While the experts are predicting that at least the first half of 2009 is going to be ugly, our lives are what we make of them and while there are always going to be some unfortunate events along the way, that will only make the good moments that much sweeter.

Best of luck to everybody as we close out 2008, and again, Happy New Year!

Here's to a new decade!

Cynergy has quickly established itself as a leader in the Rich Internet Application (RIA) revolution, and I couldn't sit on the sidelines and watch while they had all the fun. Their collective talent and passion absolutely blew me away, and there was no second-guessing once I accepted the offer. You can see some examples of their expertise over on their blogs and the flexcoders mailing list (hint: search for "Cynergy" or "Dave Wolf" or "Andrew Trice" for some sample posts). In short: these guys know their stuff, and I'm hoping to uphold that level of expertise.

You may have noticed in the opening paragraph that I noted that I will be working with Java. Those of you who know me (or have read my other posts) know that I am a longtime ColdFusion developer (I just hit my ten year mark recently). This change means that I will be stepping away from ColdFusion for a little bit while I diversify my skill set with Java and Flex 2. I'm a bit sad, a bit nervous, but, most of all, I'm incredibly excited to be broadening my base and getting into areas of work that are new and challenging. Diversifying my skill set is something that I've been wanting to do for years, but just never found the time to do outside of reading books and playing around with personal projects. And while I firmly believe that ColdFusion will gain more and more traction down the road as more companies recognize its beautiful integration with Flex 2, the reality is that the lion's share of current Flex RIA work is using a Java backend. Further, it has been suggested they are open to eventually bring in more Flex/ColdFusion work down the road at Cynergy, so don't think I'm leaving the CF world forever. I look at it as a hiatus while I go cut my teeth with Java. Also, this site along with some other personal projects will continue to use ColdFusion as its backend as well.

OK, so I mentioned something in the title about the value of CFUNITED. Well, if not for the friends that I made down at the conference over the last two years, this opportunity likely would not have come to fruition. See, two years ago, I was fortunate to meet Adam Wayne Lehman (who is now a ColdFusion specialist for the North American Sales Team at Adobe). We have kept in touch since then, and, at this past conference in June, he introduced me to a good friend and then-co-worker of his, Cliff Meyers. We had a great time at the conference, and then caught up a few weeks ago. Cliff went to work for Cynergy just after CFUNITED and raved about them. At the same time, I was hitting a ceiling at my current job and decided to throw my candidacy out there to see what would happen. Fast forward to last Friday when the official offer was extended, and here we are! While I agree with Sean that there are more to conferences than just the networking, I have to say that there's no way that this opportunity would have come to pass as quickly as it did without CFUNITED. So if you're ever on the fence as to the value of this conference (or other conferences in your field), I'm happy to be a case study in their benefits! It has changed my life and I'm incredibly excited at the opportunities that lie ahead.

I'll be starting there towards the end of this month while I properly transition out of my current job. It may or may not be quiet on here until then!

• Guy Kawasaki: One of the original Mac evangelists in the early 80s, Guy is now a managing director at Garage Technology Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. His blog is filled with a treasure trove of real-world knowledge and advice on public speaking and starting and running a business (among other things). If you're in business, you need to read his work. Oh, and I'm also reading his books. I finished The Art of the Start, which provides a sobering blueprint for starting any type of business, and I'm now reading Rules For Revolutionaries, which is an amazing reference for creating and marketing any product or service.
• Mark Cuban: The billionaire owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, it's easy to think of him as somebody who was just lucky during the dot com boom (when he sold his company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo! for something like $9 billion dollars in July, 1999). However, I've come to realize that while luck always plays into things, Mark is one of the smartest, savviest businessmen I've come across, and you can learn a lot from his posts. He has helped fund the blog search engine IceRocket.com (for which I wrote the pinging support for BlogCFC) and founded and opened HDNet, an all high-definition TV channel of DIRECTV.
• Robert Scoble: Robert just left his job as Product Evangelist at Microsoft to take a position as VP of Media Development at PodTech.net, which is essnetially an aggregator of podcasting and video blogging content. A true blogging pioneer, Robert has a great pulse on the digital media market.
• Joel Spolsky: If you were at CFUNITED in 2005, you know why I read Joel's work. He is an incredibly engaging speaker and provides real-world advice on topics such as running a great technology company, software development, internet trends, and more. One of the founders of Fog Creek Software, we use his amazing FogBugz project management system. Joel "gets" developers and truly believes that the people he surrounds himself with are the key to success. I've also read his books Joel on Software, which is a cleanly organized book of his blog entries (which are all styled as witty essays, by the way), and The Best Software Writing I, which is a selection of writings by various authors on all things related to software and software development.
• FlickrBlog: OK, not much to describe here, but they do occasionally post status updates for Flickr.com. But they do post some amazing high-quality photos which make my shots look incredibly amateur!
• TheServerSide.com: I really just subscribe to this to see if any of the headlines are appealing. It's very J2EE-oriented, but there are some product announcements that catch my eye.
• Tom Kyte: If you use Oracle, you need to subscribe to Tom Kyte's site, AskTom. Tom is a world-renowned Oracle guru who answers literally thousands of questions of all levels related to using Oracle. His site has an unbelievably amount of valuable information, and I've learned countless tips and tricks over the last few years.
• ThinkSecret: This is my one Apple-related blog. These guys specialize in breaking news and announcments surrounding Apple products. Since Apple is notoriously tight-lipped about just about everything, ThinkSecret seems to be the most reliable source of what's coming down the road.
• Slashdot: As they call it themselves, it's "New for Nerds." While it tends to be a bit anti-Microsoft, they do keep you updated on the goings-on of all things related to technology. And I'm not talking just about software either -- they cover medical, aeronautics, etc.

