Posted 10 March 2010, 10:02 pm
Blogs
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A few words from Rob Mansfield
[Blog] A few words from Rob Mansfield: How the web keeps products for going longer
via espares.co.uk Our dishwasher door stopped closing last week and, rather than calling up for a repairman, I did what more and more people are doing – turned to the web for help. First of all, I searched for forum discussions to see if anyone else had experience the same problem. On our [...] -
NixonMcInnes
[Blog] NixonMcInnes: Site launch! Supporting budding entrepreneurs
After months of hard work, head-scratching, frantic coding and copious tea-drinking by a number of the team here, I’m over the moon to tell you that we’ve just launched a brand new site (I could have had a baby by now. Well, I sort of have, with multiple parentage).
Virgin Media Pioneers is a social networking and video blogging platform, funded by Virgin Media’s Corporate Responsibility team and run by Enterprise UK – the charity that aims to increase entrepreneurial behaviour across Britain.
It’s the core of a programme that’s going to equip young, budding entrepreneurs – Pioneers – with the skills, confidence, experience and network of contacts to help them make it on their own.
Anyone who joins the site can easily connect with entrepreneurial people like them, as well as get support and advice from established business experts. Pioneers upload video blogs and responses to share their experiences, talk about their business ideas, ask for help or simply celebrate success.
The site’s been built on a set of open source platforms and plugins, most notably WordPress, VideoPress and BuddyPress, and we’ve been following an agile methodology that’s proved massively successful.
Without going into too much detail, the biggest feature of this is that we – all of us, clients included – have met up every two weeks for nearly the past nine months, and at every point there’s been an opportunity to change the shape of what we’ve been doing.
When we discovered a new requirement, decided we didn’t like the way something worked or had a brand new insight into our target audience, we simply changed the priority of what we were working on next. It was an eye-opener, working on a large-scale build in this way, but one that’s been pivotal to the success of the development.
NixonMcInnes provided the skills and experience in designing and building the site, including user experience design, working to create a brand identity and undertaking usability testing to make sure that this is something that fits with the immediate needs and expectations of our first Pioneers.
Usability testing with people who were actually going to be using the site was particularly interesting and vindicated our choice of agile as a methodology, as well as the other decisions we’d made along the way; all feedback we gathered was overwhelmingly positive and even after months of development, I only came away with a few minor changes to make.
This is only the start though – the first release of the site is going to build and evolve over time to include new features and functions, based on the needs of the people who use it, using feedback and research.
Why am I so excited? OK, there’s a degree of self-satisfaction and pride in what we’ve all produced, but it’s more than that – as other people have pointed out, in the recession young people were some of the hardest hit – and this is one opportunity for those people to move towards turning their own ideas into a career. As a result, it’s also supporting independent business in the UK, in which social enterprise is beginning to feature more (from my recent experience, anyway).
It’s been an amazing experience, working with some brilliant people (not just Steve, Josh, Matt, Jenni and Telmo) and I can’t wait to watch more people join the site, follow their journey and build on what we’ve all started.
Posted 10 March 2010, 7:21 pm
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Web Tart
[Blog] Web Tart: Colosseo Letterpress Poster
What began as a 10-year wedding anniversary to Rome concluded a year later as an artistic endeavor to reimagine the Coliseum with type.
Colosseo: Reimagining the Roman Coliseum with type (Canon 7D) from Cameron Moll on Vimeo.
To read more about this artwork and to purchase a copy, please visit http://colosseotype.com
In March 2009, Suzanne (wife) and I spent several days in Rome to celebrate our 10-year anniversary. This was also a chance to observe in detail the Coliseum, which I’d already selected as the next subject in my series of letterpress posters (see http://cameronmoll.bigcartel.com/category/posters).
Over the course of the next 12 months, the artwork was handcrafted character by character, totaling roughly 250 hours of work from start to finish. Characters from the Goudy Trajan and Bembo Pro typefaces form the Coliseum, also known as today as Colosseo (Italian) and originally known as Amphitheatrum Flavium (Latin).
Printed at Bjørn Press in Provo, Utah. http://bjornpress.com
I shot the video shown here using a Canon 7D, with Suzanne’s assistance for my interview segment. Edited with Final Cut Express. I picked up the 7D literally the day before shooting at Bjørn Press, so I still have lots to learn. (I botched my interview part by failing to turn off sharpening before shooting and by not having Suzanne sit at the same height while interviewing me, hence my eyes focus differently in each segment. But oh well, it is what it is.)
