point to Ahmadenijad as the originator and main beneficiary of this intimidation, but no reliable news organization has been able to confirm these complaints. In fact, after the election the Iranian government began a systematic campaign of censorship which seemed to have only one aim: keeping any word of the election aftermath, including the accusations of vote tampering and the ongoing protests, from getting out.

On June 13th, having counted 1/3rd of the vote, Ahmadenijad was declared President by a margin of 62%. In provinces which, during the 2005 elections, had given him 20% of the vote, he won 70%. He did equally well in rural and in metropolitan areas (Contrary to all trends in Iranian electoral history). He not only handily won nearly every province, he even carried Tabriz, the capital of Eastern Azerbaijan and the home city of Mousavi, his chief competitor.

Having no election controls whatsoever, faking these results would be very simple. But would even the most inept government official do it so badly? Protests began immediately, Pro-Mousavi Iranians hit the streets with signs that said “Where is my vote?” among other things. They marched in the thousands and the tens of thousands, and later, the hundreds of thousands. The Iranian government went on the offensive. They went on the offensive against the biggest threat to their continued existence…the press corps. An Italian reporter was beaten by riot police, his camera confiscated. German and British reporters fared no better. American reporters for NBC and CBS also report having materials and film confiscated by Iranian security forces. At the direction of the government, Iranian ISP’s restricted access to world news sources, cutting off Iranian citizens from sites like bbc.co.uk and cnn.com.

After Sunday, no international news organization was broadcasting out of Iran. Many sites were blocked for Iranian citizens. The flow of information in and out of the country had been dramatically reduced, in 24 hours. Few news organizations even reported on what was happening in Iran, either because they couldn’t verify their information, or because the Iranian government asked them not to. The government was accused by Al Jazeera of instructing local newspapers to change their headlines.

What happened next was surprising. Over the weekend, #IranElection became one of the most popular words in use on Twitter.com. Twitter is a free site which allows its users to post brief messages, limited to 140 characters, which can be seen by anyone. Iranians inside the country, and relatives of Iranian citizens, were using Twitter to post updates about the situation. They listed meeting times, posted warnings about the Basij militia groups who were beating and killing protesters, and spread the word to a world that had no other source of information about what was going on in Iran.

Though the reports disseminated through twitter are unverifiable, they have served as a vehicle for the spread of a rich media context that brings into sharp focus the picture of a people in chaos. Images of men clasping bloody legs, tying off tourniquets, of women insensate being loaded into ambulances, and video of gunmen firing as they progress up a residential street, may not tell us the whole story, but they tell us that there is a story, which is more than we heard from the sources that we rely on for news. That, coupled with Iran’s continued campaign of misinformation and and refusal to operate with any sort of transparency is frightening.

From the standpoint of an American citizen, Mousavi is no better a candidate than Ahmadenijad. Who wins this election isn’t important. What matters is that, for the first time in a decade the people of Iran are fighting for their rights. In larger numbers than we’ve seen in 30 years, the nation of Iran is demanding a change. Because of a website designed for the delivery of short messages and used frivolously by millions, the world knows in more intimate detail, in more vivid color, with more immediacy, exactly what it looks like on the streets of Tehran, a week after the most promising sunrise in the last 4 years.

This is what the Internet has wrought: we are no longer separated by distance or time, by wealth or all the forces of a corrupt government. We can know, to the minute, what’s happening on the streets of Qum without the filter of an Iranian press secretary, or a CNN correspondent.

What is happening? The people continue to protest. Some reports say that there have been Pro-Mousavi marches with more than a million attendees. At these marches, people are beaten and arrested. Basij militia groups are going door to door, taking down satellite dishes which may grant unfettered internet access. The Iranian government has raided several university dorms. They are tracking down and arresting bloggers and those who use twitter to post messages. And still, the people march. They go onto their balconies and into the streets knowing that they could face death. I came across this during my research for this article, and felt it was timely.

Whether or not our sharing in this struggle will benefit the people of Iran remains to be seen. Even if it doesn’t, even if they endure 4 more years of Ahmadinejad’s “status quo”, we must realize that we’re seeing a revolution. Information can no longer be held back. Like fine sand, it slips through, and is blown across the world on strong winds.