I have a few more, but they're just feeds related to product announcements (i.e., Oracle security updates, etc.). What about you? Who/What do you read? Remember, they can't be aggregated by FullAsAGoog or MXNA.

Are you kidding?! I mean, I'm a big Firefox fan and use it for almost everything, but please don't interfere with my personal preferences by re-directing me to a landing page telling me to upgrade. That's both obnoxious and not your business. In this case, FeedDemon happens to use the IE engine within its IDE to access the internet. Yes, I know you can select an option to open links in my external default browser (which is Firefox, by the way), but I want to stay within the IDE. And yes, I see that there's a link to "continue anyway," but you know what? You lost me as a reader already. I'm not interested in continuing.

I don't mind subtle prodding to get users to upgrade, i.e., Firefox banners in a side column, etc. But don't jump in the middle of my experience and force your personal preference/wish on me. I came to your site to read your content, not be told which tool to use to do so.

Enjoy!!

I was surfing through Digg last night and noticed an article entitled A Guide to OS X Software for Switchers. Now, even though I had to send my MacBook Pro back for a new one (grrrrrrr) and am still waiting for it, this "guide" is exactly the sort of resource I am looking for. The one area where I've had some issues getting used to the switch is how to get the "little things" done that were second nature to me in the Windows world. There are lots of resources for using "big ticket" items like web browsers and Eclipse, but I'm talking more about things like unzipping SIT files (seemingly the preferred zipping method for the Mac community), FTP-ing files to my web site, capturing screen shots, etc. Well, this "Guide" has all those answers and more. If you are a recent Switcher or even if you are a long time Mac user, there are tips, tricks, and references for everybody that are extremely useful.

Now if I only had that replacement machine to apply these tips... ;)

The Ordering Experience

Simple. Standard. The ordering process was very familiar if you've ever been to and/or ordered from Dell's web site. Choose your desired model, click a few radio buttons to configure your personal specs for the machine, and off you go.

I will say that if Apple really wants to gain market share, they have to provide better financing options than they currently do. Essentially, you either pay by credit card or a P.O. if it's for work. That's lame. Where I believe Dell really has a leg up is that they provide a leasing option whereby you pay off the balance of a secured loan over a multi-year period at a fixed percentage rate. When I was paying off my old Dell, it was great to know that $78.56 was being deducted from my account every month and that, over the agreed-upon time period, the balance of the loan was paid off. Now I have yet another credit card to juggle. Oh yeah, and if you choose to finance through Apple rather than using an existing personal credit card, you literally have to open a new credit card account. The worst part about it is that you don't know what the interest rate is until after you've opened the account! So even if you decide that you don't want to use the account because the interest rate is too high, the account is already opened and reflected in your credit report.

The above being said, I was still elated with my purchase (made on a Tuesday), and received an early birthday gift when it arrived that same week on Friday.

The Machine

Gorgeous. Sleek. Thin. Screaming Fast. Hot. Yeah, the common gripe is indeed true....these things get hot. Although I guess that's what happens when you take a high-powered processor and stuff it in a metal case that's only 1 inch thick. So I was definitely prepared for it. As the guys at the Apple Store told me when I was looking at the machines and comparing the 15 inch with the 17 inch model (I got the 15 inch), they're intentionally not calling them "laptops." Rather, the Apple company line has been to call them "portables" so that people don't put them on their lap and burn themselves.

The Software

This is probably my favorite part about the machine. A lot is made of the high cost of purchasing a Mac versus a PC. However, what I think gets lost in the debate is that Apple provides a ton of useful software out of the box. If you were to add up the cost of the individual software components, it's likely around $1,000 USD. Seriously. I'm not talking about the common PC trial-ware for AOL or EarthLink or any of the hundreds of other titles that most people uninstall as soon as they power up their new PC. I'm talking about a music recording application called GarageBand (which I now use to record my guitar songs....I'm not very good by the way), iTunes, iPhoto (a powerful photo editing and organization application), HD video editing software, multiple chat applications, iWeb (for creating web sites), and, of course, a solid web browser.

Mac Eye For The Windows Guy

OK, a cheesy section title, but that's the best I could do this late at night while trying to convey the fact that using a Mac is a different mindset as compared to using a PC. On a PC, you're likely have multiple partitions on your drive to separate your data from your applications in the event of a system crash (corrupt registry, etc.). Well, with a Mac, you don't have to worry about that. There's no such thing as a registry, and everything is treated as a file, so if you want to delete a program, just drag the program to the Trash and it's gone. No Start -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Do a Dance To Make Sure All Registry Keys Are Deleted, Which Likely Won't Happen. But I'm still having trouble adjusting to the fact that closing a window does not close the application itself. You still have to separately quit out of the application itself (in most cases). I'm not sure how I feel about that. For the most part, if I'm shutting the application window, then I'm likely done with it. So close altogether please.

Installing software is still tripping me up from time to time as well. Most Mac applications come as a DMG file, which is roughly equivalent to a ZIP file. When you double-click the DMG file, it doesn't actually install the application in most cases, as you would expect from double-clicking an EXE file in Windows. All it does it mount the file archive so that you can then run the installer application. This took me a few attempts to figure out. I would "install" Firefox and then re-boot my machine only to see that it disappeared! The other problem I have is that sometimes applications don't tell me where they're being installed and I can't choose the location. I installed the TiVo Desktop Software about 8 times (seriously) before I realized it was in my System Preferences folder. I was clueless.

