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Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)

Wed Oct 5 19:42:05 2011

This morning I woke up to the horrible news that former Apple CEO Steve Jobs has died. At first I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. Twitter and news sites across the web have been inundated with people sharing thoughts, memories, and condolences. I would like to show my thanks to the man who inadvertently changed the way I work and the way I live my life with this simple post.

Thank you Steve.

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says (http://news.stanford.edu/)
How to live before you die. (www.ted.com)

The Death of Flash? - "Spartans! Prepare for glory!"

Thu Sep 22 09:38:09 2011

Now, I don't normally shed my opinions in the way I'm about to, but the heralds of Twitter are shouting about the deathly demise of Flash, and have been for a while now actually. However, with an amazing chain of releases for ActionScripers out there lately, such as Starling, Alchemy, Stage 3D, Flash player 11 and Air 3, etc, one might hear the spine-chillingly celebrated cry, "Spartans! Prepare for glory!" coming from the Adobe camp - who seem to show their full support for HTML 5 & CSS3, might I add.

Well, we'll see. However, as much as the 'hell dining' sounds appealing, I have to admit that I'm not worried in the slightest. After all, strictly speaking HTML 5 is nothing without JavaScript, right? And all the script based languages are pretty easy once you learn one, yeah? The move to full-time JS coding for absolutely everything would be a piece of proverbial cake, no? (Sweeping statements, I know!)

As much as I adore flash and ActionScript 3, I'd most likely be quite excited at the prospect of a unified web under HTML 5. I'd probably shout from the rooftops that my life has been made easier. No more juggling languages to get different jobs done - just JS all the way!

But isn't how HTML was different depending on which browser you used the reason Flash came to be so popular in the first place? Not much has changed, you do realize?

In the end, even if flash does die off from the web, I don't think it will matter because nowadays (for me) Flash/Air is changing direction. It's becoming more diverse and looks to be evolving into much more than just a simpleton web based media. It's actually rather exciting. Like watching your child grow or something.

Someone on twitter also posted something like, it's not the tools we use that define us, but creativity and great ideas (paraphrasing here I'm afraid). But yeah, I agree and you just know that talent will come through no matter what the circumstances. So I say bring it on - long live Flash and HTML 5.

My Top 10 Mac Apps

Thu Mar 25 02:39:27 2010

As you may have guess I love Mac. As a programmer, I don't always appreciate everything apple turns out, but I believe that Apple supplies some of the very best hardware and software out there. On that note, I have been meaning to write top 10 favourite Mac applications and post them here. So without further a do...

*Note that all prices (if any) are as of March 2010.

10

Espresso ($79.95) - From the same people who produced CSSEdit comes Espresso. It's a little overpriced if you ask me, but does a good job of HTML/CSS and has a live (as-you-code) view feature. The PHP auto-complete can be a little messy at times but there are a few plug-ins available so it has a lot of potential to improve.

9

QuickScale (14.99 Euro) - This little app has been a life saver. As a programmer and designer, keeping file size down is very important, and what would normally take a great deal of time to do, gets done in a few secs with QuickScale. On one occasion, I remember a design change that required thumbnail images as well as full-size images. It was easy to create the thumbs I needed in just a few clicks.

8

Pixelmator ($59) - A very very very stylish and easy to use image editing software. Great value for money if you don't want to pay the price for Photoshop

7

Document Palette - One thing that is missing in Mac OSX is the ability to right click on your desktop and create a text file or HTML document. With this great little app, you can easily create new documents with simple shortcuts and even customize the default template files it uses.

6

Versions (€39.00) - Versions gives you a really nice interface to interact with Subversion. However, as well as being pleasant on the eyes, it allows you to keep bookmarks of any connections you frequently visit, which is really convenient if you are constantly moving files around.

5

De MonsterDebugger - This is a wonderful little debugger built using Adobe Air for Flash and Flex developers. If you are using a text editor like TextMate, or even if your not, this is a very nice addition to any ActionScripter's toolbox.

4

MAMP (Free but MAMP Pro cost $59.00) - MAMP is something I have come to need more than most other applications as it allows easy set up of a development server for web development and testing purposes. It can easily be turned on and off, there is minimal setup required and in most cases, it actually less space than installing Apache, PHP and mySQL by yourself. Great for PHP developers!

3

Transmit ($29) - Transmit is a nice FTP app that is full of features and very easy to use. I have never had a complaint with this. It even lets you open and edit files directly from the server. It has saved me a tone of time, particularly with last minute web design changes and website updates.

2

DropBox - Keeping myself organized with minimal effort has never been easy. I used to be a big fan of Box.net, but DropBox has changed the way I work completely, and the best of it is that this little gem will work on Mac, Win and Linux. Believe me, you'll probably hardly ever use your USB again, and it's 100% free! Amazing!

1

TextMate ($54)- For coding, Flash CS4 is mediocre, Eclipse is cool, Flex 3 is great, but my No. 1 love on my Mac is TextMate. It's simply the text editor that has it all. I just couldn't live without this wonderful piece of software. If you are a programmer and a fan of simplicity meets power production, I thoroughly recommend this.


So there you have it. You may not agree with my choices, but I find that my favourites change depending on what I'm working on at that time. Feel free to comment about your favourite apps.

An exciting day... (Objective-C: not for the faint of heart)

Wed Mar 24 02:02:20 2010

Today is an exciting day. I received an email from Adobe saying that the new Flash Builder 4 is just on the horizon and I have received word that Flash CS5 will (fingers crossed) be available around April 22 (don't hold me to that).

Those two things alone have brightened my day, but wait... there's more. I also received an email regarding the Corona SDK for iPhone development. It had already been announced on the Corona website that Corona had planned to add support for the iPad, and not only was the iPad beta confirmed yesterday, but also Corona announced that they would also being entering the beta phase for Android support.

Now this is great for those who cannot take the excruciating pain of learning Objectve-C. "It's not that bad", I hear some say, and I must admit that after mastering my first 'Hello World', I quite agree. However, Corona feels very similar to ActionScript and in comparison to the Adobe iPhone packager that will hopefully be available next month, the use of Lua makes it much lighter.

As a programmer I am very much intreaged by all the implications... but perhaps all the 'ActionScripters' out there shouldn't get too excited yet - what with the colossal amount of programmers out there who have already made their app and are just readying their eager trigger finger for the CS5 iphone build button - it may just be too much to compete with unless your idea is truly original.

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