Archive for March, 2008

Edward Tufte

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

Yesterday I went to the Edward Tufte Course that my company sent me on. I’m trying to figure out how I can keep the books.The Class rocked. I was inspired by some of the stuff with SparkLines Got some great ideas for the Dashboard design that we’ve been struggling with. Also learned a few other things. Edward Tufte hates Microsoft, loves the iphone and thinks that a handout beats powerpoint any day. I have to admit he made some great points. For instance.1. Data Throughput is slow during Powerpoint presentations2. Handouts that are engrossing are a good thing. Even if the audience ignores you.3. Handouts can sit there for hours while a powerpoint is on display for only a few minutes. And what better way to unsurp your competitor than by giving the potential client something to read during the competitors boring presentation.Other things I learned. Minimize space dedicated to controls. I must have known this already. I love VI editor because there is little space dedicated to controls. Its all about the content. Where as on most IDEs you are luck to get 25% of the screen used for editing code. Hell on this entry form my text box is luck to be 15% of the screen. So I’ll look for ways to hide controls.That is the Gist of what I learned. I truly enjoyed this class and I should have taken it a year earlier.

Posted in data visualization | No Comments »

A small trick when developing flex code that talks to hosting server

Friday, March 21st, 2008

I often develop my flex code on a machine that is not running a web server. So I have to hardcode the IP of a working server when I need to pull data from the hosting server.

This can be a pain because before you checkin the code you have to remember to change the method of pulling the IP address.

So here is my solution

   var domain:String=mx.utils.URLUtil.getServerName(url);
  var port_nbr:int=mx.utils.URLUtil.getPort(url);
 if (flash.system.Security.sandboxType == "localTrusted")
  {
    Alert.show("In Development mode:"+domain+","+port);
    webService.wsdl="http://10.0.0.60:3000/services/wsdl";
  }
  else
  {
     webService.wsdl="http://"+domain+":"+port+"/services/wsdl";
  }

Obviously this is for web services but this technique can be used for sockets as well.

Posted in flash, flex | No Comments »

Never buy a Dell again

Friday, March 14th, 2008

I’ll never buy a dell again. My wife shopped for a computer and chose the Dell M1330 last December. Around Feburary the hard drive failed. After replacing the hard drive and reinstalling Windows Vista the machine was unstable. We’ve had two technicians to come out to repair it. We’ve sent it to the Depot. We’ve spent 20 hours working on this thing. It is still failing. We’ve asked for a new computer. They say that they’ve replaced so much hardware that it is literally a new computer. That’s not the point. Obviously they are missing something. These machines are working fine from the factory but can’t handle a simple Vista reinstall. I’m not the only one with these problems with these machines.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=206587&page=3

I’m sure this is part of the Vista madness that is going on. However If I had purchased a mac that I could dual boot I’m sure that apple would have made things right. They would have refunded my money or given me a different machine. Or at least I could have installed Linux on the machine.

The customer service is horrible. We’ve spent more time repairing, reinstalling, using the computer and then it failing that Dell should have worked with us. But they refused too.

Advice. If you do buy a machine and it starts acting up within 2 months of purchase then suspend the payment on your credit card until its fixed.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »