Dude Mon, Daleyjem

Apple and Adobe Quarrel

2010-04-09T23:30:00.001-07:00

My response to the Adobe and Apple quarrel is that the 2 should just kiss and merge. Adobe has some groundbreaking ideas, and whether it's Flash or their next big contribution to the web, Apple has the drive to allow that to happen. As part of the Open Screen Project, I'd love to see Google help push the stone as well.

This doesn't mean I'd be against dropping Flash out as much as it's what brings the income for me in. Their contribution to the web in areas of animation, including top/left (x/y) movement programming is what's transforming developers into even more creative capable masters at their art. Not that Adobe invented that stuff, but it's clearly more present with the advent of Flash. With that said, I still like the idea of AS3 being the new standard for JS 2.0 programming very much, if at least as a substantial contribution. Very similar to C#, actually, so everybody wins there.

On a related note: I've heard rumor that Adobe still intends on including iPhone exporting, so I'm curious if the rule only applies to OS 4.0 contract (er somethin). I suppose Apple could force an update but disallowing backwards compatibility to OS 3.0 apps could break a lot of user and developer hearts with their "fork in the pie" already.

Unrelated note: Could it really be illegal to watch or publish movies online if it could be considered the equivalent of renting a DVD and broadcasting it to my rather large "living room" of friends? Difference is, we're talking very sub-par DVD quality.

nts

2010-04-09T23:28:00.000-07:00

my most successful friendships have been the result of failed relationships

Note

2010-03-31T21:12:00.001-07:00

Live your way to progress another's.

Flash: iTunes Coverflow Imposter

2010-02-09T09:37:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping to begin working on a jukebox AIR app soon... at least until iTunes uses the same type of "coverflow" behavior as the iPhone's music app (flipping album art around to show album contents).

Either way, I was pretty proud of what I was able to do using Flash 10's built-in 3D support (rotationX/Y/X). Check it out here:
http://daleyjem.com/projects/coverflow/

Digital Media Rights

2009-10-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

boy meets girl. boy makes mixed tape for girl. is it illegal?

boy meets girl online. boy sends digital playlist of mp3's. is it illegal?

If being attacked by a bear

2009-10-16T18:53:00.001-07:00

why play dead? first find an object big enough to draw attention. (think about all the animals you've drawn away by throwing a stick). then throw it in the direction where the bear is less able to pivot back from quickly -- perhaps right over his head. the goal here is not to hit the bear but to distract him for the quickest moment in which you run your ass to the direction you came from... so as not to enter his "domain". besides, at least you know you didn't see any other bears in that direction. with a strike of luck, the bear will not wander too far from the zone he thought you were infiltrating.

Making an animated PNG

2009-10-02T16:18:00.000-07:00

Since an animated GIF can't contain anti-aliased transparent edges the same way a PNG can... and a PNG file can't animate within itself like an animated GIF, I had to create a PNGSequence class in Javascript to emulate the behavior of an animated GIF by containing it within a sprite, and animating it with the javascript.
www.daleyjem.com/projects/js/pngsequence/

I'm too lazy to put direct access to the file, but you can snag it and use it if you wish. I gave you the link... That should be all you need.

Basic Plan to Run Shell Commands with Adobe AIR

2009-07-19T15:39:00.000-07:00

Not yet developed, but hopefully in the works soon:

1.) Install "AIRExecute" (.NET) to C:\Program Files\AIRExecute\run.exe
- How run.exe is to be initially opened I'm unsure of currently
- Checks $(AIRExecute)\commands.txt for new commands.
- "run" causes new execution of command, removes command on execute and pushes new processe to array.
- "killAll" kills all processes in process array and removes entry from process array.

2.) AS3 AIRExecute Class -> appends to $(AIRExecute)\commands.txt:
- run(command:String)
- killAll()

Example of commands.txt for starting new transcode using "run" command:
-killAll
-run C:\Program Files\FFMpeg\ffmpeg.exe -i somefile.wma -y somefile.mp3

-------------
Additional development would allow for specifying the AIR application issuing the command, so that "killAll" will only kill processes initiated by that application.

Web page background colors and time of day

2009-07-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

Too many websites have all white backgrounds. A fair number of them have dark ones all the time. What if a website's background color changed by user's current TOD?

My current blog's dark gray background is especially soothing on the eyes at 15 til 3 A.M., but imagine it might get "drowsy" on a daytime user.

...noted.

Pride in my nation (unedited for monumental grammatical errors)

2009-06-23T19:52:00.001-07:00

it has come to my attention that my nation faces scrutiny by foreigners for lack of morallity.

we must ask ourselves:
has my nation allowed for the "shortcomings" of others in the best of its abilities to uphold a justice
for each individual's well being or showed progress towards its improvement?

do we widely publish our collection of historical monuments of man kind's accolades without bias towards his collective "personage"?

my personal mind's reference of historic occurrences could lend me to asking myself, "can we lay claim to the prize that we are the inhabitants of a monumental land? could it be (humbly) true that our ways shape the more unified coexistence of diverse beings?

has the way of our nation's inhabitants helped foster in the coexistence of once detached nations by scales unmatched in history?

these things i believe we have.