Twitter has broadcast a revolution in the way that we interact with the world. We’re no longer consumers of news, handed to us by media organizations. We can talk to the people on the ground. We can see things through their eyes. If you’ve been watching the messages filed under #iranelection on Twitter, as I have, I expect you feel much the same as I. You may feel that this situation is closer to you. You may find that you know more about it than your friends and coworkers. You may discover that you sympathize, if not with the ideologies, then with the plight of the people of Iran.

Did you feel that way, a week ago? Pretty revolutionary, if you ask me.

-cdeagle
cdeagle@gmail.com
You can find David Eagle on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/cdeagle

What the heck?? When did this come out?

http://www.google.com/talk/labsedition/index.html

Hey jutst testing out the new iphone wordpress app. So far it’s prett dang easy to use! via http://digg.com/apple/Wordpress_for_iPhone_Released

Ever since Freakonomics stopped putting their full-text of articles into their RSS feed, I pretty much stopped reading their well written articles. However, that is not why I am writing this post today.

Today, I did click into a post (this one: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/a-nuclear-president/) It spoke of how the Nuclear option is becoming more and more of a possibility for America’s (and the world’s) future power resource. I for one am “a-ok-lets-go” on the Nuclear solution (until we figure out perpetual energy, yeah.. anyway..), however that’s also not why I wrote this post.

What the Nuclear subject got me thinking about was the affect that the lack of energy will do to our lives. In my opinion this change would initially center around transportation. Over the years, change in transportation has always come about because of growing population, however this coming change will be caused by dwindling access to cheap energy. Normally you would come to the conclusion “well you have to get from one place to another don’t you?”, I mean “everyone has a car payment” right? Death, Taxes, and a Car Payment. Well, what if the only reason you had to deal with transportation was to get food.

Consider this, digital communications has come so far, so fast, that nobody seems to be completely caught up with it. We have not only plain-jane voice communications (zzz boring), but a myriad of video communication options, and excellent text communication. On top of all of this, we have had (for YEARS!) secure point to point communications. What does all of this add up to? In my opinion, a move forward in not only employers allowing their employees to “tele-commute”, but also friends and family communicate more and more via ip communications. I mean, it’s already happening!

I recently had a discussion with a friend who is now allowed to tele-commute once a week, and she works at a pretty well known company. I can only see this spreading as the cost of transportation goes up in not only time, but now cold hard cash, at dramatic rates (see here and here).

Ok, so we’ve all seem the movies. Video communications has been around since a Space Odyssey, and so far either retail offerings have been craptastic, or lackluster. Well, what happens when it costs you $15 or $20 to drive 30 miles to see your family? Maybe you’ll just call them on the videophone this week (hey nintendo, make a video-phone on the Wii dangit!). Or how about going to work? What about all those people driving over 50mi a day to work? It will become completely unaffordable, forcing employers to allow their employees to work from home.

So, what does all of this lead to? It leads to me to the conclusion that I with have a job for a long time, that’s what. At-home workers means more and more ip-based communications, from text/speach/video, to asset and document sharing, all types of collaboration software from planning your next housing development, to planning your next company party; it will all need to be online. In fact, I’ve seen a few condo/townhomes lately with secluded office counterparts to the main house. I think we’ll see that more prominent in the next 10 years. And THAT to me is exciting. Screw jet-packs! The internet ftw!

ps. if you want to see an excellent portrayal of a digital-based future, check this out.

please click this link, then install the given browser. you will make my job easier.

Total time taken and steps to remove $40 worth of monthly services from Cox Communications (Cable + Internet):
1. Verification of 2 types of personal information
2. Verification of cancellations
Total Time: ~2 minutes
Also, $30 in pro-rated services was credited back to me

Total time taken and steps to remove $7.99 of monthly services from Microsoft Xbox Live:
1. Voice activated menu to tsf to Cancellations
2. Verification of 1 type of personal information
3. Verification of cancellation
4. Verification of 5 more types of personal information
5. Reason for cancellation
6. On hold to transfer to Cancellations (I thought that’s where I was?!)
7. On hold again to tsf
8. On hold again to tsf
9. Verification of 2 types of personal information
10. Reason for cancellation
11. Arguing to get me to keep the service
12. Verification of cancellation
Total Time: 18 minutes and 45 seconds
Also, I can barely understand Indians, even if they call themselves Rachel or Oliver

Winner: Cox!

