Down with Facebook, up with Hobnox

** This post is off-topic from my usual AS stuff

I recently became aware of a new community through my love of electronic music and passion of Flash from Hobnox tools. But now that I have been accepted in the private beta, I've discovered it's so much more. It's a community, a television, blog and other mash-ups of technologies.
The reason I'm liking Hobnox is that Facebook has become a community of odd ball apps that I get asked to participate in at every turn. I haven't even logged in to my Facebook in months (if you're reading this from my Facebook page, it's because my blogger pages get imported automagically) and haven't missed it one bit.
But if you know me, you know I can get bored quickly, so the true test is the test of time. And time will tell.

Earth Hour 2008

I hope you're participating.. sign up with me at http://www.earthhour.org/user/hCke and join the movement.

New AIR app for Aveda

My second AIR app (the first for work) has been finished. It's an application that polls a web server and synchronizes a local database with any new media alerts.
It rose out of the need for Aveda Partners (aka AP's ... think regional managers) to have a quick and easy way to know of new media reviews on products. Previously, this was done via e-mail and caused some issues, like having many alerts in the inbox and having to sort through them all. AP's wanted the e-mail channel free for more sales related issues. They also wanted to have the ability to only download the full pdf alert for the one's they were interested in. This was especially important for AP's in Quebec, where some english alerts have had little value.
I learned quite a bit about AIR building it, like interacting with the local db and using icons. I also learned more about php building the back end.

I'm really looking forward to my next app... a rebuild of my Chart generator.

Unfortunately the application isn't publicly available but I have included a screenshot below.

I walk for water - Every drop counts

My company (Collega Aveda) is very active with the environment and issues affecting the Earth, so every year they participate in Earth Month. This year is "Every drop counts". An initative with WaterCan to make clean water accessible to everyone. (Did you a child dies every 15 seconds in the world due to a lack of access to clean water?)
So what we are doing is the "Walk for water". In major cities around Canada we are trying to get people to walk 5km and raise money for WaterCan.
You can visit www.iwaterforwater.ca for more information and register for the walk or sponsor me for my walk in Toronto. You can also become active in other ways through WaterCan.

On another note, I did build the back end in PHP for this initative (I didn't design it) that's where my comments on PHP from my other post came from ;)

FITC here I come!

It's now official, I WILL be attending the FITC in Toronto this year! My company bought my ticket yesterday. I've always wanted to go but the price tag for me to pay out of my own pocket was always too high ($699).
I'm so excited about going and seeing speakers I've read so much about, namely Colin Moock, Keith Peters and Grant Skinner.. all geniuses in the AS realm. I'm also very interested to go to the session "Making REAL Music Within Flash with André Michelle". I'm a HUGE electronic music fan and to be able to do this would blow my mind!

(giddity, giddity)

PHP, ASP and Actionscript

First off, this blog will be extremely bias, towards what, you'll soon find out. ; )
I've recently had to work for the past 2 weeks with server sided scripting. I've generally tried to avoid it because I don't to regress to where I was a couple of years ago, jack-of-all-scripts. But my lastest work project required I do some server sided scripting to interact with a MySQL database and Flash (using amf).
I must say server sided scripting with PHP was MUCH easier that I remember in the past. Within a couple hours I had written several PHP Classes with the interaction I needed. Granted they were probably not the cleanest scripts the world, but by did the job that was required.
Now in comes my friend from IT (I'm in Marketing) and states "any new server sided code MUST be in .NET". My first reaction was (clean version...)"great another script to impede me from doing more Actionscripting, but if I have to fine." But after thinking about it, I came to ask "why?" Although all intranet pages are done with .NET, web based scripts are PHP. From a selfish point of view I thought, in the long run (as a developer), which language will give me more leverage to increase my salary in the job market. Without a doubt, I believe it's PHP. Why? Based mostly on personal experience, recruiters have often asked me "Do you know PHP?" If I look on job boards I see much more postings for PHP developers than ASP.
My reasoning for this is two-fold. Microsoft makes tons of money certifying .NET developers, where as PHP has no regulating body. PHP is niche, not many people do it WELL. When a company needs a niche developer, they pay more.
Now don't get me wrong. If you're looking for a much more stable career, that's regulated, and almost guaranteed to always be around than .NET is the way to go. But if you're like me and gamble on occasion (I dedicated myself to ActionsScript when everyone thought I was crazy) I strongly believe PHP is the way to go.