Flash CS3: Crashes on Open or When Setting Document Class

2009-03-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

Scenario:

- FLA on desktop

- Folder on desktop, containing corrupt file

- Double-click to open FLA and Flash crashes

Why?? Because Flash feels the need to scrub through every subfolder and file residing along/within the same directory as your FLA.

Conclusion:
By tediously moving individual folders out of the FLA's hierarchical structure, and later specific files, I was able to pinpoint a file that was backed-up off my LG enV phone's filesystem with bitpim.

Don't make the same initial mistake I did of trying to reinstall your whole Adobe Production Suite (hours!!). Instead, begin your less timely hunt for a corrupt file.

Error report from Windows Event Viewer:

"Faulting application flash.exe, version 9.0.0.494, faulting module flash.exe, version 9.0.0.494, fault address 0x00c5958f."

Optimizing "For" Loops

2009-02-28T12:57:00.000-08:00

I'm still a bit shocked to see how many developers aren't optimizing their "for" loops. Do some time trials in any language and you'll find a difference in the following methods.

Method 1:


// Javascript
for (var i = 0; i < document.getElementsByTagName("*").length; i++)
    var theelement = document.getElementsByTagName("*")[i];
}

You have to realize that you're causing the the engine to grab every tag element and get the total count of those in EVERY iteration of the "for" loop. How do you make that easier on the engine? Set a variable.

Method 2:


// Javascript
var elements = document.getElementsByTagName("*");
var elementCount = elements.length;
for (var i = 0; i < elementCount; i++)
    var theelement = elements[i];
}

I think that method 2 should be standard practice when looping through any array. Don't make the engine find the array count every single time... and for that matter, don't make the engine find the array itself every single time either. Of course, depending on the language, you might even have better luck with a "for each" loop.

Actionscript 3: BitmapData.getPixel vs. BitmapData.getPixels

2008-12-30T11:58:00.000-08:00

I'm currently in the process of writing a BitmapComparison class and am now optimizing it for maximum efficiency. The class essentially does a nested "for loop" through a BitmapData object's width and height -- comparing the pixel color values to the other BitmapData object at the corresponding x and y coordinates using the getPixel() method.

Since the getPixels() method returns a ByteArray, I thought that perhaps it would be the better choice, rather than the method just explained of going through the width and height. I used the tutorial explained at: http://richardleggett.co.uk/blog/index.php/2006/08/11/getpixels.

I compared 2 identical images of 2880 x 2880 (the BitmapData object's max width/height), using both methods. It turns out that the getPixel() method took an average of 2.8 seconds, while the getPixels() method took an average of 3.4 seconds.

I thought this could be due to the fact that getPixels() gets 32-bit values, while getPixel() does not... so I then used getPixel32() and still got an average of 2.8 seconds.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but my conclusion is that, while the getPixels() method may save a few lines, it can be less efficient in many circumstances.

Optimizing Flash Filesizes for Banner Ads

2008-08-26T09:42:00.000-07:00

Most Flash developers may not be too concerned regarding a few extra bytes here and there in their .swf filesize. Those who develop Flash banner ads, however, are most times restricted to a 30k filesize limit.

The following are some techniques for trimming the filesize of a .swf down (if even by a few bytes).

Generate Size Report
In your publish settings, check this box so that you can see which items specifically are taking up the most bytes.

Remove Unused Linkage
If you included a component into your file, but later removed it, the linkage for that component still exists in the library and will be included in your compiled swf. These things can take up significant filesize, so keep in eye out for that.

Graphic Symbols Instead of MovieClips
MovieClip instances come with some overhead. They're simply put, more versatile. You may at some times find yourself converting back to MovieClip instances so that you may add a dropshadow, or what-have-you, but Graphics really do cut the filesize down, if even a tad.

Vector Instead of Raster
This one may be a bit more obvious. If you have enough design experience with vector, you can make a pretty realistic object. Avoid "Trace Bitmap" (which converts raster to vector) as it only take up MORE filesize.

Reuse Similar Objects
Let's say you have 2 objects. One is blue and the other is red. The blue object is a 20 pixel square, the red one is a 100x300 rectangle. For reuse, you could convert one to a Graphic symbol, and reuse it by simply resizing it on the stage and putting a "Tint" color behavior on it to change colors.

Render Text for Animation Instead of Readability
This cuts the filesize down everytime, although you may lose the readability factor in the process.

Break Apart Bitmaps
This can cause "fuzz" issues, but I curiously found out one day that breaking apart a bitmap contained within a Graphic instance shaves off a few bytes.

