Ok, so I have been shooting any masterpieces. It’s just the wildlife I happen to share my house with, two wild animals named Sophia and Liam. I borrowed a Sony HDR-SR1 from a friend and coworker and have been having a blast with it. I have a camera. It is an 8 year old Sony Digital 8 I bought to use with my Graphite iMac DV SE. Had some fun with that too… Just got tired of the tapes, remembering which were used, losing them, wearing them out, accidentally shooting over top of them, etc. What a pain! Shooting to a hard drive is a lot more freeing. No rewind to review, cue, etc.  Digitization is a snap , too… And with my TimeCapsule (Which is awesome), I have no worries for hard drive storage space, yet. I may need to pick me up one of these! Brett, sell me this one!

I’m sure I’ll get back to posting some stuff about some of the bigger projects we have going on soon, but for now, they are still in the planning stages and can’t really be divulged. One is a video postcard app powered with a Flex frontend using Flash Media Server, the other is a 3 screen synced 1080p interactive installation, and we are also discussing a couple presentation system content management RIAs as well, for a couple different clients. Could be some great stuff coming up. On top of that, we are just days/weeks away from relaunching our companies website. What a busy summer.

Thought we’d have some time for play, but no rest for the wicked.

Last Thursday I got a call from Renee telling me I needed to come home. A squirrel was in the house. This little story here, pretty much sums it up…

PEORIA JOURNAL STAR (AP) - 07 Mar 2008. A homeless individual, I. M. (Fuzzy) Squirrel was abruptly thrust from a West Peoria home where he had sought refuge from the cold winter elements. Fuzzy stated that he was just looking to find a quiet, warm place to spend a few hours, due to the severity of this winter. He stated that he just wanted a reprieve from the cold. When he entered the West Peoria home he was met with shrieks and screams from the residents. The residents of the home then proceeded to chase him through the home and even enlisted the aid of some strong arm individual from the Animal Control Department.
An obviously shaken Fuzzy stated that he was attacked by the Animal Control employee with some type of a grasping fork weapon that he said totally frightened him. Fuzzy is sure that he will have nightmares about that implement. Fuzzy stated that he has already been approached by attorneys from the ACLU and SPCA that want to plead his case and get reparation for the mental anguish and physical abuse he suffered.
Offers to house Fuzzy are pouring in. It is thought that he will have adequate shelter from the elements. Fuzzy said that his faith in people has been reborn due to all of the kindness that he has been shown. The residents of that West Peoria home and the Animal Control Department have refused to comment due to the possible litigation that will surely follow.

Not a surprise happening, but a welcome one nonetheless, Adobe has introduced Flex 3 and AIR 1.0. This coincides with the first day of the 360 Flex conference, but it also comes a bit earlier than I had expected… My Flex Builder 3 beta wasn’t set to expire for a few more days. For a bit more info and some great quotes and some quick stats on the state of Flash/Flex developers vs. the number of .Net developers check out this article at the NYTimes. 1 million Flash/Flex develoeprs can’t be wrong, right? I guess they could when compared with the 2.2 million .Net folks out there with VisualStudio in hand. Time will tell, but I have a hunch that there will be enough demand out there that the ecosystem can support both tracks.

Can’t wait to see what appears in the coming weeks now that AIR is official and now a final release.  We have dabbled with it at Iona (even releasing an app for a client), but as some of you may have experienced, it’s pretty hard to recommend to a client that they deploy a application on Beta software. Even if that beta comes from Adobe. It was just safer to deploy a EXE compiled with Zinc. We now can give that some serious thought and make a recommendation with a  bit more confidence that AIR is the best way to go. I know I like the idea of not needing to purchase an extra IDE for compiling and finishing the delivery of an app/RIA. The fact that AIR’s SDK is free and only requires a certificate if the client needs to have that extra level of security when deploying is great. Previously, when appropriate/necessary if we needed to hand over the source code for a Flash/Flex app that got compiled in Zinc, it was always a weird conversation…

Us: “Well, here is your source code, enjoy.”

Them: “What is this ‘.zinc’ file?”

Us: “Yeah, you need to use that to compile the .exe using Multidmedia Zinc, here’s the link.”

Them: “So you didn’t use Flash?”

Us: “Not for the final compile. We needed to extend Flash to have file I/O, a custom icon, window, right click functionality, etc. etc. etc.”

Them: “So we need to buy another app?”

Us: “Yeah, pretty much.”

Them: “Hmm, suppose we’ll have to run this by IT. Blech.”

