Sti Media: The Source

Flash Player 7 updater... is messed up.. -updated-

This is the first time I've seen the automatic flash updater, and to be honest I was quite surprised. Unfortunately it looks like there is a bug in the pop up window buttons, here is an image.

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Update:
After taking the time to actually read the tiny font of what each button is (which is the 3 squished lines in the middle), I realized *after* I pressed the button (to get rid of the window that pops up in the middle of the screen), I had pressed the wrong button.
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FP7 video object bug fix tutorial

Last night I received an email from a fellow developer that was really in a pickle (when a fellow dev guy says he's about to cry like a 12 year old girl...) about a bug with the video object in Flash. I tried to explain to him what it was before that on the flashcom figgyleaf list but I wasn't getting my point across quite as well as I would have liked to I guess.

So due to the circumstances he was in, I couldn't stand by and watch him get fired or something from work and immediately cooked up a quick tute to help him solve his problem.

The bug is with the video object only in the flash player 7. I wrote a past post on this here. If you test this with FP6 it will work fine. My fix entails that you attach the video object to the stage each time you want to attach the cam to it so that it will reset and show the video properly each and every time, this will only be required if somebody else had been using that video object before you.

The only thing is (in this example) in the av presence component the buttons are above the video on the stage but when you attach the video by AS, they end up below the video so you have to find a way around that, maybe by placing them below the video object or placing them on a level above the video with AS. I haven't covered that part..

Keep in mind that this is not a component fix (fyi, in the tute I am using v1 components, and only because it is an easy example), it is the fix for all video objects.

I'm actually quite surprised that other developers haven't either noticed or said anything, and a bit more surprised that MM won't recognize that this is a bug in the FP7.

Here's the video tutorial. It's about 5 mins.

If it has helped you (or not maybe), please let me know in the comments.

Reminder: Central Question Asking Contest

I'm throwing a contest to the person who can ask the most questions about Central that will get ignored and not answered. So far I'm winning I think with a whole post full of them, though there is a guy in this post's comments that is a close second. Do you have what it takes to win this contest? We'll soon find out!

I'm not sure what to give to the winner, but it won't be an X-box...

--Update--
This is a joke (a spoof on Mike's contest), but I would really like to see the questions that have been asked but not answered, as I am sure there are a lot of things I haven't thought of and I am wondering which areas MM is trying avoid.
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Screenshot Quirkiness in Flash

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program, Professor FCS, to bring you a short message on "Screenshot Quirkiness in Flash".

While doing some sceenshot/captures of the Flash authoring environment today, I came across something odd when I accidentally pasted back into the Flash.

Below is a screenshot taken using the PrintScreen key and pasted into Photoshop.

Nothing strange to see here..please move along..move along...

Now the below is the result if the same capture was pasted into Flash.

All of the white background is alpha transparency. It seems to only have captured part of the stage and random icons from both my OS and Flash. Very strange and not something I have ever had happen with another program. Has anyone else experienced this and more importantly, know why it happens?

The system specs are WinXP Pro, Flash MX and an NVIDIA Quadro 4 900XGL graphics card.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. Thank You.

To invest time and money in Central or to not.. That is the question.

Holy crap... don't go looking at the last post on this blog (this post too) unless you have a pot of coffee/tea, a whole box of cookies, and a couple of pillows proppin' you up. What a great reaction to my post. I didn't think that it would get so much attention, maybe attract Mike C from MM to answer a few questions I had but instead I got napalmed by aSH :) He was kind enough to post a huge resource list on his blog and I was going to post there but decided I didn't want to take this great conversation to two places and am posting here.

But before I get to his awesome post I want to stop off at Mike's and say thanks a lot. You have cleared up quite a few things all at once. My remaining questions and comments for you are:

1. Do you have a timeframe of any sorts as to when you are going to provide localization?

2. You say it's going to go to FP7 but I've seen in the info that aSH pointed me to that you also want to support PDA's. They don't run the FP7. Only FP6 at the highest.

3. Saying that PDA's are going to be supported, but Central is a hog on memory, (from another source that aSH pointed me too - your blog). How is this going to work?

4. Selling apps, I usually sell apps either that are standalone or in a browser. They are sold based on what the client has asked for, or a predetermined set of guidelines that have been set that a client may want, and then offering it. With Central, I not only have to sell my app, but I have to sell Central too. This is because one will not be useful without the other.

5. Flash is the player that my apps my run on, but not in. Flash apps run in central, but not on it. You don't create apps with Central, you create apps FOR Central. Using the framework that Central provides with the agents and pods. Central is new, the browser isn't, and is common place and already installed on all OS's default.

