Doug Neiner

There's no such thing as a "JSON Object"

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:17:07 -0500

There's no such thing as a "JSON Object":

A fun, but important read. Terminology is important when discussing code among programmers, and “JSON Objects” are no different.

Everyone should know by now that my wife and I are expecting our...

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:37:49 -0500

Baby's Heartbeat

Baby's Feet

Everyone should know by now that my wife and I are expecting our third child in August. Today we got to see the baby at our ultrasound appointment. Here are three of the shots the technician took for us!

Old Mill Texture Pack Free Download

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:29:10 -0500

I am excited to release my first free texture pack! These are photos I took during a recent shoot I went on over New Years vacation. Enjoy!

I posted some more holiday photos to Flickr. This particular one...

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:06:25 -0500

I posted some more holiday photos to Flickr. This particular one I really like because of the expressions on everyones face, and the “life” in the blurred photo. You can view the photos on Flickr.

Today my sister-in-law Arielle and I went on a short photo shoot...

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:24:45 -0500

Today my sister-in-law Arielle and I went on a short photo shoot to the Old Mill in Sciota, PA. It was cold out, so we took a limited number of photos. You can see all the photos on flickr, and I also took 10 texture only photos for web and design use.

Psystar is not Robin Hood

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:36:19 -0500

Quick background: Psystar (pronounced sigh-star) was the company that was selling cheap Mac clones that ran the Mac operating system OS X. Apple let them live until they took an update to 10.5, hacked it to work on their systems, and redistributed it in a clear violation of the DMCA. This provided a perfect opportunity for a lawsuit from Apple and of course, Apple won. This resulted in Psystar having to stop selling pretty much everything they currently make for the time being.

Why this post: Last week I disturbingly discovered their user contributed video contest which truly embarrassed me to watch. This week they are now selling t-shirts trying to “raise money” through (ugly) t-shirt sales or straight donations.

Just in case there is any confustion, Psystar is not Robin Hood!

Anytime a for-profit corporation claims working for the “better good” in a way that directly benefits their company, a red flag should go off in your head. This isn’t about a fight for open computing, this is about a company that broke the law while trying to make a buck and they lost!

One final observation: To anyone going into business, you can learn a few things from Psystar: Put the time and money into a current/modern website and a nice sharp logo, don’t falsely pretend to care about the “greater good”, and don’t make your business based solely on illegal activities.

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I have had a blessed...

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:06:00 -0500

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I have had a blessed day with my family so far. And remember, today is not great because of gifts given or received, or time spent with family. Today is great because it is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born to save us from our sin. Don’t forget the true meaning of Christmas! (via doug.neiner)

Update: As @Rohit acurately pointed out, I failed to say who everyone was in the photo!

From left to right:
My Family: Cody, Me, Ruby, Crystal
My Brother’s Family: Caiden, Erin, John, Andrew, Jack
My Parents: Doug, JoAnne
My Sister’s Family: Amber, Brian

Just in case you all didn’t know already, my daughter is...

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:02:23 -0500

Just in case you all didn’t know already, my daughter is sooo precious and adorable!

Fuel Brand Network Best of 2009

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:40:04 -0500

Fuel Brand Network Best of 2009:

Fuel Brand Network just launched their Best of 2009, covering the juiciest happenings across all the industries represented by the network. I put together the Best of the Coding Industry.

QuickCursor

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:07:20 -0500

QuickCursor:

For Mac users who want to use their favorite text editor everywhere. QuickCursor allows you to edit text from (almost) any application in your favorite text editor. QuickCursor provides a standard open source solution that doesn’t require input manager hacks to work. (Description from QuickCursor site)

If you even remotely enjoy playing chess, you need to check out...

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:43:00 -0500

If you even remotely enjoy playing chess, you need to check out Chess Jam built by an extremely talented group of people.

It is an Adobe Air app, which means it will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Its free to download and use. You can play against the computer, or against other players online.

Special thanks to Trae Regan (@traeregan) for tipping me off about this awesome game.

Animated Loading Graphics

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:15:00 -0500

Animated Loading Graphics:

I am sure most developers know about this site. I know I use it all the time. It’s super easy to pick background and foreground colors, pick your spinner style, and generate an animated loading gif.

Introducing Downloadify

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:56:00 -0500

More information is available at: http://downloadify.info

Ever since I found out Adobe® Flash 10 supported client-side file generation and download, I have been itching to use it in JavaScript. So, a few weeks back, I finally took the time to put a JavaScript and Flash component together that would simplify the use of this feature. This component allows web applications to generate files in the browser and offer them for download, without a round-trip to the server.