The opening segment was filmed at 1280/60fps, then in FCE it was slowed down and resized to fit the rest of the footage, which was shot at 1920/30fps. The 7D makes it really easy to pull off high-quality slow motion.
Font used for the titles is Bembo Pro.
Lenses:
* Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM prime
* Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM zoom
* Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 USM macroMore about my video setup here: http://cameronmoll.com/archives/2010/02/canon_7d_video/
All music is by This Will Destroy You. Their self-titled album (2007) seemed to compliment the footage perfectly. Songs, in order of appearance:
“The Mighty Rio Grande”
“Leather Wings”
“Villa del Refugio”http://www.last.fm/music/This+Will+Destroy+You
Thanks for watching.
via Colosseo Letterpress Poster: Reimagining the Roman Coliseum with type.
Posted 10 March 2010, 5:36 pm
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Web Tart
[Blog] Web Tart: Auto Switch for Android / iPhone
Let’s hope this theme works for iPad to – assuming it also returns the user agent as “Mobile Safari”.
[The] iPhone optimized Magento theme will be available in the next few days via Magento Connect. Additionally, as part of the upcoming 1.1 release, automatic detection and delivery of packages, theme(s) (templates, skins, css, layouts) based on the user-agent (client) may be associated on a global, website and store view. The video below gives a preview of Magento on the iPhone.
via Magento – Blog – Video: Magento via iPhone – eCommerce Software for Growth.
Configuration in Magento couldn’t be much simpler:UPDATE: Use “Mobile Safari|iPhone|iPod”. Also you don’t need to enter the exception against each of the ’skin’, ‘layout’ templates’ etc parts, just add an exception next to the ‘default’ theme. Finally, the fields for ‘Matched expression’ and ‘value’ are case sensitive and do not require quotes around them. Enter each exactly as shown here (for iphone); Matched expression; iPhone Value iphone The theme is called ‘iphone’ in lower case so the value must match this exactly. Maybe not so simples after all!
Posted 10 March 2010, 4:29 pm
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Web Tart
[Blog] Web Tart: Big App Publishing Bruv
Got the tshirt? Now get to see how your reading will be monitored when reading books on iPhone, or more plausibly iPad.
Below is a video of Enhanced Editions’ Ignite speech from this year’s Tools of Change conference, originally intended to be delivered by Rhys Cazenove but eventually given by Peter Collingridge.
via Tools of Change: Analytics wake-up call | Enhanced EditionsPosted 10 March 2010, 3:35 pm
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Web Tart
[Blog] Web Tart: Tart Secrets
We all know the benefits of using snippets and bundles to speed up our coding, but what if we could take things a step further, and turn a complex html structure into something as simple as a CSS selector? Well, thanks to a new project, called Zen-Coding, we can do this very thing!
In this four-minute video quick tip, he shows how:
via Learn how to Write Lightning-Fast Code in 4 Minutes: Screencast | Nettuts+.Posted 10 March 2010, 3:16 pm
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richTextFormat.net
[Blog] richTextFormat.net: The Vandalism of the West Pier
The removal of the concert hall section of Brighton’s West Pier is an unforgivable act of council-sponsored vandalism. Brighton & Hove Council leader Mary Mears said ‘The removal of part of the West Pier will be a sad moment‘. She is gravely wrong, choosing to professionally downplay the scale of the political travesty that she [...]Posted 10 March 2010, 1:10 pm
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SiteVisibility
[Blog] SiteVisibility: Rand Fishkin Interview – SEO & Link Building
We get to interview some great people for our podcast but sometimes being part of a bigger podcast they can get a little lost. So we’ve started taking our favourite inteviews and uploading them to blip.tv to make them easy to find and listen to.
This time we’ve got the poster boy of link analysis Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz we asked him about swithing from a consultancy business to a SaaP model and what he’s learn’t about search engines building his own index of the web.
Post from Apple Pie & Custard the blog from SiteVisibility a Brighton SEO Company
Rand Fishkin Interview – SEO & Link Building
Related posts:
- SMX London Podcast Interview With Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz, Lyndon Antcliff & Ciaran Norris – Podcast Episode #49
- How To Do SEO Link Building- Illustrated By Cute Puppies
- Recruiting? AKA A Very Easy But Effective Form of Link Building.
