How a Little Money Saves a Lot of Time: 3 Examples

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you probably already know that I like to do everything myself. It’s both for the satisfaction of having done it yourself and to save money. But recently I’ve discovered that it can be a wise decision to invest in quality services offered by others. For instance, I never thought I’d buy a WordPress theme but, this weekend, I bought a WooTheme. I got myself the ProBlogger’s blogger scorecard and am considering a GetSatisfaction membership.

Read on to know what makes these products worth their money (and if you care about that kind of stuff: no affiliate links)

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Posted in ChangingMedia | Leave a comment

Generating PDF files on Google App Engine

use iText to create PDF files on Google AppEngine

A while ago, I explained the way I was going to create PDF files on Google AppEngine. Turns out that, once I started to really test this solution, there were a few holes in my strategy. Well actually, there was only one, but it was a major one: importing HTML files into Google Docs is a mess. Hardly any of the HTML formatting is preserved by Google Docs. You might get away with a little right align and bold here and there, but any table is completely ruined, as are some more advanced formatting options.

So I set out to find another solution.

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Posted in JavaMedia | 5 Comments

Embedding Bitmap Images in ActionScript 3 with FlashDevelop

embed_actionscript

ActionScript is probably one of the easiest languages to program visual effects. It has a wealth of APIs to manipulate images in all kinds of different ways. However, getting images into your program isn’t all that well documented. Especially if you are not working with Adobe’s commercial Flash products. For instance, the wonderful and free FlashDevelop. This article shows how to use the “embed” tag to embed images inside your Flash applet, which is one of the cleanest ways you can add those bitmaps to your application.

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Posted in FlashMedia | 1 Comment

Offline E-mail Clients Top Picks

email_overload

I’ve been looking into mail clients lately. At work I use Outlook, and for my other mailing needs I have Gmail. Neither of these options are bad, but I’m also not too excited about both. So I’ve been looking around and found a few options and I’m now using a few. I can’t give you any definite judgment just yet, but here’s  a list of what I found and liked.

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4 Times Java(Script) on the Web: Roo on GAE, Code Playground, JS1k, and Applets

Here is a look at some of the better things I’ve stumbled across on the Internet. If you like this blog, you’ll love them too: creating Spring Roo applications and deploying them on Google App Engine, Google’s Code Playground, a 1kB JavaScript contest, an electronics Java applet and a bonus.

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How the Internet Changed Space Exploration

international_space_station

Many little boys dream of going to space, watching the earth from up there and floating around in zero gravity. Thanks to the Internet, it is now possible to get closer to their dream than ever before. In a case of brilliant marketing, or just plain too much money, NASA is really in the loop when it comes to reaching their target audience.

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GitHub, Social Coding for Streamhead

git_stash_pop

If you want to host some open source code, there are many many options. Going from the grand-daddy of all open source repositories SourceForge to some more unknown, like Assembla. But one host that has seen extreme growth over the last few years is undoubtedly GitHub. It’s built on the Git system, which makes it incredibly easy to cooperate and exchange ideas in code. No longer is there a need to have dedicated teams working on a project. It’s all ad-hoc and social.

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Be a Judge in the Eight Casual Gameplay Competition

cgdc8

I mentioned the eight Casual Gameplay Competition a month ago. Now I wasn’t able to enter the competition, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the results. Isn’t the internet great?

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Spring, JDO and transactions on Google App Engine

Although I haven’t mentioned it in a while, I’m still continuing development on my Vaadin project. As with all new technology, sometimes some frustration is involved. Here’s an overview of how I’m currently using Spring’s transaction management and its JDO support. The setup seems easy enough, until you try to run it on the actual AppEngine. Turns out there are some details you need to take care of.

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The Perfect Programming Language

While learning Python, I’ve also been thinking about what the perfect programming language should look like. So Rob Pike’s talk at OSCON on the reasons behind Google’s Go came at the perfect time.

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Posted in JavaMedia | Leave a comment
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