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Open Source, Gov 2.0:Very Compelling

Open Government
Title: Open Government
Author(s): Daniel Lathrop, Laurel Ruma
Publisher:O’Reilly Media
Released: February 2010
Cost: $44.99

I have just started reading “Open Government” and I am already thinking I need to buy this book for my friends in government and expense it. I really would like to see a lot of comments on this book, before I finish it, because I don’t completely want to believe the author’s take on where US is going.

However, I will just post before really getting into this book, I might need to retract my comments. So please read on with this in mind.

As the book starts off in the first person, I hear Mr. Lathrop, and then another author chimes in, then another as this is a collection and a discussion of ground breaking ideas.
However, I am on the edge of my seat as the young and talented authors expression and thought pour out of these pages. I am suspicious on where this is going and what he/she is selling…. which is to get me to think of Government as a Platform.

My perspective, I don’t really like what happened during the dot com bubble and I am disappointed with all of the start ups promising glory and the investors who seem to have been suckered. I am not an expert on any of it, but during this time I really was wondering why the old timers where buying into the kids selling cracked ideas. While so many of us Spatial IT types where cutting amazing ground, but there was less interest in pulling in grounded concepts than the high world changing smoke and mirrors.

Okay, I am jealous, but I have heard of so many stories of Computer Science grades with zero experience, spending a week or two, creating a webpage and a database, and selling it for millions. I suspect the whole event was more of a hacking of wall street, through the ingenuity and genius of the DotCom’ers.

I can’t put it down, I need to know where this is leading, it sounds like great ideas, but still I am not sure. This better not be Cool-Aid.

Gov 2 point O?

I am already believing he might be right, maybe he is.

We need to be clear, we need to test this, we need to debate this before buying in.

Radical Thoughts, Life Changing Ideas.

I hope US is ready.

Regards,

Harley Powers Parks

2010 03 25 harley Book Reviews
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Book Review - Learning JavaScript

Learning JavaScript

Title: Learning JavaScript - Add Sparkle and Life to Your Web Pages
Author: Shelley Powers
Publisher: O’Reilly
Price:  $34.99 December 2008 version

The Learning JavaScript book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in learning fundamental practices of JavaScript. From the beginning, the book is organized in well thought out, easy to understand format. Whether you are looking to start with basic concepts of JavaScript’s data structure or skip ahead to the more complex topics of dynamic pages and Ajax, this book will teach you how to incorporate JavaScript functionality into your web projects and communicate your data more effectively. As a designer/content developer my interest in this book was to grasp a better understanding of how JavaScript can help me incorporate more media into my web experiences by creating dynamic pages using JavaScript and CSS. After working through some of the examples I am able to take what I have learned and apply directly to my current projects. This is a great book for the library of any designer/developer.

~David Irick

2009 08 12 harley Book Reviews
Flex Resources
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InsideMobile Conference, July 26 & 27

What does it take to build mobile apps on different platforms? Find out at our InsideMobile Conference, July 26 & 27–San Jose, CA.

Don’t wait to learn how to develop mobile apps. Mobile is a huge and growing market, ripe with opportunity. At InsideMobile in San Jose, CA, you’ll learn how to develop for this field right away–not just for one device, but for all of the top frameworks, including iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Android, and Palm webOS.

Which platform is the easiest to work with? Which will give your apps the greatest exposure? Get answers at InsideMobile and network with established mobile developers.

Early Bird Price: $250 for the first 100 registrations (Save $150 on the regular price of $400)

What will you learn at InsideMobile?

* The basics of developing on major mobile platforms
* How to develop for the small screen and manage other mobile platform eccentricities
* How to make money developing mobile applications
* What it takes to develop for more than one platform at a time
* The tools you need to be a successful mobile developer
* The differences among platforms, and what makes each one unique

Featured speakers include:

*Francisco Diaz-Mitoma, co-founder of Tonnect
Gus Holcomb, principal engineer with Twin Technologies
*Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote
*Giorgio Natili, Founder and Head of GNStudio
*Raj Singh, Vice President of Business Development for Skyfire *Brian Fling, author of Mobile Design and Development (O’Reilly, Aug 09) *Dan Burcaw, co-founder of Push IO, LLC

For more information on InsideMobile Conference, see: http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zcpsig2ijkf6ei2rj8icd0b33d59ehsjfumf086o

Have a mobile topic you’d like to propose? For information on how to submit your topic, see: http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zuo37hgljo8vjo53t5ffjg4rkp915kqile02uab8

To keep up with conference news from John Wilker and Tom Ortega, see: http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zbabo08sdh6dkoatttmr43v67ks3vsm24kbs5p40

If you want to develop mobile apps or learn to develop for other mobile platforms, don’t miss this event.

