That's it, my internship is over since last Friday.

Almost one year by Fluidesign to program, develop, integrate, learn.

I really progressed in JavaScript and Ajax Ajax with jQuery that I can't leave anymore. I also learnt many about HTML/CSS integration, thanks to PJ to whom I always asked his mind.

Anyway, it was one year of happiness with fabulous people. The last weeks looked like holidays for everybody (too bad, they're going to work on Monday...).

To not forget all the website I worked in, here is an alphabetical listing of them with a tweak description of what I've done.

• Amandine Café: Navigation by Ajax
• Amber Ridge: The first website I worked on to update some photos and copies
• Athletes: a few PHP and JavaScript debug
• Broad Academy and Broad Residency: Weekly text and image updates
• California Apparel News: Adding PHP functionalities and HTML/CSS updating
• Coral Tree Café: Contact form debugging
• Coupon Chief: PHP and JavaScript debug, HTML/CSS integration of the blog
• First Announcement: Adding functionnalities (Crop Image) and PHP/JavaScript debug
• Gameworks: Adding functionnalities in the backend, Flash, HTML, and CSS updates
• Infinity Studios: PHP Debug (OsCommerce)
• It's Hospitality: Adding functionalities, templates creating, JavaScript, installing search using Zend Lucene. The website uses Symfony (I spent almost all my time on it during the last 6 months)
• Karma Fundation: Flash Debug and updating
• Karma Kandyland: Flash and HTML updating
• Kayne: Quarterly HTML/CSS Updates
• Lisa Kline: ASP.Net and JavaScript Debug
• Low Impact Living: Debug and Adding functionalities
• Not Neutral: HTML updates and uses of Campaign Monitor for the newsletter
• Regent Properties: HTML and Flash updates
• Rimi Security: whole PHP development
• Say Het There: whole PHP and JavaScript development
• Sinai Temple: PHP Debug and HTML updates
• Temple Emmanuel of Beverly Hills: HTML updates
• Tripkick: PHP and JavaScript development of the frontend using CakePHP
• Wessco: PHP and HTML updaes

You could think it's not a lot for one year. But as I said, It's Hospilaty took me a lot of time because it's really huge.

One more time, I'd like to thanks all the Fluidesign team who was really great during all my internship.

Now I still have 3 weeks in USA. A friend is coming on Monday and we'll travel for a roadtrip which will unforgettable. (Yes you probably got it, you'll probably have more posts with a lot of text and photos...)

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Sometimes we don't want turn on the TV. We just want something else, another media. For that, Internet is great.

And when we want entertainement, we're going to youtube, daylimotion and we're letting us flow around the related videos.

But sometimes, we want still something else. Some video less OMG lol wtf. More artistic. More poetic maybe. For that, we can browse to vimeo. No need to search for a long time, the only video in the homepage are a real gold mine. I don't know if the HD make a lot, but these videos transport more emotion than the other videos we used to see.

Small selection of my vimeo session of this evenning (To watch the video in HD, you have to go to the vimeo page by using the corresponding link):

First an interssant effect and well done:

Then an other great idea:

Let's change of register with a weird guy we're following in his parties (at Los Angeles if I saw good)

Calmer with some classic music and a video format very atypic, which is fitting exactly with the need:

Shifting the scene and the music, direction South Africa:

Overall I really liked this video:

A little look at project Pedal to watch the other episodes could be a good idea. 

Where did all these creative people express themselves before the sharing video website?..

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• jQuery UI came out in final version and with it, we've got also the ThemeRoller which allow you to create and preview your own theme dymacally online. All the demo aren't yet available, but you can already have a preview of the animations here. My preferred is explode in 36 pieces
• TinyMCE cam out in version 3.1.0 today. Many bugs fixed.
• Symfony came out in version 1.1 RC2. Then some posts followed in their blog (and I'm sure others are on their way) regarding the new functionalities of this version
• phpMyAdmin came out in version 2.11-7-rc1
• MySQL wrote a post about Falcon (the next engine of MySQL 6) and its particularities by principally comparing to InnoDB. A quick look on this post could be a great idea
• the iPhone came out in version 2. Wow, it's now coming with 3G, what a new thing! (I have a 2 year old phone which do it...) I personally wait for the first Android which could came at the beginning of the first quarter
• Google Translate was refreshed last week. Note the new option to choose the origin language: "Detect automatic". I also like the new functionalities like the dictionary and the translated search!
• All the session of the last Google IO are available here. Take a time to saw some of them

Oh, I almost forgot. Today Firefox 3 came out and a world record is on the road! Go download it!

