May 2006 Archive
So, what do you drive?
What people drive has always been interesting to me, as I believe it tells a lot about that person and the way that they are. So, in a vain attempt to get people to open up a little, I thought I would pose the question to you all, what do you drive?
For starters, the family wagon is a 1997 VW Passat 1.8T whilst my daily runabout is a Toyota Aygo+.
So, c'mon peeps, tell what you drive either via comments, or better still, post them up on your own blogs….
Posted by Neil Middleton on 02 May 2006
In any given second in the UK
Taken from the Office of National Statistics figures
Posted by Neil Middleton on 03 May 2006
CF Developers map
Due to having some spare time (which is always dangerous in my case), I have taken it upon myself to create a Frappr map, containing all the CF developers worldwide. Hopefully this will help bring developers together, helping them find out who's in their area etc. I going to try and get people to publish this, as the more people on it, the more useful it could be. So, if you have a blog/webpage/podcast, please list it, and get it known.
So, go ahead and add yourself to the map, at time of writing, I'm looking a little lonely.
var frappr_mapheight = 300;
var frappr_mapwidth = 500;
var frappr_maplat = 40;
var frappr_maplon = -45;
var frappr_mapzoom = 16;
var frappr_host = “http://www.frappr.com/”;var gid = 636523;
Posted by Neil Middleton on 04 May 2006
So, where are all the developers then?
If you are a regular reader, you will remember the Frappr map I started on Friday to find out where all the CF is in the world. Well, since then some 500 flags have been placed on the map telling us a fair bit about the community.
1) We now know that there are at least 400 developers out there who read blogs/aggregators regulary (i.e every 24 hours). I personally would guess at more than triple that after taking into account non-click throughs and people who didn't add a tag. Additionally, I have noticed that Sean Corfield's and Ray Camden's blogs are amongst the most-read blogs.
2) CF is mainly prevalent in the US (east beats west by some margin), the UK (south v. north) and Austrailia.
3) Around 7-8% of CF developers are female.
4) Frappr is incresingly slow and unreliable.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 08 May 2006
I'm on the weekly
I was just browsing around yesterday and found myself listening to the Coldfusion Weekly Podcast by Matt Woodward and Peter Farrell only to find that I had been mentioned for my Frappr map. It's always a little weird to suddenly hear your own name coming through your headphones.
Check out the weekly, it's a great commuting listen…
PS You can also hear me in the Coldfusion Podcast, Episode 16.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 09 May 2006
Brightcove and TiVo sign deal to bring Brightcove videos to TV
Ever since Prismix provided Flex services to Brightcove during the past year, I’ve been keeping a keen eye on how they’re doing. I for one think they’ve got a great offering and can’t wait to see their service everywhere.
Well, today I heard (via ericd.net) that TiVo and Brightcove have signed a deal to bring videos from Brightcove’s customers to TV. This is definitely a massive step in bringing Internet TV from PC to your TV.
Quote from news.com:
TiVo has inked an agreement that will let subscribers get videos from Brightcove on their digital video recorders in a deal that effectively lets select Web sites get onto your TV.
Brightcove specializes in tools for publishing and distributing video on the Web. Customers include Farmers’ Almanac TV, National Lampoon, Barrio 365 and Shipwreck Central. Late last year, AOL and a few others invested $16 million in the company.
The alliance between the two will automate a way for these publishers to get their goods viewed on TV. Put another way, TiVo is serving as a broadcaster for networks like Expo TV—which concentrates on product news and trade shows—that don’t have a time slot, or a good one, on a cable network.
“If it’s on Brightcove, you’ll be able to watch it on your TV using TiVo,” Jeremy Alliare, Brightcove’s CEO, said in a statement.
Being a Windows Media Center user, I can’t wait until there is an Brightcove offering there. I guess we’ll just have to watch this space.
Read more:
TiVo links with Brightcove as PC-TV lines blur
Posted by Niklas Richardson on 10 May 2006
The future of the Internet as an Applications Platform
UKCFUG today mailed out to it's members mentioning this months's meeting, which isn't actually a UKCFUG meeting, but an Adobe Seminar entitled “The future of the Internet as an Applications Platform”.
The meetings lined up to be in Olympia 2 on May 24th. The format will be that of a panel discussion featuring the likes of Ben Watson (Flex PM), Andrew Shorten (Flex Engineer), Bola Rotibi (from Ovum), James Govenor of Redmonk, Aral Balkan and Andy Hood from AKQA. This panel discussion will explore topics around the design, development and deployment of rich internet applications, provide an insight into real-world development experiences and discuss how AJAX, Flex and other technologies will be used to blur the lines between desktop and web-based applications. Register on the Adobe website.
Additionally, in other UKCFUG news, next meeting after that is set for 1st June in the usual place. Presenting again is Mark Drew (the new co-manager of the CFUG) now working the session under the title “Model-Glue and Coldspring: Inversion of Control and Configuration”. Register at the UKCFUG website.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 10 May 2006
...You do what?
I've been asked to define a job role at work. The trouble being that I do not really have any clue as to what the job title might be.
Basically, in a nutshell, the task will be 50% developer based, with a focus on new technologies. This person's main job will be to keep an eye on the community, with an ear to the ground, checking out new products, technologies and techniques that are being released, with a view to assessing the interesting ones for possible adoption within a development team.
So, what do you guys reckon this job title should be? Technology evangelist is the closest I can find, but that seems to be working in the other direction, i.e selling your own technologies to third parties (much like Ben Forta @ Adobe).
Anyone?
Posted by Neil Middleton on 11 May 2006
BlogCFC 5 Released
Just a quick note to say that Ray Camden (oh Jedi Master) has released the latest version of BlogCFC, the software that runs this very blog. So, if this site goes tonto over the next few days, you can probably guess why now… ;-)
Posted by Neil Middleton on 12 May 2006
A little bit more
883 million seconds, 1.4 million minutes, 245,280 hours,10,220 days….
