Since this is my first time at South By Southwest (SXSW), I figured it would be a good idea to write about my experiences for others who are contemplating going in the future and also, make sure I don’t forget anything that I picked up during my trip.  If you’ve never heard of SXSW, it’s an interactive, film and music conference and festival every year in Austin, TX.  As someone who works for a .com and made the first 7 years of my career as a web developer, I came here specially to attend the interactive part. Let me sum up the last 4 days with one word: exhausting. And that’s with skipping the first full day!

Our technology team has what we call “Think Days”.  Essentially, it’s one full work day every other week where the developers are allowed to research any topic that may or may not be related to the current projects that they are assigned.  The best way that I can explain SXSW is that it’s Think Day on crack.  It’s definitely a place for information overload but in a good way.

During the day, you have a number of choices of different sessions that you can choose from at various locations in downtown Austin.  It’s a little bit of a challenge to pick which session is the right one for you.  It reminded me alot of what it was like to pick classes during my undergrad days.  Since some of the locations were much farther than the others, you had to decide if you had enough time to hop between locations and if it was generally worth the time and effort.  I found that the shuttles that were supposed to take you to the various hotels was not very efficient so I kept my sessions down to only three locations.  There were definitely more than a few that were at one location that I wish I could have attended but it would have basically cost me 2 additional sessions, one before and after, with just the time it would take to travel back and forth.

Despite that, overall, I would definitely recommend going… and it’s not just because it was a nice break from the Chicago winter.  It was quite an experience.   For someone who likes to be creative and whose job is to come up with new ideas, whether it be for new ways to improve existing products or to come up with totally new ones, it felt fantastic to be surrounded by people who shared similar interests (i.e. big geeks) and were able to stimulate my mind with a thousand new ideas that I can take back to my company.

Because there’s way too much information to share for one, it’s probably best if I split up my writeup of each day as a separate post.  Some days were better than others but I can say without hesitation that every single session generated some new thought.

Oh and one more thing, I used Twitter more in the last few days (you can follow me at @okaychamp) than I have in the first so many months that I have had an account.  It was without a doubt the communication channel of choice for the conference without even being sponsored by them.

Okay… first, if you don’t know what a browser is (don’t feel ashamed if you don’t – and no, it is not Google) but a browser is a program that allows you to access websites.  Here’s a quick video explanation:

The 4 most popular web browsers are: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari.  Internet Explorer is the most dominant at 60% of the market (which is much lower than I was actually expecting), followed by 20% Firefox, 8% Chrome and 7% Safari.  The latest versions of all 4 of these browsers allow you to add extensions.

As a web developer, extensions have become very important with helping me get through everyday things – mostly with debugging (i.e. finding issues).  These are a few notable ones that I find the most useful.

1. Firebug (Firefox and Chrome)

Firebug is definitely one that’s catered for developers.  For front end developers, it’s great to inspect HTML and modify the style and layout of a page in real-time.  For other developers, it’s great for debugging javascript.  (Again, don’t worry if those last two sentences mean nothing to you.)  Now, I’m not condoning this BUT I’ve found a non-developer use for photo websites where they purposefully try to prevent you from downloading their images.  Using the tool, you can use the “inspect” function to hover over the images and expose the web address for the photo (i.e. the location for the .GIF or .JPEG) so that you can copy it into another window, open and download the image directly.

2. Screen Capture (Chrome) and Screengrab (Firefox)

Both of these are nice screen capture extensions.  Yes, you can take screenshots by pressing CTRL + PrintScr (or ALT + PrintScr for a specific window only) but these are much better.  For one thing, they allow you to choose between just capturing the visible content (which CTRL + PrintScr only allows), the whole page or even just a specific region.  Screen Capture also has an additional feature that allows you to highlight/underline certain areas in your screenshot.

3. FireFTP

First, FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol.  FTP clients are used to copy one file from one host to another.  So whether you have your own web hosting account or you are trying to access someone else’s, a FTP client lets you move files to and from that host.  FireFTP is nice because you don’t have to install another standalone FTP client, such as SmartFTP or WS_FTP.  Instead, you can easily open it directly as another tab right in your browser.