You can follow the number in real time (wait a little bit before the numbers start to animate) More than 4 millions and an half at this time!

Regarding the sport, today wasn't very cheerful (at least, from my point of view):

• The French was miserably eliminated in the Euro. Goodbye Domenech.
• The Lakers failed at the 6th game by loosing with 40 points! A sieve instead of defense and so many shoots missed. The Celtics played very well and was really the best. Kobe said: "The second place is the first place of the loosers..."

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2 months day for day after the first release of plugin nyroModal, it's time to make a first overview.

Let's start with some numbers:

• Visits: 28 800
• Unique Visitors: 23 660
• Pages viewed: 26 039
• 11 Releases (the 1.2.7 just came out)
• 2 859 download (and more made directly in the jQuery plugin page where there is no stats available)

The problem with this kind of script, you never know where it's used. I can't make a long list here.

• Tripkick: No glory here, I developed this website during my internship in Fluidesign
• Wedding website of Brock and Kristina: integrated by my colleague, I help him to correctly place the button. PJ spoke about it here
• Sling Media (Screenshot tab)
• Right here, for the pictures

And maybe elsewhere that I didn't hear about... If you're using it (or saw it somewhere), don't hesitate to write a quick comment here.

This is the first open-source script I did. And the experience is great, regarding the numbers shown aboce, and the quotes below. More than 2000 visits the second day after the first release. I didn't thought it could be so much in this time. Then the numbers calmed down to around 300 daily visits (less during the weekend).

I had a proposal from the New-York Times to integrate my script in a future website. But I didn't get any news...

If you still hesitate between open-source or keep it for you, especially for a javascript code, don't hesitate! If this script is good, you'll have some return for sure. Event if it's not directly in money or contract, you'll gain recognition from others developers, but more important, Experience! You'll learn that you have to make many tests (and maybe more...) before every releases, and retest everything everytime in every browser.

What the people said:

jarro:

Nice job, trying it on a site and so far works great.

Leo:

I dig your scripts - I like this clean & correct code Great work! Thanks for your nice work. Best wishes!

Clocal:

Oui félicitations ce plugin m'a l'air très bien, bonne doc, ça fait en plus plaisir de voir des français à l'oeuvre! Bonne continuation.

Jmc:

At this point i must congratulate and thank you for what i'd call the best modal plug-in for jquery EVER!!

C. Spenser Beggs (New-York Times):

I have been looking for an elegant modal box script and think that nyroModal is one of the best I have seen.

sunbeatn:

Thank you, and keep creating great scripts. Your contributions keep us newbies inspired.

A guy after reporting a bug:

Great! And thank you for a great plugin - it's been a real time saver!

Finally, the websites which linked:

• Un loup blessé pour a comparison modal script (French)
• AjaxRain (English)
• Planete OZH for another comparison (English)
• Coliss.com : a first post when it cames out, a second for a listing (Japanese)
• Blog.html.it for a small post on the jQuery plugin (Italian)
• DesignWalker for another listing (Japanese)
• Fxposter who explain he looked for a modal jQuery plugin. He found Thickbox but was disappointed because of the lack of personalization (Russian)
• Denis au fil du web, for a simple post/bookmark (French)
• Booto'Blog again for a listing (Japanese)
• Inovatis for another comparison (French)
• Giz style, one more time for a listing (Italian)
• Again a listing by LagunaBeach (Japanese)

And many others... The page was also bookmarked a lot, especially in delicious. The page went in the homepage for a few hours:

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For some reason, I have access to the google map beta version at maps.google.com.

The first , I just thought: "Well, that's cool, they refreshed a little bit google map by removing the ugly orange color by using the blue color bar they're now using everywhere". It was almost one week I see this version.

The first think I liked: the ability to hide the sidebar to show only the map. We got almost the same feature for the street view by putting it in fullscreen.

Then, the tab map, Businesses and directions are gone. To do that you just have to type the 2 addresses separate by 'to'. I like it, we don't have to click by writing directly what we need. I think you can already do that in the current version.

The access to the saved map is now done by click on the little arrow right aside the search field.

Overall there isn't too much changes on this new version regarding the new features.

I finally finished by answering to the survey to give my feedback. Notice here that the company who developped it is Confirmit. Weird, Google doesn't have the technical means to do this thing? (The survey is still hosted in the Google server)

Now, the screenshots (NB: I'm using a wildscreen) :

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It was long time since I didn't make a post like this one. And it's also the first one in English. Basically, I just put some info and links without any orders. So it's possible that some of theme are old...