Posted 10 March 2010, 9:00 am
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Web Tart
[Blog] Web Tart: 15 Brilliant CSS3 Based Articles
css3
CSS3 is becoming more and more popular these days and many developers are using it regardless this is good of compatibility issues with some browsers. Today probably everyone knows about CSS3 and its features. But you can extend its use further with following awesome tutorials or resources. So go ahead and try them!
via 15 Brilliant CSS3 Based Articles | Powerusers.
Posted 10 March 2010, 8:25 am
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Web Tart
[Blog] Web Tart: Wired Sussex 04.03.10 | Garage Studios
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emmeline's posterous
[Blog] emmeline's posterous: Cath Kidston notebook - handbag size
A truly handmade notebook - I even made the binding cloth using Cath Kidston's blue sprig fabric. This time I managed to document most of the stages. The finished book measures 8cm by 11cm and has 12 pages (22 sides).
Materials used: Cath Kidston cotton fabric backed with 50gsm white bank paper, white mounting card, 160gsm acid free Fabriano Accademia paper, metal heart shaped brad, ribbon. Glues used: PVA and flour paste.I'm going to start listing these for sale on www.Folksy.com and WowThankYou.co.uk very soon. If you're reading this and interested in buying one, please get in touch via the blog :)Posted 9 March 2010, 2:35 pm
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Wired Sussex Blog
[Blog] Wired Sussex Blog: Brighton Media Sector Turns It On At Jobs Fair
On Thursday 4th March, the Corn Exchange in Brighton played host to our latest Media Jobs + Skill Fair.
The combination of industry-led panel sessions, training and skills information and, of course, local media companies looking to recruit attracted hundreds of attendees with some coming from as far afield as Bath. Opening the fair, Phil Jones, MD of Wired Sussex, pointed out that in the three years since it was launched, the event has grown to become the biggest of its kind in the south. He continued “This event is the perfect opportunity for local media companies to meet the talent that can help them grow and for anyone who wants to take their media career to the next level to access the information and expertise to advise them how”.
The event, which was supported by the University of Sussex (through HEFCE funding), Brighton and Hove City Council and the regional development authority, SEEDA, proved to be a resounding success, with hundred’s of courses on offer, covering everything from Media Studies to Music, and job opportunities from leading media companies across the Sussex region.
Over a thousand people passed through the doors, eager to gain careers advice, investigate further education opportunities or make face to face contact with a potential new employer.
We were on hand to help demystify the industry and leading industry figures took to the stage to talk about the Sussex Internship Programme, the different kinds of jobs in the media sector and tips on going freelance.
Making its debut at this years’ fair, the “Made In Brighton” showcase was a popular pit stop to grab a coffee and interact with some of the best media content being produced in the region.
Fresh Egg, Managing Director, Adam Stafford said “We thoroughly enjoyed the fair and met some fantastic contacts. .... There were a hoard of targeted, hungry job hunters and we have started interviewing people we met at the show”
Mick Feltham, the Curriculum Leader for Music, Performance & Theatre, Northbrook College said “The students attending were getting a real opportunity to explore careers and further training. Vocational contacts, advice and information are an essential part of preparing our students for a professional career and will increase their potential value in the jobs market”
The day concluded with a keynote talk by Dr Alek Krotoski as part of the University of Sussex’s Enterprise Thursday programme. Following the recent success of the BBC “Virtual Revolution” documentary series, Aleks gave an informative and highly personalised talk about her career to date.
We'd like to thank everyone who attended the Fair, we hope you got something out of the day. We'd also like to thank all exhibitors, speakers, and sponsors for making it such a successful event.
All photos taken by Garage StudiosPosted 9 March 2010, 11:18 am
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Web Tart
[Blog] Web Tart: Getting British Business Online
Businesses of every type and size need to be found online. Use our simple online tool to create your first website – no technical knowledge needed. Update your site from any computer, for free.
via Getting British Business Online.
Posted 9 March 2010, 10:21 am
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SiteVisibility
[Blog] SiteVisibility: Link Building Ideas Come Easily, the Skill is Making Them Happen
On twitter I mostly share interesting blog links and spout rubbish, but one tweet I made the other day seemed to strike a bit of a chord with a few people.
I think it applies to most areas of life but I think it is also spot on when it comes to link building.
There’s hundreds, if not thousands of well trained, creative search marketers in the UK.
Despite all this talent it is still possible to get a website to rank, why? Because there’s a huge difference between creativity and execution.
Not surprisingly Seth Godin summed this up pretty well in his last book Linchpin with the mantra “Real Artists Ship”
So you should be judging your success as a creative link builder not by how many great ideas you come up with, or how inventive and unprecedented your idea was, but by whether it actually achieved results.
