Joel Cory: Blog http://joelcory.com/blog Design, Develop, Illustrate, Photograph Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:56:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 en Firefox 3 and JSON http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/07/13/firefox-3-and-json/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/07/13/firefox-3-and-json/#comments Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:54:55 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/07/13/firefox-3-and-json/ Firefox 3Has anyone else run into problems with their JSON and Firefox 3? We are rounding up development on one of the projects I am working on and Firefox 3 has thrown us a curve ball. Firefox 2, Safari 2.04, Safari 3, IE 6, IE 7 all test out fine on Mac and Windows.I have read that there was a new JSON interpreter in FF3, but I expected new…to mean better, not broken. Any thoughts?

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]]> http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/07/13/firefox-3-and-json/feed/ My Mixer is mentioned again… http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/07/13/my-mixer-is-mentioned-again/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/07/13/my-mixer-is-mentioned-again/#comments Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:47:29 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/07/13/my-mixer-is-mentioned-again/ Pimp-my-mixer mentioned meWow it’s amazing how much press my little mixer project has received. Here is another mention of the Flameka.com site and my mixer is the one pictured.

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]]> http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/07/13/my-mixer-is-mentioned-again/feed/ How have you been? http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/03/23/how-have-you-been/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/03/23/how-have-you-been/#comments Sun, 23 Mar 2008 06:16:22 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/03/23/how-have-you-been/ For a while there I bet you all thought I’d stopped writing. Yes and no. I had stopped for a bit, but I’m baaaack…

I’ve been really busy with my new position at Pearson. What can I say…I love my job. It’s busy, I work with great people, I’m challenged daily to come up with unique solutions and really pushed to resolve our customers needs to have software that gets out of their way and let them do their jobs. It’s been great working on PowerTeacher Gradebook, PowerSchool and a new product that I’m not sure I can mention at this point. Anyway it’s great work and a lot of fun too.

In follow -up to previous entries, my Truvativ cranks continue to loosen on each ride. I carry an 8mm wrench with me at all times. I’m taking them to Performance tomorrow to talk to them about what they can do for me. It’s a total pain in my heiny.

IMG_9187 On another note I watched the Blue Angels do flybys last weekend and here are some pictures from the event. It was the Capital Airshow at Mather Field in Rancho Cordova.

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]]> http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/03/23/how-have-you-been/feed/ The bane of web developers existence…Internet Explorer http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/02/08/the-bane-of-web-developers-existenceinternet-explorer/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/02/08/the-bane-of-web-developers-existenceinternet-explorer/#comments Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:22:37 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/02/08/the-bane-of-web-developers-existenceinternet-explorer/ I’ve got two items of note for web developers. One is good…one is evil. First the good news…
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]]> http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/02/08/the-bane-of-web-developers-existenceinternet-explorer/feed/ Cool Actionscript…and it’s FREE!!! http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/01/18/cool-actionscriptand-its-free/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/01/18/cool-actionscriptand-its-free/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:24:31 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/01/18/cool-actionscriptand-its-free/ I’ve got a few slick scripts that I thought I would share with the world.

These are simple scripts for toggling buttons, and it works without components.
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]]> http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/01/18/cool-actionscriptand-its-free/feed/ Where have you been? http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/01/09/where-have-you-been/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/01/09/where-have-you-been/#comments Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:41:14 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/01/09/where-have-you-been/ Well…to make a long story short I’m a loser. Not in the classical “parental basement dwelling” sense of the word, but in the “I’m neglecting my blog sense”. So here are the updates. I’ve started my new job at a fantastic company Pearson, as the Senior User Interface Designer. I will get to draw on my years of experience with user experience to help push their applications Power Teacher Gradebook, and Power School, to the next level along with a team of talented developers, and product managers. So far its great place to work and great people to work with.

In other news, and I post this with some reluctance, but I’m not given much choice. My wife’s former employer MusicTalk, Inc. has failed to pay my wife’s salary owed for last year. So far they owe us a total of roughly $20,000. We have heard nothing from their CEO Bobbie Brown, or any representatives of the company’s board of directors. We are awaiting the final judgment from the California State Labor Board, and once that is completed they would have 20 days to appeal. Considering that Bobbie didn’t show up to either the conference or the hearing at the Labor Commission I don’t expect that there will be any appeal, or any word from Bobbie Brown or MusicTalk. We will be looking into what our options are at this point. If anyone has information about this agency, or its business dealings please contact me.

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]]> http://joelcory.com/blog/2008/01/09/where-have-you-been/feed/ No rest for the wicked…or so they say http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/16/no-rest-for-the-wickedor-so-they-say/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/16/no-rest-for-the-wickedor-so-they-say/#comments Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:22:05 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/16/no-rest-for-the-wickedor-so-they-say/ IMG_5200 Wow what a week. I start a new job this Monday…tomorrow. I’ll be working for Pearson Education in Rancho Cordova. So I won’t be a contractor at HP anymore. I’ll miss my friends there; Greg Willey, Rick “The beer guy” Sellers, and Dave Glass. This position at Pearson should be a great opportunity for me.

