Have you done your little bit today?

Got this email from a trusted friend. Hope I remember to do this everyday.

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* I* 6 *Y
Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).

This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.



http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

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UPDATE **IE MAC and the inability to rely on others.

Okay, the server came back up, but didn't fix the problem I was having with the changed folder locations. Ouch!!! I did what I should of done and just updated everything to work off that CMS at the back folder.

IE MAC and the inability to rely on others.

So it's 9 pm on a Thursday evening and I know my wife is wondering where the hell I am. "Where are you?", is the first thing going to be said when she finally runs out of patience and calls. (side note, I'm not good at calling first especially when I'm pissed at the world.) **** She just called. OMG right? ****

Why am I at the office you may ask? Am I a workaholic? Well that's another post, but no. Basically it boils down to 1 thing. The inability to count on others when you need them to come through. I was launching a site today, everything was going well, proofing was done, approval was reached and the site actually launched. But because of moving the site files one directory up my CMS encountered some horrific PHP errors in my file upload script that was working one folder back.

I go through all the usual testing procedures, permissions, paths, variables and naming conventions, but yet nothing. So what do I do? I call the server admins, and the nice people that they are, go through my same testing steps. Nothing. Not a big surprise, right? So they move to their next steps, recompile. "Oh, that sounds a little serious, how long should it take"? "No more then an hour.", well then I say let's try it.

So here it is going on 4 hours later and still nothing, but not only nothing but the site is completely down. "Hell yeah!!! Let's honky-tonk like it's Saturday night in the Ozarks!!!"

While all this is going on and I can't touch the server, what do I decide to do? Well, continue learning Cocoa programming. That's a good calming thing to do while you can't do anything else and it's past work hours so you don't want to do anything billable. Well, that lasted an hour before I was at my ends with it, but good news is, I finally started getting some of it.

I've pretty much understand how to define outlets, actions, variables, strings and update an interface based on buttons pushed. The basics. Finally.

At this point in my book, let me give props to MAC for there sweet applications for development. Interface builder is probably one of the easiest layout programs I've ever used. And XCode, well, while it needs it work, it actually is very impressive. With all that's integrated in it, you could fill up 3 monitors with the tools used for testing, building, debugging apps and the integrated document window. Use beginners need that. One day I'll post on how shitty their documentation is.

Now that I've given up on trying to learn how to detect a CD burner using the DRDevice.h class and functions in Cocoa, I turn to something I know headway can be made at. Fixing an AJAX interface in IE MAC. "Say what?!?!" That's right. A webpage that not only requires MAC IE to fully understand the CSS, which is close to impossible in it's self, but to have a full set of functions that modify that CSS.

Now at this point if you have any experience with web development you are asking the question "why the hell you would do such a thing?". Believe me, I'm asking the same question. But there is only one answer when a question like that is asked. "The client made me do it." Damn those clients and their ridiculous requests.

It turns out that this client's audience base is the biggest MAC base on any website I've ever seen and 90% of them are using MAC IE!!!! The issue is there is this software that their clients us that hit it's peak on OS9 and they refuse to upgrade or it's not made for OSX, which i don't believe.

Is that not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? So these people are almost 6 years behind in technology. That's got to be the equivalent of living in Antarctica or something.

Well, I going through my coding problem solving process, which I have to say I think I have one of the best there is, or at least in the people I know/met. The function hides and shows a floated right subnav div that gets dynamically updated depending on the main nav you click.

Nothing to complicated but for some reason that sub nav would jump out of place and fill across the screen in MAC IE. Strange. So I go through my steps and find out, oh, MAC IE doesn't support innerHTML style attributes, which is used all across my interface. Thus starts the rebuilding process.

I decide to, because there weren't that menu sub menus, to load them during the page load and set their divs to 1 px, then wrap them in one div that will never change. Totally fixed the problem, but now look like shit in IE 7. Of course.

At this point I've decided that 1) we don't officially support IE 7 cause it's in beta; 2) we shouldn't have to support MAC IE; and 3) I hate anything Microsoft. ANYTHING!!!!!!!

My conclusion lead to a nice polite email telling the client 3 options. 1 & 2 you know and 3 being we stop using modern technologies that will trip out either MAC IE or IE 7. We'll see where it goes.

So 4.5 hours in and still nothing. I guess I'll go back to creating icons for my app and if I'm brave enough try to tackling this Cocoa CD burner detection.

A tail of a monkey process.

