In Windows 7 you can navigate to the top level folder and put "*.otf" in the search input of Windows Explorer and it'll build a list of the font files on the file.

• How much agility are you ready for today?
• How much can you add tomorrow?
• How can you continuously adapt to our ever-changing business climate?

Quote from Becoming Agile in an imperfect world.

• Do you spend most of your time in traffic thinking about how to solve certain problems?
• Do you try to squeeze in one extra line of code before you have to go home?
• Do you sometimes lay awake at night because you know there's a better way to do something (such as technical implementations, and supporting processes)?
• Do you pay attention to the industry and apply the latest best practices?
• Do you consider yourself a hardcore developer?

Amcom Technology, Inc. is looking for an experienced Software Engineer to join our product development team (full time). As part of a team based environment the position involves working on mission critical web based solutions that enable the efficiency and growth of our clients utilizing rapid application prototyping methodologies and rich internet application development.

We are looking for highly self motivated team oriented people who have a passion for solving both technical and non-technical problems.

For more information, click here...

Check it oot (as us Canadians would say) at http://www.manning.com/popquiz/

Timing wise I fortunate as I was able to get an early access version of Rod Colledge's SQL Server 2008 Administration in Action, by Manning Publications. Manning has a program called MEAP (Manning Early Access Program) that allows you to get drafts of a book as it is being developed, which is pretty cool.

I'm not a DBA, and being in a small I.T company, most of the techies wear many hats. So our DBAs are also full time web programmers too.

The book starts off by giving you an overview of the landscape, such as what exactly are the job duties of a DBA, what tools are available, and what are the differences between the SQL Server 2008 editions. We learn things about such new features as policy based management, the resource governor, data collectors, data compression, and encryption.

After laying down the landscape, it's time to lay down the infrastructure. What kind of system will your organization need, disk strategies such as the number of disks, RAID levels, SANs, solid state disks, calculating I/O requirements, server virtualization, partition strategies, network utilization, fail over clustering, etc...

Having you infrastructure in place, the focus moves onto configuration where you establish your security model, performance tune your system, and overall data management. It's here where you learn that a lot of performance issues arise from not laying out or sizing your database files properly. You can't rely on the default settings, because as your database grows you'll encounter issues such as disk fragmentation. Getting a solid understanding of file configuration, volume separation, and sizing can save you a lot of headache in the future.

One you have your system up and running it's all about maintaining it. And the last section is more about the day to day operations of being a DBA such as conducting backups, employing high availability for redundancy and DR purposes, dealing with issues, general maintenance (e.g. indexing strategies), performance tweaking, etc...

What I like near the end is the book gives you a DBA action plan of what your routine should include, along with best practices, and worst practices.

The database is often viewed as a business critical system, and when it's not functioning its best it can impact the business significantly. So if you're looking to run SQL 2K8, this book is a worthwhile investment.

"What tech skills are in demand? One measure comes from Elance, a global online workplace of contract jobs. The company's monthly Top 100 Online Work Index for August, set for official release Tuesday, shows a big jump in several tech-related positions.

The Index ranks skills in demand by Elance clients. Graphic Design comes in at number one followed by PHP, MySQL, Adobe Flash and HTML. Among the biggest gainers are Google Website Optimizer, ranked 31 and up 28 percent. Also up, RSS (ranked 76), Adobe Flex (ranked 59), Linux (ranked 58) skills up 19, 30 and 18 percent respectively. "

"Ovum has previously discussed the potential for rich Internet application (RIA) frameworks as application platforms in mobile handsets (see Ovum's report- Rich Internet applications in mobile and consumer electronics: impact analysis) but the tracker shows how little impact RIAs have so far made on smartphones. Adobe's Flash and Flash Lite have achieved the best penetration, with 41 smartphone models supporting Flash. Symbian dominates this figure: 25 are Symbian-based (all except one of the Symbian handsets released support Flash). Windows Mobile has patchy support for Flash (manufacturers even support it inconsistently across their Windows Mobile portfolios), and iPhone OS and Android currently do not support it at all.

Of the other RIA frameworks tracked (Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight), penetration is zero, indicating that usefulness of these platforms for application developers is still some way off."

read the full article....

Well today I couldn't right click, rename, or delete a file/folder. The Windows File Explorer would crash immediately. I tried un-installing a bunch of things, rebooting, etc... but with no luck.

I came across a funky free tool called Shell Extension Manager for Windows. It allows you to see all the extensions (plugins) into the file explorer, and disable them while not having to actually uninstall things.

This is great, because it allows you to easily do a process of elimination... and what it turned out to be is Adobe Drive CS4. Which makes sense as the day before I re-installed CS4 Master Collection (because of course...I break technology, and everything in CS4 worked except for Dreamweaver, it said my license was expired, even though all the other CS4 products worked fine).

