TRINIX

I recently discovered “Lovely Charts” (http://www.lovelycharts.com). It’s an online Rich Internet Application build in Flex (flash GUI) and a PHP / MySQL back-end. It’s developed in Belgium (my country by Jérôme Cordiez (active at http://www.thisislovely.com ) and it’s really a piece of art.

Lovely charts allows you to create online charts – Diagrams – wireframes – …

This is like MS Visio but then really nice and easy and most important of all it’s ONLINE!!!
The interface is really intuitive and the functionality is almost complete (it’s still in Beta fase).

You can draw with lovely charts:

• Flowcharts
• Sitemaps
• Wireframes
• Organigram charts
• Network diagrams

The diagram symbols are vectorized and have a nice modern touch. The result are impressive charts and diagrams with a professional look. I tested already for personal use and now i’m even using it at my work as a Product Manager at StepStone Belgium. For my projects I have to create a lot of sitemaps, wireframes, diagrams, … and this tool just won over MS Visio. Creating complex sitemaps is no issue anymore. You can play around with all different arrows, colors, elements and symbols. Lovely charts allow you to create even the simplest or really complex diagrams without any problems, linking the different elements with one simple click. You can even specify the different types of arrow lines. When you are finished you can export your diagram / chart to a JPEG or PNG.

Everything is really straigtforward:

• drag-drop
• resize
• link elements
• adding text
• export

You can even select and manipulate multipe elements or use the keyboard to do actions.

I can’t say in words how much I like lovely Charts but just take a look at the impressive gallery and believe me afterwards you will signup. And the diagrams presented in the gallery are really created with lovely charts.

It’s a free service with the possibility to signup for a premium account.
With this premium account you can save your diagrams online.

Have a look at their gallery and watch the screencast at their nicely designed website
and Signup now for a free account

CSS is a life saver when it comes to managing the GUI of a website.

Changing 1 style in the CSS file, will affect the whole website (if you implemented CSS in the right manner offcourse )

But even your precious planned CSS lay-out is a victim of the different rendering of the default styles in the various browsers.

For example a H1 is rendered in IE with a specific white margin below its text, while in FF this has a different margin.

Even a form is rendered differently.

To prevent from working with 10 different CSS files, one for each browser existing, it’s easier to reset all the default styles to a specific style.

This can very easily be achieved. You need to set all the default styles in 1 CSS which you include each time as the first CSS file and next you will be working with a CSS lay-out that’s cross browser compatible.

How to reset the default styles and which styles to reset is explained by Shape Shed :: http://shapeshed.com/journal/default_styles_for_css/

Another great explenation can by found at the Yahoo UI Library (which is an excellent reference concerning UI) :: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/reset/

Go have a look and you will save several hours and a lot off stress and cursing when you start lay-outing your next website or web application to be cross browser compatible.

Are you looking for a fully MS Project alternative, please don’t search any longer.

OpenProj :: http://openproj.org/openproj

This tool has all the functionality like MS Project with a big diference namely that this is open source software.

I tested the tool through and believe me that this is a keeper.

Description of the website says it all.

“The OpenProj solution is ideal for desktop project management
and is available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows. OpenProj is a complete
desktop replacement of Microsoft Project and even opens existing native
Project files. OpenProj shares the most advanced scheduling engine in
the industry with Project-ON-Demand. The OpenProj solution has Gantt
Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned
Value costing and more. “

So if you need an excellent alternative for MS Project just download OpenProj and you will be delighted.

The tool is used by all the big Linux CEO’s so that’s a good indication about the quality of OpenProj.

I was in serious need off a way to manage my tasks and agenda.

I found a really nice solution by using the following free tools:

• Rainlendar :: http://www.rainlendar.net/
• Google Calendar :: http://calendar.google.com
• Gcal Daemon :: http://gcaldaemon.sourceforge.net/

I started using Rainlendar (http://www.rainlendar.net/).It’s a desktop calendar that behaves like a small widget on your desktop. And it looks not only really nice, it also is really good software for managing events and todo’s. I even bought the PRO license because it provides the functionality to automatically read my outlook agenda and make them visible in Rainlendar. So no double importing.

Because I have a work laptop and a personal PC, I needed something to sync all my events online so that’s easy to manage. I noticed that Rainlendar supports google Calendar, so that was the way to go. And through google Calendar it’s possible to seperate my personal and work calendar because we can make as many calendars as we wont. And google calendar provides the possibility to share your calendar. So I had my desktop calender and I had an online calendar all in sync. But I noticed really quick that Rainlendar only allowed read access to google Calendar. So I needed a 2-way sync solution between Google Calendar and Rainlendar.

After some playing around I ended up with GCal Daemon (http://gcaldaemon.sourceforge.net/). This is an open source service which provides multiple functionality. GCALDaemon is primarily designed as a calendar synchronizer but it can also be used as a
Gmail notifier, Address Book importer, Gmail terminal and RSS feed converter. This tool runs like a service which every XX minutes syncs in a 2-way manner a specific online gcalendar to an iCal format (ICS file). The only thing I next needed to do was just set my Rainlendar to use the created ICS files and my desktop and online calendars were completely in sync. I can create an event online that will appear on my desktop and vice versa. PERFECT!!!

