Simple Pie a neat PHP parsing library for Atom and RSS

I decided to surf today in looks for PHP scripts and tools to help me with the blog and discovered a neat library called Simple Pie. 

I know probably for a lot of people is nothing new, but me not being a PHP guru I just discovered today and I am really happy I did.

I think it could potentially be used with Flash and Flex to pull off a few neat short widget feeding from Atom or RSS feeds.

I was playing with it a little and wrote a small script to parse my own twitter feed. I will be looking at maybe doing a quick badge in flash to display the latest twitt's for the moment is just a real bare bone script displaying the last 3 post in my menu bar on the right.

 

Coming back to Blogger

I decided to rollback again using Blogger. Essentially I realized that I am blogging since 2002 and I have a lot of content I thought it was just buried and outdated but it happens that I got a  lot of emails asking for old pages with stuff, I thought no one was looking at it anymore.

The Word Press engine is really cool, but I am new to it and customizing my blog is a little hard, I can always use themes and add widgets because is really simple in WP, but that is also the problem  I always feel that by using a pre-packaged theme or widget, I loose a bit of ownership of the blog.

The import feature did not really work well and that was also giving me problems. So in general I am actively working to restore everything and perhaps I will work on a WP version underground in a separate directory until I have things properly sort out.

Enjoying a 4 days work week.

I recently made the decision of shortening my work week to 4 days. Working 4 days a week (8.75 hour a day) and then my weekend starts on friday.

After experiencing a near burn out I realized in our field we are encouraged to push ourselves to the limit, if you are tired drink a red bull or any other energy drink is the motto and keep going until wee hours in the morning.

Just about 3 weeks ago near finishing a project I started experiencing a strong feeling of anxiety, momentary dizziness,  lack of concentration and sudden feeling of tiredness that would las 15 minutes or so to the point that I became aware something was not quite right.

 I called my doctor and I started describing the symptoms he immediately told  said: you are getting the symptoms of an anxiety attack, due to prolonged hours of hours and sustained stress. He prescribed some R&R time and warned me to slow the pace for a while along with with some exercise and healthy food. 

Further more I was told lately anxiety attacks are an epidemic on programmers or professional in the software development industry. I don't have any stats to confirm this but I can believe it.

This prompted me to reconsider my pattern of work and made me realize indeed these last few years has been filled with intense work and very long hours filled with pressure from getting to meet deadlines or simply deliver more in less time.

 

I started looking at blogs and sites that discuss new ways of managing work and came over this idea of the 4 day work week and decided to give it a try. Also cutting back on energy drinks and pop. I substituted all these with juice and simple cold water.

Having a 3 days weekend has many advantages, being now a father and all, it gives me an extra day to do the things you can't avoid like doing groceries, doing the laundry etc, leaving us (me and the family)  2 full days to really do fun stuff and spend more quality time with the family.

I will be posting more about this in the days to come. See how this works out long term.

 

Feel free to post here any innovative ideas to manage work or if you have experienced similar need to re-organize you work life.

 

Fixing the Apple Mighty Mouse Track Ball

I have two Mighty Mouse's and both the track ball in the center stopped working after a few months of use. I tried a few ways to clean them up but, no joy. So I decided to go ahead and crack the Mouse open and clean it manually.

The process is relatively simple, one just have to be patient and careful handling it. There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to do it, but essentially with a little common sense you can take it apart fairly quick and put it back together.

If I get the request I will post a step by step tutorial.

LordAlex Works: Only evaluating projects starting after June 5th

Just a quick note,  LordAlex Works, currently is evaluating projects coming from *new* clients starting after June 5th, 2008. 

Kind regards.

+LA

I will be attending FITC in Toronto

On the nick of time, I managed to arranged things so I could at least attend FITC in Toronto. I will be arriving Sunday Morning. Is been crazy busy lately, we have a few projects on the grill and I am still adjusting to the changes of joining the club of fatherhood.

See you all there!

LordAlex Works - Helped on the critical mission to launch the new Canadian Army Website (forces.ca)

We got an unexpected called about a week ago from the Canadian Forces to help with the launch of the new Canadian Army website. The site was developed by a very talented in house team and the collaboration of 2 other design firms.

The situation got a little critical as a number of unexpected issues started to arise near the launching of the website. It is worth mentioning the site is built entirely in flash and is packed with a lot of media (music, video, 3D models, Paper Vision, you name it)

We were given the task to manage the situation and steer the site back to an acceptable performance level, so the launch could take place on the intended date. We immediately starting working towards that by quickly assessing the site week spots and created a list of recommendation to improve the overall site performance. The changes were implemented and in about 48 hours the situation improved greatly.

After that we started working frenetically around the clock with everyone to complete other parts of the site. The launch target date was met and FORCES.CA is now live.

We are very pleased we were able to contribute a little bit to this exciting project and it was a real please working with the team that made it possible.

We are very proud of our contribution to the site. Go and visit FORCES.CA

Speaking at the 2008 PHP Quebec Conference

I will be speaking at the 2008 PHP Quebec Conference tomorrow Friday at 8:30 AM replacing Mike Potter whom for circumstances beyond his control cannot make it. The subject is: Realizing the Full Potential of Your Rich Internet Applications.

I will try to fit on MIke's shoes to be best of my ability and I hear the PHP Community is a fun crowd, so I am very excited about this opportunity to share with the PHP community some of passion for the Flash Platform.

Flex 3 and AIR 1.0 are out!

Flex 3 and AIR 1.0 are now available for download. One can upgrade to the standard version for only 99$ or get the PRO version with charting and testing tools for $299

I recommend the PRO version only for the memory profilers tools in the long run is better investement.

