new sneakers

Well, this week I just bought a new pair of sneakers. They are LAKAI shoes promoting the new release of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are". I can't wait to see it. It has been a great inspiration for me, and I'm sure for hundreds of other people as well.

On another sneaker note:
I have been working on creating a "sneaking" walk cycle for our "dweller" character here at the basement. I'm out of practice but it's not bad for the first walk cycle in years. A little tweaking and I think I could say I'm proud of it.

I have a Green Sock!!!

I have been using GreenSock's TweenLite for a couple days now. I am amazed at the power in such a light-weight tween engine. 3k!!!

I am beginning to explore TweenMax and I am finding that this may just be my new favorite engine! It is fairly lightweight, but even more amazingly powerful.(even more better!) I have also gone ahead and downloaded GreenSock's additional classes (XML and preloader)

I am anxious to see what new tricks I can accomplish with these new tools!

Interactive Television

I had my first experience with interactive television last night during the Olympics. I was watching the Oxygen Network Olympic coverage. I subscribe to Directv.

A message on the screen said to press the red button on my controller.

A very sleek and well-designed menu box appeared in the left-bottom corner of the screen. It was not your old "two-tone, square, windows95-looking menu." It had nice color, gradients, and bevels. I was impressed.

Best, was what it actually did. I could answer trivia questions about the Olympics, or view stats. I was able to view a list of all countries and total medals won, and a break-down of gold/silver/bronze for each country. This was great information, and at my fingertips. There was more on the menu but I didn't get to it in time.

I exited the menu during the commercial break. Unfortunately during the break, the menu was unavailable. And due to my attention span, before the break was over I had changed channels and moved on to other things, on my laptop.

I look forward to using this during the remainder of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

As2 Dynamics

I just want to remember this for the future:
attachMovie("dot", "dot1", getNextHighestDepth(),{x:1, y4:, xscale:50, yscale:50});

I am currently looking for a way to set the color or tint within this array. If you know... please leave a comment.

I've tried Tint_tint, getRGB, & Color, with no luck, at all.

Its just another weapon in my arse(arsenal)...lol

centering horizontal and vertical using css

Here's another boring post so I don't forget this technique!
(I have left off "<" of tags so browsers do not read as html....


I have found this to work centering vertical and horizontal using css:

style title="Default" media="screen" type="text/css">
#center { position: absolute; top: 50%; width: 100%; height: 586px; overflow: visible }
#main { position: absolute; left: 50%; width: 854px; margin-left: -427px; height: 5586px; top:-270px }
/style>

(I did adjust the absolute values according to my swf's dimensions)
_____________________________________________________________________________
I put my tiling body background image in the body tags:

style type="text/css">
body {
background-image: url('images/myImage.jpg');
background-repeat: repeat-x
background-repeat: repeat-y
}
/style>
_____________________________________________________________________________ Then I placed the div identifier tags below that...

div id="center">
div id="main">

(mySWFgoes in these tags)
don't forget to close the /div>s!

enabling mouse events

I am going to start leaving clips of action script here for me to review and use easily.
I am an as3 newbie and I need to organize my notes....
This seems to be the best way to do it.

This may not be that exciting to read...

I had to enable and disable mouse events so that a slideshow would not error because of clicking the button so fast.

first I tried myMC.mouseEvent = false;
(for some reason this did not work)

so what a co-worker said to try...
the movieclip which had both the buttons embedded...
myHousingMC.mouseChildren = false;
myHousingMC.mouseEnabled = false;

this actually worked even better - i could enable many buttons at once if they are in the same movieClip...

Thank you ickyNickle!...I mean dime... lol

This little piggy said "Wii, Wii, Wii" all the way home

Today I had the pleasure of linking a wiimote to my PC! ...and I actually got it to connect!

I am using TRENDnet TBW105UB (USB Bluetooth Dongle)
I found this device on a list of compatible Bluetooth adapters:
http://www.wiili.org/index.php/Compatible_Bluetooth_Devices

If you have made attempts before... please read this whole post before following my instructions... I will not assume any responsibility for what you do to your computer.

What worked for me?

First I connected the dongle to the PC... I am running Windows XP pro SP2. So Windows did its own thing and got the dongle installed and working. Bueno!

Next I installed a software which was mentioned in the list of compatible bluetooth hardware specifically for this TRENDnet adapter. "Broadcom update"
http://www.broadcom.com/products/bluetooth_update.php

I also need to install a software to communicate with the wiimote. I am using "wiiFlash Server 0.3.2" Here is a google-code link:
http://code.google.com/p/wiiflash/downloads/list



After installing the broadcom update I opened the "add bluetooth device" wizard.(bluetooth setup wizard) When the wizard begins searching for the device, I hit the connect/sync button on the wiimote. (the little red button inside the battery compartment.) The wiimote shows as "Nintendo RVL-CNT-01"

I click on the wiimote icon and hit the "next" button. I quickly skipped over the security password(no password needed.) I am moving quickly because I do not want the wiimote to power off... On the next screen When the wiimote shows up in the menu - I quickly select the "checkbox" and hit "finish."