The only things i’m currently missing is:

• a tool to make my Outlook agenda sync with google Calendar
• a symilar manner to sync my Rainlendar todo’s with an online tool like Remember The Milk or if only google Calendar would provide an online todo functionality.

If anybody has found a way to sync his Rainlendar todo or export his Outlook Agendo to an RSS or iCal format, please let me know.

UPDATE: I found a really good Outlook <–> Google Calendar tool. SyncMyCal adds a toolbar to your Outlook which helps you perform one-click synchronization between your Outlook and Google Calendar calendaring system. You can choose which calendars you want to synchronize and if you want to perform one way or two way update.

SynMyCal :: http://syncmycal.com/outlook_google_calendar_sync.htm

It comes in 2 version:

• SyncMyCal Lite: the free version , it has no automatic sync so you have to push the button on regeluar times
• SyncMyCal Pro: which has all the functionality available

This year I wanted to do something special for New Year. First I wanted to go to start the New Year in New York but do to my lateness of my decision all the nice hotels were booked allready so I had to look for a nice alternative.

I ended up with Paris (the city of light and love).

My plan was to go by car and stay max 24 hours without sleeping, just party. I googled some information and the told me that Paris was a really great place to celebrate the new year, especially on the Champs Elysee.

This is how it went down.

31 Dec Departure

Did my research on affordable parking space and what the nice clubs were to party.

Got up at 13:00, made breakfast, took a shower, got dressed. At 14:30 I Took my bottle of champagne and papers with my info and just got into my car.My tomtom estimated a 4 hour drive.

31 Dec Arrival Paris

After a 4 hour drive and with the necesairry traffic troubles in Paris self. I parked my car in the parking below the Vendome at 19:00.

The vendome was in walking distance of the Champs Elysee. The vendome is also a really nice neightbourhoud with all kinds of expensive boutiques. So I was sure that nothing would happen with my car. I started walking the direction of the Champs Elysee looking for some dinner. I passed a Starbucks, so I grabbed myself a nice coffee and went on. I didn’t really find something for dinner so I decided to grab a sandwich at the Champs Elysee. I arrived at the Champs Elysee at 20:00. There was already a lot of people present and you noticed that there was a special atmosphere. A lot of tourists with bottles champagnes and other kind of alcohol.

I grabbed myself a nice looking sandwich and with some time to kill I went to the “magical” tour eifel to see what was happening there. I arrived there and there was a lot of ambiance and again a lot of people. The squares in front of the eifel tour were full with peoples of all nationalities. The atmosphere was almost magical.

31 Dec?Paris Counting Down

It was almost midnight so I decided to go back to celebrate the new year on the Champs Elysee, because of the good reviews I read on the internet. When I went back I noticed a lot of police present. On every street there were like 5 vans with police. I arrived on the Champs Elysee at 23:45. The Champs Elysee was locked down and the street was one gigantic?moving mass?of people and with the lightning decoration it felt like that there would happen something magical. Everybody was getting more and more exited as time passed. At 23:55 people were all looking the direction the Arc the triomf. People were all preparing for a big party.

New Year Paris

Then it was finally time, the clock indicated 00:00 and it was a?new year. It was 2008. I stoud there ready with my bottle of champagne. But there was nobody who started counting down, no fireworks, no people kissing, no people opening champagne. We were all looking around awaiting for the banging of the fireworks. BUT NOTHING HAPPENED!!!!

It was already 00:10 and couple of people started kissing and 3-4 people opened a bottle of champagne but the majority of the crowd was still awaiting something, but nothing came. Then at 00:15 a group of people began fighthing. Then everybody just started to go away. So far for the big and special new year at Paris…

Disappointed from the anti-climax, I decided to go to the tour Eifel to see if there was a something going on. I followed the mass in the direction of the tour Eifel. I arrived at 00:45 and the people there were crazy. I walked around enjoying the atmospere. Around 2:00 I stoud at one of the feet of the tour eifel and I saw a large crowd moving to the middle of the square below the tour eifel and then quickly seperating. I tried to look what was going on and I saw that the police (in fool combar armor) was charging to the people in the middle. The people started to throwing bottles in the direction of the police. It felt like there was a war going on between the youngsters and the cops. I noticed also that everybody was really drunk and the people were getting more and more aggresive. Again disappointed of these events, I would find my club and start partying. The club was located at the Champs Elysee.

I arrived there 3:00, there were still a lot of people there and also a lot of garbage. The ambiance was totally gone when people start lighting the garbage on fire. Totally dispointed of all the events, I said to myself, enough is enough. This was everything except celebrating the New Year. I got in my car around 4:00 and just went home.

So far for my new year @ Paris. It was one of my biggest disappointments to start 2008 with and the biggest anti-climax ever.

On the other side it couldn’t get any worse so the rest of the year can only be better

I heard from a girl friend that at midnight there was fireworks at the tour eifel and that there was the place to be.

So my advice never celebrate at the champs Elysee.

My appologies for having not posted anything new for a really long time.

I was busy with my new job as Product Manager and that took a lot of (free)time.

But for 2008 I will try to find some more time to post.