================================================================
Marsee Henon
O’Reilly
1005 Gravenstein Highway North
Sebastopol, CA   95472
800-998-9938 http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1z9n2rgne11g2apkifu78pddb5psp4r3d91rlpafo
Follow us on Twitter at http://post.oreilly.com/rd/9z1zgh24ao191gip6jqnl53idm5j1s9dnc0p07hv8so

2009 06 18 harley Flex Resources Comments (0) Permalink

Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming & GIS

Social Networking and GIS are coming together quite quickly.  I have noticed that Adobe has already posted a yahoo map combined with a social networking application which allows multiple users to work with the same map.  If you are interested be sure to check out our next event: http://invisualform.org/index.php/2009/06/mmo-augmented-reality/

2009 06 08 harley Flex Resources Comments (0) Permalink

Flex 3 Cookbook

There are quite a few different resources, some are good too, however, there really are never enough examples for the different situations we all have, right? Even the adobe live docs are good and will save you time if you use them to get started, however, what’s really really helpful is to cut and past in code (provided) built on common scenarios, like this cookbook, compile it, then modify it a bit to work with a different configuration more along your own needs. I don’t know if it would help everyone else to have a Flex 3 Cookbook forum, with chapter mods made by users to specific examples or combination of chapters, but I know chapter 5 and 19 really helped to understand how to work with Trees and xml data coming from a server.
I have the online pdf book, which I keep bookmarked in my browser for easy reference. for me, it’s one less book i need to lug around, and I for sure have at least a few books as references. However, because you need specific sections, you don’t need to be flipping through the more definitive references.  This is a must have book, you can’t not not have this online version, even if you buy the hardcopy.

Flex 3 Cookbook Code-Recipes, Tips, and Tricks for RIA Developers By Joshua Noble, Todd Anderson
May 2008
Pages: 704
cost: 44.99 print, 35.99 ebook, or both 58.49

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2009 03 17 harley AS3
Book Reviews
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Book Review - Beautiful Code

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Adobe Air for JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide

Title: ActionScript 3 Design Patterns - Object Oriented Programming Techniques
Author: William Sanders & Chandima Cumaranatunge
Publisher: O’Reilly
Price:  $44.99 July 2007 version

Yet another home run to help the dedicated programmer to understand and apply object oriented programming. 

If your just starting to code in Action Script, you might find this book too heavy, however, I recommend this book for the beginner as it simply explains with many examples what constitutes beautiful coding patterns.

I am enriched to have this book as one of my resources which I can refer to over and over.

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2008 09 22 harley AS3
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Adobe Air for JavaScript Developers - Pocket Guide

Adobe Air for JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide

Title: Adobe Integrated Runtime (Air) for JavaScript Developers - Pocket Guide
Author: Mike chambers, Daniel Dura, Dragos Georgita & Kevin Hoyt
Publisher: O’Reilly
Price: 19.99 July 2008 version

This is a handy book to have, the only way it would be better if it was digital. Oh, wait! it is, and you can have it 45 days for free. This is great, and as an Adobe User Group Member that’s another 20% off of the list price or $10. 

So as a quick starter, this is a great reference and a must have for an introduction. I am not so sure if this would be used more as my experience grows as I would really like to have a deeper reference… But there is enough information here, that I could get away for a while with this for starters, then get into the meat later on. For sure, if you get a more comprehensive book, your going to need this “get started quick guide.”

HPP

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2008 07 02 harley Air
Book Reviews
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Wordpress… Email?

there  has got to be an easy way to email

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2008 05 30 harley WordPress Comments (0) Permalink