Blu-ray aspires to be at the front of the line in the new generation of digital viewing. In similar front-of-the-line style, Apple craves the primary position in other forms of technology. Yet some feared that the twain shall never meet. It was just last fall that Steve Jobs came out with his “bag of hurt” comment, referring to Blu-ray’s complexity and cost. His point was: Apple is not going to integrate Blu-ray technology into its products. Plain and simple.

History lesson over. What does this mean for the here and now?

Now, it appears that either Steve Jobs 1) was not being entirely forthright last October, 2) got trumped in a board meeting, or 3) changed his mind. Although Macs can’t play Blu-ray Discs right now, that may all be changing in the next generation of the Mac. Most likely, however, Apple will first release iTunes 8.2 with Blu-ray ripping capability. This will be the most effective and widespread way to give Blu-ray a boost. After that, Macbooks may come with the Blu-ray supported already configured into the system.

The hope is that Apple will make some kind of conclusive statement at the Worldwide Developers Conference in California. The Cupertino-based company has always enjoyed releasing just enough information to send rumors flying, and then making a dramatic announcement that dispels rumors and excites users. Most certainly, we will hear something about Blu-ray and Apple. What specifically? It remains to be seen.

Some facts were collected by a company called Janco Associates on the current usage of IE worldwide. While Firefox is fast becoming the browser of choice, the market share is not showing it yet with IE having about 75% of the market, and Firefox around 17%.

So, should IE8 be utilized in preference to the latest Firefox versions? Should IE7 users give up their browser knowledge for some extra power offered by IE8?

To answer this, and really lay out an article that will help you decide, here are the salient good and bad factors that should be in your decision making process. The choice depends on whether you are a developer interested in knowing the uses or just an end user whom is curious about the potential benefits.

For the End User:

1. The new IE8 features can be turned off so that the usual IE7 familiarity is still there with a compatibility view.
2. A lot more bug and stability issues fixed than the latest IE7 updates.
3. Browsing the web is more secure than the IE7 browser.
4. The search box is more customized and offers search keyword suggestions. This is useful for both end users seeking out information and SEO marketers needing suggested phrases.
5. Takes twice as long for a browser page to open as compared to Firefox.
6. At this stage, possible compatibility issues may occur with various add-ins like Skype.
7. A new tool called Accelerators allows quick access to various online services such as tracking items on Amazon or eBay.
8. Detected infections are reported to Microsoft and the offending site domain adding strength to worldwide web stealth virus detection and elimination.
9. Attacks from one site to another can be detected using IE8’s cross-site scripting ability.
10. Great zoom features for smooth magnification on text.

For the Developer:

1. Support for HTML 5’s new messaging call function attributes for postMessage. This is a bonus for DOM programmers who work with iFrames as more security has been implemented. If you code mashups, this will be a little extra security.
2. Style sheets can be created using the HTML4 and CSS2.1 specifications.
3. The styles for the display attribute can accommodate adding table styles to non-table elements.
4. The Active Scripting coded engine allows for various languages to be coded during any client-side work – Jscript and the VBScript modules included.

With Windows 7 just round the corner being available from May 5th, IE8 will no doubt be the default browser with the system. So, new users will need to get used to the new version or use the compatibility mode in IE8 after buying a new system with Windows 7 pre-installed. So, the choice is there, not a forced entry into a new browser version; it becomes a user choice based on the benefits and whether or not the upgrade is relevant and useful.

The company plans to make Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced commercially available in the second half of 2009. Pricing will be announced at a later date. All purchases of Wowza Media Server Pro Unlimited editions after April 8, 2009 are eligible for a free upgrade to Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced.

Dave’s Answer:

On first glance my answer would be “no” because if there’s no drive hooked up, there’s no way to read a disk on the computer, right? Wrong.

What I remembered after a bit was that when you’ve more than one Apple Mac connected via a local network, you see each drive on the remote system not just the system itself. Stands to reason, actually.

In this situation, though, it’s going to be a good thing: what you need to do is connect your Dad’s MacBook Air up to another Apple Mac that does have an optical (CD/DVD) drive and use that remotely.

Let me show you how it works…

First off, my favorite way to connect to another Mac on the network is to use the Command-K shortcut. When I press those keys, here’s what I see:

The “Time Tunnel” is my network backup device, and the G5 Desktop is the device I want to share, a desktop computer in my office.