• Android grows up pretty well. We can except the first real phone soon
• Facebook Connect will allow to add a social dimension to your website
• Firefox came out in version 3 RC1. The RC2 should come soon. If everything goes good, the finale version should come by the end of June
• Google changed his favicon. Do you like it? I do
• jQuery released 3 minor versions in a few time (1.2.6 at this time). They're working in the version 2 which is coming soon; a new version of the website will be done, a new logo and maybe the first final release of jQuery UI
• TinyMCE did the same, to fix many bugs. Right now it's the version 3.0.8

And some personal news, no reasons:

• The Lakers won yesterday the West Conference, it's official. First of the season, First of the playoffs, and the MVP for Kobe Bryant. They only have to win against the Celtics from Boston and they'll get everything this year
• My internship by Fluidesign ends in more than 1 month
• NyroModal was downloaded more than 2'000 times, the homepage was saw by more than 20'000 uniq visitors! A post is in preparation about that
• After some problems in the server of Amenothès, I decided to but my own dedicated server when I'll come back in France. If somebody has some good URLs or infos about the installation or configuration of Postfix, SpamAssassin, ClamAV or anything else which could be useful, don't hesitate to write a comment! I'll take a debian to play as I want with it

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As my brother came with a friend for a 2 weeks road trip around California and neighborhood states, I traveled with them for 4 days. 4 days to run on sunny roads, between deserts and mountains. 4 days, 4 posts.

Last day on the roads for me. Wake up smoothly at 8am to go soflty in Bryce Canyon Park and stop at many points of view. We're going to the last points, the higher which is far away. I didn't think the park was too big. In the road we're seeing many Mules deer. Once we're at the last point, we're eat breakfast with a gorgeous view. It's a little bit cold; we're at almost 8'000 feet. Then we're going back in the way by stopping in other points. We saw again some squirrels. There isn't too much to tell here. It's a beautiful park and all the points of view are different; each one offers a new view and a new particularity.

What a view! The vivid orange colors or gold form the Hoodoos -the verticals rocks- and the sun which enlightens everything in a magnificent contrast: orange from hoodoos, gold from rocks, green from trees, blue from the sky. I loved it. Amazed. I shoot many and many photos. As we planned last day, we're goind to the Sunset point to hike for 1 hour inside the canyon to see it in another way.

The way we're using is very abrupt, and go down in hair-pin curve in the gorge which going more and more narrow. The more we're goind down, the cooler. It's pleasant. It's weird to see some bigs trees are here in the middle of the gorge. Then we're leaving the gorge to arrive in larger place above trees and hoodos. The way going down slowly now. Once we're arrive at the bottom, we're using an other way to come back which is less abrupt. Here are the photos from the "l'expédition" inside the canyon:

It's almost 10 when we're finishing the walk. It's time for us to say goodbye to Bryce Canyon to reach Zion Park. After 2 hours of road, we're in. One more time it's a decor change. Here the greenery and coolness of the park are soothing. The park is a large gorge with a small river in its middle with a huge biodiversity around. the place is nice. Sadly We can't spent more than 2 hours here.

We arrived in the park by the top which is less green and cute. The more we're going down, the more desert atmosphere disappears to let place to the dense forest. As the interior of the park is closed for personal vehicles, some free buses could drive you from bottom to top to stop at points where you can start to walk or enjoy the canyon. We walked only 10 minutes to reach a small cascade. Then we took again the bus to go to the last point and eat our sandwiches aside the river around 1pm. On the big cliff which partitions the park some sportsman climbs in the middle of huge part very smooth. After some walking minutes we have to go back to be sure I can get my plain in time in Las Vegas this evening.

We're back in the parking. I prepare quickly my bag for the plane. Let's go to Las Vegas to take my flight.

I saw only the building and some casino exterior eccentricity in Las Vegas on the Strip. I didn't have time to gamble -maybe it's better. Las Vegas is really lost in the middle of the desert; there is absolutely nothing around the city. Photos took from the car:

After this short pass aside the casino, time for me to go to the airport. My SouthWest flight take off in time and I'm back at Los Angeles. Damien and François continue the road trip to San Francisco by stopping in more other parks. They will come back in LA one week later.

I keep many memories in my head. I'll probably make a new roadtrip in July to go to the park I couldn't go this time. and maybe come back in San Francisco without rain...

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