August 2nd, 2008 This is such a huge step in the right direction for ASP. Microsoft appears to be backing away from the just-add-water approach to building web apps. I am not sure if Microsoft will appreciate the comparisons, but ASP is approaching the flexibility of PHP and Ruby/Rails. I have been using the ASP.NET MVC Framework professionally for about five months. It is vastly more fun to work with in contrast to WebForms. I have always felt like anything ASP was anti good practices. With this framework, you get a nice separation of concerns. Careful, MVC is just a design pattern and a design pattern is only as good as the person implementing it. You can still end up with an unmanagable project if you are lazy. I found this great quote by Rob Conery, “Frameworks don’t create Tag Soup. Developers do.”
The coolest thing about this project is the way it is being released and improved. Microsoft has made the source available and the developers are actively taking feedback. I am confident when ASP.NET MVC is a final release it will be solid from a developer’s perspective. If you are interested, you can check out preview 4 here.
Tags: ASP.NET, Development, MVC
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July 24th, 2008 Mysteriously, after the release of the iPhone 3G, my iPhone’s battery life has been exceptionally poor. I think the new iPhone OS update is designed to use more battery in an effort to get existing customers to buy a new iPhone. This is just a crazy theory, but the aforementioned phenomena coincides with day I got the update. Since the update, I am lucky if my phone’s battery last through the day **sigh**.
I don’t really believe my conspiracy, but it’s excuse enough to get a new iPhone. If Apple really is an evil conspiring corporation, at least they look good doing it.
Tags: Apple, iPhone
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July 21st, 2008 I think I am on a roll. The creative juices are flowing and getting all over my iMac. I just need to add back my about page and my life will be fulfilled, well, not quite.
This post has officially made me the world’s worst blogger. 
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July 20th, 2008 I was bitten by the “Redo” bug this weekend and decided to give iamneato.com a new look. I wanted something light and cool for the summer. I am not sure if you are aware of this, but websites die in hot cars.
Change is good, but there is always a victim. I just want to give a fair goodbye to the old website; BYE BYE.
I hope the new look inspires me to post more content. Here’s hoping!
Tags: Design
Posted in I Am Neato | 2 Comments »
January 18th, 2008 This is not the most original idea but it is a great implementation. Snipplr.com is cool site for saving your favorite code snippets. It offers support for many languages and sports a clean UI. Registration is a breeze and they don’t even send an annoying confirmation email. Snipplr offers a TextMate Bundle and a WordPress plugin (two of my favorite things at the moment) to access this great repository. They also offer me a pleasant way to give back to the community that I owe so much.
I have already started saving snippets (my snippets). I encourage you to give it a try. If the two birds weren’t obvious, I was referring to the saving of snippets and the giving back (for the sake of clarity).
Tags: code snipplr snippet textmate wordpress
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January 16th, 2008 How did I solve my new but welcome challenge of going from a 30GB iPod to an 8GB iPhone? The answer, smart playlists, of course. Below is a break down of my playlist strategery:
- “Best Alt” - This playlist grabs only songs whose genre contains ‘alt’ and has a rating greater than three stars. The playlist is limited to 100 songs by “least recently played”
- “Best Indie” - This playlist is the same as number 1 but for ‘indie’.
- “Best Punk” - Again, I just changed the genre text.
- “Best Rock” - My genre condition for this playlist is changed to “genre is rock”. This change is to avoid grabbing songs of the Classic Rock genre.
- “Alt/Indie/Rock/Punk” - I then merge playlists 1-4 into this playlist so that I can use the match all condition in playlist number 6.
- “Best Indie/Alt Mix” - This is the playlist I actually listen to. I use the condition “playlist is Alt/Indie/Rock/Punk” and a pair of conditions to play songs that haven’t been skipped or listened to in the last 7 days. You can limit this playlist however you like.
I enabled automatic syncing for my iPhone. Under the music tab I put a check next to the playlists I want to sync. Note, if you have a playlist built from another playlist, both playlists need to be included. If auto syncing freaks you out, I have a trick for the control-freak in all of us. I have one static playlist (checked) that I use like a manually managed iPod. You can change the genres to match your music listening taste and make this strategy your own.
Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod, mac, playlist, smart playlists
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January 15th, 2008 I have been patiently awaiting the second iteration of Apple’s iPhone since the iPhone was initially announced. My guess was, with such a revolutionary product, it would need some maturing. In cooperation with ‘The Early Adopters’ Apple has worked out plenty of kinks. I feel like the time for my iPhone purchase is drawing near.
With the Macworld Expo Keynote just a day away, the rumors appear to be consistent. Apple will probably release a 16GB iPhone. A 16GB iPhone will be a suitable replacement for my 30GB iPod plus my current cell phone. Very exciting! My patience is about to pay dividends.
UPDATE: It turns out the 16GB iPhone was nothing more than a fairy tale. The MacBook Air stole the show. My wait was over nonetheless, I went out and purchased an 8GB iPhone. To bloody hell with patience, this friggin’ phone rocks!
Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod, mac
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January 15th, 2008 When I switched to Mac (2 years ago) from a Windows OS, I began my search for a new site editor. I used Dreamweaver on Windows for so many years so I figured it would be a smooth transition. It wasn’t. I didn’t like the feel of Dreamweaver on Mac OS X. It was choppy and didn’t look as cool as other Tiger applications. I decided it was time to move on.
I tried every IDE/text-editor I could find. Every application I tried always seemed to fall one or two key features short. I started using Komodo Edit and it worked pretty well for the price (free). But it didn’t offer the experience I expected from a Mac application. I discovered Panic’s Coda and was amazed. Coda is exactly what I expect from a Mac application. The only problem was the editor; it wasn’t as robust as I had hoped for (so sad).
Then, out of nowhere, I decided to give TextMate another chance. I am not really sure how I passed up on this the first time; TextMate is near perfect. The editor is robust out-of-box and extendable. You can manage a project, preview your page realtime (for static HTML) and the price is very competitive. I am extremely pleased with my decision and haven’t looked back.
Posted in Development, I Am Neato | No Comments »
January 15th, 2008 If I had to classify my illustration style, I would call it “minimal”. This may very well be a product of circumstance. Finding some time for my illustrations after work, being a new father, and maintaining a simple life is no small feat. So when I decide to take a sketch to Illustrator, I am looking for some instant gratification. If I don’t finish an illustration in one sitting, it could be weeks before I can revisit it.
I am planning to change all that and take my illustrations a little more serious this new year. I like to have fun while working on my illustrations so I definitely don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to introduce any stress or pressure into the process, but I know my illustrations can benefit from the extra attention.
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January 15th, 2008 My first post, and I don’t have anything good to say. I guess it really don’t matter since my hits are probably zero. Oh, I just saw the San Diego Chargers beat the Colts. What a shocker, I didn’t see that one coming.
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