When I connect to it – entering the proper password, of course – I can see each of my drives (X and X2), my home directory and the CDROM I’ve inserted into the desktop optical drive, “Monopoly”:

Sweet! Double click on the CDROM name and:

It’s just like browsing the disk directly. When I’m ready, I’ll do what it suggests and drag the specified folder directly from the remote optical drive to my local Applications directory:

It’ll copy…

and after a minute or two, success!

Software installed exactly as it would have been if I’d have had an optical drive directly on my own MacBook Air (though perhaps just a wee bit more slowly).

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Fish Eye

If you ever used Apple’s OS X, one of the features that stands out is the fish eye effect on the Dock. Using the Dojo Tool Kit, you can create the same effect for your site very quickly. This effect is a great way to show off a menu create with just icons.

Site | Demo

JQuery Spy

You may have used Bigspy, a feature on Digg’s Lab where the top stories are populated on the page in a vertical marquee fashion. This feature is written in Flash, but using this is a great way to keep track of the latest articles being read on your site, like Arsenal-Mania (http://arsenal-mania.com/spy/articles.html) has done.

Site | Demo

Fancy Box

Fancy Box is another Apple inspired script. The script is very similar to Lightbox JS, which creates an overlay on your page. With Fancy Box, you can embed other sites, videos, and images into your site via links. To truly see the benefits of Fancy Box, check out the demo.

Site | Demo

Dragable Boxes

If you have ever used iGoogle, you most likely have used the drag and drop feature to customize the layout of the page. Dragable Boxes provides this same feature for your site. The great thing about the script is that once the user closes the window, when they return, the boxes are in the same location. Adding this script into a site design would be great since the user can customize their layout the way they like it. Oh, and did I mention that each box is collapsible?

Site | Demo

AJAX Poller

Polls are very nice to add to sites. They allow the user to interact with not only the site but other users. They also provide the developers of the site valuable information. The issue with polls are they can be ugly at times. AJAX Poller provides a nice animation feature to make a poll look a lot nicer. The animation is so smooth and quick, we would have sworn we were looking at a Flash based poll.

Site | Demo

Bonus: Magnetic Words

Have you ever seen the magnets with words or part of a word on it? The ones where you put the words together to form a sentence, like telling your spouse to remember to pick up bread from the store? Well Magnetic Words is just like those magnets, but on a virtual refrigerator. This script really demonstrates how powerful AJAX can be, and how easy it is to recreate a real life scenario.

Site | Demo

Networking

The number one tool you can use a freelancer is networking. Which is more of a skill into itself than anything. There are a few ways you can maximize this.

Online Social Networking

LinkedIn – As a social network for professionals this one is tops. You can connect with various professionals in your industry or in industries you might specialize in. There are also a multitude of groups available, such as the freelancer’s network. Connect with me.

Plaxo – This service is very similar to LinkedIn, some people prefer it and so it is always good to make sure you have a solid presence on both. Link to me.

Twitter – Getting a twitter account and interacting with other like-minded professionals should be a mandatory step for anyone. I probably generate more work from Twitter than anywhere else. Not to mention the interactivity you can have with local web designers or even well-known designers around the world. Follow me.

Offline Networking

Upcoming – Finding events where you can network with other professionals offline is important, it can help to build relationships you might have already started online.

Meetup.com – Another great site to find local meetups that may appeal to your interests.

Project Management

Ensuring that your projects are running smoothly and you aren’t overlooking any portion of a project is one of the hardest tasks a freelance web designer has. Not to mention keeping all of the project information in one centralized location can help to keep everything better organized.

Basecamp – This is the most used project management system, it allows you to set milestones, schedule meetings, create a to-do list and even communicate with your clients or others that you sub-contract work for. The system isn’t limited to freelancers, most design agencies I know about use Basecamp. It is a paid system, but well worth the costs.

Project2Manage – This system is a free alternative to Basecamp and doesn’t offer quite as many features as Basecamp but allows you schedule milestones and to-dos easily.

FreelanceSuite – This suite of software is great for those that want to run their project management locally or on their own web server. It also has costs associated with it but unlike Basecamp it is a one-time fee to license the software.

Invoicing

Maintaining your invoices is another big portion of a freelancers business management problems that can cause some chaos if not properly attended to. There was a time when I would open up indesign and “create” a unique invoice everytime for every client. Which was a pain, as you can only imagine.

FreshBooks – One of the most popular solutions for freelancers and agencies. The system allows you to track time, manage the basic aspects of your sent, paid and outstanding invoices. It is also a great way to keep track of it all at tax time.

