Web Dev Notes

My weekend project required a Count Down Timer so, I thought I would post it,but the ability seems to be disabled on Word Press. Oh well.

Basically its the opening count down to a film. I will try to get in later. Back to work!

Arnold

Still, coding.

I have to say, I love flash. At least creating Flash that is, rather than waiting for it to load at Flash Only sites. Its the designer end of Web Dev, but its really fun. The key to getting it done fast is nailing down your Clients Requirements. Really making sure they know what they want and how long it will take.

This weekend I underestimated and had to go back and ask for more time. Looks bad I know, so next time I won’t be so overconfident. I should have taken stock of my rusty skills. However, once I got the cobwebs cleared out I was off to the races.

One last link…. Elance. Its not bad but you have to pay to bid.

Arnold

When it rains it pours, as does the freelance contracts. I had to dust of my rusty Flash Skills this weekend.

Now, this freelance stuff is a second job for me but I do take it serious. However, my wife is rather short with me this weekend. I was up till 3 am coding some flash when she came in and ordered me to sleep. Yawn, still sleepy and 2 more animations to go.

If anyone has not heard of it, go to Sitepoint for all your freeland needs.

Arnold

Who knew Microsoft could change so much, and Novell could find another platform to stand on. I work in office that still uses NetWare, and I must admit its probably that last in North America.

However I also use Novells opensource version of linux, SUSE. This deal blew me away, check it out.

By the way, if anyone is into Podcasts check out Leo Laports twit network and listen to Floss weekly. I have been getting caught up and luckily Chris and Leo are little slow out of the gates.

Arnold

Well, here I am, making money for the first time doing web development. I must say it took alot of planning to get the job. I wrote a 4 page proposal, 1 page diagram of the DB, and 1 page Project Management PERT chart. The end result, was a winning bid that was not the lowest bid. The reason I was told was the professional approach I took to writing the proposal. This impressed the customer so much that he went with the contract over a lower bid.

The lesson I learned after several failed bids is as follows:
1. Polish your proposal.
2. Put your project management skills to good use.
3. Be specific with your skill set and how would deliver the web site.

Thats this time though, next job I could get tossed out on my butt.

LOL

Arnold

I recently was creating a Flash ad and had the need for a fly buzzing about your head. I told my client, thats really going to annoy people, and drive them away, are you sure?

He said yes, so when you find a flash add with a fly buzzing about, I am sorry. Although I did get paid. I ran “Sound effects” for web sites and came across a host of sites. The trouble was, all the great sounds were difficult to obtain rights too. I could have just taken it, but I don’t dig that practice at all. So, I went back to some audio programming from yesteryear. Back in 1991 I bought a book called Programming the Sound Blaster, or something like it. I can’t recall. Anyway, it was pretty comprehensive for the card. So, I booted up my old 486 loaded the lesson a created the most annoying fly buzzing sound I could.

Now I feel like a geek.

Arnold

I was sitting on the throne about an hour ago and was reading my first HTML book. I came across the section on Web Safe colors, and thought what a crock of…..oh wait I am sitting on one.

So, getting back to color. I think I will call this the color hoax. I cannot see, who in the world is still designing with only 216 colors. This makes no sense at all. With gradients, rich colors and integrated graphics cards cable of supporting millions of colors, I think this is really pointless. Although in every image editing software package I have used, I find the palette of web safe colors.I am not sure I see the point aside from paying homage to days gone by.

I am sure these colors were picked by non-designers. No designer would have picked them, as they are not only limited, but lacking. Oh, well nothing to sweat really.

So what does the rest of the world think? I did a quick poll over my buddy list on MSN, and no one seemed to care.

Arnold

I was working through the second part of the Lynda.com lessons today, and got a little sidetracked. Actionscript 3 is synonamous with Flash Player 9, and Flex 2. I decided to take a step back and learn Action Script 3 before moving forward. It was just taking to long to make notes about what I actually want to do and at the same time learn Flex2.

Basically I am coding a dynamic site similar to the Mobile Phone demo found in Flex2. Its my first Flex 2 App so I am taking baby steps. However I am trying to do to many things at once, and not getting any of them done. Therefore, back to learning how to walk, and therefore learning actionscript3.

If anyone is reading this before they get into Flex 2, here is what I suggest.
1. Learn Flash Professional 8
2. Learn Actionscript3
3. Learn Flex2.

Of course, this all if you have not shunned Flash like most developers have. I have not, but then again, I am new to this.

Doh!
Arnold

This upgade should actually be considered a security patch.

The march of users to Firefox should have been wake up call to fix the security problems associated with IE. IE7 does look great, but all its achieved is parity with Firefox 1.5, although with improved CSS support. On the heels of its release is a much better Firefox version 2. The spell check feature is a blessing. I love it. Although like everyone else I was using the Google Search field as the unofficial spell checker. On my development laptop I cannot install IE7 as a Web App I am forced to use is not compatible. However I can run it virtually in VMWare for testing.

Actually didn’t want to buy VMWare Workstation, so I use the free VM Player, its much better than MS Virtual PC. I created my XP OS in Virtual PC, then opened it in VM Player because the VPC OS Image in compatible. I have to say that VM Player does an much better job than Virtual PC. So give this a try. After jumping through this hoop I installed IE7 and not have a platform to test on for Web Development. After all that, I went to Microsofts website to find the link to add to this article, and do not seem able to find the free version of Virtual PC, sorry. It did find a newer product for Virtual PC for Mac, but with Bootcamp or Parallels, I am not sure I would buy this if I were a Mac user.

Thanks

Arnold

There is no end in sight for this topic really, as far as I can see. There will always be the next big thing. Ruby on Rails, Ajax, Flex2, and who knows what next.

I don’t find this a bad thing at all, what makes this field so exiting is how fast it changes. Think, that around the year 2001 the internet bubble burst and things looked gray. Now, with the philosophy of Web 2.0 in the world of the Internet things change up again. I am encouraged by the need to keep learning new technology, languages, frameworks, and approaches to web design and development.

So, how do I keep up? Books, and www.lynda.com keep me moving forward. I know enough about computer science so that I can take on new languages, but the libraries take most of time in my learning curve. Although my subscription to lynda.com does not cover all the things I want to learn it does a pretty good job. I recently burned through the Essentials of Flex2, and am going to work on the Beyond the Basics tutorials. I plan to write a web for a Canadian Aboriginal Website. I think this will pretty good.

Book I liked:
- Don’t make me think, Steve Krug
- Bullet Proof web design, Dan Cederholm
- The Zen of CSS Design, both the book and the website

Check them out, you wont be disappointed. I am also reading Agile Web Development with Rails, but am not finished. Its taken a while to get my head wrapped around conventions but it makes great sense. More on this tomorrow.

Thanks for reading

Arnold