6. The security issues that I can think of are Central itself. But I can't think of anymore "specific issues" that I haven't already brought up at the moment, but when I do I'll bring them up.

7. I can't wait to see what happens with branding. This is a biggy.

8. I have seen the articles (thanks to aSH again) on the partnerships you have, I noticed that Intel is being used for online/offline status detection, but I see on your blog a lot of requests for "real" detection. What's that all about?

Yahoo partnership for payments, that's cool. I hope they accept all currencies.. I have no info so I'm just tossing out my thought there.

AOL... hmm. this is quite interesting. I use MSN myself so wouldn't have much use for it at the moment but I can imagine all kinds of stuff. How does this compete with FCS? Are there any worries about that?

9. My bad.. apologies for getting the percent wrong. 20%, got it.

10. Yes I do mean that Central is installed from MM. But it's not so much the exact fact that it's installed from MM, but the fact that a new techonology is out that hasn't proved reliablity yet. I do realize that it wouldn't be in your best interest to cut your developers off at the knees, but MM hasn't been instilling a heck of a lot of confidence lately with the poor release of MX2004, the continuous bugs and lack of updates. I do admit that there has been some, but when I see so much effort going into a new technology without any effort to the current ones that aren't working as they should, it makes me wonder what will happen when Central starts playing up. When bugs pop up, will they get swept under the rug like MM's other apps? See my post on FCS bugs and features for just one example out there. I'm not so much attacking MM I think as I am giving my current impression.

11. Yes, the user may consider it if they feel it's useful. But I still don't see what Central can offer (application-wise) that people don't already have. In the roadmap for Central I noticed that you are thinking to create Corporate directories, and group to-do lists... This is already taken care of by Outlook. A blog writer, that seems neat but I hate working with text formatting in flash myself, I hope it works better than what I am working on right now at this very moment. Data visualization, I would assume this means graphs and charts. Unfortunately for flash, bringing in tons of data bogs it down so badly that it just isn't useful anymore. How will you make the charts without maxing out the CPU?

12. Too much info out? No, I wouldn't complain about that :) But I would like to see some real life apps that I would consider actually buying. I suppose that will take some time, and it's like the chicken and egg...

I want to note that you have helped me A LOT. You and aSH with his huge list of resources he put up. I feel I owe the both of you to go through all of them, read carefully and move forward from there. I have read most, and am taking notes.. I'm sure I'll post more on this soon. (all this writing because of a cardboard tube!! ... though I do remember something bright blue flying out the end when I was swinging it around...)

JD, thanks for coming in with some comments. I really like your comment that to find the best fit for a particular project. This brings things back down to earth a bit I think, helps me see Central in another light (along with the other channels that I already have available to me)

I totally understand what you're on with the advertising and getting people to commit. I was thinking the exact same thing when I wrote in this post on number 12 to Mike.

aSH... dude.. you are the man when it comes to making a case. Are you a lawyer? I've never seen anybody be able to quote so many sources and provide so many links about one thing in my life. I've taken it all very seriously and have tried to reply in my questions to Mike. If you have any answers or thoughts on any of them, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

I see this time that you have tried your best to reply in more of a way that I go and find the answers I need on my own by giving me the directions to find them. Thanks a lot for that.

BTW, I know what user experience means, I didn't know what "UX" meant. That's all.

I kind of wish you had a comment or two on my last comment as I meant in no way to attack or offend, it was just a "feeling" I had due to the answers that were provided. If I did offend you (which I think I did..) my apologies.

David, thanks for the comments on your blog, I went over them one by one and here are my comments on them:

1. Right, I understand this now. It's not so much a workaround for the application, is that Central itself is in English.

2. Not having the mouse scroller may not be a showstopper in effect, but having it would be "normal".

3. Security is a major issue, and I think I've covered most of my worries in above comments.. I will try to put together a much more organized list of things I would like to see addressed as soon as I enlighten myself a lot more with Central.

4. hmm... we are going to have to agree to disagree.

5. File access is nice... but I can do that already with Screenweaver, or Flash Studio Pro. I think I was trying to address more of an issue of where Central is heading in the marketing arena. How are they going to get the big boys to use this. Is Oracle or IBM going to implement Central in the offices? I guess it would be more things that instill confidence that a particular app is being used by a company that has taken a lot more time and energy and money to research it and say "Central is worth it!".

6. Using AOL's IM engine costs money? wow... I didn't know that. The app finder only benefits me if people actually look at it. Until somebody actually installs Central it isn't available (as far as I know). Merchant background? I don't know any merchants that will take 20%. (I know that Central offers more for that price)

7. ok

8. I'd like to see it get past this bump in the road, we'll see how MM addresses this issue I think.

Yes, facts are very important, something I need to work on right from this point. Thanks for the insight with your thoughts.