Lastly, I went ahead and plunked down the amazingly cheap $39.99 for Parallels Software's Desktop For Mac application and installed Windows into it. Even in a virtual OS, Windows now runs about twice as fast as my old Dell ever did. Not that it's the Dell machine's fault, mind you, but it's still incredibe to see the speed difference. I'm going to be using this machine to do some Flex 2 development, and it's nice to see I won't be hindered by performance.

The "Intel" Problem

The big thing that I'm finding out about this machine is that most people still haven't updated their applications to support the Intel-based Mac yet (Adobe, I'm looking in your direction). So a lot of programs need to run in an emulation mode using something called "Rosetta" to translate the PowerPC-based instruction set to the Intel platform. It's supposed to slow down the application, and I suppose it does, but, honestly, these machines are so fast as it is that it's barely noticeable. I will say that running ColdFusion is a royal pain in the behind. See, Macs come with the Java 5 SDK as its default Java Virtual Machine. Unfortunately, ColdFusion doesn't run on this JVM yet. So, thanks to Google and Simeon Bateman's blog, I was able to track down a shell script that allows me to set the JDK to Java 1.4.2 so that ColdFusion is happy and will start. So I have ColdFusion out of the way. Now I have to track down an Oracle installation for this machine, as this is what my company uses and it'd be good to have it set up locally.

The Negative

So with all the gushing and positive comments, you'd think everything is great. Well, it is and it isn't. You see, my computer technically works, but it's also what Apple considers to be DOA (Dead On Arrival). The second memory bank (where I was trying to install some more RAM because it was cheaper than getting it from Apple) is dead. So I call up the AppleCare number because that's what I just paid good money for. Within 10 seconds, the tech support guy tells me he's a "software guy" and that hardware's out of his realm. His suggestion....bring it to a Mac Genius at one of their retail stores. I was a bit annoyed, but I was willing to give it a shot. I made an appointment with a "Genius," and, sure enough, he confirmed what I already knew. So you'd think that they would replace the laptop there on the spot because it's a retail store and they carry those kinds of things. Well, not so much. It turns out that because I upgraded a couple items at the time of my purchase (from 512 MB to 1 GB RAM and frm the 5400 RPM to the 7200 RPM hard drive), that's technically considered a "custom built machine" and they'll have to have it specially built for me in China. Oh yeah, and that'll take two weeks. I mean, what the heck's the point of the retail stores if they can't replace my machine right there? So, needless to say, I'm blogging this entry right now on a soon-to-be-returned machine. However, since it does function without issue with the 1 GB RAM module that came with the machine, they're letting me keep this through the CFUNITED conference next week, which is the main reason why I bought it when I did. I do have to say that their support staff was very accomodating to my situation, and they're allowing a "grace period" for me to return the machine for a new one rather than repairing this machine. As they put it, who wants a new computer that immediately has to be repaired?

A Couple Pointers

In closing, since this is the longest post in my short blogging history, I wanted to pass along two great little tips I've learned in my short experience with the computer.

1. Empty Trash vs. Secure Empty Trash: I saw this one whie waiting on line in the Apple Store. When you empty your Trash Bin, you're not really deleting the files from your system. Sure, they don't appear in your folders, but all you've done is tell the OS that the space the deleted file once occupied is eligible to be overwritten when space is needed. If you want to erase all remnants of a file from your system and immediately free up the space, choose the Finder->Secure Empty Trash menu option. This is particularly important for personal data files.
2. Get the iStat Pro Dashboard Widget: The Mac Genius I spoke to pointed out the iStat Pro dashboard widget, which gives you a high-level overview of all the major system components, such as battery life, temperature, memory usage, broadband speed, and more. The temperature and fan feature isn't working on the Intel-based Macs yet, but support for it is imminent, and this free widget is certainly a useful utility.

Overall

Yeah, I have to send the computer back, but overall I'm ecstatic with the purchase. I really am. There are some things I need to learn to better use the machine (shortcuts, etc.), but I hope to pick the brains of some Mac users at CFUNITED next week to get a better grasp of the OS. I'm already more productive with this machine than I have been in a long time for my personal work. If you're on the fence, do it. You still have Windows via Parallels as a safety net, and it's such a complete system that has everything I need to be productive. The product reviews I read before buying the MacBook Pro were all from previous Mac users, so I was a bit skeptical. Well, I see why Mac users are loyal. Apple's on to something with this line, and if they can sort out the aforementioned financing problems (and ship fully functioning hardware), they have a great shot at converting large numbers of Windows users.

Anyway, I hope everybody's enjoying the World Cup. Oh yeah, this is also my first post from my brand new MacBook Pro!!

Holy cow was it scary. Seriously. You have to understand, I don't own a home, car, or other "big ticket" item where dropping a couple thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket. (Incidentally, for those who don't know, I live in New York City, hence the lack of owning those things...I'm not homeless!) Sure, I bought a Dell about 5 years ago out of college, but I was a bit more reckless with money then, so I tended to rationalize things in terms of "this costs 3 nights of drinking." Plus, it was the Internet boom, when everybody in our line of work thought they were going to be millionaires in no time. But there are a few reasons why I was "scared."

First, as much as Apple has become en vogue again, I have to be practical and keep in mind that I will rely heavily on this machine for work. This isn't a vanity purchase by any stretch. So it's important for me to be productive as soon as I receive the machine. Enter the new Apple store on 5th Avenue here in Manhattan (which is the most beautiful piece of architecture I've ever seen for a retail store) and Parallels Desktop for Mac.

