photo credit: EMMEALCUBO

Today I went with my wife Ruthie to a WordPress Meetup in Dallas that had the largest attendance I have seen yet at this meetup. I know there were over 100 people there, maybe even 120.

Tony Cecala, the organizer of the meetup somehow arranged for us to meet in this great big room at The Art Institute of Dallas. They had great Wifi, provided food and even made all the set-up and everything for the audio and video for the speaker.

The speaker was Giovanni Gallucci, a social media expert. He spoke for about an hour about social media software, building networks the smart way and tricks of the trade. The talk was highly entertaining, as Giovanni has tons of energy and is very easy going. He even brought his young daughter, who helped collect business cards at the end.

I think everyone that attended came away with at least one great new idea to start working on.

Recently I created a template for an eBay store for a client who also happens to be a friend. The eBay store is called Hitch and Tow and they sell hitch products and accessories on eBay. This project was a learning experience because of all the complexity involved with hooking into eBay and that user interface.

The part of the eBay selling template I created can be found by clicking on a live auction item and then scrolling down to the actual description area of the page (You will see the Hitch and Tow header in green). We also reused the template header and modified it a bit for the store header.

It was pretty challenging because you have to code for an environment that you control very little of the elements except for the template iteself, so to test it you have to actually make an auction live to see what will happen.

It also had to work within the eBay bulk program Turbo Lister, which was an additional hurdle, but it can be done. You also have to train the end user on how to work within the HTML of the template. I'm glad it finally worked out so well for my client that he currently uses it for over 200 listings and that total is growing.

Go to my family blog, the rooty jr. and gush site to see a live version of the SlideShowPro working. The program works from within Flash.

This is one with newer family photos from 2008. I will be adding some 2009 photos to the same slide show in another tab soon.

Since my last UT Dallas update the construction here on campus has been increasing at a fever pace (is that even correct grammar?).

This hopefully is a better photo than the last one, both taken from the camera in the iPhone. I thought this photo out a bit better before shooting it.

The construction on the UTD campus makes it a bit of a challenge getting around campus some days, but ya gotta hope we will end up with a much better campus when it is all done.

The job is going really well. I love working in this university setting and am being challenged every day with new stuff to learn and get involved in.

The other thing I am really loving is my iPhone. The always connected aspect is very cool. I am writing this post from the UTD Student Union building in one of my 2 favorite chairs right from the iPhone.

I also purchased an app called "FTP on the Go" ($9.99 in the Apple App Store) that allows me to log on to my other ( non- WordPress) sites, look at all the files, download and edit a file and upload the edited file. That's huge to be able to do that from my phone! At least it's huge to a web designer.

UTD - Where I work.

Where I work, The University of Texas at Dallas, they have been doing a ton of construction on campus!

I finally took a snapshot of it on my iPhone.

You have to walk way out of your way to get many places, but the end result should be worth it.

I also wanted to make a short mention of this great little iPhone app iBlogger, which allows me to make blog posts, like this one in any of my 8 WordPress blogs.

Great products Apple and iBlogger, thanks.

Ruthie and I just purchased iPhone's! These things are just great. I'm making this post from the iPhone now. More from the computer later.

I recently had to modify an online slide show for a site I was working on and had the pleasure of working with a shareware program called Slide Show Pro.

This software has a Flash based (.swf file) player that interacts with a standard XML file and a folder of images to create a very classy looking player that can be easily modified by the user.

I liked it so much I went and purchased the Flash version yesterday for the reasonable price of $29. It was easy to purchase with my PayPal balance or you can use a credit card.

You install it into Flash and then it is available as a component from within Flash. You just drag an instance of the player onto the stage and size it how you want. There are dozens of options available to customize the player via a simple drop down menu interface and the changes show up live on the stage.

Making a folder of images interact with the player and the XML file is super easy and they have video help and instructions for the whole operation. You don't even have to re-size the images before making it because the player adjusts all the images to the size of player you set.

