tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:00:52 +0000Whenever I find something interesting, entertaining, or an example of something I feel passionately about I post it here. It's random, but it gives a glimpse of who I am and what I care about.http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/noreply@blogger.com (discorax)Blogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-242884290805689251Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:50:00 +00002010-01-19T22:14:44.976-08:00GadgetsiPhone 3Gs and HTC Tilt2I recently received an offer from AT&T inviting me to trade-in my old Smart Phone. I would bring in my old Blackjack II and get $100 rebate on a new HTC Tilt2. From a marketing perspective this was a timely email. I am in the market for a new Smart Phone for two reasons my current phone (Blackjack II) is getting a little warn out AND I will be attending MIX10 this year inhttp://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2010/01/my-smart-phone-delima.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-41433622497858429Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:49:00 +00002010-01-19T22:18:09.347-08:00MIX10I believe it's common knowledge that vendor lead conferences will involve some level of marketing, otherwise how could you justify the expense to the bean counters. MIX10 is no exception.Last year, there was a lot of hype about Blend/SketchFlow, Silverlight, Azure, and IE8. Some products lived up to the hype, others not so much. Regardless, the message was pretty one sided, Microsoft has some http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2010/01/mix10-sales-pitch-or-career-resource.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-5596514672021201326Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:37:00 +00002009-10-22T09:10:57.721-07:00JavascriptDevDaysjQueryYesterday I attended the Stack Overflow Dev Days Seattle conference. First of all, a $99 conference locally that had this amazing collection of topics made this a must attend. Honestly, though, this jQuery presentation was worth the $99 by itself.Cody Lindley [@codylindley] gave a great intro and exploration of what jQuery is all about!Sure there was lots of great ideas for how to use this http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/10/devdays-seattle-jquery-intro-for.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-5093505186192682242Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:08:00 +00002009-10-07T15:39:12.713-07:00twitterHave you visited Tweetstats.com yet? Well I guess the first question would be have you visited Twitter.com and set up your Twitter account? If you haven't you can stop reading now. If you have, and are curious about your Twitter usage, take a trip to Tweetstats and enter your account name. The service will go and fetch all tweets and build some fun Flash graphs to illustrate how you use Twitter. http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/10/what-tweetstats-says-about-you.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-7259904123230521866Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:15:00 +00002009-10-01T10:07:35.057-07:00MicrosoftMicrosoft recently announced a program called WebsiteSpark. You can read more about it on Scott Guthrie's blog. It's a variation on their Spark program which is intended to give people that have an idea for a business or web site an opportunity to use Microsoft technologies for free to develop and deploy their ideas for 3 years.Personally, I think it is a brilliant program that finally shows a http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/10/what-websitespark-can-do-for-you.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-7790880380295802145Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:30:00 +00002009-09-14T14:39:28.310-07:00WPFC#SilverlightHave you ever wanted to get the Bitmap Data (pixels) of a Visual (Canvas, Grid, etc) in WPF or Silverlight from memory and without having to add it to the root visual. After doing a lot of trial and error here is a quick piece of code and a sample project that can help you accomplish exactly that.There are plenty of cool ways to extend this project including some cool transition and other code http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/09/how-to-create-bitmap-from-uielement-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-1986447461882346782Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:05:00 +00002009-07-21T12:05:56.808-07:00Mother's Day Collage, originally uploaded by discorax.http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/07/mother-day-collage.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-7765598765564226022Wed, 06 May 2009 18:37:00 +00002009-05-07T10:10:16.907-07:00Windows7I wasn't an early adopter of Vista. I took my time adopting. I wanted to give other people an opportunity to work thought the pains of bleeding edge software. Vista was full of obstacles for a great user experience. Now, granted I am a very specific type of Windows user. I have built a custom PC setup with hardware assembled over time, and Vista's driver problems were the bane of my existence http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/05/windows-7-release-candidate-first.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-1014828002949567322Wed, 06 May 2009 15:53:00 +00002009-05-06T08:59:25.573-07:00blog toolsI gave it a go. I was really excited about all the features and control that Wordpress had to offer. I created my blog, I stared to migrate posts from Blogger, I even started a new design. The kicker for me was spam. Wordpress just got so much spam comments that I just didn't see the value in it. Blogger seems to do a great job of keeping all that spam off of my blog, while allowing people to http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/05/back-to-blogger.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-4194449724290895106Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:48:00 +00002009-05-06T08:52:50.585-07:00Mix09Here at PBJS my co-worker Craig Miller and myself have worked on a few very cool Microsoft related projects in the past year. We decided we should make a little video to highlight those cool projects and the technology used to create them. This year at MIX09 they are continuing the "Show Off" Competition. Make a 3-minute video showcasing your use of Microsoft Technology and enter it for a chance http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/03/mix09-show-off-entry.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-9204250173029511903Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:50:00 +00002009-05-06T08:52:01.570-07:00Mix09twitterWant to follow me on Twitter?Be a part of something special. Like this sweet Twitter Mosaic Design!http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/03/twitter-mosaic-design.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-7027737040988274169Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:16:00 +00002009-02-20T16:22:37.424-08:00blog toolsRogan's Wordle, originally uploaded by discorax.If you haven't heard of Wordle, you should really check it out. Beautiful information design.This is the result of the rss feed from the baby blog I created for my son Rogan.I particularly love this result as you can see the shape of a tree with Rogan as the root and truck and all the little pieces of his life coming together to create a colorful http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/02/rogan-wordle.