Connections

I had a real gigantic mental moment on Friday. I didn't invent something new or finish a gigantic project, nor was I visited by some higher power. I took two pieces of information that previously resided in my head and connected them. They were both there for weeks, waiting to be moved close enough together to interact, and when they did, I had a moment of clarity. Frontier 5, the best dual platform web content management system, has been available for both Macintosh and 32 bit Windows OS`s for a couple of weeks now. While Frontier 5 was in development, I avoided it. Beta's were posted, but I didn't download them. No time to play with beta software. I stepped up to the plate this week. Working diligently this weekend, I have begun the task of bringing Bump into the Frontier enviroment. It`s gonna be great when it is done.

On Friday, I got a new Windows NT tower on my desk at work. For the first time ever in my life, I have the opportunity to work with Windows and Macintosh computers in the same ability range. Its eye opening to see what NT does better than the Mac and vice versa. (That is a subject for another essay.) Suddenly, I am checking my checkbook to see if I can afford the same setup at home.(I can't) For the first time in my desktop computing life, there is no longer an other side of the fence. I see things as they are.

My web server (I am the administrator as well as the content builder) is also a Windows NT box. I have dedicated a ton of time over the last two months porting our interactive content and moving it from an out-of-house UNIX box to the NT box. In the process, I learned ColdFusion and its markup language, CFML. Frontier previously existed in my mind as a client side only tool. Suddenly, on Friday, I put together the fact that it is capable of many of the server side cartwheels I need it for too. Simple connection, but it blew my mind that I had previously missed it.