Archive for Personal
December 26, 2006 at 5:43 am · Filed under Personal, XPLANE
Some of you may already know, but in early October I switched jobs and started working full-time with XPLANE as their Senior Flash Developer. While XPLANE has been in existence for over thirteen years, the interactive arm of the company is fairly new. Because of this, the Portland office still has that start-up, new company atmosphere and feeling. In fact, besides the amazing potential, it was probably the major reason I decided to join the team.
So why hadn't I posted about switching companies earlier? Well, the corporate website was very dated and didn't clearly state what we do. Funny considering we are all about clarity in communications, right? :) But as of Christmas eve, a new website (in Flash!) has gone live at http://www.xplane.com.
The best feature (from a Flash developer's perspective) is the usage of SWFAddress. I had posted about SWFAddress's ability to allow deep-linking and bookmarking of Flash sites a few months back, and this was the first project to use it. I have to say, it was very easy to use and the developer was very responsive to my bug reports and helped me to resolve them in a very timely fashion. And, it's open source to boot.
So go check out the new site. I'm interested in hearing your comments!
Update [2007.01.02]: Looks like the new design is being very well received. Word is spreading as bloggers have found the site and the internet linking engine has taken effect. In the first week the site was live the number of visitors has just about tripled!
November 7, 2006 at 6:23 pm · Filed under Personal, Tech
Looks like Apple is delaying almost all shipments of the 17" MacBook Pros. I received an email this afternoon stating that my order wouldn't be shipping until the 14th -- a whole week after the initial date given when I placed my order.
After receiving the email I quickly hopped online to see if others were having the same issues, and I quickly found all types of internet rumblings about people receiving the same email.
Looks like Apple is having some type of supply issue, and there are theories abound on the internet. Also makes me wonder how many people could have possibly gotten their order in before me -- I placed it no more than 20 minutes after the updated MacBooks appeared on the Apple Store site. Crazy.
One hint though -- if you call Apple's customer support, they'll give you free 2-day shipping for the delay. I guess it's better than nothing...
Update: With Apple releasing the MacBook updates this morning, things are starting to come together. Looks like they split their allotment of chips among the two notebook lines (MacBook/MacBook Pro) and the demand was better than expected for the MacBook Pro's. At least Apple is being "egalitarian" and spreading out the good stuff to both consumers and power users.
October 24, 2006 at 12:07 pm · Filed under Business, Personal, Tech
Yup, I'm making the switch. I've been a Windows user for years, and while I have always had a Mac around for testing and working with client files, I've never used one as my primary machine.
I've been waiting for the new MacBook Pro's to be released for a few months, and when I saw they came out this morning I decided to take the plunge. If nothing else, it'll be nice to have a 17" laptop that doesn't weigh 20 lbs!
Check out the new specs here: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
I'll write up a review when it arrives. Until that time, let the 7-10 business day countdown begin.
September 26, 2006 at 11:42 am · Filed under Business, Personal, Tech
About six months ago I picked up a Treo 700w, and I love it. For years I carried around a 15lb laptop everywhere I went, but now I pick up my phone and I've got email, contacts, Internet Explorer, Flash 7 player, and just about everything I need to keep in touch while on the road.
Having full Outlook e-mail and contacts on your phone is more liberating that you think. But, in order to actually get real-time push email you have to have access to a Microsoft Exchange Server and use it for your email. This might not be a problem for larger businesses, but for a small business this can be costly and excessive.
I started searching around and found that my (then) web hosting provider 1&1 Hosting offered hosted Exchange for less than $7 a month. I signed up and was happy for a couple of months, but a few weeks ago I switched over to a service called 4Smartphone and haven't looked back. So, I thought I would share since I searched for days looking for the right service provider.
While the service is great, I'm just generally impressed with how well everything syncs between Outlook, my Treo, and Outlook Web Access (the included webmail client). Microsoft seems to have gotten this right. And while the 700w is a bit bulky, it is nowhere near the size of a Blackberry, but still has all of the functionality. Now whenever I'm heading out of town for a few days, I rarely take my laptop unless I've got actual development to do.
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