Why the Apple store? Well, on Monday after work, I decided to walk up to the store and check out the difference between the 15.4" and 17" MacBook Pro. I spent one solid hour using each machine to get a feel for each. Never once was I told by any of the employees that I was hogging the machine (there were about 10 of each on display, so it's not I had the only one, but still...). Further, when I finally got all my questions in order, I peppered two employees who not only never sighed or gave any indication that I was a pain, but they got incredibly excited that I was looking to switch and spent another half an hour walking me through the OS and pointing out keys things a developer would need to know. I was blown away. I was very up front that I wasn't going to be purchasing from them at that moment and they couldn't have cared less. There were hundreds of other customers they could have easily gone on to them, but they didn't. Great stuff.

As for Parallels, well, they're my life boat. With their Desktop for Mac product, I can still fall back to Windows when I need to. Since Flex Builder 2 doesn't exist for the Mac (yet), I know I'll need to be in there for some things, and it's great to know that one machine can handle both of my needs.

OK, so what did I get? I went with the 15.4" MacBook Pro with 1 GB of RAM and the 100 GB hard drive at 7200 RPM. I also ordered an additional 1 GB of RAM from NewEgg, who is selling it for literally almost half of what Apple wanted for the same amount ($160 USD vs. $300 USD). I chose the 15.4" over the 17" because the 17", while sleek and beautiful was a bit too much machine for me. I was telling somebody yesterday that using the 17" MacBook Pro reminded of a line from the movie Starsky and Hutch towards the end when Ben Stiller is telling Owen Wilson that his mom never "thought he could handle the V8. It was too much car for him." Well, that's how I felt about the 17" model. It was monstrous and noticeably heavier (about 1.5 pounds). If you're looking for a desktop replacement, it's a no-brainer, but not if you truly need a portable machine.

Before closing the entry out, I do want to give a huge shout-out to Adam Wayne Lehman. I met Adam last year at the CFUNITED conference and we've kept in sporadic touch over the last year. Out of nowhere, Adam offered to sponsor my purchase so that I could receive 10% off the price. Apple has this cool program where if you work for the federal government, you can sponsor up to 6 friends and/or family to buy products from the Federal Employee store. This unsolicited gesture saved me almost $500 USD off the total price! This is yet another reason why I can't recommend the CFUNITED conference enough if you're a ColdFusion developer. Thanks again Adam!

Then Apple came along and introduced a new drug called the MacBook Pro. This drug has the feeling of my usual crack but the payload of, say, heroin. It just feels better. (Note: I honestly have no idea how either feels, but if movies are any indication, heroin makes you feel better.) On top of it supposedly being a better drug, Apple offers a bonus transition drug called, say, crystal meth, to wean me off the crack and onto the heroin full-time. Apple has done everything possible to make me switch drugs. The question becomes: should I switch?

Seriously, I'm about 75% sure I'm going to switch (yes, there's still decent wiggle room in there). But I do need to ask those who have done so a few questions:

First, there are several applications that simply don't (and won't, in some cases) exist for the Mac. The 800 pound gorilla for me is Micosoft Office. I legitimately use most of its components at some level: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc., plus apps like Visio and MS Project. In short, this is a must-have for me. I know there's OpenOffice.org, but does it suffice? If I'm going to make this investment, I don't want to run dual OS-es forever. While it's nice to have Boot Camp and Parallels Workstation as an option, I don't want it to be a long-term necessity (ideally). Further, I don't like the idea of shutting down my computer and re-booting into another OS entirely (Boot Camp) just for an application or two, and the idea of OS virtualization (Parallels Workstation) makes me pause. I'm just not sure how mature OS virtualization really is at the consumer level (I really don't...that's not a rhetorical statement).

Second, the price. The 17" MBP I'm looking at winds up being USD $3,448 (I'd go with 2GB RAM and the Apple Care package, which pushes the base price up). A comparable Dell Latitude D820 (same processor, RAM, hard drive, etc., but only a 15.4" widescreen) is USD $2,779 (due to a USD $400 instanct rebate they're offering). That's a USD $781 differential right there...certainly nothing to sneeze at! Is it really worth the difference?

Third, I'd have to re-format my iPod for use with a Mac, wouldn't I? I have things pretty well set up right now and I'd hate to have to re-format it and start from scratch. Am I correct on this assumption? Are there any tools around to bridge the Windows/Mac divide in this regard?

I hold no disdain for Microsoft, unlike a lot of people. I like their products. I've avoided all the horror stories I've read from (former) Windows users (knock on wood). Maybe I'm just lucky, but I also bang on my laptop considerably so I'm definitely a knowledgable source. But I have to say I'm blown away by the UI and feature set offered for the Mac. I know Vista is coming at some point this decade, but I'm not really sure what added value it's going to have other than the Aero GUI feature that Macs already seem to have. At the same time, it's not about the appearance; I need my critical applications to work. We are going to be getting into Flex in the near-term and, while I know Simeon has blogged about using Flex 2.0 on a Mac, there is currently no Flex Builder for it and there won't be for a while. I don't know if I want to worry about using ANT and the command-line just to do a basic compilation of my project.

What do you think? I was telling Sean Corfield that Mac users are the most loyal user base I've ever seen. I love their passion and I think that's what really draws me to the platform. But I'm a realist and have to be productive. I need to learn a whole new operating system. Even basic navigation and where to find things is going to be foreign to me. What resources are out there for this? Is it worth the switch?

