Monday, June 30, 2008
Every now and then my messages coming in over the socket seem to get stomped on. Meaning I get NaN for somethings, etc. The message is always delivered, but the contents are wonk.
Without including the class, things work great. I don't know if it's because localConnection and the socket running at the same time equals wonkiness or not, but I thought I'd put this information out there.
For now I'll have to debug via other means (perhaps my own debug class that uses simple statements to print out to an application GUI element within the application itself instead).
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Weird. I closed iTunes and now one track is still playing. So it was possible to initiate playback on more than one track at a time. Laptop must have gotten into a weird state before launching iTunes.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Plans for the weekend are set, yet already I am thinking to Monday and the modifications to the code base I plan on making. It almost ruins the weekend, it's my fault I know. But there is something magical about making things happen in software.
Have a great weekend, until Monday comes calling. Short week too with the Fourth of July celebrations and everything. God bless America.
I just returned from a 10:15PM showing of Wall•E (namely because of the kids, etc.) so I went into it pretty tired. The theater was PACKED, even at such a late showing. It had to be close to sold out, and this was one of the larger spaces in the theater (stadium seating).
Pixar really outdid themselves here. They took a big gamble with this film in my opinion... almost zero dialogue and they were forced to display emotion with pantomime. They did an incredible job.
The rendering and animation are gorgeous. I used to do a ton of 3D, and this stuff is amazing. They added oodles of atmospheric touches everywhere without making things look too real.
The emotion displayed is incredible and smooth. I looked for moments where the animators and scene artists took liberties for sake of completing the film and didn't find any... Pixar are masters of their craft. You can tell they love what they do by the attention to detail in everything. They add subtle motions and effects everywhere where they could have gotten away with some straight keyframing.
When Wall•E powers up (solar), the chime he emits when complete made the audience cheer every time. If you're a fanboy like me (and many in the audience), you'll recognize that chime immediately.
It's rated G, but there were a few parts in there that I think would have scared my son... so while it's rated G and 98% toddler friendly, just know that there is a tiny bit of gun play and explosions.
This is a great film. I'd see it again. Not just because I was dead tired watching it, but it's really wonderful on numerous levels.
*yawn* Time for some shuteye.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
It would be nice to somehow group these methods so I could easily expand & collapse sets of methods with a single click. What I mean here is folding triggers.
This would require another Panel in FlashDevelop. By default it would be empty.
Right-click on a folding marker, and you could Create And Add To Nesting Set, or Add To Nesting Set, or Remove From Nesting Set.
The panel would show the labels you give the sets and perhaps optionally the methods contained in it (a tree mb). You could simply use a check box to the left of the Set title in the panel to expand/collapse the Set easily. The panel would allow you to rename the set labels, etc.
I think this would be a big time saver. Thoughts?
The contents of the preview.html file:
<body>
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
id="Main" width="100%" height="100%"
codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/
current/swflash.cab">
<param name="movie" value="%@" />
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
<embed src="%@" quality="high"
width="100%" height="100%"
name="Main"
align="middle"
play="true"
loop="false"
allowScriptAccess="sameDomain"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer">
</embed>
</object>
</body>
The binary for the plugin must somehow pass that "%@" in there with a file path... but it seems like it's failing for me. Could this be a sandbox violation of some kind? I can't see what the binary is trying to do here. Pointing to a .cab file is pretty strange, ain't it?
The link to the plugin can be found right here (ZIP FILE).
Any insight would be cool... as a SWF Quicklook plugin would rock pretty hard.
Update:
I tried placing an image into the quicklook, and it ONLY works locally (inside the package)... calls to the web fail. So I know the HTML control is there, but the SWF itself doesn't seem to load at all yet.
I wish I knew who made this thing or if anyone had a little XCode Project I could peak at.
Update 2:
Screw it, I might just start developing my own in XCode. I hope it's not too difficult. I mean, it's an HTML control with a plugin call within it (I think). I just got a PDF from the Apple Developer Connection.
import flash.display.*;
versus
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.display.BitmapData;
...
I mean, using a wild-card in an import allows you to forget about being really specific and knowing the compiler will only include classes that you actually use in your application. Does it really matter as a point of coding style?
For me, the wild-card is more than acceptable. But I can see where some might like to see completely verbose imports to clear up any possible confusion for a someone else perusing the code.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Might be pretty cool to create a copy of a magazine and order one myself just to see how well it turns out. A kind of neat concept... could go hand-in-hand with podcast releases.
And it's been a few other sites that have sucker-punched my browsing face. Granted, there are a whole lot of Silverlight sites out there, I am looking for them (still). And they have been ready for me, ready to end my browsing temporarily.