Yup, I'm 28, which means I am a little older than I was yesterday. Happy birthday me.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 15 May 2006
Cleaning up your fox....
If you're anything like me you tinker with your Firefox nearly every day of the week trying out new extensions, trying new settings and just generally mucking about. Also, you'll find that every now and then your install just isn't as fresh as it once was. Well, I cleaned up my FF profile this morning and started afresh again, making using the browser all nice and shiny again. How did I do this? Well here goes:
1. Find your profile folder (should be in C:\Documents and Settings\#Windows Username#\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\)
2. Make a copy of the profile folder, then delete the original. Also delete the profiles.cfg and pluginreg.dat files in the Firefox Folder (up above profiles)), then run Firefox and create a new profile on prompt.
3. Copy from your original profile folder the following files/folders:
- bookmarks.html (Bookmarks)
- cookies.txt (Cookies)
- cert8.db, secmod.db, key3.db and signons.txt (Saved Passwords)
- search.rdf file and searchplugins directory (Search)
4. Go to addons.mozilla.org and re-install your extensions. You'll probably find yourself installing less that you had before.
Hopefully once you have done this you should have a profile resembling what you had, but without all the clutter. A couple of minor tweaks later on and you should be back exactly how you were.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 16 May 2006
MS Release Vista requirements.
Still unsure what to say about these, but here they are:
A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
- 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor.
- 1 GB of system memory.
- A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero.
- 128 MB of graphics memory.
- 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
- DVD-ROM Drive.
- Audio output capability.
- Internet access capability.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 19 May 2006
Is windows all that bad?
I had an experience over the weekend that got me thinking about the reputation that windows has managed to get itself for being unreliable, and not particulary powerful. The experience? Trying to fix my nieces DVD drive.
Basically the drive had stopped working, it wasn’t being recognised by the OS, but the hardware was still recognised in the BIOS and was still spinning up OK on boot. The problem? A dodgy registry key left
behind by some old third party CD software, something easy to find on Technet. Before fixing it though, I had been talking to one of the family who was trying to fixing it, and he was suggesting a full-on repair/rebuild of the machine in order to solve the problem.
Later on, this got me thinking…has Windows got itself a reputation because of the lack of education of it’s users (i.e not fully understanding the OS and how it works) or is it genuinely as bad as people make out?
My point is this, if Mac’s, or Linux or whatever was used by as many people as windows, and they had the same amount of knowledge as your typical Windows user, would they be as rated as they are? Typically,
every Mac or Linux user I know fully understands the machine and how it works, and how to get the best of it. Likewise, I fully understand my windows laptop, it’s nice and quick, and never crashes on me (nope, not even the software), but is that because of the fact that I know how to use it properly.
Now, I should point out that I am not some huge Windows advocate, it just fits my needs, I’ve used Linux and a Mac in the past, but right now, Windows is for me. But, if you were to give a Mac or Linux box to someone like my Grandad, who can crucify electronics at 50 paces, would he be able to work the machine as well as a Windows PC, and thus kill it in the same amount of time?
If you are looking for cheap web hosting online isn’t just as simple as finding someone who offers the Linux hosting you’re looking for; you can now find plenty of website hosting review sites and forums online, so you can choose the Windows hosting that truly is right for you.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 22 May 2006
Is anyone actually looking forward to it?
After all the posts I have been making over the last few days related to Windows, I realised I didn't actually care when Vista came out. From what I can tell, there's nothing in it that lights my fire, nothing that I can see being a worthwhile upgrade.
Yeah, it's got some whizzy icons, and some security tweaks, but is it really the revolution that Bill is promising.
That said, I'll still probably have an install on my machine within a month of release ;-)
Anyone else think the same?
Posted by Neil Middleton on 25 May 2006
Getting Started with Flex
If you've been keeping an eye on the Flex 2 Beta you'd have released that it actually looks like quite a tasty bit of kit but maybe have not know where to start with regards to learning it.
Well, over the last few days I have been tinkering with Beta 3, and working my way through the included “Getting Started with Flex” tutorials that appear on the start page.
If you've not done Flex development before, these are a fantastic way of picking up some of the basics, getting you into using data etc quite quickly. After working only a few lessons through I was able to start making my own data grids and getting data into them. Note that I have done some Flash development in the past so the notion of dataproviders etc isn't new, so if you've come fresh from a CF only background, you might want to look this stuff up a bit when you come across it.
In short, after learning the basics, I am now at the tinkering stage where I am trying out my own stuff, and learning by doing.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 26 May 2006
Model-Gone?
Does anyone know whats happened to Model-Glue.com? It's not looking too healthy right now.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 31 May 2006
About bloody time...
If you've ever been playing with SELECT boxes and Layers, you know about the z-index bug that exists where a SELECT insists on being the highest element. I cannot remember how many times I have had to write code to hide SELECT boxes before showing a layer over them.
Well, it appears Microsoft have finally got off their arse and fixed it in IE7. Well, what can I say, just in the nick of time eh? Just in time for all those developers now thinking about RIA's/Flash/Flex ;-)
Posted by Neil Middleton on 31 May 2006
Please update your bookmarks
I have just finished migrating the main site's RSS feeds to use FeedBurner. The sole reason being that I can gather statistics on usage, and also to maximise compatability.
So, if you are using one of the RSS feeds, please update the URL that you are reading from.
Posted by Neil Middleton on 31 May 2006
| www.flickr.com |
Archives
Posted by Neil Middleton on 01 Jan 1910
From our portfolio
Website
Application
Application
| www.flickr.com |