So, working as a creative services provider, mostly internet services, for all of my career, I've worked on a number of projects and when you work on a number of projects you learn some patterns, stereotypes, and the true process of a project that does not have an involved, knowledgeable manager.

This process doesn't only happen in creative/internet projects, but all projects. It's the most frustrating thing for people who focus on an efficient usable products.

And that process? Here you go.

http://www.nerdmeyr.com/images/blog/03_10_2006_1.jpg

Burning up in heat wave country.

So, the US is having a record season for heat, but I don't fear for my President tells me global warming doesn't exists. Still I can't help thinking as I drive along the high way that is covered by 60% of SUVs that maybe there is a connection. Got to love Tennessee. We want our beautiful land but don't touch our SUVs.

So maybe if our current administration were to at least admit that an alternative fuel would be good for America by making us energy independent, it would be a step in the right direction and I could bear to see all these people driving around in their oversized vehicles. I mean the other night I was in a parking lot and there were 20 SUVs, 5 Cars, and 10 Vans, on one level alone.

So spending government money on alternative fuels might make us all feel better as opposed to the billions on a pointless war in the middle east.

http://popsci.typepad.com/popsci/2006/07/can_the_sun_kee.html

Intro to Application Development. What the hell am I doing here?

Recently I've been introduced to a person that knows high-level application programming and who is willing to share his knowledge with me, to help me learn the basics of application development. Chris Elkins rocks! Anyway, I had the pleasure to talk through a few ideas I had for applications and one stood out to get both of use excited and to work. One I had already thought through, written a scope document for, and even designed how the interface should look. More details on that as it comes.

So my main responsibility is the user interface. First of all, I barely know anything about developing an application let alone, developing an interface for an application. I know how to layout interfaces in Photoshop, Illustrator, or any other graphics program you choose, develop CSS/HTML interfaces, and Flash interfaces, just never had to do an application interface. Well, this has never stopped me before and what better way to learn something then to do it? So I've begun the interface.

It's a simple application concept with only 3 windows of interaction needed. I was able to setup these 3 windows based off the graphics already created in a matter of 2 days using Interface Builder.

*Oh, side note. We are developing an OSX application using Cocoa through xCode and Interface Building.

I then hooked up most the connections and made numerous revisions to the interface for better usability. Usability is an ongoing process through a life of any project. Once you accept that you're life with use "Usability-heads" will be so much easier.

Thinking my part was done, I have now been assigned the task of getting the "Burn a Disc" functionality working. God help us all. So I've started research on that. Looks exciting and as I watch the other parts of the application functionality come together I'm sure I'll have this taken care of. Until that point we found a couple more flaws in the interface and I've seemed to preoccupy my time with developing the application icon. It's sweet. Here it is below.

Say again, you lost me. Usability 1

In my line of work, and because of my nature and ability to use both my right and left brain pretty evenly, I have to understand the relationship of technology and usability; creativity and usability; and technology and creativity. I love usability and creating functionality, for which the heart is usability. If you want something to function it needs to be usable. If it's not usable, then it will never function.

I try to study usability successes and failures in my everyday life, so you can guess I'm a Mac guy. Still it goes beyond that. I try to see where even Mac fails. I love coming up with concepts to make usability simpler. All this I feel roots for a love of problem solving, for creating something that is usable is solving the problem of how should this product be used.

With all that said, a friend, xoxo Laurie, has passed a site my way that is all about the failed usability of everyday items. Enjoy.

http://www.thisisbroken.com/

All I want for xmas...

All I want for Xmas is a toilet paper holder that docks my iPod with full controls and speakers! Say what?!? Yeah, I said it. For when I'm paying homage to the porcelain gods I can create an atmosphere of true worship.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2006/tc20060718_915334.htm?campaign_id=bier_tclt2

Ride the Serpent

Well, this weekend I got to do a number of my favorite things all at once. I traveled to a place I wasn't familiar with, met great intelligent new people, expanded my knowledge from museums and aquariums, and talked "geek". Atlanta was everything I expected it to be, but with nicer architecture. It was shady, big, traffic, had good restaurants, interesting subcultures and an expansive foot print. The people I met were interesting, educated and dynamic, yet none seemed to be looking at Atlanta as a permanent place of residence.