Anyhoo, the simple fix was to disable the Adobe Drive CS4 file explorer extension and all will be well.

...what issues are in store for tomorrow? :)

Anyhoo, so I open it up and see it's fully active, and a message saying that updates were automatically applied. Ok fine, but now all of a sudden Word is acting crazy. It crashes when exiting, doesn't recognize the mouse (I tried using all keyboard, but it was just too in-efficient), etc...

I uninstalled and re-installed Office, ran Vista SP2, etc... but to no avail. After doing some searching I found the issue - Word 2007 if left running on Windows Vista when the OS does an automatic update can cause Word to get messed up.

The solution is to nuke the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data key, and it should work fine after that.

Being someone who runs both fulltime Mac and Windows I've been noting the usability differences, and neither nails it. Each has pros and cons, and there's been plenty occasions on both OS's where I say to myself... there's no way a non-techie would have figured that out. And this is one of those occasions where I say that.

Hmmmm.....

I assumed it was probably firewall related, but didn't really have a pressing need to really have to remote control it... until recently. Well it turns out that Microsoft decided not to provide terminal services in the home editions of Vista, which I found surprising. So I tried VNC as an alternative, but to be honest VNC is chunky and slow (even with running in low colors, low res, etc...).

In my searching to find a way to enable RDP in Vista Home I came across a 2yr old blog posting by Frans Mayra who packaged up a workaround that enables terminal services on the home editions of Vista.

I ran the simple 4 step process, and it worked like cake. Nice! So here's some kudos to Frans, thank you sir!

For $5/mo my expectations are low, but it's at least got to work!

So I'm thinking I'll switch over to Carbonite and give it a try.

Let's take the The Palm Pre for example. From a technology stand point it's really cool and is a strong contender to the iPhone.

You can never rest on laurels

But if Apple is smart business people (and clearly they are), they fear their competition - even though Apple has a big lead. A good business person is driven by the fear that a competitor at any moment could swoop in and steal market share. Hence why Apple's ads have changed from iPhone capability to purely the App Store ("there's an app for that").

Apple made a good move device wise by coming in with a unique compelling device that satisfied a need. But a business can never rest on their laurels, because everyone will copycat whatever is working and catch up. So now everyone's got the touch screen happening, the GPS, etc...

Their (Apple's) current move is to build up a massive repository of Developers and Applications. According O'Reilly's book market analysis of sales, the Objective-C language is growing at a mindblasting 965%!

Winning at the business perspective

So Palm is going need to do more than just match or slightly beat iPhone from a technology perspective. They have to beat Apple from a BUSINESS perspective, and historically the odds are against Palm due to their management style. They're very conservative, and that causes them to always be in catch up mode.

I remember when everyone had to have a Palm Pilot back in 1999. But Palm rested on their laurels and allowed the competition to get caught up, and that type of device became a commodity. Always need to be one step ahead.

Having a vision beyond just catching up

And that's not something historically Palm is good at. Hopefully Palm can change that, but it'd take a big cultural shift management wise (not I'm not talking about technology capabilities). management needs to have a good vision, and then execute it.

If the vision is the Palm Pre... Palm will fail, that's too short sighted. The vision needs to be the Palm Pre, Pre II, Pre II, and Pre IV. They need to know 4 generations ahead where they want to be, and view the Pre as a milestone (not as a vision itself).

The advertising situation

The other thing that Palm has to compete against is Apple's *ENORMOUS* advertising budget. I've seen endless piles of iPhone ads, a bunch of Android and Blackberry ads...

But I've never ever seen a TV ad for Palm. That needs to start now so that those in the market for an iPhone (aka the 4 people in North Dakota who don't have one) hold off on their purchase and wait for the Pre. For example, I have no idea when the Pre is even available, and the website just says "notify me when available".

Even after just doing a quick search it's not apparent as to when it becomes available without investing some time to find out. Eventually I found it on Wikipedia...so Wikipedia has more info on the Pre than the Pre's official page has?

That's the kind of short sighted business thinking that Palm suffers from which could ultimately doom any efforts to retake market share.

My typical day involves being overloaded with information. Email Lists, Forums, various Instant Messengers, Blogs, FaceBook, etc... I typically put in a 12hr day at work, and with a very intense job information competes for the rare time slices of my (limited) brain availability.

So far my take is that it's an interesting novelty, but not quite sure of it's value. Then again... Darth Vader, Jack Bauer, and Darth Sidious might make it worth while.

Anyhoo... if you want to follow my useless observations, I tend to tweet investing, economy, stock, and technology industry thoughts (vs. the "I'm getting a hambuger" type stuff).

More details can be found at CNN Fortune.

