A HattersWorkshop Blog – Technology, The Web, and Everything
Getting into Java... I'm starting to make my first Java applications with the aim of being able to program cell phone API and other handheld technologies. I see this as a huge market in years to come and can wait to get my...
Teaching Intro to Flash at Tunxis Again Looks like I'll be teaching at Tunxis again this semester. Can't wait to get started again as I have a lot of fun the last time we did this. The class is going to be restructured slightly to showcase the...
The difference between classic and motion tweens in... Here it is: If you're used to doing things "the cs3 way" then you can continue to do so with the classic tween tool. It works the same way as you remember, using key frames as normal, but you cannot...
PHP: If (equal to AND not equal) - eliminate form spam... Just learned a great function of PHP thats already made my forms a lot better. A while back I wrote an article about eliminating form spam without captchas by using css to hide a text input box for bots...
Drop Downs, Fly Outs, and Accordion Site Navigation: This last week I was in a meeting discussing a client site. It was a typical business meeting that was going into overtime on a Friday afternoon, and then things turned for the worst... someone suggested...
Dec
13
2009
Category : Around The Office, Featured
I’m starting to make my first Java applications with the aim of being able to program cell phone API and other handheld technologies. I see this as a huge market in years to come and can wait to get my feet wet. if anyone has any suggested resources, links, books I’m all ears.
I’ll post by programs as I create them hopefully getting feedback from my loyal returning readers as well as you newcomers.
Dec
09
2009
Category : Around The Office
Im working with a really kick ass theme on a side project at dok.fm. I was so impressed with the work skinpress.com did on this puppy I had to bring it home with me and install it on my blog as well.
Sporting featured and related posts, built in tweet support, ez to use monetization options, great code, and a whole ton of social media support there’s PLENTY to be happy about. If I had more reader interaction I might have gone with this theme as it supports more content on the homepage, but I’m happy with this for now, or at least I will be once I skin it.
Jul
31
2009
Category : Around The Office
Apparently so. I just hit the 40 hour a month cap and can no longer listen to my beloved Pandora stations without paying for it. Damn. The counter resets tomorrow so Im not going to do anything rash – like send them my money, but I was astonished that Pandora has come this far.
Ive watched over the months as I’ve been getting an increasing number of advertisements, both those that play audio for 30 seconds or so in between songs and in several instances a video popup that can only be muted. I know the RIAA is breathing down the neck of the FCC and other regulators to kill Pandora by forcing them to pay the same royalties as radio for playing music.
The trouble is that Pandora has nowhere near the business model of any radio station and so does not generate anywhere near the same revenue. Hence, if the FCC were to say that Pandora needed to pay even a fraction of what radio plays they go out of business entirely. Obviously this is a disservice to everyone, especially smaller bands looking for exposure.
I don’t know the way to make everyone happy, but the answer cannot be to force Pandora to choose between a new business model making them no different than radio or going out of business.
Jun
12
2009
I had my first in person meeting with a new client yesterday, The Autism Society of Connecticut. This is the first project I’m using the gray screen development process for and I LOVE it. The process is much more straight forward and we covered in detail almost all the pages in the site objectively. Because I had the whole site mocked up we could see potential problems that would otherwise not have been evident and we were able to completely rework the navigation from the way it was in this first round of revisions.
We’ll see how it works in the next round and make more revisions on it I’m sure, but this was awesome in a first meeting. I’ll build out the backend as a gray screen using developer notes instead of actual database functionality.
NewFangled, hats off to you for bringing this technology to my eyes. You broke the industry. If you dont know who these people are, click the link and check out Process >> Prototyping. You wont be disappointed.
Apr
11
2009
Category : Around The Office
Technology, Social, Politics, Photography, Humor, and Gardening are now nested categories.
Clicking on any of them will get you the posts for that and its child categories.
The last month or so I’ve been kicking about on some seemingly off topic posts, from police brutality to community organizing and gardening. These are things that are important to me, and if they are of interest to you I encourage you to read the posts and share your thoughts.
In the near future Ill be CSSing the begeezuz out of the ul and li items, but for now just know that they are nested, renamed, and reordered. My next step is to add a ton of helpful widgets that Ive found over the last week working on another blog and finally to come full circle with a redesign. More on that later.
Apr
09
2009
Category : Around The Office, Around West Hartford, Cool Web Programs
This is a neat concept. You enter a location and it displays a list of blogs that are published in that area. You can also cue the blogs into a single feed and get all the selected posts from a given area.
I can see this as having a professional use for journalists, politically minded people, law enforcement, marketing/PR peopl, and anyone who wants to keep tabs on the pulse of a geographic community. The main drawback being that some people simply wont post their blog because they enjoy the curtain of privacy the internet provides.
On the otherhand, if I was going on vacation in Tokyo and wanted to find some really cool clubs, I could do a survey of blogs in Tokyo and see what the people are saying without ever going there. As an added plus, Id avoid the “top 10″ clubs in the city and hopefully find a comfy dive within walking distance of my hotel.
Feb
15
2009
I think its about time to move the site to Wordpress. I cant customize EVERYTHING in wordpress, but Id comfortable with the 99% that I can edit. Anyone with a firm grip of css and php can do just about anything and a huge devloper community is constantly creating new applets that continue to amaze me. Contunue Reading
Jan
31
2009
2009 should have been the year when the world would move away from IE6. Sadly though, it doesnt look to be the case. IE6 still has enough market share on most sites that we dont want to discount them because they cannot access the content we are providing, but the sad reality is: when you are using a two generation dated browser you cannot except to see all the new toys… Contunue Reading
Jan
26
2009
Category : Around The Office
After careful consideration The Tea Party is the new name for the HattersWorkshop Blog.
