Team Messaging

My team needs real time messaging capabilities. Sending a link or sharing a file should not require 7 clicks and several seconds as is the case with using Outlook for this purpose.

More Specifically, what we need is:

• Chat /Conference room for my team to collaborate
• Desktop application as opposed to running in the browser
• Visual and audio notification of new messages

Seems so simple yet I am having trouble finding a tool to suit these needs. I have looked at the big 3 messangers: AOL, Windows, and Yahoo!

Aol seems geared towards children of myspace generation and Windows requires that we change our firewall settings so both of these are out of the question. That leaves us with Yahoo which is fine but far from perfect.

The Yahoo! Messenger sign up process does not include an instant screen name availability check which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for having to do a captcha for every taken screen name. A very interesting feature is the ability for the messenger to run in a strictly http request mode which allows it to bypass our corporate firewall.

Unfortunately, messages are taking around 7 seconds to get to my coworker sitting right next to me. Also, when in conference mode there is no new message notification.

Looks like I'm back to the drawing board. Maybe I'll just write an app myself. I mean this is simple messaging we are talking about; the most basic of internet functionality.

Project Management Software Investigation

Out of a dire need stemming from a growing team involved in more projects than I care to enumerate and a lack of what I consider to be essential collaboration tools, I have been investigating project management software. My initial reaction was "oh, i know, how about that much bzzzzzed about app from our innovative friends over at 37 signals...Basecamp.

I singed up for the free 1 project package, invited my team members, entered our Milestones for the next year and we were all set to start existing in the modern era of project collaboration . Thats when "Process Management" got involved and we are still, more than a month later, without an official project management tool.

Process Management suggested 2 tools:
Project Insight which is huge and bloated with reporting and charting features. Despite it being web based and having a collaborative aspect you'd probably be better off with yea ol standard MS Project

And ViewPath which I thought was alright and would probably do the trick but was a little lack luster and unrefined.

What I need most:

• shared calendar
  
• document repository which allows discussion
• action item / todo lists
• a tool that is not only easy but actually fun to use
  

What my boss needs:

• time tracking
• high level view of what his developers are doing

Basecamp provides all this is a beautifully arranged package which displays an innate understanding of the fact that what makes a successful project is a well communicating team.

Flash 101

When working on a single scene Flash Application such as Zoomify, you can easily insert a splash screen to display instructions or terms of use. This can be done by inserting a scene before the application scene and setting it as a keyframe. Then add you text and graphics to the scene stage including a button. Under actions for the frame add a single line of code containing stop() which will prevent the user from seeing the application contained in the second frame. Click on the button and add to the Actions

on (release) {
nextFrame();
}

There are excellent video tutorials available at the Adobe Design Center Video Workshop. IfBin Also provides high quality flash and flex examples including source code through an interesting downloadable browser based interface.

Zoomify based Flash app

I am in the process of creating a flash application based on customized Zoomify components. Zoomify makes high-quality images zoom-and-pan for fast, interactive viewing on the web. Just JPEGs, HTML, and Flash. This will allow us to make use of large scale imagery created for print purposes on the web.

Google Webmaster Tools

I have been using Google Webmaster Tools to get comprehensive statistics and error information about the pages in my company's site. In addition, Google Webmaster Tools offer diagnostics and management of Google's crawling and indexing of your website, including Sitemap submission and reporting.

This type of tool helps with understanding what exactly is accessible through Google and how to optimize your site for Google and other search engines.

ColdFusion Flash Form

I have been working on a ColdFusion Flash Form. It is written in ColdFusion but outputs a swf which runs in the Flash Player. The result is Rich Form Application complete with tabbed navigation and all the other bells and whistles we've come to expect from Flash. Even Before I implemented a custom style sheet based on Nahuel's post on ASFusion the form was pretty but afterwards it really has that wow effect. I'm still struggling with decreasing the load time and getting the pre-loader to display progress accurately but I'm confident I'll work it out.

phpGoogleStoreLocator

I have implemented a significantly customized version of Ryan Coulombe's phpGoolgeStoreLocator. A stock demo of this application can be viewed here. My customizations include seamless integration into an already existing site template, removal of features unnecessary to my client, styling output with css, a few bug fixes and the all important removal of the "Powered by..." statement, which proved slightly more difficult than one would think due to the cryptic (133t) method of output Ryan chose to employ. More details of my implementation can be viewed in my posts to the CrystalDawn.net phpGoogleStoreLocator Forums.