To educate, inform, inspire
Super Bowl 50 commercials
Yes, I watched Super Bowl 50 last night. No, I didn’t pay that much attention to the football. I think one of the teams won. I confess I really like the commercials. Rather than just watch the commercials, I thought I would do a bit of analysis. As we all […]
Read MoreA cautionary tale
I recently experienced a situation which has several “lessons learned” and I thought I would share. Since many readers of these articles are students and former students, you may benefit from this experience. The saga began in late December, 2015. My wife got a phone call alleging to be from […]
Read MoreText editors
This week we start the spring, 2016 semester at school. Sometimes, it is best to step back and look at those simple, little things we can do to improve. Using a text editor is one such example. For students just getting started, you will come to learn that it is […]
Read MorePhilips HUE API
My first weblog post in 2016 focused on the basics of using the Philips Hue lighting system. As I mentioned, one of the features of this environment is the ability to interact with the RESTful API via a web interface. You need to determine the IP address of the bridge […]
Read MorePhilips HUE and Internet of Things
One of the presents I received over the holidays was a Philips Hue starter kit. [Thanks again, Ben and Lindsay.] I had been thinking about getting one of these myself. As you may suspect, I am always keen to learn new technologies and approaches. For those who may not be […]
Read MoreFloid
I have been working with an interaction design tool called Floid. Presently, it is only available for the Mac platform. This tool is easy to use to develop working prototypes of various apps and web pages. The generated code is HTML5 (and validates). I developed a very simple example to […]
Read MoreMS Azure and Dreamspark
If you are a student in our CMWEB program, you have access to the MS Dreamspark website for MS software you can use for academic purposes. Each semester (a few weeks after the semester begins), you receive an email notification with details on how you can access this resource. One […]
Read MoreStyling SVG
We have had several discussions about styling SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) at our recent WebProfessionals meetings. I also recently completed a short course at lynda.com on this same topic. I thought it would be appropriate to develop a weblog post on this topic (especially since we will be covering SVG […]
Read MorePhishing = Fraud
Some of you may know that I serve as a reviewer for the SANS OUCH newsletter. The next issue will deal with the subject of phishing. I thought it might be appropriate to also add a little information in my weblog about this topic. Perhaps you will enjoy reading this […]
Read MoreUX Rebels Summit overview
I had the opportunity to participate in the UX Rebel’s Summit this week [Nov. 17, 2015] (hosted by Christopher Schmitt). I found this to be a great online event and wanted to share some insights and thoughts from the event. Keep in mind, I have 189 pages of screen captures […]
Read MoreRules to think about
We are near the midpoint of the fall semester at school. From time to time, I observe certain things and thought it might be helpful to put these together as a set of “rules” to think about – particularly for students in the CMWEB program at school. Of course, these […]
Read MoreBlueMix part 2
A few months ago, I did a brief overview of the IBM BlueMix facility. Now that we are starting to cover mobile app development in earnest in our CMWEB 280 class, I thought it might be appropriate to revisit the facility and discuss it in a bit more detail. There […]
Read MoreDark Web Overview
Based on a recent article in Wired Magazine, I thought it might be helpful to touch on the “dark web” a bit. After all, I do teach CMWEB 270 (Web Application Security) and often talk about the dark alleys on the Internet. But, first, a few disclaimers. Seriously. I do […]
Read MoreCaptivate Draft
Adobe recently released a new version of Captivate (9) for both Mac and Windows computers. Along with the desktop version, there is now a free iOS app available – Captivate Draft. Essentially, this allows you to create learning modules in environments where a laptop might be impractical. You can also […]
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