Kalispell MT Programmers Meeting
1.14.2010 .:. posted in MVC, News
There is a meeting of the Montana Programmers for Kalispell scheduled for January 28th. I will be giving a presentation on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern pertaining to web development. Our founder will also be giving an introduction to MT Programmers and who we are. This will be the first meeting for the Flathead region. More information about the meeting and the group can be found at montanaprogrammers.com.
Flex and missing browser scrollbar
12.30.2009 .:. posted in Flex
Working on a site recently that is going to be a CodeIgniter/PHP site with several Flex modules added in, I encountered a peculiar problem. Because my Flex applications are not controlling site structure (navigation, headers, footers, etc.) the user needs to have a typical browser experience. Allowing the user to scroll with the browser is much simpler than training them to use scrollbars inside my application in this use case.
The Flex/Flashbuilder generated HTML template however, disables browser scrolling in a couple of places. This is fine for full page Flex applications, but you may want to turn this off for hybrid applications.
First, Flashbuilder adds a style:
body { margin: 0px; overflow:hidden }
Change this to:
body { margin: 0px; overflow:scroll; }
Then look for your body tag:
<body scroll=”no”>
and change it to:
<body>
and that’s all! This will be different if you’re using the SWFObject to embed your Flex.
October MTP Meeting
9.30.2009 .:. posted in MVC, News
There is a Montana Programmers meeting scheduled for October 6th at Ruby’s Inn in Missoula at 6pm.
I will be covering using frameworks to speed your development of web sites and applications. This will be a two part series. This first part will be to introduce what frameworks are and why you should or should not use them.
We will focus on:
- Development frameworks (PHP, Java, .NET, maybe some other areas)
- Types of frameworks (Component, MVC, Content)
- Advantages and disadvantages of using a framework
The presentation will be around 30 minutes. The second part of the meeting will be reserved for exchanging ideas or tutoring. Please bring your questions or tutoring requests!
Montana Programmers meeting on Meetup
What I Listen To
8.21.2009 .:. posted in Development
One of the easiest ways to enhance my knowledge of my trade craft is listening to podcasts. Certain podcasts help keep me informed about what is happening in the industry. These are some of my personal favorites. There are many podcasts that cover similar topics, but these are of a high quality, and have stayed consistent over multiple years. My iTunes is littered with podcasts from cancelled shows. Below is what I listen to the most. Most of these podcasts can be found on iTunes as well as their sites included below.
General Web Development
- Boagworld – Hosted by Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington of Headscape Design. By far this is the podcast I listen to the most. I stumbled upon this one when it was the UK .net magazine’s podcast a few years ago. This podcast covers the latest industry news, a wide range of web development and design topics, and can be quite humorous. If you are a web dev or designer and don’t listen to this you’re missing out!
- Web Design TV – From the makers of .net magazine, one of the best web dev mags out there, is this video cast covering all aspects of our trade.
.NET Development
- .NET Rocks! - This show is for anyone who develops in the .NET world. This weekly podcast talks to the developers who are making things happen in the .NET world and building the tools you’re using. There are other .NET specific podcasts but this one is the most consistent and of the best quality.
- Polymorphic – This is another high quality .NET podcast. Recent topics include jQuery secrets and ASP.NET MVC.
Java Development
- The Java Posse – Java specific show that does both a news segment and Java knowledge segment. Covers all aspects of Java and industry news.
RIA
- The Flex Show – By far the best video and audio cast about Flex and RIAs. Adobe doesn’t have anything that compares to these guys. The show is broken into two segments, the podcast which covers interviews with industry Flex developers, and a video cast “15 minutes of Flex”, which are brief tutorials in Flex. If you’re interested in what’s possible with Flex, the interviews are priceless. Besides Boagworld this is the show I listen to the most.
- TV.Adobe.com – Not a podcast technically, but a video site for everything Adobe. The Designer and Developer channels are extremely useful for Adobe users. The 360 Flex sessions and Ajax sessions are awesome. After using some of the Adobe/Macromedia products for over 15 years now I still pick up tips I didn’t know about.
JavaScript / Ajax
- Audible Ajax – Although this show seems to have ended it is still worth mentioning. Definitely the best podcast about everything JavaScript.
- Ajaxian – Don’t know if Ajaxian (great Ajax news site) has it’s own podcast, but they have a page dedicated to listing recent podcasts covering the subject.
MTP August Meeting
8.8.2009 .:. posted in News
The Montana Programmers group has two upcoming meetings. Our Missoula meeting is on Wednesday Aug. 12th at Ruby’s Inn and Convention Center and is covering e-commerce. The Polson meeting is at Ashton’s house (aka Web Sites In A Flash) on Friday the 14th and is covering SEO or Adobe Flex.
For more information on the group and our past and future meetings: Montana Programmers
Brief History of Java
8.8.2009 .:. posted in Development, Java
There are many misconceptions about the Java programming language and its history. Although this video can only cover a brief overview and misses some important aspects, it is still an entertaining view.
New Everything!
7.30.2009 .:. posted in News
Welcome to the new 4th Dimension Development site. We decided that the time was here for a new design and took the opportunity to add some technologies to our site. This site is now implemented in WordPress, which allowed us the most flexibility in design and the content management features that we needed.
Over the next few months we will be adding additional features for our clients, visitors, and ourselves.
Some of these will include:
- Clients’ Area – to consolidate the tools we use to better serve our customers and manage their projects.
- Applications – we are working on several web applications and a few iPhone applications. We wish to both show our progress and to provide access to some of our applications.
- More tips and how-to articles for our visitors and other developers. Over the years all of us have used community resources to learn our craft, we want to share and give back.
Great Solutions & Planning
7.29.2009 .:. posted in Project Planning
Good solutions come from us alone, but great solutions come from the client and us. Here are some tasks and questions to answer before approaching a design or development agency:
- What are some specific goals for your online presence? Some example goals could be:
- Spread information about products or an organization.
- Increase sales at the brick & mortar store.
- Create new revenue for an existing business.
- Improve your customer relations.
- Make business metrics accessible to employees so they can make better business decisions.
- Improve sales person efficiency on the road.
- What is your budget for a project?
- Adding a web site or application to your business is a major decision, treat it like one.
- Determine what your short-term and long-term budgets are.
- By determining this you will be much more prepared to determine what features you need, what type of support you can afford, and what time frame you can achieve your goals in.
- What features do you want and which ones do you need?
- This is a great way to get premium services on a budget. Quite often there are features that will over extend your budget but that do not add any value for your customers.
- Catch phrase features often fall into things to cut. Some new technologies can greatly help your organization, others will just cost you money.