That is, if it even got that far… A couple times the conversation just disintegrated into some sort of Abbott and Costello routine where the “Who’s on First?” was replced by some never ending cycle of technobabble and three letter acronyms. Whether it was Zinc, Jugglor, SwfStudio, Screenweaver or any other SWF to EXE tool, it was often a point of contention during the delivery phase a of a project. What one to use? What one does the client know? None, okay… which one would they be willing to accept, support, maintain, etc… Tough call.

Now, that call doesn’t really have to made. Clients know Adobe. Acceptance qualms are pretty much taken care of there. Of course the whole “IR” part of AIR is a little foreign, but if you can get the runtime installed on your client’s machines, or accepted via a badge install, etc., the path for corporate IT approval just got a little easier. This article, sent to me by a colleague at Bradley, outlines just how difficult that can be and how things need to change for brands to succeed and grow. Anything that eases that step may be worth for that fact alone.

How about you? Are you transferring any/all app development to AIR? Are you still planning on using other SWF to EXE tools?

So this is my son’s first Christmas… My Daughter’s 4th. Having kids really changes this holiday, that’s for sure. We are having lots of fun spending time with friends and family. The kids are enjoying having me home for an extended stay, and I haven’t been working at all.

We took a trip up north to visit my parents in their new beautiful home. Played some Wii with my sister and had some nice meals.  And for the kids, lets not forget the presents. Oh Jeez. The presents. We drove home through a terrible patch of near whiteout weather between Dubuque and Davenport that took nearly 3 hours (about double the normal time). I’m sure my wife will be posting some images today at her Flickr account… Sophia rode on a sled downhill for the first time yesterday and it was a blast. The pictures are great.

Who here is a .Mac subscriber? I have been for years, but I hate shelling out every year for it.

I like the email ease of use and flexibility (Enoutrage, Mail, Webmail, iPhone… they all work with it.), but hate the amount of spam I get. I like the WebDav iDisk and the syncing of files, but hate the relatively small capacity (10GB). I love the backup app’s simplicity and power, but hate that you can only back 1 computer up to iDisk. I love sharing my photos with friends and family over the iWeb pages and easy web galleries through my iPhone, but wonder if Flickr would be just as good.

Ahhh the torment. I have like 5 days left to decide.

Today is Renee’s birthday, so, if you know her, IM her or email her and tell her to have a good one! A quick note to her from me, on my blog. Geeky I know but hey.

Many thanks to you on your birthday Renee. Thanks for loving me and being here. Thanks for being such a great friend and my true love. Thanks for being such an amazing Mom to Sophia and Liam. Truly I am thankful and lucky to have you in my life. Here is a pic of her (slightly manipulated) that I have always loved. It shows her compassion and love so well and so completely, when I see it, I can’t help but feeling so happy to know her.

Warning: A Non-Geeky Post Follows…

A Three Day Weekend. Man, did I need it. Work has been very busy lately, so the ability to wind down for an extra day is much appreciated. A little lite blogging/surfing, locating some OmniGraffle Stencils to use for an upcoming project, and some work on a Drupal website I am doing for my city of West Peoria is about all that I have done using the computer.

Other than that, a ton of yard work and I bought a new grill. A really nice Stainless Steel one.  I’m chucking my old rusted out cheapy one and going to go to town for
the rest of the weeknd. Brats? Check. Burgers? Check. Pork Chops? Check. Steak? Check.

Sophia and I have been playing out in the wet grass here, because it’s be intermittenly raining all weekend, but we’re not letting it stop us from having some fun. Playing with a three year old is one of the most fun things on earth. Such imagination.

Hope all you other geeks out there are taking some time off to recharge a bit as well.

Not any of these cool Tees. I have 2.5 month old son and we have been digging for cool tees for him. Why? Because I like cool tees. I have a collection of rock tees that goes all the way back to an awesome G n’ R T-shirt from 87… And I think I found a perfect first rock T-shirt for him.

It’s at Trendy Tadpole. They have baby Bob Marley stuff and more. So cute.

That’s right. I’ll be offline until at least Monday… no Email, no work, no Digg, MXNA, no Flex, no Flash, no AS3.0, no PHP, no Drupal. Nothing. I’ll be painting eggs with my kids, hanging with my family ande maybe playing some Wii. Tiger Woods 07, that is. See you all next week.

William Ethan Udell… Born at 4:22PM CDT, March 15, 2007. 7LBs 15.8oz, 20 inches and so cute. We love you little buddy. Can’t wait to get you home! More pictures here.