gunderStorm

On the Gunderblog…

I really hope we start to see this as a trend – developers building Android apps before iPhone versions.  Not just because I’m an Android phone owner, but because of the message:  Free and open is preferred to closed and tightly controlled.Gundy in, Gunderblog, Dec 2009

Digital Media

SitePoint, publishers of fine web design and development books, are offering one deal a day on their various titles.  Their doing this “advent calendar-style” leading up to Christmas.  These deals often include PDF versions of print books, quick-ref posters of code and special bundles of related subjects.

Today’s allows you to pick two PDF titles for $20.  Not bad at all.  It’s worth noting that their PDFs have no DRM.

SitePoint Christmas Advent Calendar: One Uber Cool Deal Everyday.

Books, Web Design

Listening to “dchha29 Ghosts of the Ostfront III” by Dan Carlin and loving it!

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I have been using this so much lately and it is a HUGE timesaver.  I got it for free on Giveaway of the Day but it’s so useful, I almost feel bad for not paying for it.

Simply tell Sothink Flash Video Encoder where your video is, select your bandwidth profile, tweak a couple of basic settings, tell it where to save your files and what you’d like them named, and fi your streaming or not.  Then you pick your control bar and it gets to converting.  It’s absurdly quick and easy.

Using Flash to convert video always results in the same blah-looking control bar.   SFVE has three simple and slick control bars that can accept a custom color and saturation level.  That sounds limited, but it actually looks great.

I have yet to throw something at it that it hasn’t been able to convert.  And it plays a little song when you’re done.  Highly recommended!

Sothink Flash Video Encoder – Flash Video Converter, Convert video to Flash/FLV.

Video/FLV

Image via Wikipedia

Ben Wahhh texted me last night that Deluxe Tattoo is featured on Playboy.com “A-List Tattoo Parlors”.  There a quickie article and some photos of the shop.  Plus a big fat link to the site!

Which makes the fact that I have no credit anywhere on the site a bit of a tragedy.  I should find out if I can put a “this site built by…” link somewhere.  Whoops!

Playboy.com – Deluxe Tattoo

Web Design

Not only are Packtpub.com eBooks now DRM-Free, but if you’ve ordered books in the past, you can go to their site and download unprotected version of YOUR BOOKS! What an awesome step forward for the company who already publishes some of the best software manuals out there.

As a packtpub.com customer I received the email alert today:

“We received a number of suggestions from customers who would like to see the password protection removed from our eBooks… we have taken this feedback on board and decided to remove all password protection from our eBooks with immediate effect. If you own a Packt eBook, you can download it again from your account at www.PacktPub.com; this new copy will have no password protection.”

Thanks Packt!

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• Packt Removes Password Protection from its eBooks (packtpub.com)

Books, Web Design

OpenGoo is just about the coolest thing I’ve installed on my server since WordPress 2.7.

OpenGoo is an Open Source Web Office. It is a complete solution for every organization to create, collaborate, share and publish all its internal and external documents.

A couple of months ago I started to write a post about how I wanted something like Zoho, but hosted on my own server space. Why trust my docs and data to some other site? Even Google?  Lifehacker had the answer in OpenGoo.

OpenGoo combines web-based word processing and file management with awesome project management, calendar, and to-do functions.  Define workspaces (and nest them within others) and add milestones and task lists.  There’s even email (currently in beta).  It’s extremely sweet!

Try the demo and see for yourself.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Roll Your Own Online Office with OpenGoo [Screenshot Tour] (lifehacker.com)

OpenGoo, Project Management Open source, OpenGoo, Project Management

This is a collection of small Flash pieces I made for a magazine-style culinary site which no longer exists.  Each banner-style piece is meant to be a teaser for the article and give a quick idea of the subject.

I loved seeing how much information I could convey in such a short timespan.  There was also a lot of breaking up an image and animating its individual parts, which can be challenging.

There were weekly content launches, so this project really kept me on my toes.

Flash, Portfolio

It looks like Adobe Captivate 4 was announced today and with it, a new CS4 suite – the eLearning Suite – sweet!

What’s under the hood?  All of my favorites:  Captivate, Flash CS4, Dreamweaver CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, Acrobat Pro, Adobe Presenter 7, Soundbooth CS4, Bridge CS4, Adobe Device Central CS4 as well as eLearning extensions for Flash CS4 and Dreamweaver CS4. Soundbooth?!? I just installed Audacity!

I had no idea this was even on the horizon, but it’s very cool.  If only they’d released it before I got set up on my new work lappy, cuz I’m running Design Premium.  AND it looks like I’ll be running the trial of Captivate until I get an official license.  I hope Cap 4 opens Cap 3 files without any glitches!

New feature demonstration here.

Dweamweaver, Flash, Web Design, eLearning

Got an extra shot of espresso for free this morning. I started the day winning!

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