FooCard: Demo of Laszlo 3.0 beta's capabilities

This is a nice demo of some of the capabilites of OpenLaszlo - (Laszlo 3.0) - it uses the 2D drawing api's, plus it's a standalone app (swf file) that doesnt need the server any more (YAY). Give it a try - I even think there are sources available down at the bottom of the page.

Drag and Drop Sortable lists in js

Ah life. So much junk. Back to posting!

Here's an interesting js/dhtml implementatin of sortable lists that are drag and droppable. Yummy javascript.

Amazing movie on a low budget: Prey Alone

Imagine creating a Matrix style movie with impressive visuals, polish, etc. but only on a shoestring budget. This is the future of digital media and movies folks. I wanna do this...

My Second Favorite Free HTML Editor

I've gotten some feedback on my commentary about MyEclipse, and a few folks asked if I'd run across some less expensive yet useful HTML editing software. I'd have to say that there's really only two other freebie tools I'd recommend - HTML Kit from Chami, and TextPad.

HTML Kit is like a poor man's Homesite, although with more plugins than you could ever possibly give a fair trial to. If you want something a step up from Notepad but cannot fork over the dollars for something commercial, you might give this a try.

TextPad is a good friend. It's like BBEdit for windows. It's free (with nags) but you will find yourself coming back to it after you try some of the other kitchen sink style text editors.

Hey, post a comment and let me know what other text editors/ HTML editors I should try out and recommend here.

Firefox extension: Greasemonkey - add "user scripts"

Every so often you'll run across something on the web that you just know will be really cool - but probably only if you can get all your friends to "get it" as well. This is one of those things. Imagine having little scripts (javascript) available to you whenever you load a page. They could do things like hide ads, or reparse the page, or add little tooltips to every link, etc. etc. This browser extension allows you to do that. I've only just grabbed it myself, but it looks like this could be extremely powerful!

I'm in love: MyEclipse add-on to Eclipse IDE

Ok, I'm a cheapskate. I try to get everything from free tools to free lunch. I've recently had a need to find a new HTML WYSIWYG editor for my new job, and everyone seems to be crazy about Homesite. I've sorta balked at this because Homesite's a commercial tool and I've wanted to keep my open source roots :)

I searched around and found something that has me dancing with glee, and strangely enough opening up my wallet. You see I use Eclipse for many editing tasks, and its grown on me in the past year. Given that I wanted to find something that could take advantage of Eclipse - for free or otherwise. I tried some of the freebie html tools and plugins, but they are just sorta not all there yet. I found something called MyEclipse in alot of my search results so I downloaded the 30 day trial.

Now here comes the very unusual part for me. Within 10 minutes of downloading the extensions I popped open my wallet and registered the 30 someaught dollars for a "subscription". Why would I fork over 30 bucks for something that will stop working in a year? Well think about it - if in a year I dont use this tool, then it silently stops working (after many nags) and I'm ok with that, since I wasnt using it. If I am actively using it, then $30 bux or whatever is a fairly small price to pay for upgrades and such.

But, if you want to know the real reason why I got a copy is this - it's cooooool. You can do great things like code snippets, wysiwyg editing, etc. etc. with great syntax coloring, css support, javascript support, and tons more stuff.

So, you might say I've been fooled. Instead of buying a one-off copy of homesite that works forever but will never get better, I subscribed to some software that continually improves and uses Eclipse as it's basis and that's cool to me. Folks should be paid for their work, and if this MyEclipse is getting better - thats killer. Look out Dreamweaver....

Laszlo server 3.0 beta 2 out!

This is a major new (beta) release of the Laszlo Presentation Server - with some key features including serverless deployment. If you even have a passing interest in developing RIA's (Rich Internet Applications) you should not hesitate to download this release and try it out.

Remixing Culture: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig

From the article:

What do you get when you mix P2P, inexpensive digital input devices, open source software, easy editing tools, and reasonably affordable bandwidth? Potentially, you get what Lawrence Lessig calls remix culture: a rich, diverse outpouring of creativity based on creativity. This is not a certain future, however. Peer-to-peer is on the verge of being effectively outlawed. Continuation of the current copyright regime would mean that vast quantities of creative content will be forever locked away from remix artists.

Meet JSON

Paul James talks about his experience with JSON - a javascript-based data interchange format. I think this is very promising as a way to send data from client to server in an easily digestable format. Would be perfect for AJAX stuff as well I think!

Sajax - Simple Ajax Toolkit

This appears to be a promising new project to bring "Ajax" to the masses. Basically it allows you to create an application which never needs to refresh the page. Requests for data are done in the background. Javascript controls the UI.

still kicking

Yes, I'm still alive and kicking. Lots of life changing events happening in the background. I'll fill you in as soon as things settle down a bit.

Phosphor Alpha 4 - shockwave 3d first person shooter

Man! This is amazing. Imagine Unreal Tournament style graphics and gameplay in a 3M shockwave game. This has to be seen to be believed. Is shockwave making a comeback?

Bluggcaster - flash based podcast listening site

This looks very interesting! I wanted to do something like this using Laszlo - and I may still do it. Check it out - nice UI.

EarthLink Takes On AOL, Gmail With Flash-Based Web Mail

This is great news! If you want to see what this flash-based webmail looks like, go to the laszlo site.

Last Man on Mars - game preview

This appears to be a promising game from Dejobaan Games. Reminds me of Asteroids meets Robotron. Check out the alpha demo.

Joining up with TIGSource

I've been visiting The Independent Gaming Source site quite a bit lately and a thought fluttered into my noggin a few days ago. "Hey! I could send them news and stuff as well" The idea grew into "Hey, perhaps I could be a contributor". And so after some emails, I'm now a full fledged news contributor to The Independent Gaming Source. Huzzah!

More on Yahoo Web Services

Yahoo! Web Services by Paul Bausch -- Paul Bausch takes a look at the new Yahoo! Web Services interface and shows how to tap into the API with a sample application.

New Yahoo Search API's

This sounds interesting - I think someone who discovers a killer app for search is going to become either rich or famous or both :)