Indexed GIFs Cannot Be Displayed by Browsers

To save everyone else from wasting a day of their life on this, if you're getting "the image cannot be displayed because it contains errors" messages in Firefox, don't spend hours of your life trying to figure out what's wrong with your code. Check the images first.

I'm working on an application that displays images (GIFs) from a document scanning system, and due to where the images are located in relation to the webapp, I'm using CFCONTENT to display them. No matter what I tried, I could not get the images to display properly.

After much head bashing (my poor wall) I decided to grab some of the images directly. To my surprise, they couldn't even be displayed in the default image viewer in Ubuntu.

The GIMP to the rescue. I opened one of the GIFs in GIMP and they're all indexed GIFs. I changed the mode from indexed to grayscale and saved the GIF, and voila, all is right with the world. So my very hard learned lesson of today is that indexed GIFs cannot be displayed by browsers.

Good thing it's a long weekend and Open Source Bridge is next week, because clearly I need a break.

Oil reaches Louisiana shores – The Big Picture

via boston.com

All of the images of the aftermath of the STILL ongoing oil spill from boston.com are amazing, but this one really hit me. If we don’t learn big time from this one and make serious changes in what we’re doing, we deserve nothing less than what we get.

It’s too bad we humans have the astoundingly bad combination of tremendous power and even more tremendous stupidity, because it’s the animals and the environment that take the hit.

xkcd: Infrastructures

via xkcd.com

Todd Rafferty sent this my way on Twitter. Kind of reminds me of someone … 😉

CFMeetup this Thursday! “Living in the Cloud: CFML Apps on Google App Engine”

Our 12pm (US ET) talk on Thursday May 20 will be “Living in the Cloud: CFML Apps on Google App Engine”, with Matt Woodward & Peter Farrell.

TOPIC DESCRIPTION: (provided by the speaker)

If you want to take advantage of the power of cloud computing but want to focus on applications instead of server infrastructure, you owe it to yourself to check out Google App Engine. Google App Engine lets you deploy applications to Google’s infrastructure with the push of a button, and the best part is that for many applications it’s entirely free of cost.

In this presentation we’ll discuss both the benefits and downsides of living in the cloud, outline how Google App Engine differs from other cloud solutions, and demonstrate how to build and deploy a simple CFML application to Google App Engine using Open BlueDragon, which is the only CFML engine compatible with Google App Engine.

If you’re interested in running your CFML applications in the cloud come get in on the ground floor, because with a few simple tips and tricks, it’s all clear skies.

via meetup.com

Peter Farrell and I will be doing our OpenBD on Google App Engine presentation from cf.Objective() on the CFMeetup this Thursday at noon Eastern. See you there!

Moving to the Cloud | The White House

Recovery.gov is the first government-wide system to move to the cloud. The move is part of the Administration’s overall efforts to cut waste and fix or end government programs that don’t work. By migrating to the public cloud, the Recovery Board is in position to leverage many advantages including the ability keep the site up as millions of Americans help report potential fraud, waste, and abuse. The Board expects savings of about $750,000 during its current budget cycle and significantly more savings in the long-term.

via whitehouse.gov

I continue to be pleasantly shocked when I see how progressive the current administration is with information technology. Very cool stuff.

Decentralize the web with Diaspora — Kickstarter

via kickstarter.com

Personally I think Diaspora is vital to the future of social networking on the web, so I donated to the project on Kickstarter. The guys behind it are very passionate about the project and I think the goals are amazing: let you share what you want bur your data remains yours. I can’t wait to see where this goes.

Creating a Network Like Facebook, Only Private – NYTimes.com

A few months back, four geeky college students, living on pizza in a computer lab downtown on Mercer Street, decided to build a social network that wouldn’t force people to surrender their privacy to a big business. It would take three or four months to write the code, and they would need a few thousand dollars each to live on.

They gave themselves 39 days to raise $10,000, using an online site, Kickstarter, that helps creative people find support.

It turned out that just about all they had to do was whisper their plans.

via nytimes.com

And so the backlash begins–I’ve been predicting for a long time that the era of “privacy is dead” wouldn’t last, and the shot heard ’round the world in this case was Facebook’s recent actions around privacy.

I applaud these guys for taking this on. Someone needed to and I think there will be a pretty huge uptake of this before long. Make sure and read the transcript of Eben Moglen’s “Freedom in the Cloud” talk if you haven’t already. Great food for thought.

We’re Hiring! (Jobs @ AW2.0)

We’ve been working hard at aw2.0 to build a strong solid foundation and our future is strong and exciting.  OpenBlueDragon has been a resounding success and coupled with a number of our portfolio companies, we are looking to expand and are looking to recruit both senior and junior roles in the Java and CFML/ColdFusion world.

An opportunity to grow a small dynamic team, you will enjoy the buzz and the excitement within a company that is focused on getting things done the right way.   Proper software engineering principals with no short cuts.  We can’t afford short cuts, the projects we work on involve billions of requests per month and terrabytes of data.   If you want to learn and get involved for scale, then we are for you.

Utilising the latest cloud technologies we push the boundaries far and are continually evaluating the latest services and offerings to see how we can maybe deploy these for our clients at a later date.

Our work is exclusively for the equity/venture capital world, supporting portfolio companies.

Location Location Location

We are based in one of the most beautiful areas of Scotland, in the southwest town of Dumfries.  The quality of life is much more laid back with none of the hussle bussle of the city, no rush hour, and no pollution.   The cost of living is significantly reduced compared to the rest of the UK, and you’ll find your hard earned money going a lot further here.  But don’t worry, you’ll find our package worthy of city rates.

With good rail and road links you are never too far away from the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is where we do a lot of travelling.   Opportunities for international travel is available, so make sure your passport is valid!

Opportunities

We are looking for the following roles:

• 1 x Senior Java Developer
• 2 x Junior Java Developer
• 1 x Senior Web Developer (ColdFusion/CFML)
• 2 x Junior Web Developer (ColdFusion/CFML)

Our recent hires are quoted as saying: “best job I have ever had”

By the way, if you are happy in your current role but you know someone who could fit the bill, then please pass their resume to us, and if we end up hiring them, we’ll give you £500 bounty for your trouble!

via jobs.aw20.co.uk

If you’re in Scotland these are fantastic opportunities! Based on my interactions with Alan and Andy on the OpenBD project I can see why their recent hires would say it’s the best job they’ve ever had. And if you’re interested into getting into cloud computing in a big way, there’s no one more on the frontlines of cloud computing than AW2.0.

Take Action: Tuesday May 4th, is the Day Against DRM | DefectiveByDesign.org

Today is about taking time out of your usual routine to speak out in favor of a DRM-free society. We do not have to accept a future where our interactions with computers and published works are monitored and controlled by corporations or governments.

via defectivebydesign.org

Here’s my suggestion for an action item: free yourself completely from iTunes. I can’t even begin to tell you how much easier it is dealing with all my media since I got completely off of iTunes over a year ago.

Refuse to continue to buy DRMed media and it’ll go away. eMusic, the Ubuntu One Music Store, and Amazon’s MP3 store are all great places to get the music you want without putting up with DRM.

Adobe ColdFusion Anthology Now Available

via amazon.com

Congratulations to Michael and Judith Dinowitz and to all the authors involved for putting together such a fantastic resource that all CFML developers must have on their bookshelves.

I’m proud to have played a small part in this project by updating my “Mach-II Fundamentals” article which appears as chapter 26. Can’t wait to see the actual print version!