Had to Happen Some Time

Hey everybody, I've finally gotten around to writing on this thing! Everything's going real great so far, I've put up a few Joomla sites and I've finally been given a Flash project that I have been working on for the past week. I myself have a few Firefox add-on suggestions as well as some really cool Joomla! extensions.

Firebug (two recommendations now) - This is a really great add-on, it allows you to select specific elements of your page, while giving you a look at the html. It also shows you which CSS rules are influencing that specific element, it tells you which stylesheet it's coming from and what line the rule is on!

MeasureIt - This is a really nice ruler add-on that does a lot better job then the one in the web developer toolbar.

ColorZilla - This is a handy little eye dropper tool for your browser, just click on the page and it gives you the hex code for whatever colour it is. You can also double click the icon and it will bring up a colour picker very similar to photoshop.

I'm sure there's more but I use these every day and they come in real handy.

Alright now Joomla! extensions, I've been working on nothing but Joomla! sites this whole time so I've got quite a few.

JCE - This is a free wysiwyg editor to replace the default Joomla! editor. You not only get more text editing options, but it makes it a lot easier to create links and use photos on your Joomla! site.

Simple Image Gallery - This is a plugin produced by joomlaworks.gr. It's really simple to use all you do is put your images in a folder inside your templates images/stories folder. Then you create an article and enter {gallery}myfoldername{/gallery}. It creates thumbnails of all your images and displays the full sized ones in a lightbox.

(all the ones I'm going to tell you about in detail are free btw)

UCD (Ultimate Content Display) - This is also produced by joomlaworks, I came across it while working on my current project. I was having an issue displaying content because there's very little space for articles. The template is mostly made up of little module boxes. I couldn't get the control over the content I wanted so I installed this extension. Basically it lets you display and article in a module.

PluginInModule - This does exactly what is suggests. It enable you to run a plugin through one of your modules... It comes in handy for Simple Image Gallery.

All Videos Reloaded - This is a cool component, it gives you two different options, you can go to the extension manager and add videos that way as well as create play lists, or you can add videos right to an article by using the AVR button at the bottom of the editor. You get the same core options but going into the main component gives you a couple of other options.

This next one is not free but I recommend it if your ever doing a project where you need a simple light weight flash image gallery.

JPhoto like I said is a small flash gallery. It has several different styles you can apply to it and a few different display modes. Now I'll warn you the documentation isn't very good and it doesn't mention the file size limitation. There is a file size limit and you'll need to be aware of that even if the files are small enough they might take time to load (it is flash after all). You should be able to load pretty much any file you'd have to given that it's properly optimized.


Anyway I think that's enough for me, it was really nice seeing most of you last week at grad. I hope everyone is having a good time and good luck!

Some Recommendations From Your Old Pal Kelly

Hey everyone! Hope your all doing well and enjoyed the grad festivities last week (You lucky buggers)! Wish I could have been there!

Any who, this week, I thought I'd talk less about what I've been doing here at Fjord West, and more about what I've learnt during my time here, and what I'd suggest/recommend for the rest of you doing practicum, or even those who are in Year 1 (Just finished), or next years Year 1's.

Let's start of with one great informational nugget of recommendation. If someone tasks you with creating a Flash Banner, by god, don't do the animation in code. I was originally asked to edit another persons ads for the creation of a new set of ads similar to the originals.

He had done everything in code, which was fine in the case of the original set of ads and mine, as all the code was doing was pulling in 3 pictures at random, in between a defined start and end picture. But when I was tasked with creating another set of ads that had actual animation in it, I never thought anything of it, and created the new ones using the first set I created as a base. Since all the animation was done in code, this took much longer then it would have to animate the ad on the timeline in Flash.

When I was finished, I felt smarter for doing it all in code (Lot's of x and y coordinate definitons, GreenSock tweens, alpha transitions, etc.), but dumber for wasting Fjords time with what could have been done much quicker, and much faster had I done all the animation on the timeline.

So with out of the way, it's now time for me to recommend some programs for everyone to use, or the teachers to get for next year! (That means you Derek!)

