Xperimentality

I have been mentioning the visibility and discussions around AJAX and how it seems to be one of the more popular points of discussion. Interesting observation today. I said that I was planning on attending Mix06. Well I was looking at some of the pre-discussion going on out on MSDN's channel 9.  Looking at the number of views per topic, AJAX has 7,449 views.  The closest number of views to that is Windows Presentation Foundation with 3161.  Interesting...

I am working on some presentations for the next Code Camp in Alabama.  The next one will be in April and will be held in Huntsville.  I am looking forward to it.  So far I have submitted a presentation on CSS2 and ASP.Net.  I would also like to do a chalk talk on some of the Web 2.0 technologies.  I am hoping to get some ideas from some of the discussions at Mix06.

It is official.  I am going to Mix06.  I am looking forward to it. I spend a lot of my time learning and playing with a lot of the topics being covered. I will most likely post to my blog while there to keep you updated if you are interested!

Well, I finally got a new skin created.  It is ok for now.  I don't know that I am really happy with it yet.  It just doesn't seem to do it for me.  Of course this is my engineer coming out.  The perfectionist in me is never satisfied!

I am giving a presentation to the Huntsville .NET User Group on March 14.  They asked me to give a presentation on AJAX.  Seems the interest in AJAX continues to grow.  I think there is a lot of potential for AJAX now that it is more widely available to browsers.  There seems to be a lot of discussion of benefits and weaknesses.  It will be interesting to see where it goes.

I guess I have that freakish quality you don't find often in engineers.  I love the creativity of web design and graphics work! My boss, who happens to be a great friend of mine, ribs me all the time about my love of all things visual.  So it goes!  I have been utilizing CSS in my designs for quite a while and one of my favorite sites for showing off what can be done with CSS is CSSZenGarden. A book was written about CSSZenGarden, which discusses some of the designs on the site and the interesting implementations of CSS within those designs.  I finally decided I would get it and see what others were talking about.  I think it is a great book for someone who is somewhat familiar with CSS but wants to grow their knowledge.  It is not a beginners book.  And it is not a book for advanced developers either. Reading the book is like having a discussion with a friend who is knowledgeable about CSS.  I think it is a worthwhile purchase for anyone interested in seeing other perspectives on CSS implementation.

I have a lot of hobbies. But one of my favorites is woodworking, more specifically turning objects on the lathe. I have had my lathe for probably 7 or 8 years and had wanted to turn a pen. As with many things, fear of the unknown caused me to continuously put it off.
Well at the beginning of 2005 I decided to purchase the parts I needed to begin turning pens and pencils. Another 5 months of procrastination and I realized what I had been missing. I officially began turning pens and pencils the in middle of 2005. For me turning is the activity that completely takes me a way from all the distractions and worries of the world around me. It is my escape.
Although I had originally decided I would focus on technology in this blog, I realized that turning is a big part of my "xperimentality". So I am going to create a category here so that I can include some pics of some of my pens. I can also discuss some of my trial and error and experiences with turning them. I hope it will be entertaining and possibly inspire some other turners who have been putting off trying something new. After all, what is "xperimentality" but trying new things and learning new skills!

Wow!  February 1st already. That one snuck up on me. Sometimes I can't believe how fast time goes by. You hear parents say that once you have a child, time just continues to speed up. Now that my daughter is 3.5 years old, I can say that it seems to be true!

Well the presentation seemed to go well.  Once I get the xperimentality site back up, I will post the presentation there.  Also, I mentioned last night that one of the things I was playing around with was using AJAX to extend functionality, not just data.  Some others are doing this as well but they focus on creating a library for it.  I think all the JavaScript libraries that are out there are great.  However, I can see how the use of libraries can be a negative if the library size gets too large.  Anyway, I am going to post more on my thoughts around this soon.

I have been asked to do a presentation for the Birmingham .NET User Group tonight.  I am going to do a modified presentation that I did for the Alabama Code Camp focusing a little more on degredation.  Even though the browsers are providing better support, we still cannot control the user who might set their browser to not run scripts.