Espresso vs. Coda

02 Apr 2009 at 13:16

Jared Lewandowski

Reviews, Web Development

No Comments

espresso_codaIf you currently build web pages from the ground up, then you’ve most likely began a cyber-trek through all sorts of different web development software. I started out with GoLive, then moved to Dreamweaver with the Adobe acquisition. After making the latest transition to the Coda/Transmit environment from Panic, I recently came across the latest MacHeist bundle and was introduced to the newest kid on the block… Espresso.

Having used Coda the past year and a half, I must say the features I like most are the way it handles CSS and PHP auto-scripting, the integrated FTP management system, the seamless integration of SVN, and the built-in help books for HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP. The color coding for scripting is also a huge plus as I find the colors to fit perfectly with the code. Quite simply, it’s extremely fluid and somehow manages to make coding seem effortless and fun.

Espresso, on the other hand, is only a few months shy of being released from beta and I’m not sure it can win me over just yet. I’ve become quite comfortable with Coda and think it will take more than another code editor/FTP manager to get me to make the move. I do like CSSEdit, which is available from the same developer, MacRabbit, but I’m equally as happy with the built-in CSS editor in Coda (even though I find hand-coding CSS a bit more satisfying)

Text editors for writing code are very user sensitive and can make for quite a personal dilemma. But whatever your style is, feel free to give them both a shot as they are both VERY good at what they do.

Netbook Buying Advice & Tips

25 Mar 2009 at 09:43

Jared Lewandowski

General

1 Comment

Surely you’ve heard the term “netbook” within the past year or so. And if not, don’t worry… You will eventually. Netbooks are basically small laptops with two primary purposes… Portability and Internet connectivity. They are very affordable and with all the web-based applications currently available, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! mail, and many more coming down the pipeline, it’s a good bet you will be considering one down the road. I’m personally looking at getting a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 soon and installing Mac OS X on it, like my friend Morgan has done here.

And for your own convenience when choosing a netbook, I’m posting this excellent article which points out some great things to look for if/when you decide the netbook is the right choice for you. Enjoy!

10 Things To Consider When Buying a Netbook

The Facebook Downgrade?

17 Mar 2009 at 14:22

Jared Lewandowski

General

1 Comment

I know I’m not the only one who thinks Facebook made a mistake with the recent UI update. It looks a lot like Twitter and that’s a bad thing. It’s almost like a downgrade from what used to be a well polished system. I currently use both Twitter and Facebook, but I use them in different ways. Facebook is where I post more specific, well-meaning content. Twitter is simply my thought process as I go about my day.

Here’s a sample of negative feedback from various users over the past few days:
* “The real-time everything stream is much less useful than the old division of status, then posts, etc.”
* “Blocked applications can still post to your news feed.”
* “Your OWN pic appears every time you post an article on your wall.”
* “The images in the status feeds have rounded edges.”
* “Frequent posters push everyone else’s updates off the newsfeed. I want to see at most two or three updates per person, like before.”
* “I hate the ’share’ button. It’s so California.”

As you can see from the comments above, the latest update has not brought the twitter-ish style it had hoped to bring. The same thing happened last time Facebook made an update a year ago, but this time it’s a lot worse, primarily because the user base has quadrupled. Here’s another great article I recommend you read. It states loud and clear that there’s more to these complaints than the usual resistance to change.

No matter what we think, it seems we will be stuck with this version of Facebook until further notice. Let’s just hope we don’t get used to it before it’s too late…

Mac Tablet?

16 Mar 2009 at 13:23

Jared Lewandowski

General

1 Comment

Tomorrow is the iPhone 3.0 event and I have “a feeling” they will be unveiling a new tablet. What perfect timing for such a device as tablet PC’s are all over the place these days. And for good reason… They’re cheap! However, one thing that will different about Apple’s tablet offering, is it will not match the $500 average cost of current units now available. My bets are that it will be in the $699-899 range. Yes, that’s over $300 more than the current market value. This is what Apple does. They create great looking products and sell them at “worth” value. Even in this price range, they will sell just as many (if not more) as the first iPhone, which was tagged at $599.

Render of possible Mac Tablet

Render of possible Mac Tablet

I don’t think Apple is going to try to compete with the Netbook market directly.  Apple has a big lead in touch technology and probably needs to innovate in other ways rather that release a similar type of product to a mature market. Apple has also shown much interest in these devices which is evident from a job posting at the end of last year.

The timing?  Well, if this thing has to be put on a device in late Summer, Apple will probably want some software to run on it… probably even an App Store.  If so, developers will need at least a few months to get their apps to run on this new little device.  That means they should probably start right about now. And what the rumored “premium app store“?

Even if apple doesn’t release a tablet tomorrow, you can bet they will very soon!

The Arrival of Baby Benjamin

10 Mar 2009 at 19:27

Jared Lewandowski

Family, General

6 Comments

Benjamin Howard Lewandowski was born Tuesday morning, March 10th, at 9:06am at Birth & Family Place in Holladay, Utah. He weighed 7lbs 8oz, was 21 inches tall and is doing terrific!

I’d like to share the story of my experience with you in this post and hope that you too may be able to get a glimpse into this very special event.

Baby Benjamin

He's here!

The birth itself was very different from any of the other kids. Since we live in Utah now, we had the option to use a midwife and deliver at an independent birthing center, instead of a hospital. This means there was no medical equipment all over the place, no drugs to speed up the process, and no nurses to tell me “No, you can’t do that!” In fact, we were allowed to do whatever, however, whenever we wanted. Very natural and very personal. This was a bit scary for me at first, but after arriving and settling in, I began to see that everything was under control and we were in good hands. I highly recommend using a midwife if you have that option.

