Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 25, 2007 10:36 AM

The only thing I hate worse than making mistakes, is repeating a mistake. Yesterday I was working through a very frustrating set of circumstances and had gotten myself micro-focused. This is a mental equivalence of painting oneself in the corner. Bassil Karam, one of the coolest guys you will ever meet and a very talented programmer, helped me out of my mental hole. I made several problem solving mistakes and I want to share them with others.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 25, 2007 8:38 AM

This post has been changed to Four Software Development Guidelines

Here is a funny picture for your trouble:

10652 Views Print Comments (0) Stupidity, Rapid Development

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 23, 2007 9:26 AM

I received a request from American Express to take a 'short' survey about their rewards program. I respect American Express as a company and use their products happily. The survey invitation offered 10$ to complete the 'short' survey so I chose to take it.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 22, 2007 9:20 PM

Being part of the Kalendar UI Design team was a very enlightening process. One of the things I learned is that some people are truly gifted. Another thing I learned is that Designers are very particular about their choice of tool. Another thing is Designers do not often agree on which tool is the best. Upon reflection, none of this is surprising.

It has awoken a desire to be more proficient in Design tools. I have previously used Fireworks and Photoshop to modify images. I have played with filters drop shadows, layers and the like with mixed results. I have also lost my temper trying to make simple graphics. Thus, I am a confessed n00b.

Mainly, my work is for the web. Thus, I want to learn a tool that creates web based layouts quickly. If you have experience with creating and working with web ready assets, I would like your opinion. Which tool do you recommend for making web layouts? Why do you prefer that tool?

4464 Views Print Comments (0) Rapid Development

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 22, 2007 9:40 AM

This morning MXNA was down once again. Thinking the error was on the specific blog I was on, I contacted the owner. After a few more minutes, I realized it wasn't the bloggers site, but MXNA.

I am a little slow getting started this morning, so it didn't dawn on me to blame MXNA first. Jim, I am sorry for the confusion.

For a seamless aggregator experience, you should be using the more reliable ColdFusion Bloggers or All Your Flex Are Belong To Us or http://www.feed-squirrel.com/ or http://www.fullasagoog.com/ for up to the minute information.

Here is a little tip, if you want more than the latest 10 results, append a max URL parameter to the RSS feed URL.

Or

3860 Views Print Comments (0) Flex, ColdFusion

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 22, 2007 9:20 AM

American children are familiar with the phrase, "If Johnny jumped off a bridge, would you?" since parents use this retort after the child says, "But Johnny does it...". On October 20th, Shannon and I were 2 of 150,000 people that watched jumpers jump off the Western Hemisphere's longest single steel arch bridge. (Pictures below the fold)

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 17, 2007 9:10 PM

On the 23rd of October, the Raleigh Durham Adobe User Group (RDAUG) will meet for a presentation on Silverlight. ( Silverlight is an emerging technology by microsoft for Rich Internet Applications)

I do not know much about Silverlight and will be in attendance. I'll try to keep an open mind. This, of course, means no heckling.

After the presentation, there will be a meeting of the Flex Study Group. I am very excited to branch out and meet other Flex Developers in the Raleigh Durham area and am looking forward to my first RDAUG meeting .

Hope to see you there!

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 15, 2007 9:05 AM

AllYourFlexAreBelongToUs.com is a brand new aggregator of Flex information and was recently launched by Scott Stroz, a stand up guy and authority on Flex.

AllYourFlexAreBelongToUs.com is a very lovely looking site and kudos to Scott for donating his time and resources for the community at large.

Flex is in a period of immense growth and it is important to stay informed of the latest in Flex Development tips, tricks and techniques. Subscribe to the AllYourFlexAreBelongToUs.com RSS Feed today and stay ahead of the curve!

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 11, 2007 12:00 PM

For the PhotoShop cowboys out there, submit your design in the next 36 hours for a shot at a Brand-Spanking-New Retail-Price-Of-1300$ ColdFusion 8 Standard License.

More contest details are here.

5447 Views Print Comments (0) Kalendar, ColdFusion

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     October 10, 2007 5:50 PM

Dana Kowalski has started a very interesting and timely discussion on those little programs you just can't live without. Coincidentally, I learned about an interesting hot key app called AutoHotKey while talking to Gerry Gurevich and Jim Priest at TACFUG just last night. Gerry told me how a developer at Lockheed Martin used AutoHotKey to automate a very annoying internal process. On my way home, I had the feeling there are a lot of tools that would make my life easier if I only knew about them. So thanks to Dana Kowalski for starting this meme.

Here is my short list of Must Have Tools

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