Damn Silverlight...
This movie looks pretty fun, so I know the videos are of interest to me. Here are the links for your enjoyment. There are certainly lots & lots of them.
WALL•E – “Lots of Bots” Featurette
Quicktime:
High
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Medium
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Low
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Flash:
High
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
Medium
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
Low
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
Windows Media:
High
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
Medium
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
Low
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
iPod:
WALL•E – “A Space Journey In Sound” Featurette
Quicktime:
High
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Medium
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Low
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Flash:
High
Medium
Low
Windows Media:
High
Medium
Low
iPod:
WALL•E – “The Man & The Machine” Featurette
Quicktime:
High
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Medium
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Low
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Flash:
High
Medium
Low
Windows Media:
High
Medium
Low
iPod:
WALL•E – “Pixar Goes To Space” Featurette
Quicktime:
High
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Medium
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Low
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com
Flash:
High
Medium
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
Low
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
Windows Media:
High
Medium
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
Low
http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com
iPod:
var foo:Sprite = new ClassName;
That's cool if you're the only one who will ever look at the document class, but it makes others wonder where the hell that thing is coming from. Perhaps something declared like:
import $ide.ClassName;
Then you could use that asset ... or something to let the world know where that thing is coming from. I don't know the specifics of the ramifications of this, but sometimes I run into this myself. I set up an asset in the SWF and it's subclassing something (say Sprite) and it has it's own class name. It's then simply used in the document class. It confuses some other developers... they don't know where it came from until I tell them its in the Library set to export to that class name.
I suppose I could just link it to my own class for it and be done with it, but that's a bit of pain in the ass. Well, it can be if it's just a simple UI element.
So maybe something reserved so it's clear its not part of someone else's package. I don't know. It would help a bit... and on the topic of imports...
You can instantiate class objects in a class as long as the classes are all in the same package without using import statements... the compiler looks and finds them.
...
var foo:SomeClass = new SomeClass;
Without an import statement, you have to check the package directory and look for that class.
An import statement is best form in my opinion. Not importing saves you a few seconds of time but adds confusion to anyone else combing your code.
So my buddy Andrew wrote a bunch of classes in the scope of a larger application, and sent them over the fence to me via email. To see what he was doing, I printed the classes out and started marking up where they worked, etc. After ten minutes of doing that, I ran over to Andrew's cube and we just talked code for an hour. It was great to learn someone else's code quickly on the cuff, asking questions, making suggestions, etc.
I think I learned more about OOP and AS3 in that hour than I have in the past two weeks. All because I was starting with code I didn't write, didn't influence, and wanted to find out how it worked quickly. Sometimes we're all guilty of coding on our own cozy island and forget, as Neil Peart stated in Natural Science, "living in their pools they soon forget about the sea."
It's a great way to get yourself out of a little rut too. Andrew and I were coding up very similar stuff, but his take on it was somewhat different than mine. Made me think about what I was doing, what he did, and what we can combine it to make.
An awesome end to a Wednesday of coding.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
From: ---- --------
Sent: Monday, May 5, 2008 4:37 PM
To: Everyone
Subject: Server Room Access
Hi all.
As you all are aware, we have new tenants that have moved into the 2nd floor suites. The access to the server room is now via the women’s bathroom.
There will be a sign on the woman’s door that can be changed from OPEN to CLOSED and vice versa.
Should you need to enter the server room, please change the sign to CLOSED. Once you are done, please change it back to OPEN.
Once you enter the bathroom, you will be able to access the server room via the handicapped stall. Please close the stall door prior to entry, just in case someone doesn’t see that the bathroom is closed.
I know this isn’t ideal, but if we adhere to this protocol, I don’t think anyone will be disrupted.
Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions.
---- --------
Building Management
I'm holding on for July 11th when the iPhone drops, but my wife was shopping for a Blackberry at Verizon to replace her current phone for personal/work use. She knows I'm all about the iPhone, but I went to the store with her with an open mind. Honestly.
So we had a few models to look at, and the form factor of these things were okay. Not great, but they seem attractive enough. The models we saw were the kind with devoted qwerty and another with doubled-up ascii per button (yuk).
Diving into one (I don't remember which... Pearl, Curve?) I was immediately presented with about 20 icons on the home screen. I had to navigate around with one of those old IBM-like thumb ball controls. And the list of icons would scroll around on me when I hit an edge. Okay. Hard to use, but let's check out some messaging and email.
The font was ENORMOUS and ugly, and I tried using the settings to change it to something modestly attractive. All the fonts began with a "BB_" so it looks like these were custom fonts. Cool... maybe they spent the time to make some good ones. Yuk. None to be found.