• Adobe Flex Builder 3
  Adobe Flex Builder is basically a Dreamweaver for ActionScript. You can set up multiple projects, with each keeping track of every file within your Flash applications. The best feature I've found so far is the ability to press the "Ctrl" button while hovering over variable names and other crazy AS code, and by clicking on said code, it will automatically take you to the location of the define variable, be it within the same .as file, or within any .as file inside your define project folder! (Derek, you seriously need to get the school to buy this if there's ever any really heavy ActionScript coding in the course.)
• EditPlus 3
  This is just a simple "everything" editor like Notepad++. Not really a recommendation, but just a suggestion if your looking for something else. It's all I've really used here at Fjord to edit anything code wise, excluding ActionScript code.
• Firebug (With the Google Page Speed plugin)
  Basically, Firebug is another awesome Web Development tool for Firefox, but all I use it for is Google's Page Speed plugin which scores your site's download speed based upon a range of different tests, such as file size optimization, tag usage, document combination (Combining multiple CSS/JS files into one file reduces the amount of requests to the server, resulting in a faster loading site for the end user), etc. I've been able to reduce the file size of some of my HTML, CSS, and JS documents by up to 50% of their original size, resulting in faster download times for visitors to my site.
• Google Chrome
  Yes, I drank the Kool-Aid, and it was damn tasty! :P

Well, that's all for this week. Sorry for pushing everyone else's posts below the proverbial "fold"! Hope to hear from everyone soon!

I have arrived

Greetings from far off B town. Ya, I am bloggin' it to it now! Okay, now that I am in, I don't have much to say.

It is good to hear that everyone is doing well. My placement is serving me great. Been handling more of the database side of things ... didn't see that coming. But it has been a smattering of everything so far. little video editing here, a brief animation, lots of site management through mysql and learning about digital signage more too. My first digital signage goes up in their secondary headquarters as soon as new monitors get in.

It's been very interesting so far, the day just seems to cook by. The hours go by so fast when I am still working on something by the time my ride home shows up, I love it.

On another note, my friends here have recently thrown a fund raising social for my benefit, in which donations are still coming in. It was some great support from family, friends and local businesses. We are raising money for a new treatment over seas in mid August. My hopes are to help stop progression in my MS before I lose much more plus a week in Costa Rica sounds pretty sweet to. :) fingers are crossed, but there is a bright side to my bad circulation ... 2 beer go a long way ... :-P going to lose that

Anyhow, down to the last couple of weeks yet ... unreal, like I said time is just flying by now but it always does when you don't hate your life ... haha (yes I know I have a strange sense of humour 'cause that makes me smile)

Take care team "HOTEL", the world is yours!!
Rhett

What a week!

It has been a great week! I just got home from a week back home. Of course, I only spent two days in Killarney. So where to start...

I got home Wednesday on the 2nd, my sister was at the airport to pick me up. That's right, I flew! The flight was only 45 minutes long! We then drove home to Killarney where my mom and my aunt and cousins from Arizona were waiting for me. We just sat around, I told them about Saskatoon (I didn't have much to stay on the count of all the bad weather) and ate a bunch of food that they made just for me!

The next day was of course, GRAD! It was great seeing everyone, and it's too bad we couldn't get together afterwards. My family and I went out to the keg for steak and crab afterwards, it was damn good!

Friday was, as many as you know, my 21st Birthday! It was pretty much a relaxing day...until the night came! I drove into brandon and went to my friends house and hung out with the boys for a good ole drink night! We then went to the roadhouse for a few more drinks and shots and saw a few more of my brandon friends! Good times, tough bretts!

Saturday was a busy day, I was a little hungover from last night but nothing a gallon of water and 3 pieces of toast cant fix! My mom and I left for winnipeg to go to the 2 o'clock show of Rain: the Beatles tribute band. They were AWESOME!!! They sounded exactly like the four and they had the costumes and everything! Their best song was I think Come Together and Hey Jude, a real crowd pleaser! After the concert, I went to my friend's new house and had some more drinking moments!

So ya my week back home was awesome! I'm really glad I came back to see everyone. So now I'm back in Saskatoon to do the last month of my praticum; still havent decided if im gonna stay here afterwards. Hopefully the weather gets better so I can actually go out, explore the city and tell some stories.

It was great seein everyone wednesday and for those who weren't there, hope you are all doing good in your work places.