I am a programmer, developer and designer.  I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now, but until recently I have not had much project management experience.  Now that I am running my own consultancy, acquiring these skills are essential.  Effective Project Management for Web Geeks is a great article that I found useful.  It will introduce you to the basics of the project lifecycle, and provide you with tools to make your projects run smoother, faster, and easier.

A (sort of) Quick Introduction to making your own Adium Message Style is a tutorial I am going to put on my todo list!  Adium is my favorite IM client for OSX and I just found out that you can customize and create your own themes using nothing but HTML and CSS (and a sprinkle of XML).  Pretty cleaver of the smart people at Adium to embrace web standards and use them as a tool for extending their platform!

If you’re looking for an alternative to the Apache or ISS web servers you should check out ONLamp.com tutorial on the lighttpd Web Server.  lighttpd is an open source, high-performance web server with a focus on light resource use.  The article outlines the pro’s and con’s of both lighttpd and Apache then walks you through the installation and configuration process.

Wired has a feature article with the man who coined the term “AJAX”,
Jesse James Garrett, where he suggests that  AIR will be another boost for web apps.  It really great to see the HTML/CSS/JS crowd embracing the AIR plaform just as it’s great to see Adobe embracing the same community.

If you are an AJAX developer and are interested in bringing your AJAX apps to the desktop using Adobe AIR, Mike Chambers and crew have made their New Adobe AIR Book Available for Download in PDF format.  The book titled Adobe Integrated Runtime for JavaScript Developers Pocketguide is a very concise quick start type guide that will have your first AJAX desktop app up and running in no time at all!

Michael Angeles has created a fantastic OmniGraffle HTML Wireframe Palette that will take your wireframe diagrams to the next level.  OmniGraffle is a Mac OSX only diagramming tool that can be used for creating diagrams of floor plans, database schema, network topologies and much, much more.

Aptana, one of the best HTML/CSS/JavaScript IDE’s available, just got better!  The Aptana IDE has now added support for Apple iPhone. To see what this means for you, check out their screencast that outlines all the features and details of using Aptana for iPhone development.

Mike Davidson has created a short manifesto that creates A Low-Fi Solution to E-Mail Overload.  Simply put, Mike has decided to reply to every email he sends in 5 senteces.  Sentenc.es is a website that you can place in your email signature to inform your email recipients on your email responding technique.

Wow - what a night! Two nights ago, I attended the Adobe OnAIR Tour as it made a stop in Vancouver, BC. The guys on the bus really put on a great show even though the event was on the rooftop of a pub during the hottest day of the year!

The sessions were excellent. Mike Downey gave a great overview of AIR including a future roadmap for the product. Mike Chambers prepared a very simple Hello World Air application and walked attendees through the easy process of creating and configuring AIR.

One of the highlights for me were the two sessions Kevin Hoyt did. He gave great tutorials on creating AIR applications using HTML and JavaScript which included a good introduction to script bridging. I was particularly impress in the way that Kevin showed 3 ways to create AIR apps with Ajax. First he used Textmate for the code and Terminal to compile the AIR app. Next he showed how to do the same thing using Dreamweaver (a tool that Adobe sells). But most impressive was his ‘evangelism’ for the Aptana web editor which now includes AIR support. For a company that sells software, I was happy to see them promoting open-source applications that compete directly with their commercial offerings. I think it also shows how much they are embracing the Ajax developer by allowing them to use tools they are comfortable with.

The biggest (albeit minor) disappointment of the night was that Daniel Dura’s presentation was cut short as Adobe extended some of the breaks due to the hot temperature at the venue. Daniel’s presentation was probably more aimed towards the seasoned Flex developer or people who had already done some AIR development. He gave some great examples of the AIR API including the built in SQLite database support.

One surprise of the night for me, was the large number of Ajax developers at the event. I had expected to see mostly Flex/Flash programmers, but I would say well over half of the attendees were Ajax devs.

The event was awesome! All attendees got a nice swag bag with an O’Reilly book, an OnAIR t-shirt, some free hosting at Media Temple, stickers, etc. At every break there was lots of free beer and food!

If the Adobe OnAIR bus happens to show up in your neighborhood, make sure you go! You won’t be disappointed!

Lego Millenium Falcon Stop Motion - people who put this much work into something deserve to have it viewed. Watch it - link to it!