My thorough lack of writing on my FUN blog parallels my thorough lack of sleep. It’s tough running a company on your own, especially when it’s a teeny tiny RIA firm and you’re completely lost when keeping records in QuickBooks. So what have I been up to? For starters, I updated a bunch of stuff on MezzyShredder.com. Added tons of videos of him playing with his band Wicked Society ( signed on a B & G Music label ) and YouTube. So if you’re into Black Label Society-style music, go check out Mezzy shredding like none other!

So far this year, I’ve reconnected with some very cool clients from the past, lost some projects, won others, wrote articles on the Adobe Dev center about Flex and Ant, part II is in review right now, coming soon.

I had the chance to team up with Tour de Flex developer Holly Schinsky to get Attest 1.5 out the door. Holly’s completely awesome to work with, and we plan on teaming up on some more killer projects in the near future. There’s also a ton of things planned for new versions of Attest, and some of it will be a lot of fun. You’ll see…

Just like 2008, not one of the projects I’ve worked on so far this year were ones that I pitched for, but rather, they just keep finding me. Who needs a sales department when you’re a Flex developer? I’ve actually passed a bunch of projects off to others in the community when I can, and was thinking about creating another job site type deal purely for Flex. Everyday my inbox is filled with projects I won’t be working on, and it would be great to find a way to post them for the community, for those who are located closer, or a better match for the position in general. It seems to me that the Washington, DC – Richmond, VA area is loaded with projects for Flexers, but there are definitely larger communities out there in other states. So if you’re a Flexer around there, give me a yell. I’d like to hear from others in the area.

I often have to turn down projects and on top of that there were others I lost, like a Microsoft Silverlight project where the MS guys came inches away from going with Flex rather than Silverlight. When the big guys made the decision it had to be Silverlight, there went that project. By the way, call me when your RIA falls apart Other projects were shipped overseas, but still the fact remains that there’s always work for Flex developers – knock on wood.

Now for some reason, a Google search for the name “flatley” puts me on page two. Considering the competition with Michael Flatley, the Lord of the Dance, that’s not too shabby. So it doesn’t hurt to get your name out there. I’m coming after your title Mr. Lord of the Dance, and I’m River dancing all the way to the first results page! The point is, I’ve watched the Flex community grow from the beginning, and it’s growing fast, which is awesome! If you’re in the DC – Richmond area, I think we can eventually make this another hot spot for crazy RIA projects with a large community of developers to match. Especially the ones that pay you in government cheese, like Mr. Jones says, but Flexers will never have to worry about their kids eating all the food in the fridge

Many other awesome projects are in the works currently at PXL Designs, some I’ll keep on the down low because they’re top secret for the time being. Others are supposed to debut soon. Whenever you see the Capital One Card Lab commercials on TV, think of all the late nights and countless ramblings I had to pull to get that one out the door. I was the architect on this project, consulting through an agency, and worked with a great team, pulled countless weekends and late nights to get it finished.

I found time to add a mini shopping cart to Peekaboopaperie.com for quick orders where a customer may not want to customize their own baby announcement.

This year, I think I’m even going to have time to venture out to CF United in Leesburg, VA, so I might see you there. If you’re from the area, give me a holler if you’re going and make sure to download the Bump app for the iPhone, this is extra cool and lazy

These are a handful of the reasons I’ve been missing my blog duties, but I’m going to make a concerted effort to get back into it…even if it has to be late night ramblings

Technorati Tags: adobe, enonomy, flex, Mezzy Shredder, ria, wicked society

performs too slow to be useful on the iPhone

and that the mobile version of Flash

is not capable of being used with the Web

Steve Steve Steve. This from the same company that makes mice with one button. Now before we start a flame war where I’m accused of hating Macs, let me first say that I was a Macintosh user way before I ever used Windows. I currently use both. In fact, I was just looking to upgrade my G4 since it’s an old paper weight now. So rather than sort through the silly prices, I figured a new Mac Mini would suit my purposes just fine. While searching for one, I found heaps of them that were preloaded with…..oh man, Windows OS?! Ah yes, the old legacy of the Apple logo.

