TRINIX

I found this interesting notes on ‘Future of Web Apps SF 2006‘ conference.
Special thnx to Juixe for providing the Conference Notes.

Ryan Carson (organizer of Future of Web Applications and owner of Hey Amigo, Drop Send, and Think Vitamin) explains his personal DONT’S

Quote’s : “
Ryan Carson is the Future of Web Applications conference organizer and he
spoke about what he wish he had known before starting his online ventures,
Hey Amigo, Drop Send, and Think Vitamin. Ryan started his session by saying,
“We built three web applications, the first one we don’t talk about.” Here are
the 14 things Ryan wished he had known before he started his applications.
Hopefully they will help you, if you didn’t already now them. Before I begin I
should not that his advice sounds more appropriate from small teams, not
multinational conglomerates.

14. For the last piece of advice he wished he had known before building a web
application, Ryan quoted other speakers. Ryan said that the first, and maybe
even the second, version of an application are always throwaways. Marketing
and promotion can be a full time job; if you build it you need to promote it
before they will come. User’s can be trusted; you don’t have to validate an
email to have users start using your system “

Interesting point of view and I can totally find myself in this 14 points.

He forget to mention one important thing (according to me).

15. It’s important to keep track of version and notify users when the new version goes life and what changed since the previous versions. By doing this you prevent a ton of calls and emails from users about that their application changed without them knowing about it. Plus it creates a positive marketing vibe (new version, new functions, more people hear about this, RSS, blogs, …) Your application gets extra attention and perhaps attracts more potential users. So think commercial even with versions!

This comes in handy, when you want to use specific files.
I listed a couple of possibilities.

JavaScript Import:

<script
   type='text/javascript'
   src='directory/file.js'>
</script>

CSS:

<style type='text/css'  media='all'>
   @import 'directory/file.css';
</style>

Icon Import:

<link
   rel='Shortcut Icon'
   href='directory/file.ico'
   type='image/x-icon'>

PHP Import:

<?php @ require_once ('directory/file.html'); ?>

Adding an extra @ will prevent for possible errors to be shown.

For those who want to redirect their user to a certain page, here are a couple examples to do so.

PHP redirect:

header('Location: index.html');

HTML Redirect:

<meta
  http-equiv='refresh'
  content='0;URL=http://www.trinix.be'>

Javascript Redirect:

document.location.href='index.html'

Check out this website with an interesting article on how to re-use the Buttom element for lay-outing and extra functionality.

http://particletree.com/features/rediscovering-the-button-element/

Yesterday ( 19 May 2007), I went to the Elements of Life concert of Dj Tiësto in the Ethias Arena in Hasselt (Belgium).
We arrived at 23:45, we didn’t had a ticket so we bought one (a ticket costs € 50). Tiësto started his show at 24:00.

He gave a solid show with in the first 3 hours a lot of tracks of his new album with some live vocal performances of the singers on the album. He got the crowd going. Also because of some special remixes of known songs like a remix of Kid Snero – White Line (a really old retro track) and a remake of Wamdu Project – King Of My Castle and lost of other cool tracks.

But at 15:04 he started, what I call, his ‘Platinum’ Hour. During 1 hour and about 15 min he just played all his hits (plantinum) and I really mean all his hits. All in one BIG mix (no vocal performances except for Love Come Again and another track I don’t know, which the singer totally messeup ). He started with Rain Down on me (the crowd went nuts) then on to Traffic, Dance 4 Life, Lethal Industry, … . I’m not sure in which order but he definitly playd these:

• Rain Down
• Traffic
• Dance 4 Life
• Lethal Industry
• Delerium – Silence
• Love Come Again
• Dallas 4 PM
• Flight 643
• Just Be
• He’s a Pirate
• …

So all the Hits just made the roof go off the Ethias arena, add some extra Show elements like water, fire, lasers, confetti and you got yourself one fantastic Elements of Life concert. The crowd totally loved it, the vibe was perfect. We couldn’t get enough of this. The whole Ethias Arena was jumping, shouting and waving on this magical ‘platinum’ hour.

I’m a bit of a fan of Tiësto (not a big one or a Tiësto fanatic) since I heard his magical set on Sensation White 2000. So I know all his albums. So I was really pleased that he also played the less known hits from before his commercial break-through (Dallas 4 PM, Flight 643, …). After that ‘Platinum’ hour he continued his dj sets with his personall favorites. He played a superb remix of Da Hool – Meet her at the love parade, a remix of Red Carpet – Allright and some other classics and new tracks.

