This may be the coolest shopping cart system I have seen. It’s an example of what can be done using Adobe Flex 2.

Click on the ‘Products’ link and then play around. Play with the filters on the left and watch it update the browse section on the right. For example, slide the price bar down to $300 dollars and you now only have 5 phones to choose from. Next Click the ‘Camera’ required feature and you have but 2 phones to choose from. Now, add the Nokia 3220 to your shopping cart. Pretty cool eh?!

So here’s how it works:

Use the pencil (in the menu up top) to draw a sledding path. Start in the top left and drag to the bottom right. Then click the start button and watch your sledder go. Simple right? But, now get crazy with it; try adding jumps! Use the hand tool to move over and get more room to make your sledding path even bigger. I had the guy ridding a trail for about 5 minutes. He went on all sorts of jumps and pulled off some crazy moves.

FYI, There is no eraser tool; too bad. So use the disk to save your trail when you have something good. It only saves local so you can’t share trails. Too bad again. You will want to save often since there is no eraser tool.

Have fun!!

[ PLAY ON ]

One thing that shakes my confidence is the fact that I work with two really smart guys on my team. I mean really smart; the guys at Enron may be “The smartest guys in the room”, but my boss could hold his own in that room.

After eight years and a lot of geek books on the shelf, I still feel like I don’t know anything. I’m a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none type guy. I know ASP.NET and C#, but not like Dino or Scott. I know Flash and ActionScript, but not like Keith or Shane. I know HTML and CSS, but not like Veerle or Molly. I know SEO and Web Marketing but not like Matt or Barry.

I often wonder which is better. Is it better to be a Renaissance man or would one be better served to be a master in one area of focus? I imagine that the Renaissance man would have an easier time finding a job, because after all, there are more areas he can get plugged into. But, the master would probably command more money.

If I had to give myself a grade in each area the report card would be as follows:

- HTML/CSS: A
- CSS Layouts: B-
- JavaScript: C
- ASP.NET: B-
- C#: C
- Flash: A
- ActionScript: B+
- SEO/Web Marketing: B+
- XML: C
- PHP: D
- Ajax: D

I think I will revisit this geek report card each year and see how I have progressed. I would like to improve my PHP and Ajax skills.

Before I finish this post I think it worth mentioning that I do realize that there are more important things in life than to be the uber nerd. That it’s more important to score high marks in being a good husband and now father. That it’s more important to spend time in the Good book than any geek book.

MySpace allows its users to create a profile page where they can then share their music, videos, pics and blog entries with others. Others are then welcome to come by and leave messages creating a ‘social network’ of sorts.

Two musicians I really like, Shawn McDonald and Mat Kearney both have MySpace pages that I view from time to time. The main reason I visit their MySpace pages are to see if they are ever going to be in Colorado. They don’t seem to make it to the mountain state that often. However, I did catch Shawn in Fort Collins last year…

On the surface MySpace sounds good – so why don’t I get it? I think it has something to do with all the pages are so disorganized and frankly ugly to look at. It reminds me of the old GeoCities sites. Yuck. Why not just create a WordPress blog where you have more control?

What am I missing here, because MySpace seems to be the talk of the town and I just don’t get it.

However, developers have started to push AVM1 to its limits; their project requirements now demand a major breakthrough. ActionScript 3.0 introduces a new highly optimized ActionScript Virtual Machine, AVM2, which dramatically exceeds the performance possible with AVM1. As a result, ActionScript 3.0 code executes up to 10 times faster than legacy ActionScript code.

[ more here ] [ and here ]

UPDATE:
I have made a black version of it now too, but I still need to make it into a parameter so you can decide whether to use the white version of the black vesion.

Even their CEO Matt Heaton has his own blog that’s pretty good. Watch out Mark Cuban, he’s coming for you

I believe the Trifecta buttons are the smartest rollover buttons out there. They allow an image swap for good looks and maintain text in the anchor for search engines. The Trifecta buttons also eliminate the annoying flicker in IE that many other css buttons have.

Thanks to Paul O’Brien for his help – he may be the smartest CSS guy on the planet. Yeah, that’s right Zeldman, I said it.

* be sure to digg it!

Microsoft has released updates to Internet Explorer that will change how it handles active content such as that viewed in Adobe’s Macromedia Flash Player, Authorware Player, Shockwave Player, and Adobe Reader, as well as Sun Java, Apple QuickTime, RealNetworks RealPlayer and other ActiveX controls.

Active content that is embedded in HTML pages in certain ways will not be able to receive user input (for example, keyboard or mouse events) until the user clicks to either activate or continue loading the control. Instead, you will see a tooltip that reads, “Click to activate and use this control.” Once clicked that control will function as expected.

My question is, “Why didn’t Microsoft just create a fix that no longer uses the ActiveX control and uses a plugin, like Firefox does?” That would have fixed the problem seamlessly – why hold on to the ActiveX control? Why create bandaids instead of fixing the problem all together?

I’m not one of those people that hates Microsoft just for being Microsoft, but man this seems dumb.

The easiest way to fix the problem, not to mention that this is the way you should always add your Flash to your website anyways is to create an external JavaScript file that has your Flash code in it. See the webPod.js file as an example.

Next link to the .js file in your head:
<script type="text/javascript" src="webpod.js"> </script>

…and finally, just add a function call in your page where you want the Flash to appear:
<script type="text/javascript">webpod();</script>

This will eliminate all problems and your page will also validate now too.

The Best Structure for your Flash Site