I really love this program. Please check out the site and try the demo if you want to play around without committing to the $29 price.

I have already used it today on a site I am designing and it saved me many hours that I would have spent setting up a gallery by hand.

If you try one yourself, give me a link to the player so we can check out your example.

So I guess my mission has changed a bit since I took a position at The University of Texas at Dallas.

I started there on December 3rd and am now employed full time doing what I love to do - Web Design!

I'm working in a team environment with a team leader and 5 other coders in the Web Services Department. There are various skill levels represented and each member has their little niche that they excel in.

I (don't laugh) have a Dell laptop that I use in tandem with my Apple Powerbook G4 paired with (2) 19" Dell monitors. Each machine has a 19" to extend the desktop, so it's a sweet setup.

I have dived in and am involved already in 2 major projects as well as having just worked on the Fall 2008 Graduation this past weekend.

The school is on break until Jan. 5th, so I don't go back until then. While I am on break I have started a major re-design job for the Dallas Jewish Community Foundation's website.

I will continue to help my freelance clients finish up the sites I was working on. Then I will take on freelance jobs as I have time available, with the ok of the University.

The opportunity came from a job ad I answered on Craigslist while I was in San Antonio working from the hotel. The benefits are really good and the people I am working with are really nice.

This morning I found a very cool blog tool called MapMyPage (in beta) that easily adds a link to a pop-up Google Maps page whenever you mention a location. Such as...Richardson, Texas and it adds a small globe that you can click on to get to the map.

I found the site though a neat blog called iDezy.com because he added me on his Twitter account, thanks.

All you have to do is add a simple few lines of javascript and it is all automatic (assuming that javascript is enabled).

I'm testing it now to see how it works and how much of a strain on the page load it makes.

Go check it out at MapMyPage.

Adobe has created a new development platform for developers called Adobe Air that allows you to use small applications independent of your web browser.

So why is this important or useful for the everyday computer user?

Well, when you take an app, say Facebook, and run it from Adobe Air, it is totally independent of the chosen web browser. If Facebook crashes or if another tab on the web browser crashes, you don't have to restart everything.

I discovered Adobe Air when I went to a local DFW Adobe User Group meeting. They kept talking about Air this and Air that, so finally I asked what in the world Adobe Air was.

The explanation I got was that Adobe Air was the ability to take applications on a trip of their own and let them do things by themselves. This sounded kinda cryptic to me, so they said to just go to the Adobe site and check it out for myself.

So when I got home I did and discovered I had already installed Adobe Air when I had installed an app I tried out for Twitter called Twhirl, that lets you run Twitter in its' own little window and that would let you do a lot more with Twitter than you could through the web browser with the app.

On a Mac, how is it different from using an app in Dashboard?

The important things here are that the apps can run on different types of computers, unlike Dashboard apps. So, if by chance you use a PC at work and a Mac at home, the Adobe Air app would be the same on both machines - platform independent.

So how do I use Adobe Air apps in a real world situation?

First off, it is not the best solution for every task. Some tasks are still better off done in a web browser, like using Gmail. I spent a bit of time going through the available (tons) apps and paring the ones I use down to just 23 apps. Of those, I only use a few on a regular basis.

I use Adobe Air apps for things like using a stopwatch to time certain client events like a client phone call. It's a real small quick app that does just that, but does it well. Some other apps I use on a regular basis...

Facedesk (for Facebook)
Flickr Desktop Search
clDesktop (Craigslist)
Analytics Reporting Suite (Google Analytics - very slick interface)
Snippage (Allows you to make your own apps from the web browser)
RoadFinder (Does both Google Maps and Yahoo Maps at once)
Pixus (Measures screen pixels - great for Web Designers)
HTML Scout (Has all sorts of Web Design helper stuff to inspect pages)
Scoop (RSS reader that can sync with Google Reader - just installed and testing)

All of these apps can be found by going to the Adobe Air Marketplace and searching for your next favorite application. Did I mention that all this is FREE!

Anyone wanna share information on what their favorite Air apps are?