4. Web Developer (Firefox and Chrome) and IE Developer Toolbar (IE Versions 7 or Less)

This one is probably not for the non-developer.  However for us code monkeys, it’s great for allowing real-time CSS and HTML editing.  You can display the ruler to measure specific areas on the page.  You can toggle certain features like cookies, javascript, images, etc.  You can have it display all sorts of information about the anchors, ids, class names, tab index, etc.  It makes it easy to clear your cache, cookies and other private information.  You can use it to resize your browser window to a specific size.   You can validate your HTML, CSS, Feed; validate if you are 508 compliant even.  It’s definitely a time saver for things that might have previously required you to go line by line through the code.

For IE 8 users, you don’t need to install a separate toolbar.  It automatically comes as part of the browser.  You can find it under “Tools” -> “Developer Tools” or just press F12.

5. HttpWatch (IE and Firefox) or HttpFox (Firefox)

This one also is mostly for developers also.  It’s great for monitoring how your website loads.  If you were ever wondering if a certain element was slowing your site down, you’ll be able to see exactly in the order that it is loaded on the page and how long it took.  You can also see other details in the headers and cookies.

First… get your mind out of the gutter… this has nothing to do with what you think it does.  The Rasterbator actually is a pretty cool site/tool that I forgot about until it recently came up in conversation.  Anyways, what it does is it allows you to take any image and turn it into a dot matrix so that you can blow it up across multiple sheets of paper to wall size if you wanted to.  You have two options to use: their online version or download it.  The self-install is better if you have a larger image as it doesn’t have any size restrictions.  I believe you can customize the number of sheets of paper and also if you want it in color or grayscale.  Mostly, we’ve used it for office pranks such as when my former boss’ wife had a baby, we photoshoped one of our co-worker’s heads on a baby body for a congratulations sign.  Or when we photoshoped another co-worker’s head on an image of a person wearing a unitard and the boys put in in the bathroom stalls.

Have fun!

Most people use only Windows Media Player or Quicktime/iTunes for their media playback.  But have you ever received a file like an .avi, .flv, .bin or .cue that you couldn’t get to work?  Well, then you should download VLC Media Player.  It’s open source so it’s free to use, unlike with quicktime you have to purchase the Pro version in order to unlock some of its advanced features.  I’ve been using this program for a number of years now and it’s only gotten better with time since not only does it allow you play almost any media file (audio or video), but it also now allows you to convert files.  (Which yes, if you use Free Music Zilla or other programs to download .flvs from YouTube, you can convert them to .mp3s to put on your iPod or phone.)  It also has a  streaming function that I’ve never tried but I’m sure it works just as well its other features.  Now, it’s not as svelt looking as the other players but does it really matter when it’s does so much?

I don’t know how much of an issue this is for most people but I thought I would write about it anyways since it came up with my sister.  Anyways, netbooks are definitely growing in popularity.  They’re really small, cheap and basically fit the needs of most people.  I, personally, think they are a better purchase then getting the TamPod, I mean, iPad.  One thing about netbooks is that they don’t have a CD/DVD drive.  Don’t think that limits you to do anything.  My sister recently asked me if I could get her a copy of Microsoft Office and save her a couple hundred dollars since her new computer only came with a trial version.  I just happen to have an MSDN subscription so I can download pretty much all the latest and some older stuff from Microsoft for free and with more licenses than I would ever use just for myself.  The only bump was that I had to download the program as an .iso.  If you don’t know, that’s the format of a disc image for a CD/DVD.  Usually, I would burn that image onto a CD and execute from there but I obviously couldn’t since she didn’t have a CD drive.  So what did I do?  First, I downloaded the .iso file onto her USB flash drive.  (It’s amazing how cheap you can get these things now for plenty of space – and they’re so tiny!)  Then, I downloaded a program called PowerISO.  Basically, what this program allows you to do is create a virtual drive on your computer and mount the .iso file to it.  When you go to your “My Computer”, it looks just as if you actually have a CD drive installed and can run the program right from there.  The program is free as a trial which if you’re just extracting and mounting files then it’s fine.  The only thing you would want to purchase the full program for is if you were planning on creating an image over 300 MB which most people aren’t (plus, there are other free programs you can use for that too).

A friend of mine emailed me yesterday asking me if I had heard of LogMeIn.  I forgot that I had been using it since the beginning of the year and probably should write something about it since it’s been a pretty useful tool.   Basically, it’s a program that allows me to remotely access my home computer from pretty much anywhere I have an internet connection.  All I had to do was install the program on whichever computer was the one I wanted to access.  It took just a few minutes.  Oh yeah, and it’s free.  You can upgrade to the Pro2 version for a fee which offers additional features such as document transfer, printing, and sound.  You can try out their free trial before you decide to purchase.  (I actually installed the Pro trial and it says it was supposed to expire back in February but it seems like  when I log in I’m still using that version… so kudos for that.)  If you’re someone like me who automatically becomes everyone’s default helpdesk because you so happen to work in a related field, I recommend checking out LogMeIn to aid you in that process.