So, I made this trip with someone I really barely knew to a place I vaguely imagined to meet people I've only heard of. My favorite way to do things. I think traveling helps to expand the mind and experience cultures, but traveling blindly creates an atmosphere of freedom and heightens your senses. It allows one to relax, not plan for much more then food and enjoy all as you "Ride the Serpent" of experience. Once you let go and expect to expect nothing everything seems to be possible, connections are made, and you expand your conscience, further developing you as a person.

In contrast to that, if you put yourself in that situation and try to control every aspect you only alienate the people you meet, miss the knowledge that is presented you and stay on edge cause you know you can't control any of it. And this seemed to be the case with one individual in the group. It did make for an interesting show and it's always fun to try to break people down to their core, see what makes them tick and predict how they will act in a given situation.

Some Sites:

Bodies
http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/

Whale Sharks are amazing!
http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/

Their rip-off of Nemo.
http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/exploreTheAquarium/4DTheater.aspx

Some good Burgers and beer for brunch.
http://www.thevortexbarandgrill.com/TheVortex/index.htm

Buildings close to where we stayed one night.
http://p.vtourist.com/1820558-Midtown_Atlanta_at_Night-Atlanta.jpg

Dinner Friday Night
http://www.taqueriadelsol.com/

Maturing Scalable Flash Notices Some Hair

Flash, since its inception, has been the most fascinating area of the internet. With it's ease of use that calls to newbies and it's layers of development abilities to keep professionals continually learning and excited, Flash is one of the most exciting technologies for the web. Well, at least I think so.

One of the latest things I've seen come to age in Flash is the ability to develop a scalable website without that annoying disproportion that you use to get. So what is this scalability you might ask. Here are a couple examples.

http://www.anteprima.com/
Notice how the navigation moves, without scaling yet the background resizes, in proportion to match the size of the browser window. Beautiful.

http://www.madonna.com/
This is an example with less flare but shows the usefulness of resizing the image to keep the dramatic affect.

There are of course better more sophisticated examples out there, but then I would have to go through my list of hundreds of bookmarks to find them. But these two get my point across.

I and a coworker have been talking about harnessing this bit of knowledge for a while and recently have succeeded with some testing. I have to say getting this to work has been one of the most exciting things I've learned about Flash in the past few month and the possibilities of how to use this is endless.

First example of use is how I've applied it to our custom FLV/MP3 player developed in Flash using the MovieDisplay component and all custom controls to allow playing of both FLV and MP3s. The player has always been dynamic since it was first built, so you can easily place it into a page, pass 3 variables to it via the embedded object and play any FLV or MP3. It allows for quick duplication and a setup time of 2 minutes. If you were to re-skin it you would probably be looking at 15-30 minutes. Beats the hell out of spending hours every time you need a new player or the annoyance of having a FLA for each video you want to play.

Now with the scalability put into place, we no longer have a need for doing different sizes in the video player. ONE SIZE FITS ALL! So basically, if you set the player to be 320x260, extra 20 px for height due to controls needs, it resizes to that exact size. Still, if you need a 640x480 player all you have to do is size the embedded object to that size. Full screen? The player can do that as well.

We've already been using this player mixed with AJAX interfaces because of it's acceptance of html variables, and now with this feature, we will have more options with AJAX interfaces. Not to mention the websites we are going to begin to develop with the scalable feature.

At some point I should do a tutorial for this cause when searching the net, there were not many out there and it was surprisingly easy to do.

Social Networking and Your Future

I know not everyone reads Slashdot.org for their news, and that's probably for the better. Its a geeked-out-over-your-head type of news site and would send most people into a comatose state if they were forced to review it for more then 5 minutes. But once-in-awhile there are those posts I think everyone should read to get a better understanding of the technological scary times we are living it.

Here is a post that should be an eye opener for most people which Slashdot.org posted a few days ago.

http://www.lsus.edu/career/announcements_details.asp?ID=43

Genious or Mad Man

You can spend hours thinking about what your first post should be about, or you can throw something down and call it done. I find serenity in the silence of a lazy man, so here are some one line thoughts.


Why are there so many people complaining that Nashville has no culture but yet refuse to get season tickets to the Frist Museum?

Why is Nashville known as the music city when all the albums I buy come from LA, NY, Canada or Europe?

When are the downtown infrastructure businesses coming in to support all these damn condos. I'm tired of not being able to get my prescription filled while looking for the holy grail.

Who really cares what Reese Witherspoon looks like in a bathing suit?

Finally

Why do I find myself craving for Fast Food at 2 in the morning when I could be eating a delicious Hostess cherry pie from the gas station?