WebGyver Revisited

Circle of Web / Technology & Marketing Professionals

Having been previously self-employed, I’m currently considering the idea of building a close-knit network of like-minded web professionals.

This would not be a new company but rather a loosely connected circle of individuals who already work on their own but sometimes need help to get projects done. Everyone brings in their own business, but if you need resources to tackle the work, ta-dah, here we are.

Personally, I only have a few clients with sporadic work at the moment. Then again, I am only doing “my own thing” on the side. However, I have had to turn down larger projects, too, because I simply didn’t have the time and resources to commit to something of a larger magnitude as a moonlighter. 

So, the goal here is to help each other out with various projects and identify key solution providers for graphic design, web programming, Flash development, database maintenance, GUI design, sales, print publishing, marketing, documentation, SEO, RIA, etc.

Ideally, this group of collaborators would also live in relative proximity to Lehi, Saratoga Springs, American Fork, Draper, Sandy, Bluffdale, South Jordan (give or take a ZIP Code or two).

Each individual would remain “as is” (e.g., small business, DBA, LLC, freelancer or whatever the chosen status) but would also be ready, willing and able to help out with other people’s projects.

Ideally, the members of this group would bring in new business and consider staffing the various roles from within the group first and foremost.

Requirements:

• This requires commitment. No fly-by-night or “let’s try this for a week” attitude. Must have a few projects under the belt and be willing to show some professional examples.
• Work must be of professional quality. We’re not talking award-winning here (although that would always be a bonus), but the fruits of your labor should be professional and demonstrate your abilities.
• A sense of humor. Personally, I do get down to business and work long, hard hours to get the job done. However, if I can’t work with people who enjoy life and like to laugh every now and then, I might as well join a corporate environment. If you feel the same way, read on.
• Honesty. We all want to make money, and the most efficient way to do that (in my opinion) is to produce good work, follow through on commitments to clients and do what you say you will do. Slacking off and missing deadlines is the death knell of many consultancies. So unless you’re prepared to put in an honest day’s work and stick to your commitments, I’d rather pass.

Other than that, I am simply looking for one or two collaborators in each of the following areas:

Web Design, Web Development, Web Application Development, SEO, Web Marketing, Database Design & Development, Flash Design & Development, Valid (x)HTML, Valid CSS, Rich Internet Application Design & Development, Graphic Design, Graphical User Interface Design, JavaScript Development, CSS Development

Interested? Ideas? Connections? Send me an e-mail message to webgyver [at] webgyver [dot] com

Every now and then, someone comes up with something that seems so simple, it makes you wonder why you didn’t think of that yourself. Then you start thinking of all the possibilities that this new technology or gadget has to offer, the many uses and the smiles on your clients’ faces… and you realize that the person who came up with this thing is a genius.

May I introduce to you: jPlayer by Happyworm (who cites Mark Boas, Mark Panaghiston and Silvia Benvenuti as the essential key players in the development of this super awesome multi-media jQuery add-on).

Don’t get me wrong, by the way. I didn’t mean to say that the jPlayer jQuery MP3 player plug-in is a simple thing. It just seems so simple, and like all things that seem simple, there’s a ton of work and thought and sweat that goes into it.

In the end, the easier and simpler it looks to the people who will be using it, the more work it requires to craft it.

OK, but rather than gushing on and on about the many possibilities and the various configurations of jPlayer, please go and check it out yourself at the jPlayer demo page. All I would like to say is that several ideas came to my mind immediately when I found out about jPlayer:

• Build audio training directly into web applications
• Finally add audio jukeboxes in a straightforward and stylish manner to all those band web sites I’m working on
• Provide audio annotations to blogs and photo web sites

One caveat, though, just in case you’re picky about Flash or the Flash Player: Yes, there is invisible Flash involved. You need to be able to store and access SWF files on your web server. That’s nothing fancy, really, but it might be a hassle for the 1% or 2% or Internet users who do not have the Flash Player installed on their systems.

And now, dear reader, if you’d please excuse me, I have some development tests to do, involving MP3 audio.