InvoiceMore – A new solution developed by Vance Lucas, another Oklahoma developer. This system excels at re-occurring invoices by automating them for you. It also manages your basic invoices similarly to how FreshBooks works. A very simple and easy to use system, right now it only lacks time tracking. hint hint.

Harvest – Another great invoicing system that allows you to track time, sent invoices, outstanding and the whole bit. My only complain with their system is that although it looks great it feels a little cumbersome to navigate.

Backups

Having your files backed up is another item that a lot of designers may overlook but wish they would have when something happens. You can always use a local hard drive for backing up important documents and files but it is easy to forget. There are several options that automate the process for you ensuring that you have everything backed up regularly.

Mozy – I have used this service for years and I love it. It is simple and unobtrussive to use. It works on Mac and PC and works in the background. You can get 2GB free or upgrade for $5/mo to unlimited. You tell it what files or folders you want backed up and it will automatically backup your data at a preset time.

Carbonite – A similar solution to Mozy, doesn’t offer a free solutions beyond their 15 day trial but is competitively priced. Works on PC and Intel-based Macs.

Finding work

There are a multitude of places to find work online through job boards and many other avenues, such as through social networking on sites like Twitter or LinkedIn. Even Facebook can generate some client work.

FreelanceSwitch Job Board – This service passes on the cost to the freelancer instead of the client. You pay $7/mo for an account and have access to whatever projects are available including design, development, writing and more.

Smashing Jobs – Usually a fantastic resource for finding clients looking for qualified and experienced freelance web designers to work with.

Guru – Not the best solutions for the accomplished designer but you can occasionally find projects that may fit your skill level. A lot of the clients on job boards are looking for the cheapest solution available and much of that goes to India or Pakistan where the cost of living is much lower.

Contact Management

Keeping your contacts in order can be a challenege. Such as remembering when you last contacted a client or something you may need to follow up with for a client can be tricky. Sticky notes everywhere is definitely a poor solutions when there is a multitude of online solutions.

Highrise – This service, made by 37signals, is a great solution to managing your contacts. It will allow you to store all of your clients and keep track of when you last communicated with them as well as when you should follow up with them.

ZoHo CRM – This service is great alternative to Highrise for managing your contacts as well, I think that Highrise does it a little more intuitively though.

Productivity Assurance

Keeping on task as a freelance web designer is definitely a chore. It is so easy to get distracted by feeds, twitter or IM. There are several applications for shutting down all of these services for a specified amount of time to ensure that you can stay on task. They’ll only work for your computer though, so you will have to come up with another solution for your phone and TV.

SelfControl – A great app that will disable your ability to visit certain predefined sites for a specified amount of time. Such as blocking your access to Twitter, Facebook and other services while still allowing you to work online. OSX only.

StopDistractions – A very similar app for Windows users that will disable access to certain sites.

I’m sure there are lots of other solutions to all of these problems that you may know of or use, but these are the products I use or would recommend using based on experience. Definitely share your product combos in the comments.

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AJAX Rating Stars

AJAX Rating Stars, allows visitors to rate an image, an article, or anything you would allow. Not only does it allow a rating system, but the rating system is customizable and interactive. Unlike most rating systems where you click a bullet, AJAX Rating Stars allows users to “fill” in the number of stars they want to give the item being rated.

Site | Demo

FancyZoom 1.1

FancyZoom is an nice alternative to the popular Lightbox JS. The script allows a user to zoom in on an image without leaving the page, or even reloading the image itself. FancyZoom doesn’t create “gray out” the site when zoomed in, and it also allows the user to interact with the site behind the zoomed image both of which can’t be done with Lightbox JS.

SIte | Demo

AJAX Pagination v1.2.2

One of the issues sites run into once they start to grow is how to cleanly display more than one page of content. The solution developers came up with is called pagination. Popular blogging software, like Wordpress, provide a very basic pagination which only allows you to go forward or back one page at a time. Where as other sites, like Google, which allow you to jump multiple pages at a time. AJAX Pagination gives the ability to jump multiple pages at a time, or even directly link to a page. The pagination that is created with by this script is very similar to the one on Digg.com.

Site | Demo

AJAX Tab Content v2.2

Since the early days of the world wide web, designers have been trying to create a clean, and simple to use tab design. AJAX Tab Content fills that void. The code will allow a user to change the content in the main section of the site simply by clicking on a tab. This is very useful when you have multiple ideas, or themes that you would like to group together.

Site | Demo

Coda Popup Bubbles

Have you ever heard of a “tooltip”? Tooltips are little windows that pop up when ever you hover over an object, most of the time providing more information about the subject. With Coda Popup Bubbles you can add the same concept on your own site. A great way to use a tool tip is to display profile information on your page about members of the site. You could provide the members email address, or any other information simply by hovering over the user’s name.

