Been doing some heavy ExtJS development

So for the past couple of months I have been doing some heavy ExtJS work. Nothing too fancy, no extension development....but some real heavy use of Ext and some 3rd party extensions.

The backend of the application I am working on is PHP, and I have come up with a psuedo framework for the application itself. By using the __autoload() functions in PHP and passing a couple of standardized arguments for every ajax call whether it be a submitting of a form or loading a data store for a grid/combo Ext component. Through Ext lovely use of the xtype property I am able to create arrays in my PHP Objects json_encode() them and pass them back to the front end where they become full fledged objects....this is not a standard practice for the interface but it is used in a specific element of the application that is very dynamic and very custom. Now I am sure if I found some Ext developers in my area and could sit down with them and show them the application they could do away with PHP generating the code and come up with a couple of extensions to do exactly what I want, but for now PHP is filling in the gaps and doing exactly what I want.

I originally started looking at ExtJS when version 1 was released, then version 2 came out and I started on a project at my former location, but never really was given the time to actually fully develop an application using Ext...then a couple of months ago I started on the current project I am working on and presented the idea of using Ext to my boss, he said I could proceed and I think overall everyone has been very happy with it.

Somethings I have seen improve for each release of Ext. I am going to start with the items that I have seen the biggest change in and work down to those that have changed but maybe not that much. Of course these are just my opinions

* Documentation
* Speed
* Overall Community Support
* UI Reliability


Documentation- The documentation has GREATLY improved and since the release of 3.0 I have started to see more and more examples of code in documentation itself. One thing that is still lacking just a little is an overall explanation of the properties/config options/methods/etc... for an object....some of these have a great amount of explanation and others not so much. Of course you can likely find someone to give a little bit more information on #extjs on irc.freenode.net but I think such details should be in the documentation. One thing I would love to see in the documentation along with the curret code example, is an actual working element produced from the code example, I know there are examples, but having everything in one place is a great thing to have and not all classes that have code in the documentation have samples...although most of them do.

Speed- The speed of Ext overall has increased SIGNIFICANTLY and I dont think there is anyone out there that is using Ext that could ask for more speed improvements although I am sure the team is working on them.

Overall Community Support- I have see the community grow in leaps and bounds for Ext, this past year was the first Ext Conference, and although I moved to Florida just in time for it, unfortunately I was getting married later that month and with starting the new job and having to take time off for the wedding/honeymoon I as unable to attend. I believe this years conference, if there is going to be one, will be in California as that is where the new Ext office is located (figures I come to town and everyone leaves!) Going with community tow books have come out recently The "Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook" and a not yet released in paper back form but available but available through Manning Publishing's MEAP program "Ext JS in Action" these has both bean great reads so far and I would highly suggest for anyone involved in Ext development to purchase them.

UI Reliability-  This one really isnt an improvement but something negative that I am starting to see I have noticed a couple of UI bugs creaping in and out of the 3.x releases such as, tabs not having the site images, a form having trouble placing buttons correctly and having them cut off on the left hand side.  Now  the tabs issue was corrected with the release of 3.2 but the 3.2 release introduced the buttons issue, which I believe is my fault in that I have not set the proper config options for my objects but it was working correctly in 3.1 and now is showing up in 3.2


But overall Ext is great and the changes they have been/are making to the release cycle are going to help the overall package shine like no other.

Ares I-X Rocket Launch

Andromeda Presenation from BarCamp Orlando

Andromeda

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Cable Monopolies

Part1

It really seems like Brighthouse is not will to work with the customer AT ALL.

I recently moved down to Cocoa, FL from New York and prices are generally higher up there and I was paying around $140.00 a month for the following:

1 HD Multi Room DVR
1 SD Cable Box
HBO Package

10 MB Down / 2MB Up

Unlimited Nation Wide...

and paid a total of around $150 a month including taxes and the occasional on-demand rental.

Now Brighthouse wants to charge me $119 a month for the following:

1 HD DVR (Not Multiroom)
1 SD Box
10 MB Down / ??? Up
No HBO

$161.73 a month!!!!

Then I asked if there was anything they could do and possible provide the DVR box free of charge and try to work with the customer or if there was anything else they could do and they told me absolutely not.

Something is wrong here.