Anyhoo, they're looking for those wishing to publish their wares as part of their launch preparations - so if you want your stuff highlighted now's the chance. Email them at team@andspot.com.

Read the article

"The theme for the latest episode of the SitePoint Podcast was the pros and cons of web application development and deployment on rich media platforms like Flash and Silverlight. ... Last week on Hacker News someone posed an interesting hypothetical. If Silverlight had the same install base as Flash, which would you use? We'd love to hear your responses, so vote in our poll and let us know in the comments why you voted the way you did." Go Vote.

Version 8.3 introduces a new analysis and reporting tool, together with major usability and functionality enhancements to the IDE and Console.

• Key IDE (Integrated Development Environment) enhancements:
  The IDE now incorporates performance testing methodologies and best practices into the tool's workflow. These new capabilities guide the user through the steps required to build a full-scale load test.
  Key new features:
  a. Workflow Wizard - A step by step guide for building scripts
  b. AJAX Support - WebLOAD has improved it's AJAX support by adding concurrency capabilities to emulate real browser behavior
  c. Kerberos support
   
• Key Console Enhancements:
  The Console includes new and enhanced on-line monitoring capabilities which support easy result analysis and manipulation throughout the live load session. These new capabilities assist in pinpointing and identifying bottlenecks during execution of the load session.
  Key new features:
  a. Profile wizard - This feature helps users create realistic load testing scenarios
  b. New real time graphical/dashboards enable the user to analyze load test results in real time during load session execution
   
• New! WebLOAD Analytics
  WebLOAD Analytics is a new analytics module which features the following capabilities:
  a. Enhanced diagnostics and analysis capabilities
  b. Ability to set up thresholds and Service Level Agreements (SLA) - This ensures your performance testing will meet your business requirements
  c. Standardization - New and pre-defined reports and templates enable consistent reporting across your entire project set.

Unlike HP's cost-you-an-arm-and-a-leg Quick Test Pro, RIATest is reasonably priced at $500 and helps you automate the process of functional testing with Adobe Flex/Flash RIAs.

New Stuff

• Regular expressions
• Complex Properties
• Location of GUI Object via dynamic properties
• Programmatic control of browser windows.
• Tabular data queryable in they're native format
• Ability to run adhoc selections of scripts and groups of scripts.
• Scripts can be paused and edited without needing to resume the test session.
• Advanced breakpoints.
• New XML output feature allows you to hook in other tools.
• New Objects: Date, Math, RegExp, UIDUtil, Switch Operator.

Hook it up at RIATest.com.

Problem statement: C/C++ have been around for more than 30 years. Talking about a huge base of production code out there that isn't going to be rewritten anytime soon. At the same time, it's hard to justify rewriting a lot of it just to satisfy one particular platform.

The Alchemy solution: Create a C/C++ to ActionScript converter. With the new powers of Flash Player 10 and AIR 1.5, this now becomes a feasible solution. Some practical examples include using popular encryption libraries.

On the media side of things, Flash does have its built in codecs, but with C++ codec libraries available you can make media players that are cable of leveraging these algorithms. Similarly leveraging libPNG for PNG manipulation, and Adobe's own C API's for Acrobat PDFs. Taking this to the extreme they produced a Quake Flash port from the C code, and a Nintendo emulator that ran Mario Bros.

Bolt – New ColdFusion Editor

• Eclipse based Plugin
• Includes a server awareness monitor
• Lots of autoprompting. CFINCLUDEs will automatically popup a window for the file to include, the datasource property of a CFQUERY will have an autoprompt of the datasources your CF Server are configured with, CFOUTPUT's query property will autoprompt from previously run CFQUERY's.
• Knows about your Components, so that it can autoprompt/hint on properties and methods.
• ORM generation (Object Relational Mapping).
• From the ORM you can then quickly generate an AJAX client to work with the data (good for proof of concepting, or giving you a head start on an AJAX UI).

Flex Builder 4 (Gumbo)

• Ability to import the new FXP format (which Flash Catalyst supports)
• Flex Builder and ColdFusion will have some tighter flows now.
• Lots of improvements on the FB->CF through new data services abilities.
  • You can point to a CFC and generate a services layer to work with it.
  • Drag and Drop functions from the CFC into Flex Builder.
  • Autogenerate placeholder Event handlers needed to work with the Operations supported by the CFC. You fill in any necessary business logic, but the shell of the function is done saving you a ton of time)
• Network traffic monitor (similar to ServiceCapture).
• Way easier ability to preview, switch, and apply themes.
• FlexBuilder Plugin for Visual Studio in the works.
• .NET AMF bridge in the works.

Fc is positioned as a design tool for the rapid creation of interactive user interfaces with little to no coding. It's a tool that bridges the gap between the designers and developers by leveraging design assets (PSDs, Illustrator files, etc...) from tools designers use (the CS4 suite) to a format that Flex developers could use.