Buy an Apple machine, with the Mac OS ::cough cough UNIX cough cough:: with a nice new Intel chip, and wait……now you can get them with Windows installed? So what exactly warrants the insane prices? I’m getting a Mini because I refuse to pay a hoard of money for an Intel based, Windows OS dual boot with Unix. I can build my own box for far less

What’s wrong with you Steve? Now you’re giving Adobe some crapple because you say the iPhone, over priced ,AT&T one-widget-wonder of a miracle though it may be, won’t run the Flash Player (installed on over 98% of the world’s computers) fast enough? Why not just hand over it’s inards George Hotz, I’m sure he’ll get it up and running for you.

iPods and iTunes that you need a credit background check (practically) to play your freakin’ MP3s on? I have to say, I’m honestly not digging the whole Apple thing over the past few years. I can’t say that I’m sad I (a Flash and Flex developer) won’t be developing for the iPhone – oh crapple, NO! Won’t Bill Gates just hurry up and buy Jobs out already, don’t you owe him that much Bill?

Unless he’s got awesome evidence to prove it, and I’m leaning towards iPhone being a slow, over priced pile of crapple, than Jobs’ comments seem right up there with the folks who leave messages all over forums about how Flash is good only for annoying ads. Can you say, out of touch? I know, some of you will say ya but the iPhone allows this and that now, but to that I answer ” iPhone, iAmAnOverPricedPileOfCrapple” it’s the same crap. Sorry, but that’s about where I’m at now. I’ll still get my Mini because I MUST offer Mac support for my applications, but other than that, I think I’ll nail it to the wall pretty much just to show off the little Apple logo. I was thinking of just buying a cheap Dell Linux box, ripping out the guts and stuffing them in a shoe box with the Apple sticker on it and telling my clients that it’s a genuine “iAmNotFastEnough”.

Steve, I’m sure George would be willing to spend a weekend away from World of WarCraft and have a look at getting the Flash Player to work fast enough on your iPhone if you’d just ask him. Either that or take a look at the few 450 million Flash enabled devices that Ryan Stewart mentions, and maybe ask one of the companies who created them where they bought their hardware from.

I believe in you Steve!
P.S. Please send me an iPhone but not until you get the Flash Player working on it, otherwise just send me a Mini instead.

Technorati Tags: adobe, Apple, flash player, iphone, ipod, mac, steve jobs, Windows

This Leopard bug beats anything Vista has to offer by ZDNet‘s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes — In this blog I’ve highlighted a number of Vista related bugs, some of which are trivial, others pretty serious, but today I’ve come across a bug in Leopard that beats anything Microsoft has to offer in Vista hands down – this bug is serious because it causes widespread data loss, and it’s easy to replicate.

I’m thinking that this may not be a bug however. This could be a whole new way of combating attacks to your personal, or company data via the internet. The theory, in short, would be that if one has no data what to speak of, or their data is deleted on a regular basis should they try to create new data, how then would one be in danger of compromising their important data? Brilliant!

Well I guess that would actually cause problems for some. But it definitely would be one way of defeating a would-be hacker. Imagine if a thief spent so many hours trying to cleverly devise a plan to force an entry to your home (or in Leopard’s case, just knock down the dilapidated screen door) only to get in and find no furniture, no valuables, no television…not so much as a noodling champion of 2007 trophy. Expect more on noodling on this blog by the way, as this is my second reference to the sport, and I seem to be caught on it.

I have friends and family who recently purchased and installed OSX Leopard, and with the news of this article I’ll have to notify them that my original theory their data loss having all the earmarks of being caused by none other than the notorious Green Java Stick Insect is incorrect. It’s just some really ugly programming. By the way, with the holiday season upon us, if you were looking for some last minute gift ideas, namely some dried insects, I highly recommend BugsDirectUK.com for two reasons: 1. Prior to today, I wouldn’t know where you’d actually purchase dried insects, and 2. You could pick up your own Green Java Stick Insect (already dead and displayed in a frame – safe for your Mac) for only £38.00, I think that’s about $400 USD now, something like that. You could even mix and match your stick insects, they come in different colors apparently.

Aside from the gift ideas and new sports, I think it’s scary enough that Quicktime is exposing so many holes. A good starting point would be to patch up the data loss issue first, we could always uninstall Quicktime.

Technorati Tags: Apple, bug, data loss, Leopard, osx