A Proud Dad

Dad & Benjamin

We arrived at the birthing center around 7am and the contractions were coming on fast and furious. I kept my cool and did whatever I could to help my wife, Tricia, stay calm and collected. After a little while, we decided to move to the tub and soak in some warm water. A few minutes later… He was here! We’ve never experienced a water birth before and this was simply amazing! The baby came really fast and when it was out, we immediately noticed that the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck three times. But the nurses quickly unwound it and gave him to Tricia.

All ready to go home!

All ready to go home!

After a few minutes, I had the honor of cutting the cord. We were then both allowed to hold him and relax with him for the next hour or so. The nurses then came back in and took vitals and got all the birth statistics, like weight and height. They then stamped our baby book and certificate with footprints, and even offered to stamp a footprint on my arm. :)

Once all the medical paperwork was out of the way, we were all set to return to the comfort of our own home. What a beautiful day and a wonderful experience… One that I’ll never forget.

Trifecta

09 Mar 2009 at 14:55

Jared Lewandowski

General

No Comments

Trifecta Ball & Hoop

Trifecta is a game of skill and luck that some good friends and I thought up a few years back. It’s very simple to set up and extremely fun to play. We simply made it up as we went, and what happened was a really great time. It’s basically a mix of (Nerf) basketball and the popular basketball game, 21. Below is a link to download the official rules and regulations in PDF format. Feel free to give it a “shot”, and when you’re ready for some serious competition let me know…

Download Trifecta Rules & Regulations

Friday Favorites

06 Mar 2009 at 09:31

Jared Lewandowski

General, Web Development

No Comments

Every first Friday of the month, I will be posting some of my favorite bookmarks. Feel free to bookmark them or add them to your RSS reader (I use NewsFire) if they offer feeds. This week they will be mostly technical, but the overall themes will vary from month to month. Enjoy!

SmashingMagazine.com
A very good source of design and development information, resources, and tutorials. When begin the creative phase of a new website, I get a lot of inspiration from their showcase of designs.

.htaccessEditor.com
When editing .htaccess files, I’ve found this to be a great resource helping me to not only create, but validate my file. For those of you who haven’t had the chance to work with .htaccess, they are basically files that provide a way to make configuration changes on a per-directory basis. This allows for very fast URL redirects and masking. You can learn more about them here.

Snipr.com
As some of you may have noticed, I usually post a link to Facebook or Twitter using this free URL shortening service. It gives me the capability to monitor how many clicks a link has had and even to organize them by hits or edit the underlying link reference. Plus, I get to have an online record of some of my favorite links to check whenever/wherever I have an web connection.

Ping.fm
This is very helpful in posting status updates or other messages to multiple social networks or chat clients. It even works on my mobile phone, so I can update all my networks at once very easily.

digg.com
If you don’t use Digg on a daily basis yet, now’s the time to start. It’s an excellent resource for finding the latest & greatest news without much effort. Covering topics from technical to entertainment to gaming, Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.

I hope you enjoy this short list and check back every Friday for even more great links!

2500+ Free Icons

05 Mar 2009 at 17:14

Jared Lewandowski

General, Web Development

No Comments

200x2001The generous folks over at IconPot were kind enough to compile a huge list of commercially free to use icons for your projects. Whether you’re designing for a client or for a template, you won’t run into licensing issues with any of these icons! Use them…

Download Now!

Safari 4 beta Review

04 Mar 2009 at 18:53

Jared Lewandowski

Reviews

No Comments

Let me start by saying this browser is FAST! From the minute I loaded my first web page (my.msn.com), I was convinced that this was the fastest browser I’ve used on a Mac so far. Especially when using Gmail and Google Calendar is where I noticed the most speed enhancements. It felt snappy and the colors really pop out at you. Webkit has been known to be a great foundation for browsers lately, I mean, look at Chrome… It’s also very fast and handles Javascript very well. In fact, Safari 4b is very reminiscent of Google Chrome. From the “Top Sites” layout showing the most visited website, to the tabs positioned on top of the browser window.

Safari 4b Tabs

Safari 4b Tabs

I wouldn’t be surprised if Google released something identical to Safari 4b in the very near future. This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve been waiting for something as fast as Chrome to make its way to the Mac for some time, and I’m happy that it was Apple who released it. But if I was a PC user, I would continue to use Chrome or IE7 until further notice.

As I write this post (using Safari 4b) I’ve already moved the tabs back down to the usual position underneath the bookmark bar. To do this on a Mac, just open Terminal and enter the following command: defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool FALSE

I rarely use the “Top Sites” feature and the Cover Flow for History items is still a bit too much glamour (and wasted processor power) for me. The only place Cover Flow has worked so far is in iPhone and iPod, and man does it work beautifully in a touch-screen environment. Maybe this is where Apple is headed. Could we be looking at the next generation browser for an upcoming touch-screen device from Apple? Or perhaps we’re looking at a sneak peek of the next Finder with tabs, which would be awesome! Guess we’ll have to wait and see…

Finally!

04 Mar 2009 at 12:20

Jared Lewandowski

General

No Comments

After almost 10 years in the web business, I’ve finally found the time to start my own blog. I will be posting about various topics, including daily insights into my personal life, family related links and recaps, web programming tips and tutorials, Xbox 360 games and updates, etc.. Let the games begin…

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