Ordering Process and Delivery

OK, so this part isn't about the physical aspects of the bag, but customer service is as important to me as the product itself, so I feel like it's worth noting. The order process was the standard "shopping cart" format we've come to know and love. However, I went back to the site a few hours later to check the Order Status (like I said, I was antsy), but figuring out where to log back in was a chore in and of itself. In short, I'm not a fan of their store layout.

Anyway, I don't want to get off-topic by critiquing their site. However, I do want to compliment MEDIUM on one thing. I selected two-day delivery as my shipping option, and they overnighted it to me instead at no extra charge. A seemingly small enhancement to my order, but great customer service.

The Bag Itself

OK, so I had no way of physically seeing the bag before placing the order. I had to rely on the Flash demo of the product for my information because I am apparently the first one on the internet to have bought the bag! Upon arrival, I ripped the box open and saw this beautiful black leather bag wrapped in plastic. After taking it out of the plastic and removing the 768 mini sacs of desiccant (I swear, I thought somebody was messing with me), I noticed it was a bit wider than I thought it was going to be. That's not a bad thing, but just something I noticed. Then I opened the bag up.

Opening the bag... that's an interesting "feature." The flap with the Adobe logo is standard, and there is a slot for a name/address tag on the inside of it. Curiously, there was no tag provided. There is a swath of fabric that you roll up and down to open and close the inner compartment. When rolled up, you secure it by pulling down on straps on either side of the bag. The straps don't buckle and unbuckle, they just tighten and loosen. This rollup fabric is part of the "water-proof your contents" feature, and it's not bad. In the rain, the inside will definitely stay dry. However, I'm curious as to why there would be a need for it when you have the "rain hood" built in to the bag to cover the bag in the bad weather anyway. This thing is made of good-quality leather, so I'm definitely going to be using the hood if it's ugly outside.

After unrolling the fabric, I noticed that the bag didn't open as wide as I had hoped it would. At first I just thought that maybe the new leather was a little tight, but I came to realize it just doesn't open that wide. There are a ton of pockets and pouches in there, but since the bag doesn't open that wide, it's hard to get to any but the ones at the top. (I also found about another ten sacs of desiccant while perusing the pockets. This is crazy.)

Now, the big test... How does the bag handle a standard size laptop with a couple of books that I am reading. The laptop pocket in slightly "elevated" from the outer lining of the bag, so there's an extra cushion to protect your machine. But herein lies my biggest complaint about the bag. Remember how I said the bag didn't open that wide? Well, the natural side-effect of this is that you can't put a whole lot in the bag because that means the outer flap then won't close. I had my laptop, my new Pragmatic Ajax book and another amazing book I just finished entitled The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. Neither book is very thick at all (a couple hundred pages each), but the combination of the three made it very tight to close the bag. There's no way the thick Ben Forta books would ever make it into the bag while still being able to properly close the flap. That being said, I thought about how much I really carry with me on a daily basis. I occasionally carry my laptop, but always carry a book with me. With that sort of load, this bag is perfectly adequate. However, if you're a "road warrior," I think the "tightness" of the compartment might be a showstopper.

The strap that comes with the bag is a bit of a mixed review as well. On the one hand, the strap itself is made out of the fabric that airplane seat belts are made from. It's smooth and it's sturdy. The padded part of the strap is great. It's a very good size and with all the aforementioned contents, it didn't bother my shoulder at all while walking to and from work over the last couple of days. That's the good part. The downside to the strap is that they don't give you a whole lot of slack. I like carrying my bag across my shoulder diagonally. In that position, I have the strap length max-ed out and I still find that I would like for it to be a little longer. It's not that big of a deal, but I do notice it. If you're a taller person (I'm 5 feet, 10 inches...178 cm for the non-Americans), I don't know how the bag would feel if carrying it cross-shoulder; it might be a bit snug. Also, the clips on the shoulder pad for streamlining your headphone cord isn't really useful if you're not carrying the bag on one shoulder.

The built-in rain hood is pretty cool actually, and even unexpectedly give you an outer pocket to put a book in without having to actually open the bag. It full covers the front and bottom of the back, but the back is exposed. That's not really such a big deal though because that's the part that would be hugging your body, which is (hopefully) covered by an umbrella.

Overall

Overall, I don't regret buying the bag at all. Heck, even the iPod has design flaws, even though nobody likes to mention them! The last big question is whether or not the bag was "worth" the $250 USD I spent on it. In a word, "no." (And again, other than the "cool" factor, are iPods worth their current prices? Not sure about that.) If the price point was around the $185 USD range, I think this would be a great buy. It is made of top-shelf leather and has all the fixings of a solid bag, but the space constraints on it don't really warrant the higher price tag, and can even be a showstopper in certain cases.

But I also realize this is a "boutique" bag as well. You can't walk in to a store and purchase it. Living in New York City, it's all about keeping your own identity. I now have a bag that I am happy with and is also unique to me. I won't get on the jam-packed subway in the morning and see others with it and that's kind of a cool feeling. To that end, if you're looking for a higher-end bag for work that exudes professionalism, it should definitely be on your list of candidates.

I've been using the same bag for work for about 6 years now. In fact, it's the freebie bag that was given out at the Allaire DevCon 2000 conference in Washington, DC! While durable and sufficient, it has sort of outgrown my "early career" needs and I have been passively looking for a new all-purpose work bag.