Fc addresses a lot of problems in the Design to Developer workflow, and a lot of those are pretty obvious. For example taking static design compositions from Designers, as a Developer you then burn a lot of time trying to slice it apart into a format you can use – and heavy forbid the design changes. Even small changes can involved redoing it all over again. CS3 and FB3 did improve some of that with easier to skin controls, but how far you could go was still fairly limited. To make Fc truly successful, the whole platform needed to be evolved. Quite a monumental effort because we're talking about many of the CS4 products, Flex, and Flash. So getting CS4 and Flash Player 10 was the first step to that, and following up will be Flex Builder 4 (Gumbo) and Catalyst.

Part Fc's success will come from this workflow round trip capability of being able to open an asset in it's native tool (e.g. Illustrator), copying it to the clipboard, and then in Catalyst pasting it in. But, if you need to make modifications using that object's natural tooling you just right on it, select edit, make the changes in the appropriate tool and you're good to go. What makes this possible is this new common interchange file format called FXG.

Catalyst uses the same theme as the rest of the CS4 products, so as a Designer you'll be used to common elements such as layers and what not. You simple import assets from whatever tool, and literally convert any graphical asset on a layer into any kind of object.

And when you're done, you export it into this FXP format (Flex 4 Project), that Flex Builder will completely recognize. As a developer, you can then focus on hooking in remaining business logic, data access, etc... They imply that it's possible for the Designer to update their Design without impacting the Developer, though that part I'm not quite sure how that would work.

So all that solves some of the gaps between Designers and Developers, but here's the clincher. Designers could only model static compositions and then bounce those over as jpegs/pngs to the developers. But they couldn't model the actual interaction (the transitions from one page to another, and how things hide and become visible, etc...). Catalyst gives Designers the ability to do this too.

Previously, it'd be up to the Developer to hook in the transitions, effects, and interactions. With Catalyst, it allows the Designer to focus on the experience side of things, and frees up the Developer to focus on the logic.

Good stuff.

To fight Status Quo they'll need improvements on Design, Development, and Deployment. They demoed a home automation system that is driven by an AIR 1.5 application.

Flash CS4

• Interchangeable XFL format introduced to work with files across applications. For example importing an InDesign project into Flash, and have all the properties editable.
• Made the process of animating something way easier for novices. Right click on an object, select animate, move where you want it to go and done. You can then manipulate the path to give it a custom motion.
• Flash CS4 adds a bone structure feature so that you can wire how an object is constructed, allowing you to give it really refined animation and movement. E.g. they used it to make a Surf board dance.
• Flash CS4 you can publish to an AIR app.

• Adds context aware scrolling.
• Knows what can be stretched (like the background) while preserving important objects (like people). You can go further and lasso what you define as important.
• Autoblend layers features will automask all the soft areas.
• 3D painting allows you to draw on a 3D object while allow you to rotate and reposition. You can merge 2D drawings onto a 3D object.

Next posting will be on Flash Catalyst (under the Design category of the Key Note).

But like with any change, you can't just go from 0% to 100% in one day. At my current position when I first started I knew a lot of change had to occur. The organization was used to do doing massive amounts of requirements planning, to long development cycles with little involvement of the end user, and the result was users felt they didn't get what they wanted.

Borrowing on some of the philosophies of Agile methodologies, I focused on changing the Systems Development Life Cycle to use very short iterative development cycles where the project was broken down into small phases where the code could be released on a phase by phase basis.

And that proved to be very successful as we involved the customer/end-user during the development of these phases, allowing them to steer things in the right direction. At the same time it's easier for people to adapt to a small series of changes vs. one massive change, teams are able to digest and estimate more accurately on smaller sets of requirements, and you're able to mitigate the risk of change on an incremental level.

Recently I was fortunate enough to review an up and coming book entitled Becoming Agile, which is part of the MEAP program (Manning's Early Access Program where you can download the book while it's being written).

The book totally inspired me. A lot of my readings on Agile from back in the day were very theoretical and high level at the same time. But Becoming Agile helps take you to the next level by going beyond the theory and into the nitty gritty practicality of employing the Agile approach. So it was very energizing having the game plan laid out in front of you, as well as the hurdles you'll encounter and how to overcome them.

It's one thing for developers to believe in being Agile, but you need managers, product managers, and project managers to buy into it as well. This book does a great job of giving you that foundation and knowledge to sell the concepts and changes needed.

I really like the writing approach as well – they go into storytelling narratives to setup examples and cases which are interesting to read, and at the same time very relatable. The book helps you evaluate where you're at today, helps you identify things that you're already doing that are good, and the areas that will need to change.