Among other things these are the improvements over version 2:

• Full support for Adobe AIR makes it easy to create RIAs for the desktop
  
• New integration with Adobe Creative Suite™ 3 helps designers and developers to work together more efficiently
  
• New and enhanced data visualization features, including the new advanced datagrid, enable even richer presentation of business data
  
• New memory and performance profilers make it easy to optimize your application
  

I am really excited about seeing Flex 3 ready and out there, this launch is very significant because it officially makes the desktop available for everyone working on the platform.

So, go download  and enjoy!

Yahoo! Maps AS3 Component -go get it!

The all-new Yahoo! Maps component for Flex 3 enables you to add a map to a wide-range of web and desktop applications. Included in the API is support for other Yahoo! APIs including the geocoder, local search and traffic APIs along with an advanced marker and overlay manager to allow you to easily represent data on the map.

Using the YahooMap component in your Flash, Flex, Ajax or AIR projects gives you the ability to develop anything from a simple map mash-up to full application utilizing Yahoo! Maps.

I will be definitely playing with this over the week.

Click here to go straight to the Yahoo Maps AS3 Component Site

Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR Pre-Release Tour in Montreal (Update)

Hello folks, unfortunately for reasons beyond his control Mike Potter won't be able to make it to Montreal, so Adobe has kindly ask me to replace him tomorrow.

Mike has sent me his presentation files and I will replace him tomorrow, other than that the schedule stay the same. Mike Potter has expressed his sincere apologies and perhaps we will have him some other time soon.

See you all there.

Kind  regards.

+LA

Flex and AIR Pre-release Tour with Adobe’s Mike Potter (Montreal February 7th, 2008)

Mike Potter will be in Montreal this Thursday February 7th, 2008 as part of the Adobe Flex and AIR Pre-release Tour. This is a "NOT TO MISS" event.

I am very excited about this meeting and as usual the raffles at our UG has been spectacular, everyone has been walking away with real good stuff. 

This time around we are not falling behind, for this meeting we will have some awesome giveaways from Adobe including a spanking brand new iPod nano 4GB (Silver). <- yep! you read that right. 

Also I will be giving away 5 copies of my recently published book, "Flex foundation for Designers" at the end of the event. For more details click here.

See you all there!

Happy Birthday to me! Turning 32 today.

Turning 32 today. Woohoo!

Videotron killing the fun on youtube and other streaming services

Now when we finally have the technology (like flash video) and bandwidth enough to get decent video/audio quality over the internet and are even experiencing the birth of DRM free content, you may think the convergence of TV and Internet are finally here and is unstoppable.

Well think again, companies like Videotron, and similar telcos in Canada and the US have different plans that may actually slow down things significantly. A few months ago I received a letter saying my unlimited internet plan was not so "unlimited" anymore placing a cap of 100GB upload/download combined instead and a penalty of $1.50 per additional GB but wait for it, here come the best part: -no monthly limits.

The excuse is to stop people downloading large amounts of data. So my question is why in this world would you want to prevent people from downloading large amounts of data in a "high speed extreme" plan advertised for years as "unlimited" and clearly aiming at users that consume large amounts of bandwidth in the first place?

I think the reality that no one seems to be talking about is, the days of cable tv as know it are numbered and this scares the hell of these companies as much as the music industry was afraid of mp3 back in the days.

I guess the reality is that soon, free video in youtube and other streaming services are not going to be so "free" after all. You might be actually paying top dollars in bandwidth fees to get access to video online and god help those parents who's kids have torrent software installed in their computers and are not properly aware of the new pricing scheme.

Well that is the end of my rant, if you have comments on this please voice your opinon and meanwhile if anyone knows about a company still offering real "unlimited" internet plans in the local Montreal area please, drop a line in comments section.

Flex and AIR Pre-release Tour with Adobe’s Mike Potter (Montreal February 7th, 2008)

Flex 3 and AIR are getting close to launch and in preparation, Mike Potter from the Adobe Flex/AIR product team is traveling to select cities to show off the great new features and help prepare us for this exciting launch.

 

Flex 3 is a feature-packed release, adding new UI components like the advanced datagrid and improved CSS capabilities; powerful tooling additions like refactoring; and extensive testing tools including memory and performance profiling, plus the addition of the automated testing framework to Flex Builder.

 

Adobe AIR is game-changing in so many ways, extending rich applications to the desktop, enabling access to the local file system, system tray, notifications and much more. Now you can write desktop applications using the same skills that you’ve been already using to create great web apps including both Flex and AJAX.

 

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to see and hear about this highly anticipated release of Flex 3 and AIR during this special pre-release tour.  Plus, in addition to giving away some one of a kind Flex/AIR branded schwag, we will also be raffling off a copy of Flex Builder 3 Professional (pending availability) and a full commercial copy of CS3 Web Premium at this event!

Mike Potter Bio:

Mike has been developing Web sites and Web applications for more than eight years. He has extensive experience with PHP, having created the Web site for the largest amateur sporting organization in Canada, the Canadian Curling Association. After developing that site, he went to work for OEone, where he helped build a Linux based desktop that ran inside the Mozilla Web browser and ran the Mozilla Calendar Project. Mike joined Adobe in 2005 and is now working on the Flex team as a senior developer marketing manager. Mike has spoken at numerous conferences and user groups throughout the world, including MAX North America, MAX Europe, the Zend PHP Conference, and PHP Tek.

When: February 7th, 2008

Where:

Collège Inter-Dec (Near Metro Atwater)
2000 Sainte-Catherine Street West
Montréal, (Québec)
H3H 2T2

MAP: Click here to open map.

URL: http://www.montrealadobeusrgroup.com

ADMISSION: Free.

Time: 6:30 PM