Okay font ugliness aside, let's see how easy this thing is to use. After 15 minutes I came to the conclusion that I honestly felt like I was fighting with the phone to do anything. No, I didn't read a user manual, but should I really need to? It's a freakin' phone.
I picked up a Win Mobile phone and it was MUCH easier to use. I actually kind of liked some of it, probably only because I still have an ancient Toshiba PDA whose software looks like Win Mobile (even after all these many years).
Blackberry? I wouldn't take one if it were free. Too bad.
I have an N95 that suffers the same for me... sits unused because it's a freaking nightmare to use. Looks awesome and has tons of features. But right now it's main feature is preventing dust from settling in a 99 x 53 mm area on my desk.
My wife came to the same conclusion on her own after we met back up to talk about which model we liked the best. She had every intention of walking out of the store with a Blackberry of some flavor.
Unless the iPhone gets sweet Notes integration (Notes... yuk), she will probably pass on an iPhone. She could always use the browser to view emails, but that's lame. My suggestion without switching carriers and giving the iPhone a go would be Win Mobile.
My prediction though... when I get my iPhone, she's going to want to use it a lot, and probably snap one up too.
Monday, June 23, 2008
I almost drank water out of my adobe water bottle a few minutes ago. I left it at work over the weekend with some Crystal Light concoction in it.
I dumped the concoction out, filled it with water twice (the first being a lame rinse attempt), and went to take a long, cool drink when in the corner of my eye I noticed a little something floating on top.
Further investigation revealed to my horror that a family of spores had taken up residence at the bottom, awaiting my sickly ingestion. Holy cow, that was a really close call of a Monday nasty.
If I'd like to copy that Sprite and use it somewhere else too as a copy, I have to nest the Sprite in another Sprite so the registration point of the outer DisplayObject is 0, 0 and thus when I take a scrape of it using BitmapData, I don't just end up with the lower right quadrant of it.
I looked at the clipRect property of the draw method, and I tried negative x & y for it... which work GREAT for me here to avoid nesting... but it doesn't seem to work correctly at all.
var bmp:BitmapData = new BitmapData( 100, 100, true, 0xFFFFFF );
bmp.draw( someDispObj, null, null, "normal",
new Rectangle(-100,-100,200,200),true);
mySprite.addChild( bmp );
Hrmm. Well, for now it seems like I am shackled with nesting which is okay I guess. Just wish I didn't need to do that. Any solution in avoiding nesting to get something like this rolling?
Update:
Quasimondo (Mario Klingemann) posted a response to this posting here. I haven't tried the solution yet for scaling and rotation:
Update:
Quasimondo (Mario Klingemann) posted a response to this posting here. I haven't tried the solution yet for scaling and rotation:
function snapClip( clip:DisplayObject ):BitmapData
{
var bounds:Rectangle = clip.getBounds( clip.parent );
var bitmap:BitmapData = new BitmapData( int( bounds.width + 0.5 ),
int( bounds.height + 0.5 ), true, 0 );
bitmap.draw( clip.parent, new Matrix(1,0,0,1,-bounds.x,-bounds.y) );
return bitmap;
}
Sunday, June 22, 2008
The family and I braved the humidity to pay a visit to nearby Drumlin Farms. My son loves the cows and pigs and owls they have there. Without even thinking about it, I placed the Aiptek in my pocket and when cute time rolled into view, I was able to quickly start shooting 1080p footage for posterity. No tape needed. SDHC is all you need to join the party. With 8GB I have around two hours shooting time. Maybe. I'll grab a 32GB sometime here soon™.
It's nice to catch a break from coding on the weekends, especially when you can hear the rumbling of the code collection truck amassing momentum for Monday morning. And with really portable video shooting capability, I'm able to save these moments away for later in life.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
I just stumbled upon Box2D because of an aggregated post on AXNA.
This looks really promising and I hope it doesn't add a ton of overhead to implement. I am after some IK physics, yet have a lot of control over a drop behavior (watching a IK figure crumple to the ground is realistic only if you don't care if the person is supposed to have life in them).
I'm ultimately after some realistic human figure motion on drag, and when I drop the IK figure, it drops and stands up a bit (balancing up). No crumple to the floor. I was rolling my own engine so I would have total control over something like that, but I am going to investigate Box2D to see if I can set up some physics and have enough control to roll it out.
Funny how you never think you'll need some aspect of Flash only to find yourself chomping at the bit to figure it out and deploy it.