When I was switching from Cablevision to Fios up in New York Cable vision was willing to make each service 29.95 a month.

Part2
WOW BrightHouse Networks Customer Service is horrible.

So I finally decided to go online last night after all the phone call fun, and signed up for the double pack...For Internet Service and TV Service, including the extras I wanted.

I never got a confirmation email and no one called me this morning, so I called them and the lady told me there was nothing in the system so I went ahead and put the order in and got an install appointment for wednesday(good). Cable/Internet is the only thing holding me back from moving into my house right now.

Not 10 minutes after I get off the phone does the BrightHouse Promotions department call me and start to go into a speech about brighthouse and then i guess he looks at his screen and says "oooo, I was calling to offer $50 off your first month, for setting up your order online. but I see that you went ahead and called prematurely." So I responded with well cant you give me the $50 off I just signed up today. He said "Well, you would have to cancel the order..." so I said OK cancel the order. His response was..."Well I cant cancel the order you would have to call back and cancel the order"...I said oh ok well this is strike 2 for customer service, and then he started to tell me how he disagrees...thats when i hung up...unfortunately this is the only cable broadband provider in the this area and I guess they could give a rats ass about making any of their customers happy.

So 2 strikes for BrightHouse Cable before they even get into my house.

Thunderbird Extension Development

I've spent the last two weeks developing a thunderbird(tb) extension and I must say trying to find information specific to tb development is very hard to come by. Firefox plugin development information is all over the place. But tb resources are hard to come by. I have put together a quick reference that will hopefull get crawled by google and maybe give some help to others that are trying to do the same thing. Please not that this is just a qucik reference, of things I foudn to get the job done...they might not be the best method of doing things but it gets the job done.

Thunderbird Extension Development

Overlay Reference:

• chrome://messenger/content/messenger.xul- statusbar
  

• chrome://messenger/content/mailWindowOverlay.xul- Toolbar Menu (taskPopup), Message Context Menu (threadPaneContext)
  

• chrome://messenger/content/msgHdrViewOverlay.xul- Attachment Context Menu (attachmentListContext)

Accessing Attachments

1. var attachmentList = document.getElementById( 'attachmentList' ) // returns attachment list

2. var selectedAttachments = attachmentList.selectedItems; //Get selected attachments

Getting Message Information

var MessageUri = GetFirstSelectedMessage(); // Get Message URI

/* Get message body as it appears in preview window */

body = document.getElementById("messagepane").contentDocument.body.innerHTML;

Accessing Limited Message Header information

1. var msg = messenger.messageServiceFromURI(uri); // get message object

2. var hdr = msg.messageURIToMsgHdr(uri); // get header object

3. var subject = hdr.mime2DecodedSubject; // get Subject

4. var from = hdr.mime2DecodedAuthor; // get From

5. var to = hdr.mime2DecodedRecipients; // get To

6. var msgdate = new Date( hdr.date/1000); // turn epoch into date

7. var messageid = hdr.messageId; // get message ID

Downloading Attachments

This piece of code will take all selected attachments and download them to C:\ with their original filenames.

1. attachments = this.getSelectedAttachments();

2. for( i=0;i

3. var attachment = attachments[i];

4. 
   

5. /* Create a file interface object */

6. var file = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/file/local;1"].

7. createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsILocalFile);

8. var fullfilepath = 'C:/test/' + attachment.displayName;

9. file.initWithPath(fullfilepath);

10. if(!file.exists()) {

11. file.create(0x00,0644);

12. }

13. messenger.saveAttachmentToFile( file, attachment.url, attachment.uri, attachment.contentType, null );

14. }

Upgrading My Desktop

So I am going to upgrade my computer....here is what i am going with:

Intel BOXDP35DPM LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

ASUS EN9800GT HB/HTDI/512M GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported

hec X-Power Pro 600 600W Continuous @ 40°C ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80580Q8200

I am also going with 8GB of ram.

Only thing let to decide on it CPU cooling.

Linux will rock and I will be dual booting XP(maybe Vista) so that I can play StarCraft 2 when it comes out.


Comments/ Suggestions??

PETA Wow I want some of what your all taking

So PETA has decided that fish should now be called sea kittens. and they let you create a "sea kitten" on their site. Well you let me know when you see something in the ocean that looks like this.


Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org