Developing is not just about writing code. Becoming Agile teaches you that in order to be successful you'll need changes in process, team structure, and other elements such as executive sponsorship and a plan that factors in change as a reality of development.

This book is a great asset to not only Developers, but technology Managers, Project Managers, and Product Managers.

The first thing that stood out is that it's in color! I love color, especially for technical material it adds a whole extra dimension to the medium and another vehicle by which to communicate. Obviously in code listings it makes the code easier to visually digest and mentally break down what you're seeing, and with screen caps color is so much more appealing.

The dimension of the book is wider that normal, which gives the book an extra wide gutter that the publisher is able to leverage. And leverage they do by making use of it for an assortment of side bars, notes, tips, and blurbs.

So aside from the aesthetics, content of course is the key. The book is aimed at beginners who don't necessarily have any sort of programming background - so the audience that this book would appeal to includes anyone interested in learning more about Flex and if it's the right fit for them; as a quick read (only 304 pages) you can blast through this book in a short amount of time.

Who might those people be? Developers wanting to test the waters with Flex because they had heard good things about it, Flash or Web media designers thinking about getting into the development side of things with Flex, and management level folks looking to explore new opportunities and want to get a barometer reading on what it would take to get into Flex, etc...

The writing style is fairly casual, and you feel like the author is talking to you (as opposed to the feeling of a manual). I think the author does a pretty good job at keeping things high level with enough meat to make the reader feel they're actually being productive as they work through the examples.

So I'd recommend this book to someone who wants to get their feet wet with Flex - someone who may not be fully committed to Flex at this point in time and doesn't want to invest a ton of time yet.

• Difficulty Level: Beginner
• Range of topics: Moderate
• Depth of topics: Light
• Development experience needed: None
• Reading Speed: Fast
• Writing Style: Casual
• Pages: 304
• Price: $26.39 on Amazon

• A Breath of Fresh AIR for Desktop Apps
• Fundamentals of Display and Interaction
• Visualizing Relational Data Using Graph Theory
• Implementing Skins for Flash Objects
• AS3/Flex Modularization and Big Projects
• Google Maps in Flex
• Modular Flash Applications Using haXe
• Sending Mail in AS Using SMTP
• Developing a Mini-blog Using Flex and PHP
• Interactive Flash Games Using Caucho's BAM Technology
• How to Do a Classic Snake Game for Nokia 5200 - 5300

I was in Barnes and Nobles a few weeks ago and actually saw an issue in the magazine rack - which is pretty impressive considering I've yet to see a Sys-Con magazine in any store.

click here for more on FFD...

Other than the dimensions of the magazine, it has a totally separate life of it's own under the direction of Jeffry Houser (editor in chief). However because of that FAQU relationship I have very high expectations as FAQU has been able to deliver a consistently high quality periodical.

Focusing on AIR this round was probably a good move, as AIR is still relatively new. A lot of Flex folks out there are aware of AIR, but haven't really gotten into it, so this issue gives you a deeper background as to what it takes to make that leap and how you can start leveraging this technology.

However the reality is not all Flex developers want to get into AIR, so the issue equally covers non AIR related subjects including practical subjects such as Yahoo Maps integration, and the MATE Flex framework (which has been getting a lot of buzz).

As for the content itself - totally high quality, and well written (difficult to do when you're relying on external writers). I like the structure and layout (love the use of color and the font set used), easy to read, and lots of editing to ensure consistency towards the overall theme of the magazine. My only constructive feedback is on the Flick and Flack concept, which is an interesting idea but mentally I found the flow a bit challenging to track.

So ya, bottom line - time is money, your bosses want results out of you, and you can give yourself a boost by staying on top of things through this magazine. The week or so it would take to ramp yourself up on any of these topics, or trying to read up on it through searching blog postings and what not... save yourself some time and get this magazine.

Now, you can use that to your advantage by masking what may be a writing weakness, but the only purpose of a resume is to get your foot in the door and get the interview. When Ford advertises their Focus, it may not be their strongest car, but I guarantee you they spend millions to advertise to the best of their ability to generate enough interest to get you to walk into a showroom and check it out. And by the way, they only have 30-60 seconds of your interest in order to do that.

Writing not your strength?

Not everyone is strong at writing, it's actually a rare skill amongst technical folk, and that's ok. But if you want to set yourself apart (or even be on par), you need to have it proof read by a friend who is good at it. It's worth it to pay someone to format it nicely for you, and if that's not even an option go on CraigsList and find some nicely polished resumes and copy their template.

The older the experience, the less relevant it is.

There's this fallacy in the tech community that the more you write the better. Nothing is further from the truth; a hiring manager does not care what you did 5 years ago. To prove it, try this experiment: when you're interviewing make note of how often prior to 5yrs your previous gigs are brought up. The older the experience, the less relevant it is. A hiring manager is evaluating what you're currently capable of doing, not what you were doing as the junior version of yourself back in the day.