I guess even though we love to hate our cable bill, at least you can cancel it without it taking up almost 1/2 your lunch hour.

The front-end engineers certainly have their work cut out for them with the release if IE8 on the horizon. Albeit that this IS a Beta, and the FIRST of all public Betas, but still, all my sites generally mostly work (except those using google maps).

Remember folks, this is early beta software, rendering (most likely) browser specific hacks styling, so take this with a grain of salt.

And embedded

But wait! Not even Microsoft’s DOM based maps look good:

Hey everybody, just a friendly reminder to delete your myspace Today. that is all.

So, last summer we cancelled cable. We had gone three months with watching a total of 3 hours of entertainment. With our television costing ~$100/month, that was $100/hr for those three hours. That didn’t add up for me, so we started The Grand Experiment. That experiment being a media-centered couple, removing the few hundred odd channels of 24/7 media from our lives. The idea was, with that extra $100/mo replace it with purchasing digital copies of our media and streaming them to the television, in addition to purchasing dvds of shows.

This went well for the first couple of months. The downside was that not all of our shows were in digital format we could (legally) watch on our tv. So we thought hey, download the media, then we’ll make sure to buy the dvds when they are released. This sounded like a good idea, however in practice we didn’t realize the toll it would take on us.

First of all, we were required to use less-than-desirable means to procure said content (ie. Bit-torrent, Usenet). The issue was, we started worrying about plotting ourselves on the MPAA road-map of litigation. So we started using applications such as Peerguardian, to cover our tracks. The lowdown of all of this was that it really took a toll on us, on top of that we worried about our “vote” being counted, and then there was the X factor of channels like Discovery, National Geographic, Etc. that had very interesting programs unavailable outside of the cable/dish networks.

SO, the experiment is over, I picked up our cable-boxes again and we’re back to regularness. It was very weird to get rid of cable, and now it’s weird to pick it up again. I feel sort of bad that we failed. I don’t like cable companies, and I think that their fees are high. But, I don’t really see any other alternatives. leh sigh.

note: I would have switched to directv, dish, fios, etc. however my apartment doesn’t see the south sky, and verizon hasn’t offered fios at my complex.

C-mon google! What happened to support for googletalk.exe?! We want group chat, aim chat, etc. You make us sad..

I’ve been working with Pngs over the last few weeks because they just look so much dang better. But then I went to setup IE6 support and some of my quick-hacks I used. If you’re not aware, to use transparent pngs in IE6 you need to set them as the background of say a <div> or <span> and then apply a filter to it. If we were to apply it in css it would look like this:

.myPng{
filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(enabled=true, sizingMethod=scale src='/images/mysweet.png');
}

However, to use only css to do this we _need_ to know the height and width of the image, because the filter actually just sets the background image. There’s a few other png hacks out there but none that really worked for me for various reasons. What I needed was something that was fast, lightweight, easy to read, and I could call it if I was building an <img> tag in javascript. So I made this:


Global = {
FixPng: function( img ){
if(document.all){
img.parentNode.style.width = img.offsetWidth;
img.parentNode.style.height = img.offsetHeight;
img.parentNode.style.filter = "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(enabled=true, sizingMethod=scale src='"+ img.src +"')"
} else {
img.style.visibility = "visible"
}
}
}


The only catch is that this relies on three things:

1. The <img> tag must have style=”visibility:hidden”
2. There must be a <div> tag wrapping the <img> tag. (the <div> tag can have styling)
3. The FixPng is called at some point passing the <img> tag object

So a normal fix would look like this:


<div><img src="/images/mysweet.png" style="visibility:hidden;" OnLoad="Global.FixPng( this );" /></div>


That’s about it. I don’t think this is my last iteration of this fix, but it works 100% better for me since I can easily use this in html and in javascript. I hope it helps you.

note: I’ve heard that the <img> OnLoad doesn’t always fire in IE6 because of caching. There’s workarounds, but if you have any insight, please post.

“.Net 3.0?! Didn’t we just get 2.0?!” you ask. Well you’re right! less than a year ago microsoft released .net framework 2.0, so why would they make a major release like that in under a year, especially as microsoft! Aren’t they a slow sloth like creature that takes 6 years to release an operating system? You’re right, they are. But 3.0 isn’t exactly another “2.0″ nor is it another “1.0″ it’s something completely different.

