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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Ajax, Silverlight and Flash

Mon, 12 May 2008 03:26:15 GMT

Nikhil Kothari wrote an interesting article about SEO for Ajax and Silverlight Applications a year ago. SEO works perfectly well for static content but fails for RIAs (Rich Interactice Applications) where “the HTML page simply becomes a shell containing presentation and behavior, and doesn't contain the meaningful data that needs to be indexed” . Therefore his idea is “to serve up a page that is search engine friendly without trying to detect a search engine crawler on the server, and without maintaining a parallel static version of the page” . Since he wrote this article that long ago I was wondering whether it would still apply and here is what Nikhil replied: I’ve had some discussions with folks from the...(read more)

CodeStock in Knoxville, TN on August 9

Mon, 12 May 2008 03:11:16 GMT

It looks like CodeStock is going to happen on August 9. More info to follow soon. Michael Neel is doing a lot of work on it.

Wally

InDesign CS3?????????

Mon, 12 May 2008 03:11:15 GMT

??????????InDesign????????Adobe ???????Connect Pro ????????????Adobe?????????Live Demo??????server????????InDesignCS3???????????????

Boat Update - Ready for the Water!

Mon, 12 May 2008 02:01:16 GMT

So, I can't remember if I blogged my boating issues a few weeks ago but we took the boat out for an initial test run 4-5 weeks ago and it failed miserably. We had to get towed back in! Engine overheated.

Now, she's finally ready for the water after quite a bit of work. I did most of this work myself with the help of my dad and Laurie's boyfriend Charles. Charles is an auto mechanic and boat enthusiast. He runs an automotive service center in Cary called Techni-Quest.

Anyway, here's a list of all the stuff we did this spring:

replaced the running boards on the trailer - new plywood and carpet
replaced the stern drive water intake pump
installed a new thermostat - for some reason the boat didn't have one
replaced the engine water circulation pump
replaced faulty tach and fuel gauges
replaced faulty cigarette lighter with a power outlet (for plugging in cell phones, ipods, etc)
Installed new stereo

Had I paid other people to do all this it probably would've been really expensive, but since I only had to buy the parts, it wasn't bad at all. The most expensive part was the engine circulation pump at something like $60. The stern drive water pump kit was like $25. Probably spent maybe $300 if you include the stereo.

I also learned a LOT of boat engines, how stern drives work, etc.

Can't wait to get out on the lake!!

Mathworld Problem of the Week (free book!)

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:56:16 GMT

This week’s subject is Malfatti Cirlces: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MalfattiCircles.html They look something like this: Basically, tangent circles, but each circle is also tangent to two sides of the given triangle. The challenge would be to take the file below: http://www.bit-101.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/malfatti_circles.fla and fill in the drawMalfattiCircles() method with some code that will actually draw correct Malfatti Circles. Feel free to create additional helper functions [...]

Scaling Web Video / Services

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:46:19 GMT

Scaling is not my thing, but Greg Linden continues to be a great source to poach from. His post on Facebook’s database architecture included a link back to a video presentation of YouTube’s approach to scaling during their buildup. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6304964351441328559&hl=en” width=”640″ height=”522″ fversion=”9″ /] There’s lots of good info here, but I was struck by a [...]

Simple Reflection Effect Using Action Script 2

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:36:16 GMT

Looking to make a simple reflection effect in your Flash movie? Now, it's a lot easier. The following link contains a great, step by step, tutorial on how to create this cool effect in your work. Simple Reflection Effect with AS 2 You'll need to be familiar with Action Script 2. There is ...

My cf.Objective() Wrap-up at Fusion Authority

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:41:17 GMT

Just a quick note to let folks know that, while I did post session summaries to my blog, I have written my overall review of cf.Objective for Fusion Authority. You can find my cf.Objective() Wrap-up here.

FlexCamp In 4 Days!

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:36:17 GMT

Im going to be attending FlexCamp On Thursday , Hope to see cool stuff there! Cant wait :D

Dispatch my stuff to the right thread

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:26:16 GMT

Silverlight 2 does support threads through much of the same API as the big .NET FX. So you use classes in System.Threading such as Thread and ThreadPool. Or you can use the higher-level BackgroundWorker type from System.ComponentModel. This is anyway the recommended approach.

private void btnWorker_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
_bkgndWorker = new BackgroundWorker();
_bkgndWorker.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(_bkgndWorker_DoWork);
_bkgndWorker.RunWorkerCompleted += new RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(_bkgndWorker_RunWorkerCompleted);
_bkgndWorker.ProgressChanged += new ProgressChangedEventHandler(_bkgndWorker_ProgressChanged);
_bkgndWorker.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
_bkgndWorker.WorkerSupportsCancellation = true;
_bkgndWorker.RunWorkerAsync(10000);
}

From the various event handlers, you can freely access any UI elements because the class magic makes your code run within the UI thread. In .NET FX, when you use plain threads, or the thread pool, you can't directly access UI elements because of thread is different from the UI thread and the UI elements are not thread-safe.