While reading Stephen Collins' blog entry entitled "The quest for the ultimate PowerBook bag", he made mention of a bag designed by MEDIUM Design Group in collaboration with Adobe called the Adobe messenger bag. All I can say is: Wow. I'm floored. Seriously. How has this not been more publicly advertised, particularly in the blogoshere? It looks as if it's been around since the fall of last year, so it's certainly not new.

At a high level, here's what you get:

• Fits almost any 10"-17" notebook, both Mac and PC
• Full-grain leather (including a built-in pull-out rain shield for bad weather)
• Routing clips to keep cables out of the way
• External cable routing, allowing you to access internal electronic stuff (i.e., your iPod) while the bag is closed
• Tons of stretch internal pockets and pouches for organizing everything from pens to cell phones to PDAs

The only real "gotcha" is the price tag. At $250 USD, it's certainly not cheap, and it's only available through the MEDIUM site, so you can't "bargain hunt." However, if I get a couple of years of use out of it, then it's more than paid for itself (I tend to break larger expenses like this down into cost per day of use so that I can sleep better at night).

One last thing I took note of is that the entire design process used Adobe products (Illustrator, Photoshop). They have put up a slick flash-based overview of the bag and the design process.

Hey Adobe-ans, have any of you seen this or own one? If so, why are you holding out on us!

On April 23rd, I will be participating in the annual MS Walk here in New York City. This is something that I have been doing for a few years now, and I look forward to it each time. On a personal level, my mother has Multiple Sclerosis, and I have several friends whose parents are afflicted with this disease as well (they are also walking with me). In case you're not familiar with it, the disease affects the central nervous system and, over time, gradually debilitates your motor skills (i.e., speaking, writing, walking, etc.) to the point where many who suffer from it are confined to a wheelchair. Every week, 200 young adults are diagnosed with MS, and the MS Society has been at the forefront of MS reseach for more than 50 years.

I'm posting this to ask for your support in my walk and the continuing fight against MS. Here are some facts about the donation itself:

• All donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by the law. The New York City MS Chapter is a 501(c)3 organization.
• All donations are made through a site hosted by Kintera, which specializes in offering fundraising solutions for charitable organizations.
• Forty percent of the proceeds are allocated to national research to find the cause and cure of multiple sclerosis, and sixty percent fund local services for New Yorkers with MS and their families.

I am regularly asked to donate to all different sorts of charities, including Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer, the American Red Cross, etc., so I know that this is one of many solicitations that you will likely receive this year. Anything you may be able to contribute, even if it's only $1, is sincerely appreciated. The link below will take you to my personal home page for the walk where you can donate. This is an exciting time for MS research, as several new drugs are coming to market that show great promise in the fight against MS, including the return of a drug called Tysabri. After the walk, assuming it's OK with whoever donates, I will post your names here as a thank you. If I had any schwag to send, I would. Here's the link:

http://msnyc.kintera.org/mswalk06/cbetta

Thanks in advance for your support.

All you need to do is hold down the "option" key on startup and a screen is presented that allows you to choose which OS to boot. Available now on Intel-based Macs (meaning just the MacBook Pro for now) via a patch to current OS X installations and natively built in to their next major OS, code named Leopard, this release has the potential to draw in literally millions of new Mac users.

As I said, I've been intrigued by Macs for the last couple of years, but have never pulled the trigger on a purchase because there are still some programs that I use (and prefer to keep using) that only run on Windows. While I know I could run virtualization software to run Windows on a Mac, it wasn't all that appealing. However, Boot Camp gives me pause. However, there are still some gotchas that might keep me in the Windows-only camp for now. Here are some potential show-stoppers:

• You need a Windows installation CD that has Service Pack 2 on it. You cannot install a basic Windows XP CD and then upgrade it later. Most Windows CD do not have SP2 integrated because you can easily go to the Windows Update site to get it.
• If your hard drive is larger than 32GB (which most are today), then you can only format your Windows partition using NTFS. In a Windows-only setup, that's what you want. However, Macs can only read from a NTFS partition, whereas it can both read and write FAT volumes (the older partition type). Therefore, you almost have to run Windows XP using a less-than-deal partition type
• Any songs purchased through iTunes must be authorized for both Windows and Macs, which I think means you need to buy them twice.
• Apple in no way supports Windows installations, so any problems are your own to solve.

As this is a public beta, hopefully some of these issues are ironed out over time. In the meantime, it's back to tearing my hair out over what to buy!

St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, and the world celebrate's him on March 17th, the day of his death in 461 AD. The irony of the Irish holiday is that St. Patrick, whose real name was actually Maewyn, was Welsh by birth, not Irish. He was sold into slavery in by bandits, which took him to Ireland. For several years, he lived in isolation as a shepherd, and it was during this time that he became a devout Christian. Believing that God wanted him to escape his isolation, he walked about 200 miles to the coast and sailed his way to freedom. He then studied for 15 years to become a missionary.

Maewyn was eventually sent to Ireland because he already knew the language, where his mission was to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. Over time, he became known to the Irish as "Patrick," hence the holiday's name. He used common pagan symbols such as the sun to help teach Christianity to the Irish. Further, he used shamrocks (the central symbol of the holiday even though the Celtic harp is the Irish national symbol) to explain the Holy Trinity -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost -- as a single entity. His life's dedication to converting people to Christianity ultimately earned him Sainthood, and we celebrate his life even 1,600 years later (though let's be honest, it's more an excuse to drink than pray!).

