Apr 26
Ian FieldhouseWeb Apps
Interesting times ahead. I may now seriously look into Flex.
Adobe is announcing plans to open source Flex under the Mozilla Public License (MPL). This includes not only the source to the ActionScript components from the Flex SDK, which have been available in source code form with the SDK since Flex 2 was released, but also includes the Java source code for the ActionScript and MXML compilers, the ActionScript debugger and the core ActionScript libraries from the SDK. The Flex SDK includes all of the components needed to create Flex applications that run in any browser - on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux and on now on the desktop using “Apollo”.Developers can use the Flex SDK to freely develop and deploy Flex applications using either Adobe Flex Builder or an IDE of their choice.
Adobe to Open Source Flex (Via Adobe Labs)
Apr 24
Ian FieldhouseDesign, Web Apps, Web Standards
Designers, developers, project managers. Writers and editors. Information architects and usability specialists. People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?
I've just taken the survey. So should you if you work in the web design industry.
Apr 04
Ian FieldhouseConferences, Web Apps, Web Standards
Tomorrow marks the inaugural Highland Fling conference in my home town of Edinburgh. The Highland Fling is billing itself as
… an annual one-day conference in Scotland aimed at web developers and businesses with an interest in web standards and accessibility.
and since this checks all the right boxes for me I thought I should really show my face.The theme of the conference is Progressive Enhancement and the list of sessions and speakers looks very impressive. I've seen – or heard – most of these speakers before at d.Construct 2006 and podcasts of various Web Conferences through iTunes so can vouch for the quality of the line-up.As far as I'm aware tickets are still available, so if you think this is of interest to you go register now.
Apr 02
Ian FieldhouseApple, Software
When I initially read yesterday about the possibility of this happening I thought it must be an April Fools prank. However, it looks like the beginning of a sea change to DRM-free music from on-line music stores has begun with the announcement by EMI and Apple that DRM-free copies of all the EMI catalogue will be available on iTunes starting in May.Not only will DRM-free copies of EMI music be available for purchase, it will be encoded at 256Kbps – twice the bitrate currently available on iTunes – but will incur an additional cost to the purchaser of 20p per track. Any album purchase will be available only as DRM-free and will remain at the same price point as before and as a bonus any previous purchases can be upgraded to DRM-free although I'm not too sure on the cost of doing so.This is the tipping point for me that means that it will now be worth my while buying content from iTunes and I believe I won't be alone. Hopefully all the other major and independent labels will jump on board soon and we can kiss DRM'd music goodbye.
Apr 02
Ian FieldhouseUncategorized
Here's a recap of my evening of hell participating in the Mighty Deerstalker event.I was a little apprehensive at the start of the 10km Mighty Deerstalker as I had watched the leaders of the 5km run come in and they had all looked like it had been a fairly stressful challenge. These were all serious runners so how I was going to fare was not looking good, as I'm very much a recreational runner and was just doing this event for a laugh.The race started out at the back of 7:00pm with a small sprint to an obstacle made out of straw bales, about three bales high. Due to the sheer number of people taking part most of the field had to stop at this point and await their turn to climb over the bales. Once over the bales it was a matter of getting as far ahead of as many people as I could before reaching the next obstacle, so as to minimise waiting about.About 1km in and we were onto our first water encounter of the evening. I had expected the river crossing to be an ankle/calf deep affair to break us in gently but much to my dismay I was submerged up to my waist and was nearly bundled over headfirst into the water by the stampede of competitors behind me. Once out of the other side we were onto our first ascent.The ascent of the first hill followed the route of the Traquair XC cross-country mountain bike trail which was a reasonably steep incline, but I managed to run most of the way up. This stood me in good stead because once I got to the obstacle course near the summit there wasn't too much of a queue of people ahead so waiting time was minimal.The obstacle course itself was pretty tame, however, just before the summit there was an obstacle called the badger set to crawl through which had music blaring and reminded me of the scene at the Do Lung Bridge from Apocalypse Now. Luckily there were no flashbacks to Nam for me and I was able to check in at the summit in a respectable 39 minutes.The descent was reasonably uneventful but I found it much worse than the ascent, as I hadn't done much training involving such steep slopes and so my thigh muscles were taking a battering.After the first hill the route involved wading down a river for a couple of hundred metres before starting the ascent of the second hill. I found the river wading pretty tough as it was starting to get dark and it was very cold and slippery. I think at this point I might have hurt my left ankle but was unable to tell at the time as my feet and lover legs were numb from the cold water.The second hill ascent started off on an incline not unlike the first hill, then traversed across the hillside until we reached a very steep scree. Unfortunately this is what we had to climb up and I can only describe this as one of the worst things I've ever had to do in my life. I think the main problem was that I was stuck in a queue of people some of which were scrambling up the hill on hands and knees so were dislodging quite a bit of loose stones and rocks which were then falling down the hill onto the people below.After the ascent I was finding it quite hard to to stand up as my legs were beginning to turn to jelly. What better way to make yourself feel better then than to walk across a log bridge with approximately 10 foot drops either side? Remarkably, I made it almost the full way across the bridge before falling off and jarring my legs some more for good measure. After the log bridge was the summit and the second check in point.The descent down the second hill was not too arduous but required concentration as some parts were quite rocky and you had to be careful not to turn an ankle over in the darkness that had by now enveloped us.Once the descent was complete it was back into the same stretch of river as before for another couple of hundred metres. By now my legs and ankles were destroyed and so I managed to fall face down in the river on a couple of occasions due to the lack of light and the slipperiness of the riverbed. Unbelievably there were some poor sods still going in the opposite direction on their way to start the second climb. I couldn't help but feel sorry for what they had coming to them within the next few minutes and would have been surprised if they didn't complete the route until close to midnight.By now I was finding it increasingly hard to jog – never mind run – but at least the terain had levelled out and I was on the home stretch. Once more into the water to go through a tunnel, along the river bank then across the river for a final time and I was on the home stretch. I'd briefly considered just walking from here on in but the sound of music coming from the campground spurred my on to one last effort. All that was left was to crawl through some tractor tyres in the closing straight and I was finally home.I finished a provisional 158th with a time of 2 hours 21 minutes and I am very pleased with myself.To summarise I found the 10k very tough – but fun at the same time – and had a feeling that it was in fact a little bit more than what was advertised. I don't think my cause was helped by the fact that my running kit seemed to soak up a fair bit of water so I was effectively carrying around an extra half stone for much of the distance.As I sit here today typing this I'm not sure whether I'd like to put myself through that again, but I'm sure given a few days (or weeks) once the pain has subsided I'll think differently.Anyone care to share your views on how it was for you?
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