Projects, code and other things...

I've been learning a lot lately. For the last few months at work I've been on a team working on a new virtual world for kids done entirely with Flex 3. It took some getting used to, but now I'm totally into it. Flex Builder is an excellent IDE for working in Flex. It's built on Eclipse and integrates well with the Flex framework and compiler. Definitely worth the money.

I'm also learning to use jQuery and starting to get the hang of it. I've worked with object-oriented-like javascript before, building the framework myself, and then worked with the prototype framework and scriptaculous. jQuery blows them away with its ease of use and capabilities. It's a very powerful tool.

On another project I had to work on parsing rss feeds from youtube using some custom javascript. It worked out pretty well, got it to parse a user's video feed as well as custom playlists.

I've been working on my own facebook app, but due to sheer laziness, I never actually finished and launched it. I missed the boat on the app craze and it looks like the pool has been diluted. I may still finish it and release it, but I'm not too concerned over it now. If anything, by working on some apps at work and on my own app at home, I've learned a lot about REST and about the facebook platform. Anyone needs a facebook app, just let me know.

I've been doing a lot of reading on PHP 5. I've been away from PHP in my professional life, but have kept up with it on my own. I switched over to PHP 5 a year ago and started writing my own framework with database abstraction layers, classes and subclasses, etc... It's fun stuff.

What's it all mean? I have some personal projects I need to work on over the next 2-3 months and they'll be utilizing these skills. I hope to get at least one done before hockey season starts. Once the puck drops, I spend more time watching reading and posting about hockey than I should be on my projects.

Star Wars - Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character?

This quiz is quite funny. Many of the new "web 2.0" web sites coming out are using some really weird names. Some just intentionally mis-spell known words or sound completely made up. Someone saw a strange similarity between the naming of these sites and characters from the Star Wars universe.

take the quiz

I scored a 40 out of 43. WooHoo!

Star Wars - Funny Valentines

Found this through BoingBoing. These were absolutely HYSTERICAL!!!

Star Wars Valentines

Some of my favorites:

• I'd give my right hand for you


• the power to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of our love

Star Wars - LEGO - Frozen Han Solo

This is awesome work. 10,000 LEGO bricks to make a lifesize Han Solo as he's frozen in Carbonite.

LEGO model making is becoming an art form in itself and the people who have the time and patience to do this seem to be really dedicated to their visions.

Star Wars - LEGO Mos Eisley

In keeping with the Star Wars lovefest during this 30th anniversary week, here's a fantastic display of LEGO creativity. Mos Eisley Spaceport done entirely of LEGO.

Simply amazing is all I can think to describe this LEGO display.

Star Wars - Feel the Force

It was 30 years ago this week on March 25 that the most spectacular movie to ever grace the big screen was released. I was 4 years old and I remember wanting to be Luke Skywalker or Han Solo and blow up the Death Star. Star Wars was a big part of my life as a kid and still is part of my life as a 30-something adult. It's hard to describe WHY it's so much a part of me and many other people. Like the Force, it's just something you feel. You can't pass it on to someone else or explain it. It's something you either feel or you don't. Others can understand why we feel this devotion to a series of movies because they may have similar feelings about other things. Some people love opera or Ballet, some love classical orchestras or broadway shows. Their devotion to those forms of expression are not much different than ours. We love these movies and are able to not just watch them, but participate in the whole mythology and universe.

When I was a kid, I used to get Star Wars figures and vehicles for birthdays and holidays. I played with them so much that most of them are broken, but I still kept them. I had the records and used to listen to them a lot. Go figure, Star Wars introduced a love of classical-style music to a generation of kids. Finding out that Darth Vader was actually Luke's dad was just such a mind-blowing moment for me. People who watch soap operas can appreciate the sense of awe and the gasp that went through the crowd at that critical moment in Empire.

People fell in love with these characters. Yoda was such a powerful character, even though he was just a space-aged Kermit the Frog (same voice actor, Frank Oz). Even the bad guys are loved. Darth Vader is the quintessential villain, dark and ruthless yet underneath it all, struggling with his inner demons. Boba Fett was arguably the coolest character in the series, and in my opinion, only Darth Maul comes close in coolness (forget Jango, he was only there to provide a back story). There are so many characters that got minimum screen time but still had action figures created out of them and somehow seemed more important than they were.

I've introduced my son to these movies and he's as blown away as I was. It's great to see it again through those eyes. Some would say that I still look through my own eyes that same way and I would tend to agree with them.

Star Wars - Which Character are you?

I came across this little quiz via digg. I answered the questions as honestly as I could and this is what the result was. I'm Qui-Gon Jinn you bitches... Booyah!!! I know a few people who got JarJar and tried the quiz again, but that's cheating.

Take the quiz yourself here.

Eudora going bye-bye

Eudora was one of the first stand-alone email clients I ever used. It was a good app. I liked it better than Netscape's mail client. Eventually though I left Eudora for Pegasus mail. That was another good POP-client. Eudora eventually had to integrate itself with IE in order to display html emails. This opened it up to whatever security risks that IE was suffering from.

Now it looks like Qualcomm is finally giving up on Eudora. Too many people use their default client, Outlook Express. And many of us use Thunderbird. Good news is they're teaming up with the folks at Mozilla to create a Thunderbird-based client they're calling Penelope.

I'll still stick with Thunderbird, but I think it's cool that they're going in that direction.