Site | Demo

Sunday Morning

Ever need to have something translated on a site but you didn’t was to switch between Babelfish or Google Translator in order to do the translation? Sunday Morning allows you to provide lazy users with the power of Google Translation on your site, via a simple double click or the click of a button. The script allows three different ways for users to translate text on your site. The user can either double click an area and have a menu option to translate the text, or you can translate the text to one language when the user double clicks a single word. The last way the translation can occur via the click of a translate button. All three are a simple but effective methods in translating text for a user.

Site | Demo

TimeLine

Timeline is exactly what it says it is. This script will allow you to create a time line of events in a nice horizontal time line. Most time lines are static, but with this script your time line will be more interactive. The user can drag the time line either left or right in order to advance to a future date, or to go back in history. Say good bye to those static time lines of the past, once you tried this script you won’t want to go back.

Site | Demo

Pie & Donut Charts

For the most part, pie charts are static, like time lines, and boring. With Pie & Donut Charts, you can make pie charts on your page interactive. This script allows users to click wedges in the pie chart, which separates the wedges from the other parts of the chart. Pie & Donut Charts will give your pie charts a degree of interactivity which will make those charts fun again.

Site | Demo

“Rosenberg: When you start talking about high reliability, security, and performance, it sounds like you’re working to disrupt traditional Java environments? Is my hunch correct?

Gutmans: The Java disruption by PHP is well under way.  PHP is everywhere, and Zend’s solutions are being used in business-critical deployments by companies such as Tagged, Fiat, BNP Paribas, and Fox Interactive Media, to name a few. The strategic adoption of Zend in larger accounts, often in favor of Java, is related to our strong return on investment and shorter time to market.”

To argue that PHP is disrupting Java usage is, if you ask me, missing the point.  You know something is wrong when Roy Russo is the voice of reason.  On Matt’s follow up to Dave’s post, Roy comments:

“The truth is that both PHP and Java have their place within an IT organization. The funny thing is that stories about the demise and disruption of Java still get published.”

There is an interesting discussion at Slashdot about Twitter shifting workload from Ruby on Rails over to Scala.  Readers have compared technology choices at Twitter versus Facebook. Slashdot reader mini_me writes:

“While Facebook uses PHP where Twitter uses Rails, Facebook uses a plethora of languages to make the whole system work. So Twitter really isn’t going to Scala any more than Facebook is going to Erlang. Which is the say that they use the best tool for the job, not one tool for every job.”

To be fair, the Java ecosystem made the error of recommending the Java language and platform as the right tool for every job in the past.  Today, Java infrastructure providers have shifted to offer a broader set of tools to help right-size the infrastructure to the project needs.  This will only continue.  And as it does, PHP, Groovy, Ruby, Java and several other languages will be used together to help customers drive business results.

The customers I speak with aren’t backing away from their Java investments when they ask for broader dynamic scripting language support within their enterprise application server.  Rather, they see value in using different language environments to extend the value of their Java investments.

Maybe I’m biased, but Java the language and Java the platform have little to fear from PHP or other scripting language environments.

What do you think?

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Step 1: Creating Fe-Lines

Open the picture of the cat in PS, duplicate the cat’s layer, and desaturate it (CTRL+SHIFT+U). Hide the cat on the bottom layer.

We’ll apply a filter now to give it some darker lines. Filter>Artistic>Poster Edges

Adjust the levels (CTRL+L). Click on the far right eyedropper and click on the cat’s face where it should be white, and it will then make everything that same shade, white.

Now, drag the little arrows along the line until you get ride of all the shades of grey, and keep the blackened poster edges.

Step 2: Cat Eyes

We just want to add color to the eyes to really make them pop (in a visual sense, not literally).

Change the Blending option of the layer the cat is on to Multiply. This will then make all of the white invisible, and withhold the black lines.

Create a new layer below the cat’s layer. Choose your Paint Brush and a color you’d like to use for the eyes. Carefully color in the eyes. If you get sloppy with it, it’s okay, you just have to erase what extra there is.

Step 3: Return of the Hidden Cat

Unhide the second cat layer. This layer should be below the cat layer with lines, and the eyes’ layer.

Desaturate the cat (CTRL+SHIFT+U).

Adjust the levels (CTRL+L) so a lot of the areas are white and the dark areas are dark.

Image>Adjustments>Posterize

And we’re done!

Enjoy!