That’s right kids, I’m speaking at the 6th International AJAX World RIA Conference & Expo! I’ll be giving a session on server-side javascript, and how it will make your life better, your apps cooler, and your friends jealous!

Read the full entry for details on the session, but here’s a little introductory overview (for the sake of not re-writing everything, I have just copied and pasted the announcement)…

Server-side JavaScript (SSJS) is growing in popularity fast since developers realize it can drastically simplify Web app creation by letting you use using the same technology stack on both the client and the server. While server-side JavaScript is not new - it was a part of Netscape’s vision 10 years ago - times have significantly changed with 10x faster hardware and networks, making that original vision for the Web now a reality.

In this session delegates will learn how to:

• Overcome common hurdles and pitfalls of client-side only JavaScript development.
• Speed up development time by cutting out extra server-side code and processing scripts that are no longer necessary.
• Clean up your code base by reducing (or even eliminating) the number of languages needed to leverage to accomplish common tasks (i.e. Why bother with server-side PHP scripts to fetch database results when you can do it all in JavaScript on the server? Why mess with Curl to fetch content that your JavaScript code can grab in one line?)

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I’ve been stuck in somewhat of a rut blogging / personal development-wise for the past months for many reasons, none of which are all that negative. While I have enjoyed my time working on such sites as Cellware and some other projects for the last 10 months, I feel like I’ve lost sight of a lot of things that are important to me in my life. To that end, it’s time for some changes…

What’s New

I’ve accepted a position at Aptana, and will be working on some pretty cool stuff with some of the brightest people in the industry. Look for a lot of really interesting and exciting things to come as I spend more time with them. This position will require me to move across the country (Florida to California), and I’m looking forward to a change of scenery (and lifestyle).

What’s more relevant to most of my readers (thanks to everyone who visits), is what’s going to change with my content. I’ve decided to go over every article I’ve posted on here, and get rid of anything that I’m not happy with. This will take me some time, so please be patient as I work through everything. My goal is to have nothing but great content up, and none of the other half-assed or weak articles that are scattered throughout. I’ve also changed the look of the site and upgraded to the most recent version of Wordpress.

What’s Not New

The thumbnailer project is still up, and I hope to be able to update it soon. If you came here looking for it, just check out the projects page, and you’ll find your way to what you need. I’ve also decided to wipe out all the comments I’ve received. As much as I love everyone’s feedback, it’s entirely too difficult to port these over from the old blog, so I’ve decided to start over.

I’m very happy to be able to get back to doing what I love… learning new things, working with developers that are like-minded with me, and writing stuff that (hopefully) ends up helping people out. I’ve said it a million times, I’ve only made it to where I am in large part because of everything I’ve learned from the community on the web, and I feel it’s important that I give back and help everyone out in whatever ways I can. Stay tuned, as I’m going to be updating a lot more often, and working on some really cool things!

I’ve been using zend studio for quite some time now, and have found it to be extremely useful. My only compaint with it is that it’s written in java, but I do understand the cross-platform benefits of doing this. I’ve also heard from various people that they have issues with it lagging and crawling along, but never had any issue myself… until today. I just switched jobs, so I naturally needed to install studio on my new workstation. Well, wouldn’t you know, but I became one of those people. I did a lot of searching through many forums and came across many different things to try, but none of them seemed to work. Not being one to give up, I finally found the solution to my problem, and it was baffling to say the least. Oh well, problem solved, and I can get on with my day. However, to save everyone the time that I spent pouring over the forums, here’s a list of all the possible solutions for speeding up zend studio… (more…)