Technology – Page 55

Posted on January 11, 2006January 11, 2006 by Doug McCaughan — Leave a comment

Raggy! Roomba Rooba Roo!

Molly rests I wish I could have had a video camera! Molly was resting on the floor and the Roomba whirs over and bounces off her nose. She doesn’t flinch! Since her long nose is obviously new territory for the Roomba, it immediately kicks into “outline the perimeter mode” where it moves a little bit then rotates back into the barrier and repeats over and over. So here’s poor Molly trying to get a nap and this robot is noisily tracing her snout!

After about the 5th bump she nonchalantly raised her head and let it pass. If you have pets and are concerned your pet and Roomba won’t be friends, I’d put your fears to rest.

Posted on January 11, 2006January 11, 2006 by Doug McCaughan — Leave a comment

A peek at your next Windows OS – Vista

Bent User highlights Windows Vista, Microsoft’s next major operating system release. Looks cool but hasn’t knocked me out of my chair yet.

Posted on January 10, 2006January 10, 2006 by Doug McCaughan — Leave a comment

Databases are so much fun!

I really enjoy tweaking databases. Great tools like SQL Query Analyzer and its MySQL equivalent SQLyog really make a pleasure out of modifying the database structure, manipulating data, and generating reports. Database work is like having a riddle or puzzle in front of you that not only can you solve, you can prove!

Posted on January 10, 2006 by Doug McCaughan — Leave a comment

WYSIWYG editor choices

Almost every web application I write has some form of content management piece. People have come to expect MS Word style functionality at no additional cost. Naturally it would cost a fortune to build an editor from scratch so thank goodness we have the open source community! For eons I used Ezedit but this eventually evolved into ActiveEdit with a pricetag. I switched to FCKEditor (those are the author’s initials you dirty minded people) but was disappointed with the difficulty I had integrating it with each new site plus I couldn’t get it to work well with FireFox. I changed to TinyMCE and have been thrilled but started searching around for the greener grass. I found this outstanding chart that every developer must bookmark which gives me the confidence that TinyMCE is the greener grass!

As a sidebar, both Drupal and WordPress use TinyMCE.

Posted on January 10, 2006January 10, 2006 by Doug McCaughan — Leave a comment

Yet another CF engine

Earlier I posted about a free ColdFusion engine. I’ve since had Railo pointed out to me as another free ColdFusion server.

Posted on January 10, 2006January 10, 2006 by Doug McCaughan — 1 Comment

Free ColdFusion Script Engine

Many people view the price of ~~Allaire’s~~ ~~Macromedia’s~~ Adobe’s ColdFusion Server as a drawback. I view it as a plus since I feel strongly that you get what you pay for in this world. However, for those clients unwilling to pay the price, they now have a free option with IgniteFusion. I wonder if this developed from this scripting language of the same name released Oct 17, 2002?

Of course, NewAtlanta’s BlueDragon has been around awhile but their free version looks to be limited to a single ip developer edition now and their prices are approaching Adobe’s.

Posted on January 7, 2006January 7, 2006 by Doug McCaughan

Protected: Testing “password” protected post

Posted on January 6, 2006 by Doug McCaughan — 1 Comment

First test call with Skype very successful!

I’m a Skype user now! I’m going by djuggler if you want to look me up. I just made my first test call with Tim. What a better way to test an Internet telephone call than to go half way around the world! The sound quality was amazingly clear.

Since I’m not using any of the paid features, I’m a little unsure about the differences between Skype and using something like MSN Messenger for video chatting. I’m going to have to compare the quality soon. For the time being, I just want to sound off about how cool it is to live in a time that we can make calls around the world without having to take out loans to the phone company!