Michael Fitchett, who runs the Fitchett blog, has posted a simple but very educational Flex example, showing how to display XML data from an RSS feed in a datagrid, using E4X as the resultFormat.

What’s so amazing (to me) is that :

1. It is simple
2. It works
3. It shows you ho the E4X syntax works
4. It does some extra stuff on top of that
5. Michael Fitchett is providing the source code for all of that

The majority of experienced Flex developers agree that E4X is the best format to work with XML data in Flex. Unfortunately, if you’re trying to find code examples of how to make that work, you can spend hours on end to find what you’re looking for. And even then, all you get are random snippets with partial solutions.

Thanks to Michael, I was able to finish a personal project (trying to learn how to work with E4X so that I’m prepared when I take on actual XML projects in the future). In the end, it was all about making a couple of syntax changes . . . and magically, everything began to work.

However, unlike some of the people I sometimes work with, I would never say, “Oh, was that all?”*

I am very grateful for the example and the inspiration.

*Have you ever worked on somebody’s computer to fix an annoyance? Or look at someone else’s code to get them over a hump that was causing work to be delayed? By the time they call you, it’s already been hours or a day since they last did anything productive. Then you come by and look at the problem, try a few things, and POOF, it works. After that, they just shrug their shoulders and say something like, “Oh was that all? I could have done that.”

Time-sensitive post: This post refers to an offer I received in my in-box on or about April 20, 2009. Because I have no idea how long this deal will last, I recommend you shop around and do some price comparison before taking my word for it.

Usually, I hate to plug other people’s products or services, but this deal seems too good to keep it all to myself. You get 600 TAIYO YUDEN DVD-Rs for about $129.00 (plus free standard shipping).

Nope, I don’t get a commission! At any rate, if you’re interested in deals like this, go visit Supermediastore.com and poke around.

Don’t blame me, if you end up ordering more than one thing, though. These guys have some pretty good deals on electronics and computer supplies.

The easiest way to switch the default application that handles the “View | Source” process in Internet Explorer is, in my opinion, using View Source Editor from Iconico Software.

The software is free. It’s amazingly simple. They don’t pay me a commission for plugging their product. No adware. No spyware. And have I mentioned already that it is simple and fast?

View Source Editor Download Link

However, if you crave pain and that “do it yourself” feeling, you can also use the Windows Registry to change IE’s default handling of displaying the source code for web pages.

The blog editor at My Digital Life has a nice explanation of the process posted. Here’s a preview of what they have to say:

There are some things in life that I just take for granted. Having e-mail links (mailto) in Firefox open up Gmail was one of them, until I had to start all over with a new computer at work.

To associate Gmail quickly with mailto links in Firefox, open up Firefox and go to Tools | Options | Applications. Then scroll down until you see the row with the “mailto” content type, and select “Use Gmail” from the list of available options next to it.

Then click OK and get out of there.

If you’re interested in additional information about making Gmail your default e-mail client, please check out Robby Stein’s tips at the Official Gmail Blog.

Hope that helps.

Disclaimer: This is not an April Fools joke.

If you just can’t find a file that you know should exist somewhere on your Windows Server, and you’ve been reassured that you have administrator rights, take a quick look under the hood of the built-in Windows Search utility.

By default (it seems), the “Search hidden files and folders” option has been turned off in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

This is very annoying, especially when you go to the trouble of setting up all Windows directory options to show hidden & protected files (in Windows Explorer by way of Tools / Folder Options / View).

Nonetheless, there is no connection between those settings and the scope of the Search utility.

To illustrate the terrible side effects all of this can have: Recently, I made a complete fool of myself in front of Marketing and Corporate IT, because I couldn’t find another employee’s Dreamweaver cache file in that user’s profile. Then I started digging through the directory manually and eventually stumbled across the file (which, of course, was not in a documented location, since they are using the latest version of Dreamweaver CS4).

Surely, I thought, the Search utility should find it now. Wrong. Even searching through the file’s parent directory — knowing the file was there — came up empty. As tedious as it seemed at the time, I poked around with the Search utility, turned on that important setting, and suddenly the files started showing up in the search results.