If I had to give a score to this concert I would give it an 8/10 (good – very good)
Positive:

• Platinum Hour
• Laser show
• Fire and Water elements
• Giant video wall
• Confetti and fireworks
• Vocal performances of the known singers
• Excellent sound quality
• Nice stage setup (but not renewing)
• Good organisation

Negative:

• Not always interesting video footage on the video wall
• To little decoration in the hall (If you compare with other big events Sensation)
• No extra dance or show acts like stage artists except a colorfull trio.
• The story line of the elements of life was weak

I still found the first Concert he gave the best concert (best show, best music all night long, best story line), perhaps because it was a complete new concept. I found this concert a little light. It was solid but it missed the extra touch.
But I still would like to congratulate Tiësto (Tijs Verwest) and the whole organisation crew for their result.

Tiësto will be giving some more Elements of Life shows, it’s a World Tour, so check out his website and go see his show:

http://www.tiesto.com/

I have been looking for a simple yet nice program to create my Window / Form design.

The program has to be solely graphical, I want to drag drop form elements and other components. Afterwards I want to save all these designs as simple images.

I want to use it to help me plan my workflow of a program or website.
So I can build and lay-out all my different windows and forms without having to go into detail or coding.

Who has suggestions or tips

I have a pretty old laptop, that sometimes has a problem with some processes that required the full 100% of the CPU. So I wanted a little handy tool that showed me my CPU load in my system tray bar. Like when the Windows Taksmanager was opened. But the problem was that the taskmanager was also shown in my taskbar and this is not ideal if you have already so many programs shown in the little taskbar.

After some googling and trying a whole load of crapy tray tools. My colleague pointed out that in Windows Taskmanager in the Option menu, there was an option ‘Hide when Minimized’.  :shock: Life can be so simple, if you just see it.

This was the thing I have been looking for all the time …
Now I see my CPU load without having  my taskbar all filled up with the Windows Taskmanager itself.

About a half year ago, I was looking for a good and easy to use remote storage space for my personal documents and other stuff.

I first started using gmail with some tools who made it act like a remote HDD but this wasn’t quit what I have been looking for. Next I tried using Rapidshare.com, but I hated the wait time everytime I wanted to download.

Then I found box.net, I was in heaven. This remote storage is completely webbased, completely Web 2.0,FULLY Featured. Hereby I mean, you name they got it.

First off they have a sleek lay-out with dito AJAX interactivity and no fuzz signing on.
Next you have all kind of upload possibilities:
- Form upload
- Multipe files upload
- Drag & Drop upload
Then you can share your files in a lots of different ways:
- Online webinterface
- send a link by email
- share your files in a widget on blogs
- Create access groups, multiple users, …
And box.net will show images, let you play mp3 and video’s, …
Mobile acces, …

You name it they got it.

You get 1GB for free and they have affordable pricing if you want more then 1GB.

I would say grab yourself an account and share you files with this EXCELLENT service.
I’m fan of it.

http://www.box.net

I don’t know about you, but I was really surprised about the tools that were made portable. I know that portable apps were around for quite a while but I never really used them, till recently.

Portable means that the tools are portable (duuuh), this means you don’t have to install the tools but you can just run them from any location with having to have ADMIN rights (because there isn’t any installation required). Another benefit is the size, these tools are most likely reduced in size. Another benefit is that you can carry all your necesairy tools AND settings on 1 memory stick or remote location like gmail.com or box.net. This comes in handy if you have different PC’s or laptops, you don’t have to install and setup the tool over and over again. You just run it from your memory stick or download it from you remote storage, eh voila you have your tool with your wanted settings. Nothing is more easy.

I started using Fillezilla Portable (Portable version of the excellent, open source FTP client) and Firefox. But there is a whole list of portable apps, check them out, link can be found just below.

More info check links:

http://portableapps.com/news/2007-05-07_-_filezilla_portable_2.2.32 http://portableapps.com/

UPDATE: 100 Portable Apps for Win or Mac
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/portable-software-usb/

Update: http://trafficjam.trinix.be/flex

My trafficJam project is really going good, I made it in Flex to start with. Later I plan some developing with ExtJS .
The flex is at the moment in Alpha Fase, later this week I plan to release the public Beta.

Working with Flex is super easy, you can drag&drop elements on the canvas or set them in code.
My project is starting to get finished for the Beta release.

I can’t validate, retrieve data, send data, show data in a grid, use states, …

This all in just 1 day of work.

More info soon when Beta version is released.
http://trafficjam.trinix.be