Condense Whitespace of Textfields
Double-click on any static textfield, and resize it with the square handle until the majority of excess whitespace is truncated.

Multiply/Screen JPG's instead of Transparent PNG's
A colleague of mine showed me this trick, and it really does do marvels. Here's the process of achieving this:

1.) In a graphic editor, add a white background where transparency would usually be. Export this image to a JPG.

2.) Using the same graphic, change the background color to black and fill the original graphic to have a full white. Export this to a JPG as well.

3.) Pull these graphics into Flash and create a new Graphic symbol with 2 layers. The top layer will contain the white background JPG, and the bottom layer will contain the black background JPG.

4.) Convert both of these bitmaps to separate MovieClip symbols (not Graphics, as we need to add blend modes).

5.) Now give the top layer a "Multiply" blend mode, and the bottom layer a "Screen" blend mode.

Voila! You should now have the same effect of transparency as a PNG. Exported filesize should drop, and now you can compress the screened JPG and multiplied JPG separately and accordingly.

JSFL: Maintain timeline duration after frame rate change

2008-07-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

So I was tasked with a certain job (a Flash banner) that required me to decrease the frame rate of my Flash file, while keeping the overall duration of the movie the same. As anyone familiar with this scenario knows, when you change the FPS, the timeline stays the same -- but your movie now has a longer or shorter duration.

Well, considering all of the tweens going on, this was going to be a tedious task if I was to correctly calculate how many frames to remove from EACH individual motion tween or tweenless span of frames.

The following is some JSFL that does just this. Because it rounds the "frameChange" variable, it's still far from perfect, and I'm sure with more time of precise programming, a closer goal could be acheived... so feel free to build off of this and/or propose a better solution, 'cause I couldn't find one online.



fl.outputPanel.clear();
var doc = fl.getDocumentDOM();

var lib = doc.library;
var currFrameRate = doc.frameRate;
var newFrameRate = prompt("Enter new desired frame rate:", currFrameRate.toString());
var adjustMode = prompt("Adjust all movieclip timelines? (0=no, 1=yes)", 1);

if (newFrameRate != null && adjustMode != null)
{
 if (adjustMode == 1) selectMainTimeline();
 adjustTimeline();
 if (adjustMode == 1)
 {
  var libItemCount = lib.items.length;
  for (var libItemIndex = 0; libItemIndex < libItemCount; libItemIndex++)
  {
   var libItem = lib.items[libItemIndex];
   if (libItem.itemType == "movie clip")
   {
    lib.editItem(libItem.name);
    adjustTimeline();
   }
  }
 }

 if (adjustMode == 1) doc.frameRate = parseFloat(newFrameRate);
 selectMainTimeline();
 fl.trace("Timeline adjustment complete");
}
else
{
 fl.trace("Action cancelled");
}

function selectMainTimeline()
{
 doc.editScene(0);
}

function adjustTimeline()
{
 var tl = doc.getTimeline();
 fl.getDocumentDOM().getTimeline().expandFolder(true, true, -1);
 var layerArray = tl.layers;
 var layerCount = layerArray.length;
 
 for (var layerIndex = 0; layerIndex < layerCount; layerIndex++)
 {
  tl.currentLayer = layerIndex;
  var currLayer = layerArray[layerIndex];
  var frameArray = currLayer.frames;
  var frameCount = frameArray.length;
  var keyFrameArray = new Array();
  var currStartFrame = 0;
  keyFrameArray.push(currStartFrame);

  for (var frameIndex = 0; frameIndex < frameCount; frameIndex++)
  {
   var currFrame = frameArray[frameIndex];
   
   if (currFrame.startFrame != currStartFrame)
   {
    keyFrameArray.push(currFrame.startFrame);
    currStartFrame = currFrame.startFrame;
   }
  }

  var keyFrameCount = keyFrameArray.length;
  var endFrame = currLayer.frameCount - 1;
  var frameChange = 0;

  for (var keyFrameIndex = 0; keyFrameIndex < keyFrameCount; keyFrameIndex++)
  {
   var frameStart = keyFrameArray[keyFrameIndex];
   
   if (keyFrameIndex == (keyFrameCount - 1))
   {
    var frameEnd = endFrame;
   }
   else
   {
    var frameEnd = keyFrameArray[keyFrameIndex + 1];
   }

   var duration = frameEnd - frameStart;
   var seconds = duration / currFrameRate;
   var destFrameDur = seconds * newFrameRate;
   frameChange = Math.round(duration - destFrameDur);

   if (frameChange > 0)
   {
    if (frameChange > 0) tl.removeFrames(frameStart, (frameStart + frameChange));
    endFrame -= frameChange;

    for (var i = 0; i < keyFrameCount; i++)
    {
     if (i > keyFrameIndex)
     {
      keyFrameArray[i] -= frameChange;
     }
    }
   }
   else
   {
    frameChange = Math.abs(frameChange);

    if (frameChange > 0) tl.insertFrames(frameChange, false, frameStart);

    endFrame += frameChange;

    for (var i = 0; i < keyFrameCount; i++)
    {
     if (i > keyFrameIndex)
     {
      keyFrameArray[i] += frameChange;
     }
    }
   }
  }
 }
}

Actionscript 2: getElementsByTagName prototype

2008-06-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

I searched for one of these when I needed one, and don't think the ideas were properly emulating Javascript's getElementsByTagName function. I believe it returns an array... NOT an XML() object or an XMLNode() object.

