Web Dev Notes

I often wonder if its worth the time and effort to obtain certificates to demonstrate your proficiency with certain web development applications. My experience is that your portfolio should speak for itself, however there are jobs I have not bid on because I felt my resume could not compete with other bidders. MySQL certification is an obvious example, but what about the less technical applications.

Design applications like Flash and Photoshop are examples but these two applications are so prolific that no obvious answer surfaces. I talked to a friend with a Contribute Certification and he advised that getting this cert was not relevant to his employers. So, whats worth the time and effort? I am a little new to this to speak from Experience so I thought that I would throw this out to the public, any idea?

Thanks in advance

Arnold

I went to Adobe’s Acrobat 8 demonstration in Ottawa, yesterday and it was pretty cool.

I was a little surprized at the turnout more than anything. Adobe rented a large conference hall at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, Ontario and filled it to capacity. They had to putout extra chairs for the later comers. Now, I didn’t win a door prize but did take advantage of the free breakfast, and coffee.

THe product looked pretty cool though. I have used Acrobat since version 6, for all sorts of reasons. They briefly demonstrated Acrobat 3D, and it was way cool. It was an embedded CAD image of a landing wheel from an airplane. Within the PDF you could manipulate the image by moving it around in 3D 360 degrees. Not only that, it retained its CAD ability to removes graphic items revealing the nuts and bolts hidden by the rubber wheel.

Way back when I used Acrobat for Form creation, redaction, and document packaging. They sure improved these areas. I used to compile huge documents into a single PDF, now all you have to do is Package it and it will make the best use of your memory, rather than loading the whole PDF in your RAM.

Anyway, I also went to the Government Technology Exposition Conference(GTEC) this week. No free breakfast, but there were some pretty cool exhibits. VMWare and Google had nice booths, but uninspired salesman. The best booth was the Department of National Defence, they had a Mercedes G wagon decked out as a mobile technology platform.

Anyway, ciao

Arnold

I admit, I am fairly new to the Web Design World. So far I have done only small jobs to augment my income.

However I have learned a few things, that I would like to briefly share. Adobe is launching a lot of new products right now, and is in Beta on a few more. I have been wondering what they have planned for Fireworks since they bought Macromedia. I use Fireworks for quick graphic editing, and Photoshop for the heavy lifting.

I could use Photoshop and Illustrator primarily, however I learned most of the web optimization with Fireworks so I am still using it. I suppose if I did not get the Education Package while still school I might not have bought it at all. However its grown on me so much I was worried they would drop it as a product. So, while surfing through their site for Flex2 tips I found a link to the Fireworks Beta Program. I filled out the forms, and hope to be selected, more because I would like to learn from their product development cycles. I will keep my fingers crossed. However if I am picked, I doubt I could blog about their beta product. I had to agree to quite a bit, so if selected this would likely be the last I write about the program.

Moving on. I got a Google Maps key for a website today and am foraging ahead with some experimentation. There are loads of sites to get you going with Google Maps API. The Google Maps forum is filled with ideas. I love this API and how open they are in making it available. Web Services are really cool. Get your Data out there, seems to be the theme.

Lastly, if you are new to web design and need to find your focus I recommend the Practical Web Design magazine, and their podcast with Paul Boag. Also check out his site and personal blog at Boagworld, its really great for us new to the industry.

Anywho, check back tomorrow, I will let you know how I made out with the Google Maps API. It looks really fun.

I finally got around to Flex 2 this weekend, ahem, right now. I am taking a break to give some attention to my blog.

I have to say, I like the Flex Builder. I have tried all sorts of IDE’S this one seems as good as any other. I particularly liked the built in Help. When ever I am trying a new type of programming having instant access to all the classess or libraries is a big bonus.

Flex2 is certainly Mature Flash. I have a blog built for my buddy up and semi running over night. Nothing fancy yet but appears nice. I will post a link when he gives the thumbs up.

I also gave MS expression another shot this weekend, and in all fairness I am to used to Dreamweaver to switch over. That being said, if they dropped another version on me, I would switch rather switch rather than upgrade. Although, likely not to Expressions.

I am not sure if anyone read my article on MS Groove though. I have been using it for small projects with some friends and like it very much. Although, when I have a small file to send or pick up, I am using Hamachi. Anyone ever used this? I heard about it from Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte. I love it, its so cool.

Anyway, hope the work week treats everyone well, signing off.

Arnold

Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails (RoR) is a framework for web development that is powering the Web 2.0 industry. Ruby is the language that RoR is based on and Rails is the framework developed by David Heinemeier Hansson. Features such as a login, blog, and pay pal features are common to many websites the idea behind Ruby on Rails is to enable the website developer to quickly add tools to allow the developer to concentrate and improving the usability and design rather than coding.

David Heinemeier Hansson was contracted by 37 Signals to code a Project Collaboration site for their company. At the time 37 Signals was a web site design company whose partners lived in different parts of the USA. In order to work together and increase their communication they envisioned a simple, useful site what would allow them to tracks tasks, post to do lists, and leave messages for each other. David Heinemeier Hansson was tired of Java and PHP as they no longer seemed “fun�? to program with.

