September 3, 2008 – 9:05 am
Boy - Google Chrome seems to have really stirred up the somewhat complacent browser world. I remember when Opera came out and had a similar vibe but since Chrome is from the almighty Google it seems to have had more of an impact.
After playing with it a bit - I think it’s nice but still very beta. Some things were clunky or didn’t work. I missed my extensions from Firefox and the UI was different enough it felt awkward. I also couldn’t tinker with it at home since there is no Linux version (yet), so that dampened my enthusiasim somewhat.
Most people seem to be focused on Firefox and IE but I think the company who really has to be worried is Adobe. Javascript in Chrome is blazing fast. RIA anyone?
Suddenly the browser doesn’t look so bad…
I don’t think Chrome will ever be a serious browser to contend with but I do think the major browsers will have to look at some of it’s more innovative concepts and see if they can integrate those ideas into their own offerings. I think Google has the same idea since it open souced the code behind Chrome and mentioned working with the Firefox team during development.
It will be interesting to see which way Chrome goes - will it become a major player?
August 7, 2008 – 12:54 pm
I was reading this great series of blog posts over at 43 Folders by Merlin Mann….
- Making Time to Make: Bad Correspondence
- Making Time to Make: The Job You Think You Have
- Making Time to Make: One Clear Line
It deals with balancing your time and making the decision to disconnect from the web a bit - not replying to emails, turning off Twitter, etc - so that you can concentrate more on doing the important stuff in your life.
I’ve been in a state of flux lately as well - I was Twittering a lot but lately I’m not sure there is really any value there. Fun? Sure - but is it really doing anything for me?
I’m curious how others in the ColdFusion community deal with this? I’d especially love to hear from some of the busier folks - like Raymond Camden, Sean Corfield, and Luis Majano. How do you manage your time? How do you balance things between work, family, personal projects, etc?
Lately I’ve been looking at everything I’m juggling and trying to decide what to cast off so that better define my own ‘one clear line’.
August 6, 2008 – 11:30 am
Google rolled out one of it’s cool tools today… Google Insights for Search.
With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames.
Of course I had to punch in ColdFusion! Unfortunately the “Interest over time” graph didn’t look to good:
Google Insight
Of course I know these things are skewed all over the place but tools like this are always fun to play with… Flex for example has lots of interest:
Google Insight - Flex
Definitely worth playing with if you are interesting in statistics and what’s under Google’s hood.
A co-worker told me about this one… SQuirrel SQL bills itself as a “universal SQL client”. At work we use Oracle and I’ve been happy using Oracle’s SQL Developer. At home on Linux I’ve been searching for something to interact with MySQL. The MySQL Administrator and MySQL Query Browser tools provided by MySQL work but are lacking in features…
After using SQuirrel SQL for a few days I’m happy to report my search may be over! SQuirrel SQL is like Eclipse - it’s based on Java, uses JDBC drivers to connect to your database, and it can be extended via plugins.
SQuirrel SQL
All the basics are here - code completion, SQL editor, auto correction, editing results, etc. Through plugins you can get table relation graphs, data import, database copy, SQL validation, syntax highlighting and more.
Since SQuirrel SQL is based on Java it’s cross platform, it supports any database with a JDBC driver and is free!
Need to get a popular open source application up and running quickly? Maybe you want to try out WordPress or Joomla but don’t know how to get started?
Bitnami has this figured out. Bitnami offers what they call ’stacks’. You can either download an application ’stack’ like Drupal, WordPress, etc. Or you can download a platform ’stack’ (WAMP = Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and then download application modules for that particular stack.
Sample Bitnami Applications
At work we’ve been looking at various bug trackers and I wanted to get Mantis setup and running but didn’t want to spend a lot of time getting it up and running. After a bit of Googling I found Bitnami and gave it a try.
Installation was a breeze. I ran the installer and only had to define a port for Apache to run on (I selected 88 so it didn’t conflict with my ColdFusion install) and a default username and password for login. Installation took awhile - it IS installing quite a bit of stuff. When it was done I simply hit my localhost and Mantis was up and running!
Bitnami does provide an uninstaller which seems to clean up after itself fairly well. I first installed the Mantis stack but realized it had some drawbacks. If you download for example the WordPress application stack and set it to port 88 and then try to install another application stack you will have to provide another port. It sets each application up independently. To get around this they offer the platform stacks like WAMP. Now you can install that as your base and then install multiple application ‘modules’ on top of it - all sharing one port.
Bitnami is free and stacks are available for Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris.
Balsamiq is a really cool application that allows you to easily mock up page layouts.
Mockups feels like you are drawing, but it’s digital, so you can tweak and rearrange controls easily, and the end result is much cleaner. Teams can come up with a design and iterate over it in real-time in the course of a meeting.
What’s neat about Balsamiq is that’s it’s built on AIR. So installation is just a simple click, and you are up and running, and it’s cross platform.
I like the pencil sketch elements which hopefully will keep people for focusing in on colors and other design elements during initial layouts. The sample screenshots give you an idea of what can be created. You can export as PNG or as XML so other Balsamiq users can import your sketches.
I only ran into a few glitches - some of the elements seem to be transparent while others are not so you run into some weird overlap issues. It would be nice to have a control to flip the transparent state on/off. Another useful addition would be the ability to create your own ‘libraries’ of elements to use.
Sample Balsamiq Mockup
Balsamiq is not freeware - he’s asking $79 with a few options to get it for free. Considering the amount of time you would have to spend in Photoshop to do the same thing - I think it’s a bargain if you do a lot of these types of mockups.
One tool I’m always using is Beyond Compare. This is one of those ‘what did I do before I discovered this’ tools. Folder compare, remote compare over FTP, merge, etc. All the good stuff you expect in a diff tool. I’ve been using the 2.x version forever and kind of gave up on checking their site for updates but a few days ago I checked and WHOA - version 3.0 is on the way (in beta) AND…
They have a Linux version! Holy S–T Batman!!!
I haven’t given it a really thorough test but all the basics seem to work just as well as the Windows version. They also have a nice upgrade plan and you can by a ‘dual platform’ license that covers both Windows and Linux versions. Best thing is it’s still under $50 for the basic version. Pro adds a few things like 3-way merge, SFTP support, and a few other features.