// original position
public var oldV:Vector.Vector.<Vector.<Point>>;
// target position for vertices after click and each drag public
var newV:Vector.Vector.<Vector.<Point>>;
// coordinates for rendering e.g. when point going to final pos
public var renderV:Vector.<Vector.<Point>>;
I imagine it will only take usage and time to get used to,
but those vectors honestly look pretty ugly.
Friday, June 20, 2008
I ran some Cat-5 from my ethernet hub to the new machine and slapped it on the network, mapped a network drive where I keep a ton of my development files, and it sits there in order for me to test certain applications I am writing.
I code on another PC at my desk (mainly just for the 24" Dell and the FlashDevelop on it), I have the FLA on the network open on my 8-core MacPro.
I make a few tweaks in FD, publish on the Mac (another 24" Dell), and via a shortcut to the SWF on the network I am viewing the new application. It's awesome... and with MTASC I can get around the whole Mac thing and inject bytecode from the classes... but I am usually making tweaks to visual library assets there.
I could do the SVN thing (and I will anyway), but I don't need to worry about updating a repo or anything. Publish, done.
I'm getting LCD-burn from being surrounded by the walls of light, but it's an awesome environment. I took some pictures of the setup too. Maybe I'll upload those.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
- Handfuls @ the theater, basically all consumed by the time the feature is only five minutes old.
- You peck at your bag at the theater, rationing the stuff to last as long as you can
- By the time the opening credits have started at the theater, you're already thinking of going back for more
- You dislike popcorn or can't eat it for dietary reasons
- You dabble with it a little at home
- You have been referred to as a professional popcorn eater, or a farm animal
Normally my gums and tongue string a little from all of that overly-iodine tasting mineral sprinkled all over it... with a mild drenching in the liquid quasi-butter concoction.
Anyway, I had a good coding session today and came home to have some popcorn and noticed I had a nice perimeter of kernels spread around me in a almost even pattern.
I lost track of what I was doing and had to wash my hands before I laid them on this laptop keyboard. A black Macbook shows smudges pretty easily ;)
Happy Thursday evening. Celebrate the code you wrote today, the checkins you made, the code reviews you helped with, or the stuff you designed and played with.
I am looking for some source or ideas or validation for the following application feature:
By now you've all probably seen street view for Google maps. It's a great feature, and on the map is an icon of a person, which you can pick up and drop where you'd like to set your location. Cool enough. I am looking for something similar, but using a little ragdoll physics. Maybe, or maybe not.
What do I really mean? A clip of a person that I can pick up by the head, move around & get some sway in the arms and legs (within normal human body ranges), and I can place back down without them falling down (they always land on their feet and stand @ attention). The "person" would not need to rotate in 3D space, and I don't think there would need to be velocity injected on a side to side drag. My initial thoughts were that I could simply add a little random movement in the limbs, and the random ranges would be set by me to mimic IK. Since the "person" could only be manipulated by grabbing their head, this probably doesn't need to be true IK at all, or even ragdoll.
I could use a shadow to create the illusion of 3D space (grab the head and drag upwards = growing shadow beneath... but only a certain number of pixels allowed in the upwards grab).
Now, if there were items in the scene that we no-no's in regards to placement (tables, chairs, stairs, outside a defined space, etc.) then that movement could probably be detected with an offset of the head location during the grab.
Does this seem like the correct approach? This would be to drag a "person" around a top-view or 3/4 view inside rooms in a home.
Update:
I have the basics working pretty well already, but the one thing I need to do in regards to simulating IK is when the upper arms rotate (using TweenLite for AS3 and a method to produce a range of random values based on rules), the lower arm needs to remain pinned to the bottom of said upper arm segment (think elbow), while introducing some of its own rotation.
In a way this is pretty fake IK, but I think the effect will work.
I *could* use the onUpdate method and reposition the x,y of the lower arm segment while it does it's own rotation. This should probably suffice.
Update:
I have the basics working pretty well already, but the one thing I need to do in regards to simulating IK is when the upper arms rotate (using TweenLite for AS3 and a method to produce a range of random values based on rules), the lower arm needs to remain pinned to the bottom of said upper arm segment (think elbow), while introducing some of its own rotation.
In a way this is pretty fake IK, but I think the effect will work.
I *could* use the onUpdate method and reposition the x,y of the lower arm segment while it does it's own rotation. This should probably suffice.
Update 2:
I took a different approach, creating joints (Sprites) on the end of limbs and then attaching a limb to that which will rotate with the upper limb and be able to independently rotate on its own based on rules. This is working really well for me at the moment too.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Upon opening the thing up, it's remarkable how light the thing is. Of course no tapes or drives or optical media... just the SDHC card you need to supply with it. And the fact that the entire thing is made of plastic. This is good & bad. The lightness results in the need to keep a steadier hand (there is no stabilization in this thing). However the lightness also means you can easily slap it in your pocket for easy travel.