Given a long deadline he decided to try out Ruby for the 37 Signals project website. After learning Ruby and working on the project he noticed that he had built many of the tools that are common in many websites: Discussion boards, blogs, comments, and login interfaces; to name a few. The Rails portion of the framework developed organically from this work and was released to the open source community in 2004. From this collaboration the framework has matured quickly by users posting and sharing their Rails Recipe’s with the open source community.

Rails is a Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework similar to Java Frameworks like Tapestry. Ruby is an object oriented programming language that’s style is similar to Lisp. Rails also includes integrated web services support, reception of incoming emails, AJAX, a full unit testing framework, and isolated development environment.

Rails lends itself two important principles: don’t repeat yourself and convention over configuration. Automated code generators allow the programmer to quickly begin developing an application rather than having to set up all the MVC files and folders. Using the Rails framework the programmer can work closer with a client by making changes to the web application and then refreshing the page.

Ruby on Rails has been used to develop many Web 2.0 applications. The project collaboration website at www.37signals.com was the first. The social networking wine review site at www.corkd.com is another. www.odeo.com also used Ruby on Rails to power is creative way to share audio files and pod casts. The Web 2.0 idea is to come up with an idea, throw it up on the web and if it works the money will follow. Rather than start with venture capital or seed money, you keep control over your idea and develop it organically according to user feedback. Ruby on Rails is the natural framework to develop such web 2.0 applications.

How easy? I visited the rubyonrails.com site and downloaded the required files. First, though I created a Windows XP Virtual Machine with VM ware for a clean installation. After adding Apache and MySQL I installed the Ruby files, followed by Rub Gems. Finally using Ruby Gems I installed the Rails Framework. I wanted to use the RadRails application for developing Rail web apps, so I installed that as well.

All that and you are good to go; sound too complicated? Your right, it is, instead just install the InstantRails.exe file found at www.rubyonrails.com and you can start immediately using a self contained RoR environment, complete with Apache and MySQL.

After following their on-line tutorial I had a relational MySql database running my first Rails web application. The tutorial teaches some basic command to get an online cookbook running on any browser. The tutorial took me about 2 hours to complete including configuring the Instant Rails installation. All in all I was pleased with the speed of learning to use the framework with Instant Rails, and impressed by the ability of the framework to put together a small application in such a short time.

References:
1. David Heinemeier Hansson Blog, http://www.loudthinking.com/
2. Inside the Net, Episode 30, http://www.twit.tv/ITN
3. RoR tutorial, http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/tutorial/index.html
4. Download Ruby, http://rubyonrails.com/
5. Agile Web Development with Rails, 2005, the Pragmatic Programmers bookshelf ltd. PDF version.
6. Agile Manifesto, http://agilemanifesto.org/
7. RadRails Windows IDE for Rails, http://www.radrails.org/

Groove Networks is a Beverly, Massachusetts based company that produces the Groove Virtual Office software, otherwise known as Groove. The company was founded by Ray Ozzie, best known for creating Lotus Notes. Ray Ozzie, Ken Moore, and Eric Patey founded the company in 1997 and it was acquired by Microsoft in April of 2005. Groove could best be described as a synchronous chat and file sharing tool, however it can also be asynchronous when used offline.

Ray Ozzie has pursued collaboration technology before with Lotus Notes. However, according to Mr. Ozzie the centralized network where collaboration was controlled by closed email became obsolete. Even today’s technology on the decentralized internet is still tightly controlled and lacks powerful collaboration tools. Therefore there existed a need to move from a controlled environment to one of empowering collaborators; while ensuring a level of security for systems administrators.

The Groove client allows users to share files, calendars, meeting notes, images, and collaborate on line. Through a de-centralized network small or large teams can work together behind a firewall, and remain in separate geographic locations. The file sharing utility will automatically synchronize files in the teams’ file folder ensuring that each team member is working on an up to date file. Once a user adds a file to the folder Groove updates each of the other client folders until they are all equal. In addition the users can collaborate online using the tools built into the client. If a user is offline the files and messages are updated as soon Groove has access to the internet.Projects can be managed by creating a Workspace, and inviting members in. Members are authenticated using the digital signature found in the preferences section of the application. Once a Workspace is created the file sharing, meeting, calendar, photo, forms, and notepad tools can be added. Users can also choose to simply share an existing folder in their file system with out the other collaboration tools.

In order to facilitate efficient synchronization Groove uses a “binary differential process.�? This means that only what is changed in a file is updated to the other users. However if the algorithm determines that it is longer to calculate the differences than to re-send the entire file, it will resend the file. The synchronization process is encrypted, however once the file is complete it is stored un-encrypted in the users file system.

Groove offers a flexible method for securing file transactions and communication between different users. The default secret key algorithm is AES, and the default public key for signatures is RSA. The default key size for secret keys is 192 bits, while the public/private keys are 2048 bit. The application will also allow for the use of smart cards for authentication and encryption provided your system administrator allows the use.