Without that follow-up, creativity counts for nothing.
Post from Apple Pie & Custard the blog from SiteVisibility a Brighton SEO Company
Link Building Ideas Come Easily, the Skill is Making Them Happen
Related posts:
- 4 Easy Do-Follow Link Building Opportunities
- What’s the best way of measuring link building efforts?
- Recruiting? AKA A Very Easy But Effective Form of Link Building.
Posted 9 March 2010, 9:07 am
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martyn reding - juggling with water
[Blog] martyn reding - juggling with water: Can you fill Iain Tait's shoes?
Iain Tait is leaving Poke and they are looking for someone to fill his shoes. Not metaphorically. If you're good enough to get the job at Poke, then you can have his actual shoes.
In typically creative style Iain has offered his barely worn trainers to the lucky person who finds themselves taking up his desk in the Poke offices.
I was lucky enough to see Iain present his ideas on the power of points in creating interactions, at Skillswap Brighton. I considered myself even luckier when i learnt that he is about to leave the UK for a new life in Oregon. Hopefully not the last time he will show up on our shores.Posted 8 March 2010, 7:15 pm
Flickr
These photos are the most recent added to the BNM Flickr Photo pool.
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[Flickr] BRIGTHON WEST PIER LASER SHOW
Posted by heatherbuckley, on 18 Feb 2010, 12:41 pm
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[Flickr] Fried Flower Eggs
Posted by atomicShed, on 14 Feb 2010, 12:29 pm
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[Flickr] laser light west pier
Posted by heatherbuckley, on 11 Feb 2010, 6:05 pm
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[Flickr] laser light west pier
Posted by heatherbuckley, on 11 Feb 2010, 5:54 pm
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[Flickr] laser light west pier
Posted by heatherbuckley, on 11 Feb 2010, 5:51 pm
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[Flickr] laser light west pier
Posted by heatherbuckley, on 11 Feb 2010, 5:42 pm
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[Flickr] laser light west pier
Posted by heatherbuckley, on 11 Feb 2010, 5:31 pm
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[Flickr] laser light west pier
Posted by heatherbuckley, on 11 Feb 2010, 5:10 pm
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[Flickr] laser light west pier
Posted by heatherbuckley, on 11 Feb 2010, 4:59 pm
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[Flickr] laser light west pier
Posted by heatherbuckley, on 11 Feb 2010, 2:05 pm
[Flickr] Between Tuesday and Wednesday
From the pompidou. Courtyard as calendar.
Photo uploaded by atomicShed, on 26 Feb 2010, 11:58 am
Recent Threads
This list of subject headings is generated from the last 50 posts made to the BNM mailing list which also had a response.
- Frameworks – 26 posts.
- [ot] Google Moderator -... – 6 posts.
- Attacks from my server – 5 posts.
- protecting critical data – 3 posts.
- Those with old wordpress... – 2 posts.
- Laptops – 2 posts.
- Selling through Paypal -... – 2 posts.
Last.fm artist chart
This is a chart of the most listened to artists in the BNM last.fm group. Chart for the week ending .
Chart updated every Sunday.
del.icio.us
These are links tagged by members of the BNM mailing list with the tag ‘bnm’. If you find something you think other readers may find useful, why not do the same?
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[Bookmark] CoffeeScript
Bookmarked by jaygooby on Mon, 8 March 10 at 8:43pm
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[Bookmark] iPhone Explorer - A USB iPhone browser for Mac and PC
Bookmarked by atomicshed on Mon, 15 February 10 at 6:46pm
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[Bookmark] 10 Free Project Management Applications | FreelanceFolder
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[Bookmark] Mockingbird | Wireframes on the fly
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[Bookmark] Resources » Designing Web Interfaces
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[Bookmark] UI Pattern Factory
Bookmarked by jaygooby on Wed, 3 February 10 at 10:32am
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[Bookmark] Current Rules Master List
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[Bookmark] Search Patterns
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[Bookmark] blink design library
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[Bookmark] Interface | Konigi
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Events
Events are taken from the BNM Upcoming Group. There are currently 5 events.
You can download, or subscribe to this schedule.
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[Event] I Have No Friends - A Practical Handson Social Media Workshop at Lewes Werks
Thursday, March 11th 2010. 7:00pm
When: 11th of March, 7 – 9pm at Lewes Werks
Cost: £20 + VAT for cowerkers, £25 + VAT for everyone else
Presented by Rosie Sherry and Emma Wallace
Introduction
A 2 hour hands on and practical guide to using the web.