I haven’t tried their VPN product called Hamachi yet but I hear it’s pretty good as well.

I think most people know that if you want to take a screenshot of your desktop, all you need to hit is CTRL + Print Screen.  But did you know if you hit ALT + Print Screen, it just takes a screenshot of the one active window?  This method makes it much easier when you get an error message that you want to include in your email to your helpdesk team and you don’t want to show every program you have currently open.

Also, if you use Firefox, I’ve found the Screengrab! plugin quite handy when you have a very long web page that you want to completely capture rather than just the visible portion on the screen.

So apparently Microsoft is trying to generate buzz about their Internet Explorer 8 browser with a new ad campaign, which based on the one below fails.

1) It’s just gross.

2) The feature they are touting has been apart of other browsers for quite some time.

3) If you check the source code for microsoft.com and msn.com, you’ll find that even they need a  meta tag that puts the page into IE7 compatibility mode to prevent it from looking completely haywire.

4) Seriously, Dean Cain?  I hope they paid you alot of money.

Watch out that Microsoft sneaks the IE8 upgrade with those “critical” automatic updates.  If you choose the Custom Install option, you’ll be able to see it and de-select it.

Take my advice kiddies, download the new Safari 4 or Firefox 3.5 browsers instead.  You won’t be disappointed.  Oh yeah, and they both have private browsing.

Yes, I know.  It’s been a while since I have posted anything.  But I finally have something worthy that I definitely wanted to get out there to recommend to the people who actually follow this site… ProShow Gold.

Here’s the story behind it: my cousin and her fiance (well now, husband) asked me to put together a wedding website for them.  With our family being the size that it is and people coming from all over the country (and even across the pond), they wanted to be able to keep everyone up to date quickly and easily about all the events surrounding the wedding.  Working full time and also going to school for my MBA leaves me very little time for much else, but I was still able to quickly put together something custom and be of a quality I could live with.  The result: www.chasandmatt.com.  But no, my work was not done just yet.  I also created and sent their “Save the Date” email and also the invite to the rehearsal cocktail reception.  But still, I was not done.  They needed me to put together a slideshow for the rehearsal reception also.  Now, I could have done something quick using Powerpoint but this is my favorite cousin (and Matt’s okay too I guess even though he’s a Red Sox fan – j/k Matty) and I wanted to make it special for them.  So after some searching around, I finally found ProShow Gold.  I started with their 15 day free trial download and was hooked.   The animations were great and it seemed super easy for me to use.  The result turned out fantastic and everyone enjoyed it, especially Chas and Matt.  I only used photos for the slideshow, but after the wedding, I was able to use it to make their wedding DVD of a combination of the many photos everyone took that day along with video.  There are actually two versions of ProShow, Gold and Professional, but of course being a novice and someone not going to use it all the time, the Gold was just fine for me.  You should check out their website as it has other products, including classes and plugins, and you can see demos of what others have produced using it.  So if you’re looking for something to make you presentation more professional, I definitely recommend it.

Rehearsal Slideshow from champ20 on Vimeo.

Considering I use multiple IM clients for personal and work purposes, I was looking into an app that would allow me to combine them into one rather than having at least 4 separate ones taking up my screen. At first I used Trillian (because it was the only one available a few years ago) which did work well. It allowed me to combine my AIM, Yahoo, and MSN accounts. But now with Facebook and MySpace having their own chat services, I needed something new to integrate those (since Trillian Astra is still not available to everyone). I tried Pidgin and it was alright. Some basic features had to be installed as plugins (which wasn’t as simple as I would have hoped). So then I tried Digsby and I thought it was great. No more do I have to try to chat with my friends on Facebook in that small tiny window only when I am actually looking at the website. The client allows you to see also which friends are from what service by putting a little icon for facebook, AIM, etc . overlapping their profile icon. Also, you just have to mouseover the person’s name to see additional profile info rather than having to right clickand choose a separate option. I have yet to try adding plugins so I will have to do an update later on that.

But for now, I recommend downloading Digsby and see for yourself all of its benefits:

http://www.digsby.com/