And then I started writing apology e-mail messages to everyone.

Thank you Sandra Dee for bestowing the much coveted and highly prestigious Honest Scrap Award unto me and my humble blog. Sandra Dee, of course, runs the outstanding AT YOUR SERVICE blog.

Award description and requirements (per Sandra Dee’s blog):

This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog’s content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.

When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.

Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.

1. Anup Shah – onenaught.com

2. Susannah Gardner – Buzz Marketing With Blogs

3. Mack – The Viral Garden

4. Bea Fields – EDGE!

5. Bridget Ayers – The Get Smart Blog

6. jafagirl – Javabrit’s Art

7. Xacur – Android’s Dungeon

List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself.

1. WebGyver is my alter-ego, based on MacGyver.

2. If it would have somehow worked out, I would have done something else with my alter-ego’s name. Like Magnum P.I.

3. Me and my girls love semi-authentic cheese fondue, from Switzerland.

4. So far, I have seen the original Queen band perform live three times.

5. Actually, I’ve also seen Barclay James Harvest three times live.

6. Unfortunately, I have never seen Electric Light Orchestra perform live.

7. PhotoScape and FastStone Capture are my secret weapons.

8. Once I had to call somebody called Fu-ming Wan at work (no joke).

9. While programming, I listen mostly to Carbon Based Lifeforms and similar music.

10. If I could travel back in time, I would like to meet Danny Kaye, Freddie Mercury, René Descartes and several of my grandparents & great-grandparents.

Lately, I’ve been using the Windows utility Remote Desktop (RD) a lot to work on various servers. One annoying thing I’ve noticed, as I moved from one computer to another and did remote work from various locations, was that the resolution and a few other settings seemed to vary. However, there’s a fix for that.

Although it never occurred to me to mess with this, I clicked Options and found a wealth of configuration settings. Best of all, I could even make this thing remember my preferred settings, save those settings to my USB stick and enjoy the rest of my life.

So click Options and let’s take a look under the hood:

For each remote connection, you can enter your user name and password — and RD will remember it, as long as you a) check the “Save my password” box and b) save the custom connection settings as a .rdp file (Save As…).

The thing that was of most interest to me were the Display settings. Holy Batman, that’s where you set up the remoted desktop size and the color depth. I was beginning to think those settings were immovable.

Now how cool is that? Finally, I also customized the Local Resources settings and removed all check marks for the Disk drives, Printers and Serial ports. If you need any of those connections, by all means, leave them checked. In my case, this was an easy way to prevent “siletn” system errors from occurring on one of the servers (especially since it tried to connect to non-existing printers).

That wasn’t so bad, right? And as I said, if you save the .rdp file with your custom connection settings, you only need to do this once.

For more information:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457106.aspx

Keywords: Remote Desktop, RDA, configuration, settings, connection, screen resolution, display, color depth, printers, serial ports, disk drives

Sometimes you just need a good graphics badge or seal, right? And usually, it’s just a starting point for something you will finish in Photoshop or Illustrator anyway, so you need it for free.

Obviously, when you generate a graphic, it’s up to you to import them into Photoshop or Illustrator and use them as templates or elements of a collage. Or, if you’re totally gung-ho, you could transfer your customized seals and badges to iron-on paper and create your own T-shirts.

Head on over to the WORDPLAY blog, where you can find good summaries of what the Official Badge Generator and the Official Seal Generator at says-it.com (where you can also find the famous Church Sign Generator, the Concert Ticket Generator and the Soft Drink Generator that lets you design graphics of soft drink cans).

Badges: Currently, you can choose from six (6) different badge designs. Once you’ve selected a badge design, you can then customize the text that shows up on the badge, fine-tune the colors and adjust the overall size of the badge.

Seals: Currently, they have 10 different seal shapes to choose from — and since I hate to end a sentence with a preposition, let me just point out that the customization settings for seals also include emblem choices and broder settings.

One word of warning: Once you start playing around with those graphics generators, it’s hard to stop. So if you end up spending an hour or more generating badges and seals for office pranks and humorous fake IDs, don’t blame me.