Playing with Feeds

This is a test post to add some fresh content to the blog's RSS feed.

Jason Reser - Asset to the community and superhero?

Client/Friend Jason Reser, proprietor of Reser Bicycle Outfitters, had quite an adventure yesterday. Here's the story in his own words:

"So we get an email first thing in the morning about a Trek hybrid stolen from Team Cycling in Colerain. I read it and knew it would show up at some point in the next six months. About lunchtime I'm making a sammich in the basement workshop (grease and all) and Sarai tells me to come upstairs "immediately". Turns out someone just left on a bike matching the description of said hybrid. I grab the quickest bike we have and go looking, asking people at the coffee shop, etc. I rode around the main streets in Newport and across the Purple Bridge where I ran into Officer Long on bike patrol who gave me his cell phone number."

"I rode back across the southgate bridge andback to the shop and then back down Monmouth Street-- Lo and behold there he is putting the bike on the front of a bus at the Levee, so I ride up and stop in front of the bus and he pops out and starts yelling about how he owns the lock. I check the serial number on the bike and it's a match, so I call back the officer and tell him where I am. Then begins an adventure the wrong way through traffic stopping in front of cars so he can yell at me for following him. So we end up in Victoria Square while the police are at the Levee. We stay still just long enough for the cops to catch up just as he punches me. All recorded on 911.
There are some even funnier details to the story that are, like the story, to long for facebook."

"They said his burglary rap-sheet was four pages long and that he might be finding a more permanent cell since he was caught in the commonwealth."

Adobe Max 2008 - Live Blog - Day 2

10: 45 Ryan Stewart - Formally announcing/demoing Flash Catalyst. Flash Cataylst is going to change the landscape of RIA's. The barriers between Designer and Developer will finally come down. A lot of people have stated that Flash Catalyst will 'finally' allow designers to make applications. Although this may be true, that really isn't the true power of the tool. Flash Catalyst will allow UI designers create truly rich RIA's and not simply try and 'skin' Flex components.

11:00 - Digital Alchemy is demoing their C++ to Actionscript converter. Allows Flash Player 10 to play formats not native to Flash, i.e, Orbis audio format and camera RAW. Quake and Super Mario Bros in Flash Player 10 and AIR 1.5.

11:05 - Flex Builder 4 (Gumbo) and ColdFusion demo - ColdFusion Centaur and Bolt. A lot of automated features to reduce redundant work. With Flex 4 and ColdFusion 9 there is a shift from Bindable data objects to managed data objects. This allows true reliable drag and drop connectivity and functionality between ColdFusion data sources and Flex components. This functionality is huge. Without getting into a ton of techy speak, this will speed up Flex and ColdFusion development about 10 fold.

11:20 Ben Forta quickly demoed a project they are working on that would connect Flex front ends to C# backends. This will allow .NET developers to easily make RIA's.

11:30 - Demoing Flash Google Search API. The Flash Search Player acts like a virtual user and clicks through every page and parses out 'text' so that Google can index Flash and dynamic content.

11:35 Flash Media Server 3.5 - Dynamic streaming feature - streamflashhd.com - monitors network bandwidth and switches the bitrate on the fly to display the best video for the throughput - totally seamless experience.
RTMFP - Flash player to Flash player live streaming with no server in the middle.