A dated, but good presentation about RIA using Macromedia products. I still think Macromedia Flash is the best avenue to build real RIA business applications today. However, I see clearly the problem with choosing this technology. In many organizations, the engineering group dictates the technology used on the client-side. It takes alot of management risk…
Originally in this article, a guy was outraged that a Wikipedia entry had his biography linking him to the Kennedy Assassination. Then later, in this article, this guy admits he did it as a joke. He said he didn’t know Wikipedia was used as a serious reference tool. This is hilarious to me. I have…
Konfabulator has been relaunched as Yahoo Widgets. Very interesting technology. Easy to create, small and useful. I wonder if Yahoo can make it catch on. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google comes out with something similar. And Microsoft is already experimenting with “Gadgets”, but who knows what will catch on. I suggest to Adobe/Macromedia to…
Grouper 2.0 beta was just released. I actually interviewed there over a year ago. They seem to be developing well. The newest version emphasizes personal video sharing. Video is an interesting area in that despite being pretty cool, it hasn’t caught on the way I thought it would. Just look at video telephony. Despite the…
I installed Microsoft Streets and Strips 2006. Every complaint I had about 2005 has been fixed. They introduced voice directions, keyboard shortcuts, dynamic zooming, aliased lines, and much more. Bravo Microsoft. Good software. Someone asked me why I blog. He thought it showed some level of egotism. Although I certainly have a strong ego, I…
Donald Norman wrote a few lines in his book, Emotional Design, about Instant Messenger. He proposed that the main function of IM is to provide emotional connection between people and not to communicate specific information. Most of the IM traffic around the world can be summed up with the following exchange: Person A: Hey. Person…
My wife’s sense of humor: Glen: “There were two peanuts walking down the street. One was assaulted.” Katie: “My goodness. I hope everyone was ok.” Beta News: Yahoo Maps has launched a Google Maps knock off with their Yahoo Maps. The interface is strikingly similar, except they are using Flash rather than Ajax. I think…
Firefox market penetration has been growing lately. Estimates have been in the range of 8-14% of worldwide traffic. Developing RIA (Rich Internet Applications) has been getting easier in the past few years, but the growth of Firefox adds a new wrinkle. As I see it, there are are a few options for RIA. 1. Flash.…
First of all, it was extremely difficult to install. I finally found this page which helped me figure it out. The drivers for the phone were incorrect. The correct ones were in a zip called p2k.zip. The Motorola website was horrible. It refused to give any help. This site was more helpful. The UI for…
Using the latest build. All of the sudden, blam! BSOD! The machine reboots and gives it again. I can’t log in at all. Safe mode works, so I tried different video drivers, no love. I tried this and that and still no love. It is starting to wear on my patience. Next, I am going…
I spent the last two days trying to get my video drivers working for Windows Vista. I have a nVidia Quadro FX 540. I found 6 different versions of drivers. Only one worked. It was the one that came with the “additional drivers” on the windows install ISO ( LDDM = Longhorn Display Driver Model).…
I installed Beta 2 (build 5231, 32-bit) this morning. It wasn’t finished by the time I left for work. So far, I am unenthusiastic about the new UI. I am using a 2.8 ghtz Pentium D, with 4G of ram, and everything runs slow. The worst part of the UI is the Windows Explorer. It…
The new Apple iPod has video. This reminds me of a conversation I had in 1997 with the EVP of Sales for Columbia Tri-Star Television Distribution. He asked me how the internet would affect television. I told him, “Watch the music industry. They are going to deal with Music on the net over the next…
Firewalls: Cisco Pix 501 I bought this device because so many people said how great it is. I have to say, I HATE this thing. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is horrible. It doesn’t work right at all. The command line is cryptic. It seems that either you know Cisco’s arcane command line language or…