Silverlight 2.0 offers a facility to cross the thread boundaries and reach directly the UI thread. It's not magic or a different runtime. It's simply a facility to make your coding easier. Here's how it works.

private void btnThread_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
ThreadStart code = new ThreadStart(DoSomething);
Thread t = new Thread(code);
t.Start();
}

private void DoSomething()
{
Thread.Sleep(5000);
this.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke( delegate {
lblThreadOutput.Text = "Updated from a background, non-UI thread.";
});
}

The Dispatcher property on the UserControl class does the trick. It refers to a System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher object that offers a BeginInvoke method through which you specify the code that it has to dispatch to the right UI thread. You pass BeginInvoke either an anonymous delegate or a function pointer. Nice and effective. One of those things that Silverlight does better than the big .NET FX.

Creating an editable DataGrid control in Flex

Sun, 11 May 2008 21:51:16 GMT

The following example shows how you can create an editable Flex DataGrid control by setting the editable property on the DataGrid and DataGridColumn objects. Full code after the jump.

Merb bootloaders explained

Sun, 11 May 2008 21:46:16 GMT

We now have Merb internals page at Merb wiki, and first page there explains bootloaders. Once you got how it works, you get the key knowledge to how Merb plugins are developed, how Merb parts hook into the game and how simple it actually is (thanks Yehuda!).

Explaination is probably very sucky now. It sure will be improved by readers (and author).

Teaching Kids Programming

Sun, 11 May 2008 20:31:16 GMT

For the last two years I've taught a computer club at the local primary school. I'd get six or eight kids aged 8-10 for two hours at a time, once a week for three or four weeks. They varied in previous experience from "have computer at home and play games on it all the time" to "Mum doesn't believe in...

Absolutely Brilliant Data Visualization - TED Talks, Hans Rosling.

Sun, 11 May 2008 20:06:36 GMT

This video is over a year old, but perhaps even more pertinent considering world challenges facing us today (US inflation, growing oil costs, changing geopolitical climate in Russia, etc, etc.)… But really, you must watch this video. The message is of course fantastically important and the charting and data visualization is just amazing. He makes [...]

Boston Adobe Mobile and Devices User Group meeting on Thursday 15th

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:56:20 GMT

The Boston Adobe Mobile and Devices User Group will hold an informal meeting on Thursday 15th t 7PM at Asgard Pub in Cambridge, between MIT and Central Square. Alessandro

Implementando Cross-Page Posting en Aplicaciones Web

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:51:17 GMT

Una de las caracter?sticas que los desarrolladores de ASP.NET 1.x necesit?bamos en el ambiente de desarrollo era que cuando se navegaba de una p?gina a la siguiente; en la siguiente p?gina se pudiese recuperar los valores de la p?gina y de los controles...( read more ) Read More......(read more)

IIS et ASP.net 3.5 : avoir la bonne version du framework

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:46:17 GMT

Mais o? est donc pass? le framework 3.5 dans IIS ? En effet si l'on regarde dans IIS on voit qu'on peut choisir la version de ASP.net. Sous IIS6 (Win 2003) : Sous IIS7 (Vista) : On voit sur les captures que l'on peut choisir entre le fram... Read More......(read more)

VMWare image with OpenDB, Tomcat, MySQL available

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:11:16 GMT

SixSigns have published a VMWare image containing Open BlueDragon on Tomcat with MySQL preconfigured for folks to download and play with. It will run on the free VMWare Player as well as VMWare Fusion for Mac OS X. It's a good way to get started with Open BlueDragon without needing to change your existing development environment.

Live.com changed...

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:36:17 GMT

I noticed today that live.com has changed. My first experience - silly fast! I was impressed. My second experience was impressive as well - I performed a vanity video search - up popped a few results - simply hover your mouse over the video thumbnail - and it started playing. That feature actually gave me a startle, since I wasn't expecting it and all of a sudden my computer was talking to me.

SlideSix - Get Your Message Out There!!

Sun, 11 May 2008 17:41:17 GMT

I was checking out analytics this morning for SlideSix and saw a very cool thing. One of the keywords for my traffic was: model-glue coldfusion 8 ajax examples The really cool thing? My SlideCast on SlideSix was the 5th Google result for that...