Archive for January, 2007

Virtual Earth SDK

Published at January 29, 2007 in Technology. 0 Comments

I’ve been playing with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth Map Control SDK and so far, I’ve managed to connect to the map control and display a basic map of my location using latitude and longitude coordinates. As it turns out, my coordinates are 47.4925, -122.278

My goal with this effort is to learn how to use the SDK and implement the technology in one of my web applications. I can think of a couple of projects that can benefit from a mapping feature.

here is my first stab at manipulating the API

Virtual Earth


Codetch - a web-based editor

Published at January 27, 2007 in Open Source. 0 Comments

Codetch

I ran across this editor while looking for plugins on the mozilla website. Codetch is a plugin for Firefox, which means that the application runs on your web browser! The current version is 0.4.0.
Pros:

Tabs, line numbers, ability to switch between code and live preview, Codetch lives on the web! (no need to open another program)

Cons:

while editing an HTML file, I found the editor a bit slow — meaning that everytime I typed something (e.g. a long sentence), the editor would let me type, but the letters appeared on the screen a few seconds after I typed them.

You can find out more by visiting the official website, http://www.codetch.com

Mario Seijo
web designer
www.openElements.info


gedit - a text editor for the GNOME Desktop

Published at January 25, 2007 in Open Source. 0 Comments

I’ve decided to test a few open source editors. I’ll start with gedit, version 2.15.9. www.gedit.org

This is a pretty cool tool that allows you to add plugins. The plugins range from indenting lines to adding snippets of code. Other goodies include color coding of tags and attributes, document tabs, line numbers, an interactive search feature and highlighting abilities.

Here is a screenshot of the editor in action.

gedit


Standards compliant script editor with a rich GUI

Published at January 21, 2007 in Open Source. 0 Comments


I am starting to enjoy the Linux side of computing, I can browse the web, check e-mail and perform a few other tasks, but when it comes down to it, I still depend on my laptop that runs Windows XP, for mission critical work, such as editing web pages with Dreamweaver, building rich animations with Flash and manipulating images with Photoshop and Illustrator. These are the industry standards where I come from.

I’ve used these windows applications for years and have grown accustomed to them. I know them well enough to know that they are part of my comfort zone. If I were asked to do a web job, I know that I can pull it off. All I need is my laptop.

The Challenge:

I know the open source community has just as many quality tools, if not more than Microsoft and Adobe put together. With that said; I’m on the hunt for an open source, standards compliant HTML and script editor with a rich GUI. Something like Dreamweaver… is that even possible?

Mario Seijo
web designer
www.openElements.info