Now that the "history" part is out of the way, here's some common myths about the holiday, as originally published at this site:

• St. Patrick did not drive the snakes out of Ireland. They probably never had snakes on the Emerald Isle in the first place.
• "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" isn't a popular Irish ballad. It was composed by an American.
• The shamrock isn't a real plant. Rather, the plant is a type of clover that grows in Ireland.
• Leprechauns aren't cute little sprites. They're evil, mean-spirited little creatures that perform treacherous deceptions to keep you away from that pot of gold.
• Corned beef and cabbage is not a favorite St. Patrick's Day dish in Ireland. It's an American dish. The Irish prefer ham or bacon.

The parade outside my window is by far the largest in the world. According to the AP, over two million people will watch the parade today, and I have front row seats! It was started around 1760 to show solidarity among the New York Irish, and believe me, it's still going strong. There's a sea of people outside right now...

A lot of times when I meet people who haven't been to New York, I'm asked why New York is called "the Big Apple." When I was in England last October, I think about 8 people asked me. I never knew there was so much curiosity surrounding the nickname! Well, here's the official answer, courtesy of Ask Yahoo!:

Morris cites a noted slang historian who managed to track the phrase to a colorful 1920s horse-racing columnist named John Fitzgerald. Apparently, Fitzgerald heard the term from stable hands in New Orleans who lovingly referred to New York City's racetracks as "...the dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred. There's only one Big Apple. That's New York." In the 1930s, the term was adopted by jazz musicians, when Harlem was the site of all the choicest gigs.

In 1971 "Big Apple" became the catch phrase of the city's official tourism campaign. Its aim was to improve Manhattan's image as a fun and wholesome place to visit, rather than a dark and dangerous city of crime.

Incidentally, in that same answer, the author notes that New Orleans' popular nickname, "the Big Easy," took its name from an old New Orleans dance hall from the beginning of the 20th century.

And there ya have it.

In summary, all drugs containing phenylpropanolamine (PPA) are being recalled. PPA is commonly found in nasal decongestants and weight loss drugs. It has been linked to increased hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding in the brain or in tissue surrounding the brain) among women ages 18-49 three days after starting use of effected medications. Problems were not found in men, but the FDA recommended that everyone, including children, seek alternative medicines.

The FDA is not maintaining a formal list of medications effected because the manufacturers are reformulating their drugs without PPA. (Personally, I think it's because they don't want to cause a major public scare or offend the pharmaceutical companies, but that's another story.) Below is a partial list of medications that contain PPA. PLEASE READ THE ACTUAL LABELS BEFORE ASSUMING ALL PRODUCTS BELOW ARE STILL EFFECTED.

• Acutrim Diet Gum Appetite Suppressant
• Acutrim Plus Dietary Supplements
• Acutrim Maximum Strength Appetite Control
• Alka-Seltzer Plus Children's Cold Medicine Effervescent
• Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold medicine (cherry or or ange)
• Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine Original
• Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Cough Medicine Effervescent
• Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Flu Medicine
• Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Sinus Effervescent
• Alka Seltzer Plus Night-Time Cold Medicine
• BC Allergy Sinus Cold Powder
• BC Sinus Cold Powder
• Comtrex Flu Therapy & Fever Relief
• Day & Night Contac 12-Hour Cold Capsules
• Contac 12 Hour Caplets
• Coricidin D Cold, Flu & Sinus
• Dexatrim Caffeine Free
• Dexatrim Extended Duration
• Dexatrim Gelcaps
• Dexatrim Vitamin C/Caffeine Free
• Dimetapp Cold & Allergy Chewable Tablets
• Dimetapp Cold & Cough Liqui-Gels
• Dimetapp DM Cold & Cough Elixir
• Dimetapp Elixir
• Dimetapp 4 Hour Liquid Gels
• Dimetapp 4 Hour Tablets
• Dimetapp 12 Hour Extentabs Tablets
• Naldecon DX Pediatric Drops
• Permathene Mega-16
• Robitussin CF
• Tavist-D 12 Hour Relief of Sinus & Nasal Congestion
• Triaminic DM Cough Relief
• Triaminic Expectorant Chest & Head
• Triaminic Syrup Cold & Allergy
• Triaminic Triaminicol Cold & Cough

Again, I can't emphasize enough that this is neither a full list nor a 100% accurate list (due to reformulations). So please make sure that you read the drug labels before passing judgement.

At the same time though, I wasn't happy with the look and feel. It was too "amateur" looking. Further, my hopes of getting a few of my friends to read my blog were incredibly surpassed and I'm currently just over 6,000 hits! Thanks!

Over the last couple of months, I've been envious of those who are using the Aura Web Page Exoskin. There's just something about it that's very clean and professional looking, particularly for blog layouts. I initially tried using the Aura Skin for BlogCFC provided by Joe Rinehart, but it's about a year old and there were some significant modifications made to the layout.cfm template in Ray's subsequent BlogCFC updates, so I abandoned that and just downloaded the CSS code from Leorex directly. It took me a several hours to get things laid out and conforming to the proper color palette (I still hate CSS, by the way), but what you're seeing now is the result of that work. You may need to clear your cache to make sure you get the latest CSS, but I think this is a better representation of how I want to live on the internet. There's a small issue with the comments window with the gray sliver down the left gutter, but it was 1:30 am and I really had to get to bed at that point.

Anyway, let me know what you think. In particular, let me know if something looks funky in your browser. (Admittedly, I only tested this against IE 6 and Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Windows along with getting a screenshot of what it would look like in Safari from Snugtech.com. But there's nothing complex about the CSS that should cause fits in modern browsers.)