XMLNode.prototype.getElementsByTagName = function(tagName:String):Array
{
  function findNodes(findNode:XMLNode, findTag:String):Void
  {
      var nodeCount:Number = findNode.childNodes.length;
      for (var nodeIndex = 0; nodeIndex < nodeCount; nodeIndex++)
      {
          var node:XMLNode = findNode.childNodes[nodeIndex];
          if (node.nodeName == findTag)
          {
              appendArray.push(node);
          }
          findNodes(node, findTag);
      }
  }

  var appendArray:Array = new Array();
  findNodes(this, tagName);
  return appendArray;
}

Keep in mind... you can't put a type on a variable that will later call a prototyped method. So for the above prototype, you shouldn't say something like:

var myNode:XMLNode = new XMLNode();
trace(myNode.getElementsByTagName("tag").length);

Instead, give "myNode" a generic declaration:

var myNode = new XMLNode();
trace(myNode.getElementsByTagName("tag").length);

There's always the option of creating a new class that extends the XMLNode and putting this as a method of that new class... if you're familiar with that kind of thing.

Stephen Hawking's Voice

2008-04-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

Along with Carl Sagan, Professor Stephen Hawking is one of my favorite names in Cosmology. Please understand that I would never mean him any disrespect by the following question:

Why is Stephen Hawking still using that standard computerized voice? I know that Microsoft has a pretty advanced voice SDK with variations in pitch, etc. to accomodate the sound of a man or woman's voice.

I thought maybe even during questionairre sessions like I just watched on C-SPAN, where he read from a particular person's question -- he could have had a different pitched woman or man's voice ask a question, while his particular voice answered it. It would surely help distinguish between parties.

Along with that thought, I'm aware that science and technology is at a point where a man could control a mouse cursor with his brain. How that device is connected exactly, I'm unsure of. I wonder if Professor Hawking would ever be willing (if technology allowed) to use this kind of technology to communicate real-time without the use of a text-to-speech system. Ideally, it would even allow proper emphasis on words as Professor Hawking saw fit. The expense would be teetering with one of man's most prized possessions, his brain. But even pacemakers could be considered a pinnacle achievement in merging between man and machine... and we know where those go.

Atlantis on other Planets

2008-03-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

It doesn't seem so strange to me that life exists on other planets throughout our universe. I never believed in this before until I started thinking outside of our solar system... when I learned that our sun was just like all the stars "in the sky". I would blame my Catholic education for the fact that I didn't learn this until my much later years.

Watching a show on Atlantis led me to a thought:
There is much discussion about the probability of intelligent life in other solar systems, but they always lean towards land-dwelling life. What are the posibilities of sea-dwelling intelligent life? What would they look like? What kind of technology might they have?

Now I'm watching a show on UFO's, and my thought is:
Why is it so hard to think of a UFO possibility? Many planets in the universe are millions of years older than ours. Look at the phenomenal increase in our technology just within the last 100 years. Can you imagine what we might learn in even another 1000?

Final thought:
Is the universe in a never-ending expand and contract "loop"? How far does space go even when the whole universe is compacted to the size of an atom? Is it infinite? Is the universe infinite? Does it have a beginning?

XPath vs getElementsByTagName

2008-02-27T21:25:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a client-side table sorting class in javascript with much success. The following are my findings:

- Internet Explorer (IE) 7 doesn't support HTML DOM parsing through XPath with methods like document.selectNodes() and document.evaluate().

- Safari, Opera, and Firefox DO support HTML DOM parsing through XPath

Perhaps the above info is obvious to some people... but in my findings I wondered if XPath would even save me in parsing speed. So i tested both the document.evaluate() and the getElementsByTagName() methods in able browsers. I found out the following:

- Safari flies through either method much quicker than any other browser. Surprisingly, XPath was slower.

- Firefox was quicker by about 1.5 times with XPath.. Same as Opera

I actually used to hate safari, until I started realizing things like this and the fact that it passed the Acid2 test when IE7 and Firefox 2 didn't. Perhaps they're not yet far along enough in their understanding of XPath. Still yet though... when is Microsoft gonna quit slacking with IE? I think it's about time they start caring more about the developer.