Ira's website

Been way too busy the past several months. Apologies for the blog stasis. I'm kicking off a new period of commitment to updating the site starting with this hidden gem just in time for Chanukah. Choose below.

Duane Nickull did a great job presenting not only really fast ways to implement a wide range of service clients, but he also did a little tour of some oddities about the Flash Compiler before the official content. 

Since this was an event with code writing, I did not have time to document the event and work on his examples. Fortunately, Duane has provided all his code samples for download. 

Download the samples & code at:

http://www.web2open.org/ABC2009/ABC2009/

Today I attended a talk by Patrick Thean of Gazelles.com in which he did a condensed intro to his One Page Strategic Plan for CEOs. What follows is one of my typical stream of consciousness style blog entries describing the key points of his talk. Thought I would get it online quickly.

Save the date for two very interesting events. The iPhone Meetup (aka iPhone Developer's Roundtable) will be co-hosting an events on the evenings of May 5th (5pm) and May 26th (6pm). The May 5th event will be discussing profitable business models on the iPhone and lessons for other platforms. The May 26th meeting will be an exploration of the Skyhook Localfaves SDK for developers.

Get your hands dirty in code and live the rock star life style when Duane Nickull comes to visit the BostonFUG on May 11th. Duane will show us tricks for building service clients with the latest Flex SDKs (Flash Builder 4).

Who has not been following the battle between Adobe and Apple? There has been plenty written, so I will try to be brief. Biggest winner? Google. Apple's momentum will continue, but they are growing a cloud of doubt and resentment. Apple's should protect their position, but their execution is harming their image with developers. Although not immediately relevant to consumers, the increased sense of risk is is resulting in software shops putting resources other platforms like Google.

Chris Allen, CEO & President of Infrared5, gave an intriguing demonstration of Brass Monkey (http://brassmonkey.infrared5.com), a software library that turns any iPhone into a wifi controller akin to a Wii. Dominick Accattato, CTO of Infrared5 and BostonFUG board member, was also present. Chris gave a brief intro to Infrared5 (www.infrared5.com) and his involvement in the Red5 Open Source Flash Media Server (http://osflash.org/red5).

Infrared5 has come up with a pretty cool SDK that lets software developers enable nearly any user's mobile phone as a Wifi gaming controller. See it in action on the video at http://brassmonkey.infrared5.com. Well known expert and president of IR5, Chris Allen will be presenting the technology including the ActionScript3 implementation at the Boston Flex User Group (BostonFUG) this Tues, April 13th. Bring your laptop as it should be a very entertaining presentation with some hands-on action.

Many airlines are fiddling with their policies and fee structures to find ways to increase revenues. Such is life; however, US Airways lack of disclosure of its restrictions on seat assignments until after flights are purchased on its website is irresponsible. Blocking certain seats from being reserved or requiring an additional fee or frequent flyer status to obtain them is now a common practice; however, most airlines are clear about seat availability restrictions. For example, JetBlue shows which seats cost an extra fee prior to purchasing your flights.

Those sleek infrared Apple Remote Controls-- the ones for Front Row, not the iPhone/iPod application-- are nifty and work right out of the box with seemingly any Apple hardware that runs iTunes (Mac Mini's, laptops, Apple TV, desktops, etc.). This becomes disturbingly apparent when several of these computers are in the same room. iTunes will launch on every powered Apple computer in range and start following the remote commands, putting you in the middle of a sound storm.