Visualizing The Grid

I thought this interactive map is not only interesting for its information about power sources in the U.S., but as an excellent example of using Flash to teach a concept.

“The U.S. electric grid is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines. Aging infrastructure, combined with a rise in domestic electricity consumption, has forced experts to critically examine the status and health of the nation's electrical systems.”

BlendFu - Creative Photoshop Brushes

A nice collection of Photoshop brushes.

http://blendfu.com/

USB Flash Drive Auto launch

As far as I can tell it’s pretty difficult to make a USB drive launch a file as seamlessly as a CD-ROM will. However, you can make it show up in the list of items to run, and launch it from there. Here is a sample autorun.inf that you would place at the root directory of your drive.

[autorun]
icon=icon.ico
open=folder/file.html
action=Launch Name
shellexecute=folder/file.html

 

Use Flex to retrieve data from a SharePoint list

I was just reading this interesting article from the Flex cookbook (beta).

Freedom to surf: workers more productive if allowed to use the internet for leisure

“Dr Brent Coker, from the Department of Management and Marketing, says that workers who engage in ‘Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing’ (WILB) are more productive than those who don’t.”

http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/news/5750/

Adobe Extends Flash Platform to Digital Home

I thought this press release from Adobe was pretty interesting:

 “SAN JOSE, Calif. and LAS VEGAS, Nev. — April 20, 2009 — At the 2009 NAB Show, Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the extension of the Adobe® Flash® Platform to connected digital home devices with an optimized implementation of Flash technology that delivers high definition (HD) video and rich applications to Internet-connected televisions, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and other devices in the digital living room.”

Google Profiles

I was just reading on fastcompany.com about Google Profiles.

“On Tuesday, Google launched a small-but-crucial improvement to its "Profile" feature: you can now allow Google to display your personal account page--complete with some bare-bones Facebookey fields like hometown, university, place of residence and interests--using a vanity URL: google.com/profiles/your-name-here.”

This article was interesting, too.

I’ll have to decide which Google account I want to go with. J

Flash Player support on 64-bit operating systems

I learned today there is a known issue where Flash cannot play in the 64-bit version of IE (available on Windows Vista 64-Bit). I believe other browsers on 64-bit operating systems (Linux, for example) are affected, too.

The workaround in Vista is to create a shortcut to point to the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer.

1. Copy the shortcut for Internet Explorer
2. Right-click and select Properties
3. Change the target location for Internet Explorer from " C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe " to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"

The good news for Flash Developers is that, according on one source, 32-bit IE is the default for Windows Business 64-bit- though the 64bit version is, of course, available.

Determine PHP Version

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

JSLint, The JavaScript Verifier

This seems like it might be a cool, web-based JavaScript debugger: JSLint. I love the warning they provide, too: “Warning: JSLint will hurt your feelings.”

http://www.jslint.com/

Writing Long Strings Using Multiple Lines in C#

Heh, I know some of my posts are “noob” posts, but this blog serves as my own virtual series of post-its. Adding the @ character before the quote allows line breaks in the string.

private string longName = @"abcdefg

hijklmnop";

 

The Problem With URL Shorteners

Joshua Schachter's blog has a really great explanation on the problem with URL shorteners, such as tinyurl.

The Art of the Brick

MM pointed out this interesting artist, Nathan Sawaya, who creates sculptures out of Legos:

http://brickartist.com/

“Some artists use paint, others bronze – But for Nathan Sawaya he chooses to build his awe-inspiring art out of toy building blocks. LEGO® bricks to be exact.”

Adobe Flash Platform & Facebook Platform

I just ran across this article on the Adobe Developer Connection site.

“The new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform API, fully supported by Facebook and Adobe, makes it easy to build applications that combine the strengths of the Flash Platform and Facebook Platform.”

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/facebook/