You’ve signed up to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. You have a website. But what next?
Aimed at individuals and small businesses, this workshop will look at practical things you can do to help you start making friends and connections on the web.
Lets face it, friends are good for business.
Contents
We will look at your websites and your online presence and discuss ideas and ways of becoming social on the web. There is no power point presentation. We will be armed with a projector (and laptops if you can bring one) to show you step by step how to make friends :)
Workshop size will be no more than 15 people.Added by , on Friday February 12th, 2010
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[Event] £5 App Meet at The Skiff
Tuesday, March 30th 2010. 8:00pm—11:00pm
A meet-up for programmers, web developers and designers to discuss and showcase their "£5 apps" - lightweight software created by one or two people who take a simple idea and run with it.
The discussion will range from technical (what tools/languages were used during development) to business (building communities, spreading the word, costs and rewards).
We've got a busy lineup for this £5app.
Simon Willison and Natalie Downe will be talking about Wildlife Near You (http://www.wildlifenearyou.com/), which as part of a team of twelve they mostly built in a fort.
Then Jez Nicholson and Simon Harriyott will discuss Open Plaques (http://www.openplaques.org/) - a project:
> "... that aims to find and provide data about all the commemorative 'plaques' (often blue and round) that can be found across the UK and worldwide."
Steve Carpenter will talk about his latest
robots (not sure which one yet) and will hopefully demo his
iPhone-controlled Dalek (http://hackedgadgets.com/2010/03/02/iphone-controlled-dalek-robot/) and maybe his iPhone-controlled maze solver (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWaOLWvJFqA).
After the main talks there will be some shorter show and tell sessions:
* Jamie Campbell, Go learn another language - a short talk about GO
* Ian will be showing how easy AI can be - using modern computer vision and voice recognition librariesAdded by , on Wednesday February 24th, 2010
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[Event] Brightwest III Global Twestival Event at tbc
Thursday, March 25th 2010. 7:00pm
Brightwest is back for it's third installment of fun with a conscience.
This time, we are raising money for Concern Worldwide -a global charity aimed at helping those in extreme poverty by providing education and aid. Please check out their site http://www.concern-worldwide.org/ for details on how the money raised will be spent.
Full details on this year's global event can be found here http://twestival.com/about-twestival-global-2010/ and details of our local event will be added as soon as we have them. `Get the 25th March in your diary and prepare to 'meet, tweet and give'Added by , on Wednesday January 20th, 2010
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[Event] dConstruct 2010 at The Brighton Dome
Friday, September 3rd 2010. 12:00am
The Brighton Dome,
Church Street,
Brighton & Hove,
Now in its sixth year, dConstruct is the affordable one day conference for those designing and building web applications.
Follow @dConstruct and @clearleft on Twitter for news on how and when to to book tickets.Added by , on Sunday February 21st, 2010
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[Event] FlashBrighton: State Machine 101 at The Werks
Tuesday, March 9th 2010. 7:00pm
Neil Smith awoke to find himself in a plain room, strapped to a chair, facing Seb O'Brien. The room filled with a harsh brightness, and O'Brien waited whilst Smith took it in. Smith had once believed that O'Brien was a comrade, but he could see that O'Brien was part of the state machinery all along.
'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101. You knew the answer already. Room 101 contains the worst thing in the world. That differs from person to person. It may be burial alive, rat attacks, or even something quite trivial.'
A man entered carrying a laptop and placed it opposite Smith. Tapping a few keys, O'Brien opened some files in a text editor. Smith recognised them immediately; they were from apps he had built without a State Machine. He broke out in a cold sweat.
'In your case Smith, the worst thing in the world is an app without a State Machine. Tell me about this code.'
Smith tried to swallow his panic and speak slowly. 'Frameworks make software development simpler, but the possibilities they create increases demand for complexity. State Machines simplify apps by reducing them to discreet states, thus improving development, stability and scaleability. Applications without State Machines are a nightmare.'
'OK Smith, I will spare your pain and not run this app,' said O'Brien, closing the laptop 'but there is a condition. You must come to The Werks on Tuesday 9th March at 7pm and share everything you know about State Machines. And in a general way that all software developers can relate to, not ActionScript specific. OK?'
'Yes' agreed Smith, and breathed again. O'Brien turned, walked out, and quietly ordered a guard outside to free Smith.Added by , on Thursday February 25th, 2010