eric e. dolecki

• Home
• About
• Blog
• Calendar
• Contact
• Gallery
• Resources

- Recent Articles - A redesign is indeed in the works IDE Flash Player Weirdness Solidarnosc A test twitter search widget [Solved] Printing HTML with SWF(s) not as empty co... Megadeth Radio iPhone: UIWebView with images Verizon FiOS media manager for OS X Yinz Cam: Live video streams from around the rink!... Build Succeeded. It would make a great shirt.   - Article Archives - June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009

How you target 2.x with the 3.0 SDK...

Monday, June 29, 2009    0 Comments

James Last: Russia (1973)

   3 Comments

This one goes back quite a while, and you've probably never heard of James Last. Which is a bit understandable, because the only reason I know of James Last is through my father.

When I was a child (not too much older than the age my own son is right now), my father had a pretty extensive collection of classical LPs and some 8-tracks. He had a large home system with huge BA wooden speakers, tube-powered amplifiers, the best needle in the business, etc.

We used to make fun of his collection of music as being old fogey-type stuff, but we were really just trying to act cool. Some of it was amazing and fun. I've apologized several times in the past about how we used to make fun of this stuff. In many ways, classical and ethnic music is more powerful than any "spirit of the decade" music could dream of being.

My sister and I used to play the 8-track of James Last's Russia. A few of the tracks any way. You'd have to click through spots on the tape and wait for your song to start, I remember four rectangular green lights that would tell you which approximate spot the tape was currently in. I don't remember if you could flip the tape upside down or not, I think so.

Anyway... we used to play song two: "Kalinka" (an example only video link) which slowly builds up with choir to result in ripping horns and a thunderous beat with some Russian chanting (well, perhaps not chanting but we didn't know what they were singing). We used to bounce off the walls laughing and having a good time.

Another favorite was "Russian Folk Dance" (Russischer Volkstanz) - which has a similar pattern to Kalinka. Mad fun.

A few years ago my father gave me that 8-track from his collection in the hopes to transfer it to CD. I never got around to it, I'd have to go to a place with the capability, pay cash, etc. But it always burned there in the back of my mind. For a few years whenever I remembered that album, I'd take a spin around the internet looking for it.

Now that I actually have this album, you might want to look it up, it's extremely hard to find (I don't do torrents or anything like that so I can't help you there), but if you're up for some really awesome ethnic music with true power behind it (I'm not talking about Polkas here, I'm taking about great horns, moving compositions, a big symphony sound with some modern instrumentation, and a great choir) then you should look into it. It's different.

It's not on iTunes, unfortunately. Get the LP if you can (if you can play those anymore).

Perhaps my father, my sister and myself will be the only ones who really enjoy this album and that's fine with me, I just wanted to put it out there. I am going to soak in "Nicht der Wind" (Not the Wind) for the fifth time now. Headphones up.

Ahhh.

Labels: James Last, Music, Russia

CocoaREST rocks -- build the next great Twitter client

   0 Comments

I just looked into sdegutis's CocoaREST library (for Cocoa and Cocoa Touch platforms) - which allows developers to interact with RESTful APIs.

It's mainly targeted at Twitter at the moment, but many more services are under development and you can add extend support for others (ie. extend Twitter support for use with it's Search API). Using it is actually fairly easy... build the next great Twitter client!

Here is a quick screen-shot taken of Tweetie running beneath the included example OS X desktop application:

Check this library out if you're at all interested in using it. It rocks.

Could not support development

   0 Comments

Thursday, June 25, 2009

[iPhone] Getting images from your bundle without hardcoding

Thursday, June 25, 2009    0 Comments

totalCount = 0;
NSArray *d = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathsForResourcesOfType:@"jpg" inDirectory:nil];
 for(NSString *s in d){
  if([[s lastPathComponent] hasPrefix:@"image_"]){
   totalCount++;
  }
 }

totalCount = 0;
NSArray *d = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathsForResourcesOfType:@"jpg" inDirectory:nil];
for( int i=0;i<[d count];i++){
  NSString *searchForMe = @"image_";
  NSString *s = [[NSString alloc] initWithString:[d objectAtIndex:i]];
  NSRange range = [s rangeOfString:searchForMe];
  if( range.location != NSNotFound ){
   totalCount++;
  }
 }

NSUInteger jpegCount = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathsForResourcesOfType:@"jpg" inDirectory:subDirName] count];

NSMutableArray * imageArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
    NSEnumerator * imageBundlePathEnumerator = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathsForResourcesOfType: @"jpg" inDirectory: nil] objectEnumerator];
    NSString * imageBundlePath = nil;

    while (imageBundlePath = [imageBundlePathEnumerator nextObject])
    {
        [imageArray addObject: [[[NSImage alloc] initWithContentsOfFile: imageBundlePath] autorelease]];
    }

    NSLog(@"Number of images loaded : %d", [imageArray count]);

    NSImage * anImage = nil;
    NSEnumerator * imageEnumerator = [imageArray objectEnumerator];

    while (anImage = [imageEnumerator nextObject])
    {
        NSLog(@"image = %@", anImage);
    }

Friday, June 12, 2009

City of Champions

Friday, June 12, 2009    2 Comments

Flashbelt Fiasco

   0 Comments

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Flash rant for the day

Thursday, June 11, 2009    0 Comments

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

[ot.steelernews rings]

Wednesday, June 10, 2009    1 Comments

The Pittsburgh Steelers got their rings yesterday and then many proceeded to go over to watch the Penguins playoff game versus the Red Wings. These rings are simply enormous, gaudy, and I think are pretty beautiful.