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-4307101661197574399Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:34:00 +00002009-01-31T12:43:44.278-08:00flickrblog toolsSaftey Glasses, originally uploaded by discorax.Testing Out Flickr Blogging...I'm trying to see if you can blog multiple images in a single blog post from Flickr. So far, no luck. If I do figure it out I'll be sure to post.It looks like I'm going to have to build my own solution to blog multiple pictures. It would be very nice if you could blog an entire set. Each picture in that set blogged in http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/01/saftey-glasses.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-6163262674677921961Sat, 31 Jan 2009 04:22:00 +00002009-01-31T12:38:29.703-08:00Mix09SilverlightHere is my last minute entry into the MIX09 10K Contest. Your browser does not support iframes.It's a standard spring loaded Node Tree, but the cool part is that each node has a random color value. As the nodes get close to each other they give off their color. You can click on any of the nodes to change the color or turn Popping on to have the computer do it for you. We'll see what the http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2009/01/color-nodetree.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-3032677605138972149Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:14:00 +00002008-12-01T12:49:40.233-08:00WPFC#The more I learn Object Oriented Programing techniques the more I value the ability to have my classes listen to each other. I've been working in C# a lot recently for a WPF project. At various points throughout the development process I've found a need to have different events cause effects among objects and classes. .NET has a great list of events built into many of their classes especially thehttp://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/12/building-custom-events-in-c.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-65938081297816096Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:01:00 +00002008-11-26T12:23:17.861-08:00AdobeMicrosoftI was recently directed to The MossyBlog Times because apparently the "Is Microsoft or Adobe better" discussion (I use the term loosely, it more of a flame war if you're familiar with that) has become fierce as the season of tech conferences is underway. MIX vs MAX, Flash/Flex vs Silverlight, .NET vs ColdFusion, Creative Suite vs Expression Studio...etc. The first in this list MIX and MAX are http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/11/re-twists-and-turns-this-industry-takes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-4376412214561506548Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:29:00 +00002008-11-24T09:06:15.402-08:00As a developer I often find myself learning new programing languages. I'm constantly having to learn new syntax, new rules, new keywords. It can get a little overwhelming sometimes. Over time I've learned a common set of programing "rules" that I can use across all languages. Sometimes these rules can be difficult to explain to others, or even to fully grasp myself. This video explains the http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/11/back-to-basics-pointers-in-claymation.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-762171711054369412Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:29:00 +00002008-11-11T08:49:01.164-08:00I wanted to take a moment on my blog to share a small video on MSNBC by Keith Olbermann talking about Gay marriage and my outrage with the passage of Prop 8 in California. I've long been a supporter of Gay marriage. I believe it to be the right of all citizens of this planet to be happy. I believe it to be the right of all citizens of this country to have equal rights under the law. I believe http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/11/why-i-surrport-gay-marriage.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-8631549176093094608Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:10:00 +00002008-10-29T21:14:43.602-07:00A man flying in a hot air balloon suddenly realizes he's lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts to get directions, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"The man below says: "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.""You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist."I do" replies the man. "How did you http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/10/are-you-programmer-or-manager.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-5150328102206676831Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:14:00 +00002008-10-28T10:29:05.979-07:00PBJSMicrosoftI work at PBJS a creative agency that does a lot of work as a vendor for Microsoft. As a creative agency we do a lot of design work on Macs. The entire Art Department has Macs, I have a Macbook Pro laptop, our editing stations are Mac Pros. You get the idea. This is nothing shocking, the majority of creative agencies I've seen have Macs as their primary workhorse machines. Since I do a lot of http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/10/joys-of-working-for-microsoft.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-7345202872654107521Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:45:00 +00002008-10-09T13:14:33.681-07:00WPFXAMLC#At more than one time working with WPF I've wanted to create a generic Storyboard using Blend because it saves me time and gives me a nice time line type layout to create/tweak my Storyboard. What happens is when you save the Storyboard it's added to the Windows.Resources collection the XAML. In Silverlight you can access these Storyboard resources directly using their x:Name value. In WPF, http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/10/access-wpf-storyboard-in-xaml-from-code.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-2673188949518617710Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:03:00 +00002008-10-03T09:08:17.631-07:00So I was following up a Tweet by <head> organizer Aral Balkan and it took me to Qik.com. There I found a fun little app that captures live video streaming and makes it available on the web.Here's the best part. On my initial test, a co-worker at PBJS came up to my desk to say "hello" or probably ask me how much work I was getting done. Either way, this is raw reaction here people. This is WHY http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/10/discovering-qikcom-video-streaming-from.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-8587183155034618202Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:45:00 +00002009-02-02T10:06:32.992-08:00WPFC#I've been working on a cool instillation project for Microsoft and one of the things I need to do is have my application go full screen across multiple monitors. By default, if you maximize your application window inside Windows it fills the Primary Screen or Active screen but it doesn't go across all monitors. You have to manually drag the application window across to have it show up on more http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/09/wpf-full-screen-accross-multiple.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-3108673283593730513Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:21:00 +00002008-09-12T15:22:15.896-07:00http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/09/hug-developer.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17884133.post-794319449347439367Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:09:00 +00002008-09-05T17:07:35.390-07:00Bellevue teachers gather to hear the results from today's contract talks.http://www.ryancdavidson.com/personal/2008/09/bellevue-teachers.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (discorax)1