<- Framework 3.0 in all it’s glory. What we’re looking at is microsoft’s 4 tiered architecture to unify the desktop to the browser.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPL) is literally the “presentation” layer for microsoft’s new strategy. What we’ve got is an API that allows the programmer to use XAML to build the UI and visual aspects across platform.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) allows the developer to create data sources that either web or desktop applications can recieve updates, or push data to.

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) funny thing is, this is really “WWF” or World Wrestling Foundation (now known as WWE), but I f igure microsoft doesn’t want to be connected with hulk hogan. Anyway, WF is what allows the developer to basically offload the functionality of a UI to the a workhorse application. As a crzy programmer, this is really exciting. What we’re talking about it the ability to create a standalone UI that interacts with a multithreaded, remote (possibly), persistant (don’t worry about computer restarts), monitorable (you can monitor execution), dynamic updates (update workflow during execution) application. Likewow… If what microsoft is promising with the WF comes true, this could allow me to spend less time writing this myself (AJAX etc.) and get the job done sooner, and with better results. Crazy cool, like the hulk.

Windows CardSpace (WC) brings an “Identity Metasystem” to the table. This allows the developer to build a user system on top of a nice and neat API. It seems like you’ll have to take some leaps and bounds to become an “Identity Provider” but the details I’m reading are a little sketchy. We’ll have to follow up on this one.

So That’s the .net 3.0 framework. Not so much of an overall upgrade like 1.1 to 2.0 was, but a very interesting and provacative set of tools for developers to use. You can download the framework at microsoft’s site, or you can buy Windows Vista. It comes with that too. Anyway, I’m not sure when 3.0 stuff will creap into my releases, but I can tell you now, if everything works out like they say it will, it’s going to be an interesting 2007 (as if ’06 wasn’t web 2.0y enough).

note: now they just need to make .net cross platform

So, I’ve learned a lot over the last year about development in addition to being swept up into this stream of knowledge that’s being passed around (read – web 2.0). Anyway, I wanted to share a little bit about how I’ve been developing.

I think that if I looked back to what and how I wrote my code years ago I’d laugh my sockies off. Now, I know MOST programmers do this. We’re constant learners, always tweaking the way we do things. But with these new methods and ideologies it’s much different to look back on (recent) older code because I wasn’t doing anything SILLY back then, it was just _different_.

The best example I thought I could give you is this. After reviewing all the open source javascript libraries out there, I’ve gleaned a new way of writing javascript for my page. Take this for example:


DiverseSolutions.MyProject.Pages.Login = {
OnLoad: function(){
//do stuff
},
Tab: {
OnClick: function(){
//do stuff
},
OnMouseOver: function(){
//do stuff
}
}
}


So Basically what we have here is a page called “login” where I’ve got some stuff goin on. Generally I’ll have the “OnLoad” function bound to window.load like this:

YAHOO.util.Event.addListener(window, "load", DiverseSolutions.MyProject.Pages.Login.OnLoad, DiverseSolutions.MyProject.Pages.Login);

What we’re doing here is on window “load”, fire “OnLoad” with (the extra DS.MyProject.Pages.Login makes sure that OnLoad fires within the correct scope). What this kind of implementation gains me is the ability to 1. Quickly navigate through a javascript class (a major concern of mine) and 2. Be able to modify/consume my own and coworker’s javascript classes. This particular method is geared towards a specific page. If I was to create a re-usable class I would do something like this:


DiverseSolutions.MyProject.User = { };
DiverseSolutions.MyProject.User.prototype = {
UserID: null,
UserName: null,
Init: function( userid ) {
//do stuff
},
}


This allows me to be able to reuse a class I’ve made without the browser having to rebuild everything every time I initialize a new User. This is because I’ve implemented the object’s “prototype”.

Using javascript in an object oriented way allows me to work with “agility” (therefore the Agile Development). I can’t tell you how much faster javascript programming is now that I’m utilizing these new techniques. Additionally I don’t feel like as much of an r-tard when I look back on my old javascript work .

note: what I didn’t include was how I setup the DiverseSolutions.MyProject.Pages namespace. I’ve “borrowed” how yahoo does their’s seen here.

video go byebye