In conclusion for this post, I must say that I'm quite surprised at the reaction from the Central community. I've now got a pile of info to go through, we'll see if it's enough to convince me to take time out of my current dev/des projects and research and develop for it. I really like Mikes post on what other developers want. Almost everything in there mentioned is something I would like to see too.

I have never in my life written so much on one particular topic... *whew*

A big thanks to the MM Central team, and an explanation of why I hopped off the Central bandwagon

First off, thanks Central guys for the phat carboard tube! I ran around the house chasing my cats with it and had a load of fun! ... there was some stuff inside... I think.... but the tube!! Big thanks to the Central team!

This brings me to my first post on Central and my thoughts on why I hopped off the Central bandwagon after about a week or two of messing with it.

First thing: It's in english, and only english. To all the developers that only develop for english I suppose it doesn't mean much, but for the rest of the world, this is a BIG deal. I haven't made a single language app in a long time and aren't about to start now I think. I also can't believe how many developers create only for one language. But that issue is for another post I think.

Second thing: It's flash 6. Why? It's a standalone, you might aswell make it flash 7. It doesn't catch the mouse scroller which is just plain crummy.. The bonuses that you get with flash 7 are great but I guess there is a good reason to keep it down.

Third thing: I have no confidence that I could EVER sell an app on Central. I not only have to convince my client to install my app, but I have to make them believe that Central is a good app, and not some type of spyware or something. I don't want or need the extra work that is required to justify why I have to use another company's framework, design/application to hold my application. A lot of clients do NOT want to install anything that is not secure, and Central is definitely high on that list.

Fourth thing: It doesn't look like my app. You open it up, the icon is Central, the toolbar shows a central window is open with barely any of the name actually showing up. How do they figure out exactly which app is up if they have a lot of windows open? Am I missing something? Is there a way to set that little icon when opening up a new window? The border screams "I AM CENTRAL - I AM MACROMEDIA". I don't like that. I want it to scream my company's name, not another one.

Fifth thing: I have yet to see MM's plan to take this to the next dimension. Right now there is a lot of hype from MM, and a few high-profile developers but this has not made it into the mainstream yet, and I don't feel comfortable with the limited information I have seen on MM's plan to get it out there. Why would I as a consumer need or want to install Central? For "Central" info? I can do that now and offer it to my clients. Even more because I use FCS all the time. If I need to store a lot of info, that's what a DB is for. If it's just a bit, like maybe the window size, place (which central does not do), user info, what they opened last or whatever, just use SO's. Local and remote. Central brags about being able to keep info on the user's comp, but... that's just SO's right? I can build that, and keep my own icon, and branding.

Sixth thing: I have to adjust my pricing scheme to accomodate MM's 25%... now I do realize that advertising does cost money, but as you have seen in my last reason I don't think MM deserves 25% of my profit just yet. We'll see I think. But with clients wanting cheaper and cheaper pricing it's tough to have to up prices for something I don't quite believe in yet.

Seventh thing: I have to rely on just one more server technology to get my app to my client. If that went down then the app isn't going out is it? What happens when Central goes away? Maybe it won't, but hey it won't be the first time an MM app drifted into a black hole and dissappeared. ::generator:: What happens to all my apps that I have built ONLY for Central (they only work in Central)? garbage.. that's what happens. When I get a bit more confidence that it'll be around, then I'll invest my time in it like I have for FCS.

Eighth thing: I think regular consumers will not be open to the idea of having to install another app , and larger companies will be against it. In fact if I brought this up at work, I would be reprimanded for not thinking of security issues properly and seeing the bigger picture before taking it to the next step (which would be actually talking about it) and would look very inexperienced.

So that's a lot of ranting about Central... I have read most of the posts around on blogs about Central and see a lot of complaints or people giving a less than positive viewpoint get shouted down by the extreme amount of tutorials, white sheets, and now wallpaper blog entries. I'd like to see some real life examples, selling, advertising.. anything that does more than just teach or brag about a certain function. There is a lot of how a certain developer has made such a cool app for central, but I can't imagine anybody actually selling it...it's not marketable, and most certainly wouldn't need Central to run. That's where my interest sensors may perk up, but my business sensors run the other way down the road screaming.

Now... not to say that I won't get involved, and I most certainly haven't put the last nail in the coffin of Central in my mind because I do think the concept is really cool, but it's cool only to the developers right now, and I don't think many developers are going to buy my apps.. even if I did build a mono-lingual app. But receiving this cool cardboard tube has perked my interest sensors again.. if only I had a reason to justify using it and be able prove a ROI.