They are currently having a sale on all MS Press titles (up to 46% off), and I thought that some of the MS software users/admins (i.e., SQL Server) might want to grab a resource. Even if you don't use MS software, they have almost every major book title you can imagine (including all of Ben's books). Further, they run massive discount promos like this for almost all publishers at some point, so this is not a one-time deal.

I know there are online services like Safari Bookshelf by O'Reilly, but I personally have some sort of mental block with large quantities of online reading. If I'm dabbling with something, these services are great. But if I'm serious about the subject, I need to have the book in my hand. Strange, but hey, that's me.

However, last year, my good friend from college, his dad, and his dad's law partner broke away from their old law firm and started up their own firm. In the course of the conversation, he mentioned that they were looking for a very basic web presence (contact info, profiles, legal briefs, etc.). He and I go back a bit and I know that their decision to break away from their well-established firm was a big decision (and one for which I have a tremendous amount of respect), so I agreed to help set up their web site and e-mail addresses. I knew from the beginning that any sort of scripting language was unnecessary for what they wanted to display, but I also had to keep in mind that they ultimately wanted to take control of the site and update it without the need for me to do it. I set up their account with GoDaddy.com, including registering the domain name. The plan that I selected (this was before they offered ColdFusion) had ASP support, so I was tempted to build them a rudimentary document publishing system. Then it hit me -- doesn't Adobe Contribute do what I want? It turns out that it's an emphatic YES!!

Contribute has been around for a while and I admittedly never gave it more than a cursory look because it doesn't fit in with any of my company's needs. So I went to the Contribute Developer Center to get a feel for how to do certain things and off I went. I realized after doing a couple of pages that my life was going to be immensely easier if I used Dreamweaver Templates for the layout. Luckily, Contribute and Dreamweaver play nice together. There are some quirks to the integration of the two that I'd like to see worked out (you need to totally close and re-open the site in Contribute for the Template changes to take effect, and even that didn't always work), but it did make my change management life infinitely easier.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with Contribute. Here (briefly) are my likes and dis-likes with my experience with it:

Likes

• Mind-numbingly easy for non-techies to manage their web site. I don't have to be "on call" to update the site when they want to publish a new Word document or PDF.
• Administration is a snap. A very intuitive wizard walks you through the process of creating a connection key for the various editors, including the ability to assign Roles so that a particular user doesn't overstep their bounds.
• My friend can edit a page and create links (and do everything that I would normally do) with a simple click of a button in the Contribute IDE. Kudos to the designers of the IDE, as it's extremely intuitive for technical and non-technical people alike.
• I specifically received a request to provide search integration with Google. There is a very cool wizard integrated into the IDE in which you just answer a few questions and it generates all the Google integration code for you. (It also has a wizard for PayPal integration, but I didn't need that.)

Dislikes

• I don't entirely like that you're essentially editing your live site. (You bring a live page into "Edit" mode, which is just a copy of the live page in a hidden sub-directory, and then publish it directly back out), but I think that's more because I'm so used to having source control with a staging environment.
• There are a bunch of subdirectories created that Contribute uses to do its job (i.e., the editing features just mentioned). The robots.txt file that is auto-generated does ask the search engines not to index them, but the search engines don't necessarily have to follow the robots.txt directives either. Plus, you can just view the robots.txt file and manually get into the directories if you wanted too.
• Getting Contribute to recognize changes to my Dreamweaver Templates is a bit more of a process than it needs to be. I pretty much wound up just restarting the IDE to get it to recognize the changes.

Overall, I highly recommend the cost of the license if you're doing this sort of one-off work. The amount of maintenance time you'll save down the road by being able to transfer the power of web site management to your client is tremendous. Plus, it allows them to make any and all tweaks they wish to make without them needing to contact you.

If you're interested in viewing the final site, it can be found at www.gbglawoffice.com. Thanks Macromedia now Adobe!

Robert, if you're not familiar with him, reads somewhere over 800 blogs per day and is well-known in the blogging community. He makes some interesting points about how numerous tags (aka your categories) per post and networking (offline) with other bloggers can really make a mark on your traffic. Overall, a good, quick read that has given me some food for thought.

For Christmas, we do this thing in my family where we each pick names out of a hat and you buy that person a gift for Christmas. As I have a fair number of people in my family, this helps keep budgets constrained, and it really has become fun. This year I got my sister-in-law. Since I'm too lazy to actually go to a store, I decided to go online and get her gift. My brother told me about something that she would love (I'm not naming it yet in case she reads this). Sure enough, I found it on Overstock.com (I refuse to link to them). At the time, they had this promotion where if you bought the item by the 12/21, it would be guaranteed to be delivered by Christmas.

Well, today is 12/30 and the gift has yet to arrive. I had two live chats with one of their reps before Christmas, as I was worried about this "guarantee" due to holiday shipping volume. Nonetheless, they said a guarantee was a guarantee and that there'd be no issue. So fast-forward to today and I have one last chat to see if they would re-ship the item. I'm pasting the transcript of my conversation with "Emily" here:

Two things came out of this chat:

1) I will never do business with Overstock.com again

2) They are clearly using canned responses for the most part. Notice the "I suggest you to wait upto 01/03/2005." It's spelled wrong (the "upto") multiple times. While I don't have the previous chats transcripts, many of the answers were exactly the same ("I'd be glad to help you with that.")

I'm a pretty laid back person when it comes to this sort of stuff. I understand that no system is perfect and that problems do arise. But, to me, it's just terrible customer service to not offer to do any more than just "sit and wait". That's entirely unacceptable and a fast-track to shutting your doors. Looks like it's back to Amazon.

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