Back in the day if you were a Help Desk support guy, and now you're a Sr Network Architect, unless you want to go back into Help Desk why would you burn valuable resume space on highlighting this experience? All you need to do at this point is just mention you worked there, save the space for focusing on your current and more relevant experiences.

Stick to 2 Pages – SERIOUSLY!

Continued from the above, just like the Ford advertisement, you have the reader's attention for 30-60 seconds. The first page is critical, and the second page is a little less critical, and anything beyond that is irrelevant. There's only so much information someone can absorb, so if you spread important details across many pages, it'll get diluted and lost.

In fact if you have a ton of experience and you're able to effectively summarize it in 2 pages (or even 1), that's viewed as EXTREMELY impressive. It takes quite a bit of writing skill to accomplish that; ask a VP or higher in your current organization what types of reports they like, or what kind of emails they prefer – it'll always be something along the lines of short and concise. Managers want information summarized accurately in a quickly absorb-able format, they do not care to read exhaustive amounts of detail unless asked for.

Some tips:

• Look at every word, and consider chopping it out to see if the sentence still reads effectively. E.g. "managed and lead a team..." – just say "lead a team". The extra verbosity doesn't help.
• Nuke verbosity on older experience, they're irrelevant now.
• Although it's not reducing content, if you need to go ahead and increase margins or reduce the font size to make the content fit to 2 pages. This is a fine art though and only to be used when you need just a wee bit more space.

Format it nicely – PLEASE!

It's about readability, and like an ad it's about aesthetics.

• Go easy on the bold and use changes in font sizes and weight to separate out sections (Experience, Skills, and Education) and subsections (e.g. each position within the Experience section).
• Align things so that they start at the same column positions.

Attention to Detail.

The lack of it will guarantee your resume a position in the garbage bin; even messing up on a single punctuation mark can severely impact your resume. Why? Because an interviewer doesn't have much to go on, and to bring on an employee and ramp them up comes at a great expense. So a resume is the first opportunity to evaluate your work; so if you're not willing to be diligent enough to make your resume bullet proof it can be interpreted as an indicator of what your attention to detail may be like on the job. Whether it's right or wrong doesn't matter, that's the reality of the game, and if you're smart you can use that to your advantage. Now an interviewer isn't going to base their decision whether to hire you based off a resume, they'll use the interviewing process to fully size you up. So the resume is really that vehicle to get you that interview.

It's like playing poker, and when it comes to attention to detail a resume gives away your "tells".

Tips:

• Be consistent with how you write things. Don't write "UNIX" and then later write "Unix", pick one and stick to it.
• Get your acronyms and product names right. E.g. verify if Adobe spells it as "Coldfusion", "ColdFusion", or "Cold Fusion".
• Spelling, typos, and grammar mistakes = suicide.

Focus on accomplishments – Not duties.

We all know that developers gather business requirements, design solutions, architect stuff, test things, deploy applications, support users, troubleshoot problems, etc... It makes zero sense in burning up resume space by cataloging all the duties that are common (and obvious) to the job role. There's this fear that if you don't spell it out that the reader will assume you haven't performed that duty, or worked with that specific version of software, etc... Choose what you divulge wisely; if you're a web developer it's irrelevant to list out every desktop variant of Windows (98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, etc...); however if you're a Desktop Helpdesk support person, then that is relevant.

A hiring manager is interested in knowing what sets you apart from the others - what is your value add? This is why you want to focus on accomplishments – as a result of your duties, what did you get done and what were the results? At that position how are/were you better than your coworkers (awards, rank, recognition, promotions, etc...), mention how you got projects done on time (or ahead of time, and by how much), projects completed under budget (and by how much).

Remember, a hiring manager (even a technical manager) is driven by the needs of the business, so frame your accomplishments in how it helped the company. Strategic value, productivity increases, cost savings, revenue increase, profitability, competitive advantage, etc... You want the reader to feel jealous that you're providing all this amazing BUSINESS value to your current company, when it could be they who are reaping those rewards (if they hire you that is).

Don't use internal product names.

Nobody will know what you mean if you reference internal products or tools; e.g. "Created the foundation of the HappyPO System." Instead describe what the system is.

Final words.

Every word you write has to add value – otherwise it takes away value. So when reading your resume, scrutinize every word and evaluate that if you were to chop out the word – does it impact it? If not, leave it out.

That's on top of a $300K salary and $65K sign on bonus as Exec manager of reputation management.

Good grief..

This is David's follow-up to his AIR Essential Training course, and takes a deeper look at how Flex Builder 3 and the Flex 3 framework can be used to build cross-system desktop applications with Adobe AIR. David examines every point of integration with the host operating system, including working with the local file system, creating and maintaining local databases, and managing native windows and menus.