You can capture video from your HD TV if you have AV outs... our big Samsung LCD doesn't seem to have them, although I only spent a few seconds looking back there... the TV has a million inputs, just not many outputs.
I shot some low-light interior video at 720p (30fps and 60fps) and the video quality was pretty decent for such a cheap unit. I then shot at 1080p (30fps) and it looked pretty tight, but reducing the 1080p down by 50% resulted in a really crisp video image. So you could shoot 1080p knowing you'll take it down to 720p yourself. I tested this on a Macbook and not on our big set yet, but I know it will look pretty good.
The microphone on the unit pretty much sucks. It's passable for most situations, such as family events and the like, but nothing approaching professional (or even stereo for that matter). Again, the unit is cheap, so I wasn't expecting a completely amazing experience here.
For the money, this thing is really awesome. I was suprised even though I read a lot of reviews on it before deciding on it.
I know a lot of people (vBloggers, Adobe employees, etc.) are running around with those Flip Video units, and they are cute and portable. But they can't touch the Aiptek A-HD+. Maybe the audio on those things is better, but everywhere else the Flip gets shattered (for about the same price too).
Go out and try one out. It's easy money spent.
In response to a question about possible Flash support on the iPhone 3G, Narayen said, “With respect to the iPhone, we are working on it. We have a version that’s working on the emulation.
This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work. So we are pleased with the internal progress that we’ve made to date.”
Following the release of the iPhone Software Development Kit, Adobe stated its intent to bring the Flash Player to the iPhone, noting that integrating the software with the Safari browser would require “work with Apple beyond and above what is available through the SDK and the current license around it.”
It should be a good time, the team is out of town so it's time to round the bases (they won't let us do that though). Parking will be part of the fun (I opted out of taking provided transport).
I prepared a bunch of files and DVDs earlier, and bumped into this trailer to a movie that I remember seeing eight million years ago. I still remember seeing it, it was that bad. Maybe you've seen it too?
Crazy stoopid.
Monday, June 16, 2008
We own a Panasonic something or other, it's pretty bulky, it's mostly the suck and uses those little tapes. We never use it even though we spent a lot of cash on it. So we're looking for something much more portable.
I noticed a lot of people are into the Flip Video Mino, however I heard it's kind of awful on the Mac... importing into iMovie or Final Cut Pro ends up in exports with no audio track or spotty audio.
Not a great solution, and while the unit seems really small, the video quality seems to be fairly marginal for recording life events that you want to remember (ie. lack of resolution).
So I was looking at the DXG-569V HD camcorder. Anyone have thoughts on this device, or other portable devices? We like our digital camera, so we don't need or care about stills from a video recording device.
Great resolution, portability (equate to more likely to actually use), and price are the driving considerations.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
As I'm watching the Celtics vs. Lakers game this fine evening (after giving GTA4 a break), I found a nice article to read on the laptop in the family room.
I haven't yet completed it (it's a lengthy read), but so far it's a very interesting take on the whole race for RIA superiority.
I've gotten to the part where the most used RIAs are developed by Google (GMail, Reader, etc.) and the points made in regards to this are valid.
I love Flash, it's my bread & butter, but I know it's not the be-all, end-all solution for anything by any means.
Leave your comment after reading the article. Interesting thoughts there.
Friday, June 13, 2008
function string2Bin(s:String)
{
var b = new Array();
var last = s.length;
for (var i = 0; i <>
{
var d = s.charCodeAt(i);
if (d <>
b[i] = dec2Bin(d);
else {
var c = s.charAt(i);
b[i] = -1;
}
}
return b;
}
function dec2Bin(d:uint)
{
var b = '';
for (var i = 0; i <>
{
b = (d%2) + b;
d = Math.floor(d/2);
}
return b;
}
//01000101,01110010,01101001,01100011
trace( string2Bin("Eric") );
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Are there employees sitting there basically blogging data as quickly as they can to a server someplace, and that gets pushed out via socket? I know it's not real-time data, but it's pretty close sometimes.
I have sat and watched a Red Sox game and watched the GameCast just to see how off the online application was... and sometimes it got to be only off by about 30 seconds or so.
Right now I am watching a GameCast of Austria vs. Poland, and watching this stuff makes me really want to play around with something similar, but I have absolutely no way of gaining access to information like this. Not without a ton of effort just to prove a concept out.
Update:
Apparently in UK cliché speak from football commentators and players/coaches, "early doors" means "soon" or "early." I had no idea what the hell they were talking about until I asked a bloke who I work with in the office.