This is the first post in a series of 3 about my experiences with Node.js. I will follow up with posts that including my experiences porting a RESTful service from Java, some benchmarks comparing the Node.js service and the Java service and my final thoughts from these experiences.

Node.js  has become somewhat of a buzz word in the tech space over the last year or so. The term “Node” has almost become synonymous with server-side JavaScript. More and more managers are talking and raising questions about Node.js. With it growing in popularity and having a stable API, it seems like a great time to dive in and research it. I think my boss wanted to take on this research task, but I kinda stole it from him while he was on vacation. Yeah, I am a geek like that.

If you aren’t familiar with Node.js, it is a JavaScript-based application platform created by Joyent, Inc. Their website describes it as “…a platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.” Not bad for tech geek marketing speak. Read more…

The spread of prominent marketshare between multiple browser versions and platforms has made pixel perfect web design a challenge over the last decade. Each browser may layout HTML elements differently. Some of these layout instructions have been dictated by standards; others by different implementations in the browsers.

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I learned JavaScript over 12 years ago and revitalized my skills in the dawn of the frameworks. I learned through necessity, when I had a project that required me to use it. The process of trial and error and applying what I already knew to make it work. Later, I was fortunate enough to have a single professor who made it all come together for me and confirmed what I thought I knew.

This week I have been tasked to “teach old dogs new tricks.” Basically, I need to take developers from other disciplines and put together or provide training materials for them to learn how to develop client-side applications using JavaScript and the Dojo Toolkit. I need to sum up what I learned over the span of a decade.

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I built my first HTPC almost 10 years ago with old spare computer parts and hooked it up to a Samsung 27 inch SD TV. It all started with an AMD K6/2 processor, a Diamond TNT graphics card and a SoundBlaster AWE64 sound card on a DFI motherboard with a maxed-out 512MB of PC100 SDRAM. For the time, not a shabby start for a dedicated music and movie player.

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Ace Hardware is working the online holiday marketing with a fun online Flex application called Ace Your Face. The app allows you to upload photos and work your face into different holiday scenes. I spent some time toying with it over the weekend and had a lot of fun.

There are options to create holiday scenes with up to four people. Be sure to turn up the volume, the commentary is pretty funny. You can view the card I made by clicking here: http://aceyourface.acehardware.com/ace/index.jsp?cardKey=W21rgGkYcjs%3D.

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After two years with Time Warner Cable and six years with Buckeye Cable System, I decided it was time to try something new. I was sick of continuously paying more money for less with cable and wanted to see what other options were available. Cable definitely isn’t trying very hard when it comes to HD channels. I really didn’t want to deal with satellite and decided to try out the AT&T U-verse IPTV.

My service was installed on September 27 and initially, I couldn’t have been happier. The only complaint I had was that sales sold me the “Sports Package” that didn’t really show sports. Nearly all professional sports were blacked out on these regional channels. Apparently, this is a pretty common issue on satellite as well with sales selling this package without the blackout notice.

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This is a list of the different HTML character entities commonly used in web development. I’ve found it to be a great resource. The blacked out rows are unused entities and listed for reference only.

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