Additionally I went to the BoardWalk in Sacramento on Greenback to support my friend Nate Perkins and his band the Lesdystics! Took a bunch of pictures and they are on my Flickr account. Check em out! This was a lot of fun for me, and I got to test out my Cactus remote triggers and new Vivitar 295 HV flash. What a sweet setup!

Now I have to get back to work on my contract jobs…Yikes.

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]]> http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/16/no-rest-for-the-wickedor-so-they-say/feed/ I think I picked a fight with Fred Showker http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/06/i-think-i-picked-a-fight-with-fred-showker/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/06/i-think-i-picked-a-fight-with-fred-showker/#comments Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:21:58 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/06/i-think-i-picked-a-fight-with-fred-showker/ I have participated from time to time on the DT&G forums. Mostly to get feedback on site designs, and to provide suggestions to other designers. I got this flippant comment on my design by somebody named fred. (I didn’t capitalize his name, because he didn’t) I chose to respond, by asking them to back up their claims with examples.
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]]> http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/06/i-think-i-picked-a-fight-with-fred-showker/feed/ Where is web design today? http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/03/where-is-web-design-today/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/03/where-is-web-design-today/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:49:10 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/03/where-is-web-design-today/ Many people now rely on the web as a source for their lifestyles; research, maps, gossip, movie rentals, shopping. Now that this tool is so heavily used I thought it would be good to think about where it started, and where it is today from a design perspective. In the early days websites were pretty horrible to look at, lots of blinking, flashing things, dancing hamsters, BIG FONTS, red text on black backgrounds etc… (I could go on, but I know some of you are already getting nauseous. Thankfully most of the world wide web has moved past designs like these:
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]]> http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/12/03/where-is-web-design-today/feed/ Don’t Buy Need for Speed Pro Street! http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/11/12/dont-buy-need-for-speed-pro-street/ http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/11/12/dont-buy-need-for-speed-pro-street/#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:11:08 +0000 Joel Cory http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/11/12/dont-buy-need-for-speed-pro-street/ I’ve had it! I bought Need for Speed Carbon the day it arrived in stores. I ran out after work handed over my hard earned cash and ran home to install it. It was fun, and I loved it. Sounds great. But the game crashes all the time. Random crashes, no warning, no error, straight to desktop crashes. All the time. Patch 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, none of them do anything to improve the situation. I’ve reinstalled the game, Direct X, updated drivers all the recommended support tips. No good, still crashes. I started playing again, because I love the game and I bought it, and it still crashes. Because it’s random I can sometimes get through a fair bit before it crashes, other times one race. Sometimes in the car store, other times after cut scenes, the last time, which prompted me to write this, right in the middle of a race. ARGGGGHHH!!!!

Maybe it’s my system. Could be. But why wouldn’t Doom 3, Quake 4, Half-life 2, Tomb Raider, Bioshock, or Need for Speed underground, underground 2, or Most Wanted crash then too? In fact no other game I’ve played has crashed. My system is pretty much top of the line. Core 2 6400, 2Gb RAM, ATI 1900XTX 512Mb VRAM.

Why wouldn’t a company write a patch to resolve such a widespread, common problem. This is a well documented issue:

I understand not knowing how to trace an un-reproducible bug, that doesn’t seem to be a problem here. I understand having hardware that doesn’t meet the system requirements, not an issue as far as I’ve read. I understand abandoning a project, not the case here as there have been three patches released since it launch. So what’s the problem?

More importantly I want to know why EA would think that I would actually buy the next installment of this game that comes out this week, Need for Speed Pro Street, when they haven’t even gotten the last one to work! I for one am waiting to buy this game until the user reviews come out, becasue even the game magazines didn’t report this problem with carbon. Buyer beware.

Update

Crash DialogRight after I wrote this article, I found that the demo was online for Need For Speed Pro Street. I downloaded the 750 Mb file, installed it, and ran it. It trudged through the intro movies, flashy animations etc… Then I set my video setting to match my screen, this game at least supports my wide screen monitor, unlike Carbon. Setup my game pad. Then started the demo for the speed challenge. CRASH!!!!! I tried again, having to repeat all my setup procedures again. This time I quit after changing my settings, anticipating the crash and not want to set up my screen and controls again. Re-launched and tried again to start the race. CRASH!!!!!!!!! Wow, now I really want to buy this game.

Aren’t demos supposed to be the compelling, “oh my this is so amazing I have to play the full game” experience? The “this blew my mind, now I want to give them my credit card number” kind of experience? Oh well, guess I’ll save my money for the Orange Box, Crysis, or anything that doesn’t have the EA name on it. Pathetic!!!

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