The component is called Downloadify and is available for use now! You can get involved by grabbing the source and making improvements over on Github. It is open-source under the MIT license. Currently the component only supports text-based file formats, but I am looking to add binary support in the future.

Still Confused? Here is a quick introduction:

I really want to thank Timothy Smith for the voice-over and audio production!

Finally, I have updated what used to once be a Ruby+Sinatra app, Starter for jQuery, and have turned it into a straight HTML app that runs fully in the browser. It generates the code and the downloadable files without ever touching the server.

Not sure how many of my web developer buddies know I went to...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:30:12 -0500

Book by Ira Sankey printed in 1907

100+ Old & Antique Hymnals

Not sure how many of my web developer buddies know I went to school for Church Music… but I did! Subsequently, I collect old and antique hymnals. Over the last few years (mainly from my parents and their amazing antique store contacts) I have acquired over 100 of these hymnals or books about music. Today I finally got them on display at my office. I am really excited because it was such a shame to have my collection hidden away in boxes in my closet!

One of these days I will build a nicer display for them, but this works for now!

Here are a few pics from my birthday yesterday. Yes I am a geek....

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:29:20 -0500

The New Stress Ball

Here are a few pics from my birthday yesterday. Yes I am a geek. Yes my jQuery t-shirt is one of the coolest I own.

This week Adelle Charles designed a beautiful personal page...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:51:36 -0500

This week Adelle Charles designed a beautiful personal page design for the Fuel Brand Inc, Core Team. It was a simple but elegant single page design. Using simple markup, a few backgrounds, and a touch of jQuery, I really had fun programming the sites. I also updated Josh and Adelle’s Tumblr themes from Obox to match their new landing pages.

Since the site itself wasn’t too much of a challenge, I decided to make each site have a iPhone version as well. Be sure to visit the links on your iPhone or Andriod phone. It even adjusts based on the orientation of the phone.

Adelle Charles: adellecharles.com
Joshua Smibert: joshuasmibert.com
Doug Neiner: me.dougneiner.com
Dan Denney: coming soon

Thank You Veterans, And Especially You Pop-Pop!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:29:00 -0500

I am blessed to be part of two families who have served our country in the armed forces. My father-in-law was an Army Chaplain, both my wife’s grandfathers served in the armed forces as well as both my grandfathers. My dad’s dad has passed away, but my mom’s dad still lives in New Jersey. John Stra served on the USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) during World War II and earned a Purple Heart during a Kamikaze attack on his ship.

I am so happy to be an American, but I never want to forget the brave men and women who have fought and died to keep our freedom. I hope we never lose the sense of patriotism and love for our great country. I know America has its faults, but I still love my country and hope I can help make it better in the coming years!

If you have family members currently serving in the military or who have served, may you know they have both my support and my gratitude. Thank you to all the veterans of our great country. And a special thanks to my Pop-Pop, John Stra.

Email and a Business Manager

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:52:00 -0500

This post will not apply to a one-man shop in any way. Continue reading if you have a business manager, customer service manager, or secretary who follows up with your clients on your behalf.

I have the same problem almost any internet user has… I get a ton of email. Since Google catches almost all my spam, the email I DO get has a lot of relevant material in it. Thankfully, I also employ an awesome business manager who follows up with our clients and makes sure everything gets handled speedily. However, he can only do that when he is copied on the emails that come in. Since I also use my email for personal correspondence, I don’t need Mike to get all my email. I do need to know what he has seen and is responding to and more importantly what he hasn’t seen yet. If he hasn’t seen it, and I don’t handle it, it will be completely lost or least not handled in a timely manner… simply put, we look bad either way.

So, this might not be the best solution… but it sure works great for me!

I use Google Apps + Apple Mail, so I went to Apple Mail > Preferences > Rules and set up a rule to look like this:

Basically, if the email isn’t from my business manager, and if he is not listed in the To field or the Cc field, then it changes the subject of the email to burnt orange. I have limited it to only my Pixel email account since I don’t need all my emails flagged. Be sure to set it to only process if all the conditions are met.

Now, any email that remains black I know Mike received and will address with me if it needs my attention. The ones that are orange I know I have to deal with or at least look at closely to see if I need to forward it to Mike.

This may not help anyone else, but I felt pretty excited when I figured it out! It lets me maximize my time while empowering Mike do his job more effectively.

Here are a few pics I took during my business trip to San...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:14:45 -0500

Ask.com Building

Here are a few pics I took during my business trip to San Francisco a few weeks ago. All of these pictures were actually taken in Oakland, which is one city away from SF.

Focus Booster

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:41:00 -0500

Focus Booster:

A great tool I found out about from Jorge in his Tumblr entry. Read more about the technique on his blog, but be sure to check out the Focus Booster site as well. Can’t wait to try it out!