Recent Articles

This is Why I Need Lego Mindstorms [Video]

I have wanted an excuse to get the Lego Mindstorms NXT set for awhile. Now I have one. To keep my jar of marbles safe - or are they jelly beans? Either way I’d eat them.

Intro to Flash Catalyst [Screencast]


Intro to Adobe Flash Catalyst from Garth Braithwaite on Vimeo.

A basic overview of the MAX preview version of Adobe Flash Catalyst.

Web Designer Wall Top 50

I love Web Designer Wall; it is a great place to see some good site design.

Today they released the Best of CSS Design 2008.  It contains some amazing sites.  I spent a good bit going through them and bookmarking a lot for future reference.

Interestingly enough they also picked a site that was recently released by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS Church).  The site is specifically designed to focus on the life and ministry of the Savior,  Jesus Christ.  Being LDS myself I did a bit of a double take when I saw it.  Something like worlds colliding, but congratulations to whoever designed it.  Looks good.

How Flash Could Get on the IPhone [How Wired Could be Wrong]

Wired recently published an article on their site titled - Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone, and I think their logic isn’t quite right.  I agree there is the possibility that Flash may never end up on the iPhone but I belive there are conditions in which could happen.  (warning: conditions may include unicorns and flying pigs).

The article mentions that Flash would actually violates Apple’s Terms of Service agreement for the iPhone and mention two points in particular

An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise,

No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).

What I am hoping is the solution Adobe has hinted at is a version of the Flash Player built for the iPhone as a plug-in of Safari and included as a built-in interpreter.  It would mean Apple would have to release it as a firmware update.  In that case I don’t see it violating Apple’s TOS.  (However - it seems Apple can bend rules if needed)

Now, a more lofty hope would be to allow an AIR like Flash Player built in to the firmware so that applications could be developed in Flex/Actionscript 3.  The only way this would be acceptable though is if the iAIR apps were sold through the iTunes store.  The only reason I could see Apple doing this is if they wanted to grow the developer community to include Flash/Flex developers, but since they don’t seem to be hurting for developers they may not have enough motivation to allow it.  A fanboy can dream can’t he?

Until then I’ll have to be content with my own means of getting flash on the iPhone - lowering my expectations. :)

Kevin Lynch (CTO of Adobe) talks more about it.

Human - The Killers [song]

I don’t listen to the radio anymore, but my guess is this song is playing on it a bit. Good feeling, quirky lyrics and Brandon Flowers. Hard to go wrong.

Check out the lyrics

Best Blank Cards Ever

Blank cards usually seem to me like someone just gave up half way through, but with The ____ Cards it is a great way to inspire some creativity.

The only downside I can see is that you will have a bunch of annoying little dots of paper around after you create your perfect card.

[Link]

Slides from 360|MAX Presentation (Cairngorm + ZendAMF)

Here are the slides from my 360|MAX unconference presentation on Cairngorm and Zend AMF. Let me know if anything is unclear.

MAX Bound!

We are at the airport waiting to fly out. So stoked!

Awesome Mustache

Cameron's Awesome Mustache

This is my brother Cameron.  He works at The North Face designing shoes.  I’m wearing some of his right now.  Very nice.  Anyway, they had a mustache contest at work and he won.

It’s odd, yet somehow strangely awesome.
Click to see more images

Cairngorm and Zend AMF [360|MAX]

I will be presenting at 360|MAX on Nov 19th from 3:30-4:30pm.  I will be doing some walkthrough and explanation of Cairngorm and Zend AMF.  To speed up the demos I will be using Cairngen.  I also have created a screencast on setting up Cairngen in Flex Builder 3.

You can find details on the schedule.

Update: The presentation went well. Thanks 360|Conferences, Wade Arnold, and those who showed up. You can can find the slides here.