I quickly open up wiiFlashServer0.3.2 and then my wiimote "rumbles" letting me know that I am connected. Now, my wiimote will not power off. Whew!

From here I have not figured out what to do next. I will be adding to this post as I figure out more. I am looking into a program called foxglove which will allow me to assign the function of the wiimote buttons.

One important note: If the wiimote loses connection with the computer(powering off)... What I have had to do is... Close the WiiFlashServer application. (you must close the app by right clicking on the icon next to your clock. Hitting the "x" only minimizes the app. After WiiFlashServer is shut down, open up "my bluetooth places." Then I have to disable the controller I see in the window (which will also delete the icon from the window.) Then I follow the steps of adding the bluetooth device all over again, starting in the same window by clicking "add a bluetooth device." I am still looking into an easier way to reconnect if the connection is lost. But right now the only success I have had is to get rid of it and completely make a fresh bluetooth connection. I hope there is an easier way. I will be looking into WiiFlashServer0.4 (but it is in prerelease at the moment.)

More to come! Stay tuned!

W3C Recomendations

I have always been aware of W3C standards... Never have I been "fully" compliant.

But then Again... I went to many popular websites to see who is...

www.espn.com - nope
www.cnn.com - nope
www.microsoft.com - nope(suprisingly)
www.google.com - nope

www.msn.com - YES(finally, I found one.)

If these sites are not compliant... what responsibility does that put on smaller companies?

I am a flash developer... fortunately, Flash CS3 publishes a compliant way to display .swf files. The content I create does not even fall into the same category because I do not develop X/HTML/CSS. I have every intent of making the content I create available to everyone. Where do I stand? In another view... If someone asks me to create a W3C compliant flash site... This does not mean that it will be accessible to everyone. (defeating the point)


There is much discussion about whether corporations are driving the W3C or are they really trying to conform to standard? From the list above... It does not seem that they are conforming. I believe that companies need to stop being so territorial and begin working together. The more browsers and versions being used are only getting us farther from being united. And it is making the job tougher for those who wish to create content. And I WILL REITERATE I would like to make content which is accessible to everyone. I believe in the freedom to choose from multiple browsers... why can't there be a consortium to make these "deep-pocket" companies conform to how information is displayed. Wouldn't it be smarter to have 5-10 companies conform to a standard which can be used by everyone, rather than having thousands of smaller companies trying to conform to an ever-evolving battle between the creators of the browsers.

If nobody is living up to the standard... is it really the standard?
(even if the standard is really only a "recommendation")

Springtime!

I have been getting my hands dirty and getting ready for a prosperous garden. I am amazed that while tilling, I have chopped up two separate cable lines in my yard. Both of which are dead and did not show up when having my yard surveyed. They were old cable lines, but my home is less than 20 years old. They have been upgraded to hold internet.

Anyway, I've planted many seeds and can't wait to see what I can harvest this fall.

Flash Usability

I have recently began dealing with flash usability problems. For instance, what if you have a flash site and you want google to find the contact page of your swf? Google would normally only find the html which is embedding the swf file. Users will only find the main screen of your swf. Then again, they may not find it without the correct meta tags or html text.

Flash supports deep-linking anchor tags. This is completely under-utilized.

here's the trick:

I have my index page with my swf embedded in it, nothing out of the normal. Then I create html pages to represent the sections within the swf file that I want the search engine to find. This html page which represents the section desired is nothing more than a javascript redirect page, and I can make that redirect to any anchored section of my swf I want. Within this html the meta tags will contain words and phrases which will allow the search engine to find this "page" of my swf even though there is not truly a devoted page to this content. I am excited to add this to my toolbox, and I am happy to make my Flash more usable.

Big Bang Theory

I am so excited! Today I received an email letting me know that my hard work over the past few months has finally paid off. I have been working on the NCAA Membership Report for 2007. Today it went live and can be accessed through the NCAA portal site. (Look on the lower right side.) CLICK HERE

I spent countless hours on this project and worked with many others who helped make this come together. Thank you all!

The importance of this project is: This is the first time the NCAA has chosen to release the Membership Report in digital form, rather than print. This is a big step that shows the importance of the digital medium and that it is no longer "the future," but is the present standard. Watch the Myles Brand video and see what he has to say about this change.

I am so proud to be a part of this and I can't wait to see my future projects in cyberspace. The future is now.