Folder synchronization has limitations with the Groove Client. No more than 25 people can subscribe efficiently to the same workspace. Files greater than 2 gigabytes will not be shared. As the file must be distributed to each of the workspace members; large files distributed to multiple members can degrade sharing efficiency. The only other technological limitation is that the application is only available to those using the Windows Operation Systems: XP, 2000, and NT (service pack 5). It will also be available to Windows Vista users once out of beta.

Groove can be used by web design and web programming teams to collaborate on multiple projects. It was also provided free of charge to rescue teams during the disaster in New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Sales teams could also complete Microsoft InfoPath forms directly on Groove and transmit an XML file back to their manager to support customer purchases. Thus making collaboration limited only to the project teams imagination.

The Groove beta application is currently free of charge and can be downloaded from microsoft.com. The application will not be for sale until MS releases the product after the beta period. However Groove.net used to have three flavours:

1. File Sharing

2. Profession Edition, and

3. Professional Edition for Projects.

The beta version appears to the Professional edition, the Project version will likely be discontinued as Groove will integrate into MS Project. Microsoft will distribute the Groove Virtual Office application packaged with Office 2007 sometime next year.

References:

1. microsoft.com
2. MSN Spaces, Ray Ozzie Blog, http://spaces.msn.com/editorial/rayozzie/pub/pages/who.html
3. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Ozzie
4. Groove Website, http://groove.net
5. Interview with Ray Ozzie, http://www.gartner.com/research/fellows/asset_115813_1176.jsp

I am no Microsoft Shill by any means, but I am glad to see MS Frontpage to go the way of the Dodo bird.

I was planning on giving Flex 2 a shot this weekend, but decided to finally try out MS Expressions instead. Its been available since early September as a free trial. By the way, the ability to try out all the MS Beta products has been very cool. I think anyone in Web Development should use MS Groove or anything else like it to keep coordinated with your team.

Back to Expressions. The download was easy, and no registration was required. Although you need to have .Net Framework 2.0 installed. The installation went without a blue screen, so this was a blessing. MS has really stuck to their Vista theme with big round web 2.0 buttons. Also I tried uninstalling it after wards and that went off without a hitch. To get used to the program I used one of the built in templates and immediately ran it against the w3c validation tool and it passed, CSS2 included. Although the page was fairly basic without any flash objects or other multimedia added.

I went to work designing a blog for a friend of mine and used the 3 column CSS page template. The template opened up two new files each in their own tab view, one XHTML and 1 CSS page. My first annoyance came when I found that I could not re-arrange the tabs by a simple drag and drop. I hope they fix this before going to production as I am always re-arranging tabs in Dreamweaver.

Next I tried to preview the pages the template created for me. Instinctively I his the F12 key and expected to see my default browser display, instead IE 6 appeared. No big deal I though, I should be able to change that! No dice, F12 defaults to IE 6, and nothing else. Another Annoyance. Next I navigated to the ‘Insert’ menu item to add a Flash Object I created earlier in the day. This was as I expected, nothing. Although I have kept in mind two things, Adobe is a competitor to this product, and any designer worth their weight should not need an auto insert function to add a Flash video tutorial. Still, this product narrows itself quickly by not having this simple feature.

So, those are the minor annoyances, but what was good about this beta? Well, the coding page was put together fairly well. There is an equivalent Design/Split/Code view built in the same as Dreamweaver. After purposefully making several syntax errors I went back to see the suggested changes. I saw the default red-underlined text similar to MS Word. When i floated my mouse arrow over I viewed an error message explaining my mistake. This I liked, rather than running a validation check, it found the error immediately and gave me an idea on how to fix it. Very cool. I also liked the panel navigation. 2 panels on both the left and right side of the screen. With the preview panel in the middle. This view warrants a wider screen to use effectively, but I didn’t mind it at all. I wonder how well Expressions would support a Dual Screen setup, need to check that?

Anyway, I have more work to do on my buddies blog, I check back later.

Arnold

Where do you stop!

HTML, XHTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, Ruby on Rails, and now Flex 2. Way I figure you never stop. If I have to learn Flex, then you have to too. kidding!

Really though, what’s it going to do for me. Billable hours? I don’t think so, but how do you break into this field without felling like you have to learn everything. To be honest I think the right answer is to ignore all the new sexy stuff and get good at the basics first. CSS is where its at for the newbie.

All the same, I heard that Flex 2 is Flash for adults, not the xxx adult, but mature Flash. I am going to give this a test drive this weekend. I have this form to create for an online course and was thinking Rails, but will give Flex a shot. I listened to a great podcast about Flex by Paul Boag and what’s his name this morning. They had some guy on who talked about accessibility and Flash and he made a lot of sense. Design for accessibility; do not just make it a check mark. I liked that, the social networking of today’s web requires we provide to every possible reader, because it maybe that person to pushes your content on his two friends, and so on….and so on…..

I am addicted to Macromedia ahem, Adobe though. At least my credit card is. I no longer get the student discount. So what is your favorite Macromedia product? Mine is Captivate 2 I banged off an online course this week to keep some bosses happy, and it went off great. I think there is big money in online training these days, that’s why I need to learn Flex. Damn.

I’ll let ya all know on Monday.