More information on this...

Related Links:

• Flex titles
• AIR titles

"For the first time, companies will be able to leverage the appeal of newer technologies for users, improve the existing content applications already in use, and power all of these with a more scalable and secure platform than ever before available."

It's currently available as a free online beta which empowers knowledge workers to collaborate using shared work spaces.

Media WorkSpace
A new interface to work with media assets, the Media Workspace is an extension of the Documentum Digital Asset Manager. Built on Adobe Flex technology, it includes such features as:

• Thumbnail display with zooming
• Collections and comparison sets
• Image Annotations and Notes
• Relevance Ranking
• Search
• Metadata access, and more

A Flex-based authoring interface, the Web Publisher Page Builder is designed for the non-technical users providing a number of tools to create web experiences.

Web Publisher Page Builder
It is essentially a WYSIWYG editor for website creation and content contribution. Features include:

• Ability to create component-based websites
• Drag and drop and rich media assets
• Site preview and editing
• Thumbnail and template browsing
• XML management and support

Features in this component include:

• Process - content unification
• Configurable and reusable components
• Role-based applications
• Interactive forms
• Task Completion
• Process Dashboard

Other Tidbits

• Data is now stored in XML in a native XML database.
• High volume service
• Integrates the AVALONidm product - a digital asset mgmt system.
• Record management
• Transactional business process - build forms and use dashboards to monitor activity.

No one is surprised when they go to the California DMV to see employees using ASCII/ANSI/DOS/VT100 terminal screens; it's the gov't right? Those guys are old school!

But I was quite surprised to see how DOS screens are still incredibly prolific in this day and age. United Airlines, Hertz car rental, the Canadian passport office, Future Shop, etc... all using text only screens. Even back at home prior to the trip I noticed Lexus and BMW dealerships are also using text screens for their service departments.

There's a laundry list of limitations with such a UI, so their longevity is amazing. So the question is why? One reason could be if it's not broken, why fix it? Doing total s/w rewrites is enormously expensive, time consuming, and risky - which thus makes it even more difficult to actualize any ROI. There's also opportunity cost: what else could you have done with that money to improve profits?

A second reason could be that from a data entry perspective it's incredibly fast (at the cost of user friendliness). The limitations actually force the developers to streamline the process to the max. And because of that, have we traded in this speed for the sake of cool looking super advanced UIs that are supposedly more user friendly?

Although emotionally users like the coolness factor which does yield a qualitative value, it's the bottom line productivity of the user is that will benefit the business the most. So when designing a new UI it may be an interesting exercise to at least consider how it would compare against a text only screen from a raw process/efficiency perspective as you try to strike a balance (that you define) that's best for your business between friendliness and raw speed.

I'm curious to see what the community thinks - I have a simple 1 question survey posted.

Thanks.

So I'm looking for recommendations, if anyone has any. This would be my requirements:

• Job Chains (Job 2 starts after Job 1 completes).
• Job Types include command line scripts, URLs, and Database Jobs.
• Job reporting (stats, trends, what's currently running, how long things run for etc...).
• Alerting (of job failures).
• Fort Knox bullet proof stability.
• Web interface for configuration.
• Cost: $0 - $2000

Thx!

One of which is the Flash and Flex Developers Magazine (aka FFDM). They're currently in ramp up mode and looking for authors, and looks like they have a pilot issue available.

Check it out at http://www.ffdmag.com/

Apparently the demos kept crashing when demo'd by Sr. VP Rich Green; being caught with his pants down he fumbled trying to recover from a brain-freeze. Which I feel empathy for - when doing a live demo that is everyone's worst fear. Obviously they took a calculated risk in trying to demo something that wasn't ready, the technology is still not mature enough and has a long way to go, but I think they had an internal mandate to make it the showcase event of JavaOne (much like Thermo was the highlight of MAX 07).

I also love how the media interprets things - they really should have a panel of nerds on standby that can double check statements for accuracy. One article I read was saying Java is already on lots of "internet servers", therefore applications can be created without complex programming. I'm not quite sure how those two statements relate to each other? :) Some articles mention that because of millions of servers using Java, and that apparently gives JavaFX a head start somehow.

The Tariq take is this: the biggest advantage for JavaFX is that if you are a Java developer you get to leverage your existing skill-set, vs. having to learn something new. The drawback of JavaFX is that it's so late to show that SUN will have to do an enormous amount of work to get caught up. The other weakness of JavaFX is that it's ecosystem is generally limited to the development aspect. I know they talked about bringing it to the creative side as well, but I'll believe it when I see it. Where as with Flex/AIR there's a seamless transition from the creative side, to the development side, to the deployment and hosting side. Adobe has the entire end to end suite. E.g on the design side they dominate with tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks. Client technologies they have the AIR Runtime, Flash, and Acrobat. Then all the way to the server side they have JRUN, Coldfusion, Acrobat Connect, and BlazeDS/Live Cycle Data Services.

