Tao of DesertWolf

Well because of school taking up much of my free time, ok most of it, I haven’t gotten any farther with Flex programming. This seems to be a good thing since the main reason I was working on it was for mobile programming, and Adobe has decided Flash on the mobile is a dead end. So I did some reassessing of things and have decided to go a little different direction. For web work and mobile back ends out on the web I have decided to go with Ruby on Rails, for mobile I will take a two pronged approach. First prong will be learning how to use PhoneGap and tune up my Jquery mobile skills. Second prong will be to work on learning Rhomobile, a Ruby on Rails system for developing mobile apps. This should work well since I will need to learn Rails anyway. I am going to work through the Ruby on Rails tutorial over the winter break, I had started it a while back but classes got in the way, so I will start over and get it done over the next few weeks…. 

Image via Wikipedia

I just finished the ninth chapter of the Training from the Source book which puts me half way through. Of course a lot of the first part was refresher, using Flash Builder, starting a project, View states, Using controls and so forth. Eventually it started to get into some areas I was not so familiar with in Flex such as the Event Model, Using XML Data, E4X, creating classes , Data binding and collections, and then started creating components and classes to develop a better architecture for the application. After completing the ninth chapter I took a short test with the ATTest program and scored a 50%, a little better than I figured since I still have quite a bit to cover, but it makes me feel confident that I should be able to take the certification test in August. I am planning on doing one of the ATTest tests every week from here on out to give me an idea of where I am at.

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My first Android phone was a G1 when they first came out, eventually, I got tired of waiting for TMobile to get around to upgrading the OS and followed a path others blazed in hacking the G1 to Android 2.1. It worked well and showed improvements in speed and stability.

A little less than a year ago I upgraded to a Galaxy S Vibrant, it was a good phone, but once again updates from the vendors fell behind Android releases. TMobile finally released an update to Android 2.2 that was not an over the air (OTA) update, but had to be downloaded and installed though the Samsung Kies program. I went through that process, and it ended up making my phone run worse, and killed some programs such as the Contacts and Messaging apps. I found work arounds, but was not happy with the update.

Today I decided to break down and hack my phone with the most current Cyanogen mod. Unfortunately  as it did last time, using my Mac seemed to be a bit of a pain. I used the instructions provided for Vibrant’s on the Cyanogen wiki. First the Heimdall program used to flash the rom, wouldn’t start up because of a problem with the QT library it used, I was able to fix that by downloading and installing the QT library here.  Unfortunately while trying to flash the new rom, my phone locked. I was finally able to get it active again using Odin and the info from this page, and borrowing my daughters Windows laptop. I tried to flash the phone again from my Mac but the Heimdall program could not see my phone, so I ended up using my daughter’s  laptop to flash the rom and get the new OS up and going.

Once I got the new Android Gingerbread 2.3 OS up and going, it seems quite responsive and faster than the Kies based 2.2 update, and even than the original 2.1. I will post an update here after I have had a week or so running my refreshed phone.

Image by QuintanaRoo via Flickr

Tomorrow is my 49th birthday, and I am sitting back looking at the past year.

I have been dealing with the residual effects of a minor stroke I had in February, mostly occasional numbness luckily, but I have also been dealing with weakness and lack of energy, probably from meds I am on now. Even with this I have not let it slow me down on my goals. I am attending ASU online and I have finished my 3rd semester at ASU, and am managing to keep a good gpa, even with work and dealing with kiddo and her activities. Though I have figured out I do have my limits, mainly I can’t handle work, kiddo, school and a relationship. The relationship seems to be the kicker, once I got out of my last one, things became more manageable. During my summer break I am working on trying to get my Adobe Certified Expert for Flex, something to keep my mind in gear and also advance myself professionally.

My goals for the coming year are to complete two more semesters keeping a good gpa, get my Adobe certification and to see my daughter graduate high school. Oh yea, and try to stay healthy .

I have updated and added some links and also posted a short post on my DW’s Coding Adventures site. If your interested in Flex 4, you might want to check it out.

When I moved into my house a couple years ago I decided to go back to Dish Network from using Cox cable for my television service. Though since I have gone back to school I dont watch tv as much as I use to, so really cant see paying what I have been for programming. I have been using Netflix for a while and have been happy with it, so started to conceder going all internet for my tv service. After looking around and doing some research I ordered a Roku box to try out.  I went ahead and got a subscription to Hulu

also to have access to more current shows. I have to say after a week of use I have decided to drop the Dish Network and go all internet. Even my teenage daughter is happy with it. Cost wise it is great, the Roku boxes I bought cost me $60.00 and $80.00 each, the subscriptions to Netflix and Hulu cost me about $20.00 a month, so a big savings over the $76.00 a month I was paying for the Dish Network service. Though Dish network is getting me one last time before they let me go, they are charging me $15.00 shipping for each set box I am returning to them, so it will cost me $30.00 to get them out of my hair, but after that I am free of them.

I do have to say that going internet all the way might not work for some people, if you have to keep right up to date on any shows it probably isnt a way to go, but if you usually watch a few days behind original airing, then it might work out for you.

Image via CrunchBase

Image via Wikipedia

School is slowing down a bit finally, so have some time to start working on some other things I have been wanting to. One of which is learning some python programming and the Django framework. I have started going through a python tutorial Google has and will go on to Django after that. So far I am enjoying it, though it is taking a little getting use to after C# and PHP, but I am catching on. I am looking forward to getting into Django, I have heard lots of good things about it, and a few bad things, but there is no such thing as a perfect framework. Once I get more into it I will post some stuff on my coding blog.

I will be trying to catch up some more posts here over the next few days, as long as things stay like they are…

I have a video of my daughters cheer team, some pictures of our new family member and some other things to post on.

The link below is to a Flash animation I did for my story boarding class this past spring semester. I am posting it here, because some friends of mine have been bugging me to let them see it. It was all done by me, animation, voice and original music.

Mousie’s Hunt

Enjoy

This past Saturday night I was playing with some jquery mobile code, and following Twitter when @missrogue sent out a tweet saying “What would you tell your 9 year old self? (tag it with #cootiecatchr)” . So I sent a few, and kept reading about what was going on, and got inspired and kept sending things to #cootiecatchr. Well from all that, and a night long session for @missrogue and her team, was born Cootiecatchr. I have to say it was one of the more unique ways I was involved with the development of a website, and one of the more fun ways too.

Go check it out, you might get some good advice.

Stephanie & Becky from work, who also ride, got me a little present for my bike, a Guardian bell. In case you haven’t heard of them before here is some info about them.. Guardian Bell Legend.