This morning as he hit the snooze button on his alarm, he started dreaming about PHP. Ironically, he actually learned something. Thinking in the altered state of consciousness allowed him to gain a better understanding of a concept he had been struggling to grasp before. It was a good dream.
Last week, CNN.com decided to start charging for their video content. They've partnered with Real.com to charge 5 to 40 dollar subscriptions. Right. I always knew Real.com was untrustworthy because of the way they hide their free player under 4 or 5 screens of pay players, but I thought CNN would know better. Anyway, I've decided to boycott. I've removed the link from my site and unsubscribed from the CNN newsletter. I'm under the impression that web content should always be free... especially news.
Macromedia recently released Flash MX and the Flash 6 player. The most interesting new things I noticed were the shared libraries, accessibility features, native video support, and most importantly, the code consolidation. Coming from a code junkie background, I was always frustrated with Flash for making me split up my code in various places. Now I can put it all in frame one and even use my preferred text editor.
The accessibility features are pretty sharp, too. Flash MX claims compatibility with screen readers and allows browser bookmarks to save in various places within the flash movie.
Alan Watts sent me this picture of our mock fight at the SXSW Iron Webmaster contest. We've also got a short video clip (7.8Mb) of the event. If you listen closely to the video clip, you can hear a shocked, muffled screams turn into nervous laughter as they start to realize it was staged. As it turns out, the black-shirted bouncer that is pulling Alan away is the same Seabrook Jones who put together the Fantasy Photoshop Tennis that premiered at the SXSW Web Awards.
I just did a search on Google and noticed the Iron Webmaster Showdown is all over the place. The piece on Zentertainment has the most complete review I've seen yet.
On behalf of the entire Console Jockey IronWebmaster team, I'd like to say thank you to Pansy Narendorf, Shawn O'Keefe, Hugh Forrest, and the rest of the SXSW staff who put the contest together. We'd also like to thank Ben Brown, Dana Robinson, Alan Watts, and the rest of the Cosmic Muffin team for their participation and noble victory. We had a great time and a great learning experience despite the loss.
Also, if any of you would like to see the press releases or a short video clip of the beginning, please visit www.cookiecrook.com/consolejockey. It's just a directory right now but I'll try to write an index page sometime soon. Please discuss here or on the ConsoleJockey website.
The Austin Chronicle has a piece up about the upcoming SXSW Iron Webmaster competition that we're going to be in. The article mentions a challenge supposedly issued by me on this weblog that "we will rain on Watts like Ozzy did on the Alamo." As funny as that sounds, I'm afraid I can't take credit for it.
In fact, I don't think I've mentioned anything about the competition on this weblog, much less an actual challenge to a friend. It just goes to show that as far as the press is concerned, who needs the truth when you have a good story? hehe.
It also notes that you can acquire a free day pass for the show at www.sxsw.com/executive_pass or by purchasing one for $15. I didn't know about this before, but come on out and cheer for the teams...
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