Silverlight is somewhere in between and has been moving blazingly fast; they have massive amounts of capital to throw at getting caught up.

I like competition, I believe it results in superior products at a reasonable price to the consumer. But I think from a marketing perspective, Sun needs to keep expectations low - Adobe and MSFT are just too far ahead and have distinct advantages that Sun can't compete on.

Once you get a tarnished reputation, it's extremely difficult to undo that. Better would be for Sun to keep a low profile, grow the technology and build a groundswell of support and let the technology earn a solid reputation - vs. trying to use a laundry list campaign and going about it in a desperate kind of way, otherwise you're just a me-too product.

There is an army of Java developers out there who'll probably give JavaFX a try; so the strategy should focus on what Sun's distinct advantage is - the massive size of the Java community.

Check out the requirements, and get back to me!

http://www.dopejam.com/requirementsBIEngineer.doc

Thanks!

All we have a very exciting position available. We're about to embark on re-engineering a brand new system from the ground up. The front end involves heavy Flex development; but as long as you're good in CF, we're willing to train you to become a Flex god.

Here are the deets:

http://www.dopejam.com/RequirementsSrWebEngineerCF.pdf

Spread the word if you know of anyone, or are interested. Thanks!!!

Email: tariq [AT] cflex.net

"The local rendering of complex business screens requires serious client CPU time... A European retailer that wanted to migrate screens from a Visual Basic rich client to AJAX reported initial load times for complex screens of many seconds. Given the nearly instantaneous display of the old client app, this was annoying for power users."

ComputerWorld has an in-depth article on the report.

If you're like me, you're always low on memory! XP is weird in that by default any additional memory over 2GB gets allocated for the OS - gee thanks... There's a boot option switch that you can add to your c:\boot.ini file (i.e. "/3GB") that allocates an extra gig towards application.

When I first tried this, it caused my system to be completely unstable (on a Dell Precision anyways). I found out the trick is to also add another switch called "/PAE".

So... try this for a c:\boot.ini:
[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3GB" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /3GB /PAE

What's a MEAP?!

It's the Manning Early Access Program which allows people to access books that are in the process of being developed, which is a cool program in that it allows you to see how a book evolves from rough drafts all the way to the final polished product.

Get the content now.

Of course, the primary advantage is that you get access to the content as it's available so that you don't have to wait till it becomes published. And if it's content you want, then content you shall have - there's now 19 chapters available!

Help shape the book.

One of the reasons that Manning books have such a strong reputation is the result of community involvement. Those who take part in MEAP can then go into the forum and post questions, suggestions, and feedback. And we take all that stuff very seriously.

We had some early anonymous reviewers provide some feedback and we're incorporating all of their suggestions as well as things that needed more clarification and improvement.

From our perspective, this is a book to help ramp up new users to Flex as fast as possible - become effective fast is the mission statement. It's another way we're helping grow the Flex community, so fine tuning this to what people want out of a book is what we want to do!

Where to go for more.

To find out more about this early access program visit: http://www.manning.com/ahmed/. We also have a dedicated site for the book at FlexInAction.com.

We look forward to your feedback, and providing a quality product.

Thanks!

Rails is an application framework, made popular by the whole Ruby on Rails movement - and like most frameworks it aims to improve the speed of maintenance and overall development, reduce duplicated effort, enforce standards, do most of the plumbing and grunt work for you, etc...

Flexible Rails shows you how to tap into all of that goodness. :)

Enjoy!

I have to say this magazine/tech journal is EXTREMELY impressive. I like how each issue has a theme; and I like how it's not always just about coding. There was one issue that was more on the business of software development; I'm so glad that they did that as that's one of the biggest challenges I see with developers is that they tend to view things from just a tech perspective (doing things just because they can, or because it's cool, or code purity utopia) - but the reality is any project is business driven, so you have to factor in the business goals that the project is supporting.

Sorry, I digress... FAQU writes about stuff that gets you excited! At the same time I keep learning new stuff with every issue. Usually I blast through tech magazines and skim over the content as there's not that much info to really leverage or that you don't already know. But FAQU, and kudos to the authors, keep writing about stuff that pushes my knowledge to new levels. Whether it's new techniques, ideas, tidbits, and approaches.

Aside from the content, the editing, presentation, and layout is outstanding. Great use of color, super thick quality paper, high resolution print, all that good stuff.

Check it oot...(as us Canadians would say).... Fusion Authority Quarterly Update