I previously used Powerpoint to manually create roadmaps and make them somewhat pleasing to the eye and easy-to-read.  This was pretty painful – because every time a date changed, I needed to hand update the milestone markers, labels, and overall chart.  When we started to use html to build our presentations, things got even more time consuming.  So I started looking for a JavaScript library that could help me easily create and update html-based roadmaps. I found a couple of projects that looked like they had potential, including Timeline, but these are focused on reviewing material that happened in the past, and usually more about being interactive – with pictures and/or very small text.  That doesn’t necessary work well for a presentation.

When @brianleroux tweeted about Envision.js, a library for creating fast, dynamic and interactive HTML5 visualizations, I took a look. Envision.js is built on Flotr2, a very cool visualization library.  Envision.js didn’t do exactly what I wanted, but I figured that with some modifications I could modify it to do what I wanted.  So I forked it and gave it a try! It’s still a work in progress, but I’ve got it to a place where it can practically be used, although it’s still not as elegant as I’d like.  Below is a screenshot.

Since this is based on Envision.js, you can also interact with the roadmap – by zooming in to certain areas of time, or zooming out to get a bigger picture of what’s going on.  Here’s a quick screencast of the interaction.

You can play with the work-in-progress by forking it on Github. My next steps are to deal with marker labels when the markers are too close together. Also, I want to make sure that most, if not all, of the visual attributes can be controlled via CSS, or at least in CSS + one JavaScript file. Please let me know what you think, and feel free to contribute!

It’s been four months since I moved from a Windows to a Mac machine.  I really like the macbook air.  But Outlook 2011 for the Mac is driving me crazy.  It keeps giving me incomprehensible error messages like “unknown error” or “end of file was reached”.  It mangles my meeting invites.  It looses attachments.  It makes me restart every time I change networks otherwise it’s “Not connected”.  It’s terribly slow. It kept me from doing my tax return (okay, that’s not Outlook’s fault. I was just procrastinating).  And for some inexplicable reason it was always 10-15 minutes behind my actual inbox – my mail in Outlook on a VMWare machine always gets mail faster than the Mac version.

I started looking into alternatives.  Apple’s Mail.app looks pretty good, but it’s not customizable enough.  Mozilla Thunderbird, which I use for personal mail, is very customizable.  But due to the way things are set up with Exchange, it seems I would have to go through hoops to download mail when outside the Adobe network if I used it.  I also looked to see if there were new versions of the Emacs mail readers I used to use like Mew and Wanderlust.  Unfortunately Wanderlust isn’t maintained, and as far as I can tell Mew doesn’t have full support of HTML mail which a lot of people around the office use.

After a few days of pondering, I decide to go back ot using Outlook on Windows, in a VM.  I was already using it for doing some calendaring things that Outlook on Mac doesn’t support. It’s fast. It’s written to work well with Exchange (well, as good as possible I suppose).  Calendaring actually works – unlike with the Mac version.  And it’s much more feature-rich and customizable.

One thing I’ve gotten used to with Outlook on the Mac, though, are the Emacs key bindings.  As an avid Emacs user for just about everything (unfortunately, as mentioned above, no longer for mail though…), this has been working great for me and makes me more productive.  So I decided to see if I could customize Outlook on Windows with all the key bindings that I wanted, and succeeded! I found an open source tool called AutoHotKey that allows for setting up macros and shortcut keys.

It works great so far.  I probably still have a lot of tweaking to do, but thanks to the AutoHotKey documentation I’m up and running.  For anyone interested, below is the filtering code for Outlook windows and controls as well as the key bindings I’m using.  In case you’re wondering, a few of the mappings are from Wanderlust, an emacs mail reader mentioned above that I used to use.

Let me know if it’s useful for you and/or if you have some better ideas for my mail and calendaring needs!

;; Sets up partial matching for window titles

SetTitleMatchMode 2

;; Use these keys when the main outlook window has focus

#IfWinActive ahk_class rctrl_renwnd32, NUIDocumentWindow
  ^n::Send {down}
  ^p::Send {up}
  ^f::Send {right}
  ^b::Send {left}
  ^g::Send {esc}
  ^s::Send ^!k ;; search this folder
  ^a::Send {home}
  ^e::Send {end}
  w::
    if ActiveControlIsOfClass("SUPERGRID") ;; if the inbox control has focus otherwise send the default
      Send ^M ;; write a new message
    else
      Send w
    return
  o::
    if ActiveControlIsOfClass("SUPERGRID") 
      Send ^V ;; refile a message
    else
      Send o
    return
  +f::Send !4 ;; folllow-up later
  f::
    if ActiveControlIsOfClass("SUPERGRID") 
      Send !6 ;; forward
    else
      Send f
    return
  !1::Send ^1 ;; Mail pane ;; map command-1 to ctrl-1 because I'm used to command 1
  !2::Send ^2 ;; Calendar pane
  ^d::
    if ActiveControlIsOfClass("SUPERGRID") 
      Send ^d
    else
      Send {delete}
    return
#IfWinActive

;; Use these keys if focus is on a new message
#IfWinActive ahk_class rctrl_renwnd32, Message
  ^n::Send {down}
  ^p::Send {up}
  ^f::Send {right}
  ^b::Send {left}
  ^a::Send {home}
  ^e::Send {end} ;; search
  ^d::Send {delete}
#IfWinActive

Many moons ago I was a Mac user.  I used to be the system admin for a printing company in Japan, and all they used was Macs.  That was long before Mac OS X.  When I switched companies and was developing software, I used Linux (Debian) and Windows.  After I joined Adobe, I started using Windows everyday. I had to do a lot of travelling, and Windows Laptops were the lightest around (I couldn’t give up Emacs, though, so I used Meadow).

When I was recently looking for a new laptop, I took a look at the new MacBook Air.  The battery life, screen size, and weight seemed to hit the right spot, so I decided to give it a try.

Below are some of the apps I installed and some other settings I changed in order to make my new Mac feel more comfortable.

The apps

Here are the apps I installed on my new Mac:

1. RightZoom
   RightZoom changes the maximize behavior of Mac windows. The normal MacOS behavior makes no sense to me. With the default behavior, I press the green button and it adjusts to some size based on no apparent logic.  Once RightZoom is installed, it works a lot better. It maximizes the window. Go figure.
2. Aquamacs
   Emacs for MacOS
3. Chrome
4. Xmarks for Safari and Chrome
   Keeps my bookmarks synced across all my browsers and computers (I still have a Windows machine at home)
5. Microsoft Office
   Outlook could be better. But all the basics work.
6. Adium
   One IM client to work for all of my accounts!
7. Quicksilver
   Allows setting keyboard shortcuts to launch applications.  A bit unstable, but usually works.
8. Caffeine
   Allows you turn off energy saving settings with one click. This is great for screen sharing, keeping your screen alive when viewing a document, and watching movies. Also good if you’re doing something that might take overnight, like copying lots of files from another computer.

Other settings

I like my new MacBook.  It’s light, the battery lasts, and it’s pretty stable.  It’s not perfect. For instance, the brightness buttons don’t always work. But all-in-all, I’m happy to be relearning the Mac.  And I like that I have a real command shell built-in.

What apps have you installed and what settings have you changed to make your Mac feel more like home? Leave a comment and let me know!