Random Thoughts by Chuck

It’s been a while since I’ve had to post a streaming video but recently had to update a buddy’s website with his promotional video.  For copyright reasons I couldn’t post it on YouTube so here’s how I did it.

I have an ooooold version of Flash (Flash MX) so I didn’t have the ability to use the FLVPlayer component or any of the other multimedia plug-ins with the newer version of Flash so here’s the step by step instructions:

1. Buy Emicsoft FLV Converter:  Yes buying stuff sucks, but for $29 it’s well worth it as you can convert just about anything plus it has the ability to let you grab stuff from Google video and YouTube.
2. Download JW Player : Free flash video player (there’s a pro version as well).  Lotsa skinning and customization options as well.
3. Follow these instructions for using the JW Player (Sample code below as well)

<script type=\'text/javascript\' src=\'video/swfobject.js\'></script>
<script type=\'text/javascript\'>
	var s1 = new SWFObject(\'video/player.swf\',\'player\',\'320\',\'280\',\'9\');
	s1.addParam(\'allowfullscreen\',\'true\');
	s1.addParam(\'allowscriptaccess\',\'always\');
	s1.addParam(\'flashvars\',\'file=/flv/YOUR-FILE.flv\');
	s1.write(\'preview\');
</script>

Doesn’t look like the weather is going to co-operate today so I won’t be getting much work done so we packed up the kiddies and headed off to Home Depot to get some ideas.  I orginally planned to replace the decking, but after talking to the guy in the deck department he suggested re-finishing is probably going to be a better route unless the decking is rotted out (which is isn’t)

So the new plan is to add some wrap-around steps, put up railings around the areas that won’t have the steps attached and to re-finishing and re-stain the surface.  That’s probably going to save a few hundred bucks easily.  The current deck is just a simple 12 X 16 deck surround by weeds, weeds and more weeds so I drew up a simple plan of what the finished product will look like. continue reading…

Great article on RWW with a few tools to find more people on Twitter.  The best one out of the bunch IMO is Twubble.  It goes through the list of the people you are following and suggests other people you might want to follow.

Another cool way to find more people on Twitter is to use search.twitter.com and create an RSS feed from search results to find people who are interested in the same things you are.  We’re using this at work by having some RSS feeds of various keyword searches related to our industry and we aggregate these results with technorati searches and other RSS feeds through Yahoo Pipes.

5 Ways to Find More Friends on Twitter – ReadWriteWeb

Mark September 1 on your calendar if you like to rock!  I recently picked up Satch’s new record and a collaboration with Sammy would be some pretty kick-ass straight-up rock IMO.

Nightwatcher’s House Of Rock: Sammy Hagar Forms New Supergroup With Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony and Chili Pepper Chad Smith

Well, I missed my round 2 predictions, but here goes for round 3.

Dallas/Detroit:  Dallas in 6.  I’m taking a pretty big risk with this one, but Dallas has been through adversity by outing the champs and my pick to win the cup, San Jose.  Dallas plays hard and Turco has just been un-believable.    I’m amazed how simple Detroit plays their game through these playoffs so far.  Put a guy in front and shoot from the point.  They’ve looked amazing against Colorado and Nashville, but Dallas has grit and only an injury to Zubov which could be the difference maker.  Either way, Dallas is playing great and despite being down 4 – 1 right now, they’re going to pound the Wings into submission.

Pittsburg/Philly:  Pittsburg in 7.  Doesn’t matter who wins, the cup final is being played in the West.  Neither of these teams has faced stiff competition in either of the 2 first rounds.  I don’t think either of them “won” as much as their opponents “lost”.  Washington gave Philly a good run with a mediocre team but that’s about it.   They’ve both played sloppy hockey and the teams in the West play much more disciplined and neither of these teams can match up.  This is going to be a great series since these guys hate each other.

For the record, I was going to pick the Rangers over the Pens and San Jose over Dallas so I’m sitting just over 50% for the post-season.  Not bad!

Whee!  Can’t wait for this!  This will be perfect for our office Wii Friday’s!

DailyTech – Rock Band to Hit Wii on June 22

What a fantastic piece of news to wake up to with my morning coffee! My company was just selected by the Branham Group and Backbone magazine as one of the Branham300 Top 25 Up and Comers. The list is composed of companies established within the past three years, no earlier than Jan. 1, 2004.

That’s quite an impressive honour considering we’ve only been operating for just over 2 years now.  I know since I started about 10 months ago we’ve more than doubled our client base, launched our second disclosure compliance product and I am absolutely ecstatic about this award!

My Company is looking for a kick-ass senior .NET developer.  If you are a technology junkie and your idea of fun is spending a Saturday night reading about Team Foundation Server 2008 or playing with Silverlight 2.0 just because it’s cool, my company wants you!

You will become assimilated into our product development team where you will be responsible for the product advancement of our 2 application suites.   You will participate in design and architecture reviews, code reviews and write code with automated testing in mind.

You can contact me directly or check out the full job description on our site.  Obviously I’m biased, but simply put, this is an awesome place to work.   The team is great and the work is challenging.  We kick back on the last Friday of each month and hook up a Wii to the projector in our boardroom and rock out to Guitar Hero III.

I had a bit of an epiphany while I was working on my company’s blog today. I realized just how much I’ve grown up and matured as a professional during the short time I’ve been with my present company.

A wise man once said ‘you work with good people, you win‘ and for some reason that has stuck with me even though I read it about a year ago. Maybe it’s fact that that wise man was the person who paved the foundation and provided the first bits of professional guidance for shaping my career or maybe it’s just because I’m older and wiser now.

Either way, I’d thought I ‘d break the cardinal blogging rule of not making your blog posts too personal lest you alienate your audience and share some thoughts that I can look back on in a few years. continue reading…

I read an interesting article on e-Week about how to quit your job with bridges intact.  While I agree with the article entirely from an employee standpoint, what about how that bridge handles your resignation?  There are right ways and wrong ways to quit your job and there right ways and wrong ways the company should handle you quitting. continue reading…