Sti Media: The Source

Thanks for saying thanks!

Whenever I get a question come through for the FMSguru question thingy, most always people will say "thanks for all the info you have posted" or "thanks for helping out so much" and other types of thanks messages.

Thanks is a big word to me and I appreciate it because I know that if one person steps up to say something, there are 10 more out there that have yet to say it but are thinking it (that goes for good and bad things though).

So, thanks for saying thanks when you do. It's appreciated and I'm glad I could help.

Graeme

Slashing subjective time from ask TOG

Here's a sorta interesting article on ask TOG. It's about subjective time.

In case you're not sure what subjective time is, it's the time that passes that has really no objective. The opposite of that being objective time of course, where when you're doing something with an objective in mind time seems to go much faster.

Anyhow, the author talks about this passage of time in relation to the internet. How when we go to sites and have to sit around while page refreshes happen that we feel like it "takes forever". The interesting thing about this article is that there is no mention at all of using flash or flex as a solution to no page refreshes and turning subjective time into objective time. Instead he only talks a bit about AJAX (and none of the cons) and prefetching through Mozilla and/or Google's services available.

Weird.. somebody needs to get this guy out of HTML only world and into one of the years of 2000. No offense of course.

My first impression of Apollo

Well, it's not like I have a lot of time on my hands but I thought I'd give Apollo a whirl and see how it goes. There's a lot of hype going on at the moment about it and I'm pretty curious to see how it stands up to other swf to exe apps.

Creating apps for Apollo is simple if you already have experience with Flex, which I do. So getting into the application making is a snap. I do have to say that it took me a good 10 minutes to get the icons for the application I made to show up.. Not for any fault of Adobe but my own for not noticing that the tags for the icons were sitting inside a comment block.. duh

Anyhow, once I got over that little hurdle I started to look at the rest a bit and see that the background that Flex puts in is not supported by Apollo. Or something like that because my app has a drab grey background to it when installed. All I made was a basic video player and then just embedded the FLV files in the AIR file. Worked fine.

Something I would like to see in the future would be an uninstall file in the install directory so I don't have to go to the control panel and find it in the programs list to uninstall. I'm on windows, not a mac so I can't just go and delete the directory.

I haven't had any experience yet in trying to get the file object to work or find out how on and off connectivity go, I'll see what I can do tomorrow or the next day. It looks good though, simple to create AIR files and then install. Looking forward to spending a bit more time with Apollo in the near future.

Email senders can also fight spam

I found this article a few days back and kept meaning to post it here because there are some good points here that I constantly think of when I'm sending email.

Here is the article: How the Sender Community Can Help Fight Spam.

On that subject, I also had quite a few clients that will send emails with no subject in the email, or something completely different than the contents of the email. For example, "Hi Graeme!!" or "Another email from me!" or "FYI". Which is completely non-descriptive of the email content. It's frustrating and I always will then just politely ask that they send emails with subjects that are pertinent to the information in the actual email. It's one person at a time, but it works and once explained once people get it.

Due to the amount of spam that comes through, it's getting a bit harder and harder to filter out the garbage and keep the good stuff when the sender doesn't make a bigger effort to not be caught by the filters. Ironically enough, it's the spammers that are making the biggest effort to not get caught by the filters..

So, if you have clients or friends that constantly write odd subject headers in emails, or often forget to even put one in, perhaps send them to that article. It covers some good points I think.

Adobe Lightroom = zzzzzzz for me

Now that the windows version is finally out I've managed to install it and pointed it directly at my huge (I consider it huge) collection of pictures. I've got about 4000 of them being somewhere around 20 gigs or so. Lightroom did manage to go through them all and dispaly them, but it took a while.

Now, is it just me or does Adobe's Lightroom just not fill a void that isn't there? I think if it is going to replace Bridge somehow (Bridge is very slow for me) then it would be neat but it doesn't seem to do much other than organize pics. Another item, and I don't mean this as an insult to the designers and developers on the project, but it looks and feels like it was built in Flash. The text isn't crisp, it moves sluggishly and in general feels like a Flash application.. hard to expain, but that's definitely the first thing that went through my mind.

All in all, I suppose it's a useful app, but it's going to need to do more than what it seems to do for me to take me away from Photoshop and Bridge. I like the fact that I can do quite a bit in just those two programs and then it also all just nicely integrates with Premiere and After Effects (even though I'm having problems with AE7 right now...).

Ah well, maybe once it makes it a bit farther along in development I'll check it out again.

After Effects 7.0 throws an error on closing every time

I've installed AE pro 7 on two computers and for both of them (completely different systems) AE throws an error when closing it.

The only thing that is the same about these computers is that they are both Win XP pro and they are the Japanese version.

I bought what I thought was the English version of Production Studio, installed EVERYTHING selecting English for everything and it's all installed in Japanese.... absolute garbage if you ask me. Why even ask what language you want if it's just going to install the language that the OS is in?? So in AE you can change the language by adding "-L EN" onto the end of the exe command to run the file and it will run in English. When I do this for both computers AE will constantly close with an error in windows. Running the programs in Japanese don't have this problem when closing though.. it's very weird.

Does anybody know the solution? It's annoying and I'd like it to go away. I've searched Adobe's site.. but like MM's site in the past, it's relatively useless for weird problems like this. Lots of general information on troubleshooting though.

I can't believe I listened to all of this...

But this is just hilarious... too funny. You keep wondering what is left and where it's going to go etc. funny funny funny...

Here it is, a telemarketers nightmare? (via feed squirrel)

Ahh... outsourcing. Who do you trust and how do you know?

Just went through a very bad experience with a certain developer in that I commissioned a certain piece out to him, he said he could do it and in the end didn't. It goes very basically:

"yes I can, give me a bit and I'll have something to you"

Me 2 weeks later: "How's things?"
Him: "Not so good, still working on it, give me just a bit more"

Me another week later: "Anything to see?"
Him: "Nope, it's not working out so well, but I will have something for you very soon"

Some more useless bantering and time wasting goes back and forth there. One week later I ask again and get a crap response of that it will take about 2 weeks... crap..

Unfortunately for me the project I need that piece for is coming to a close and that is missing. It's at this point where I really question the integrity of the person I "hired" for the piece I needed. What does it take to be a reliable person? How can you continue to tell a client that something isn't done and have no respect for their timeline?

It blows me away because I truly felt I could trust this person.. What do you base these things on? A hunch? feeling? instinct? pure and total facts? Outsourcing is a tough item, sometimes I wonder if it's better to keep somebody full time (we have that much work now) and be able to keep a sharper eye on them.. dunno though, would I want somebody that I had to keep an eye on all the time?

Ah.. crap. Well such is the way of business I suppose. Very good learning experience.

What's going on here? Lack of updates = busy as heck..

Just wanted to toss out a quick post to let all that are keeping track with our blog what is going on and why there are a lack of posts lately.

It's in one word.. BUSY!

Cripes, it's crazy how much FMS work is rolling in. It seems like everybody and their mom and their mom's dog is doing something with FMS. I know that a few other fellow FMS devs are really busy too and we always just sit back in amazement at the pure demand there is out there.

First up we finished up a really cool site for SignOnVRI. This site uses a very very custom Flash application for sign language translators to translate for the deaf that need translating for classes etc. We were very lucky to get this contract I think because it really showed how truly powerful FMS and Flash and a database is. No longer requiring remoting for server side stuff is really nice.. This site comes with a very advanced administration area that allows administrators to monitor who is translating for who and when and if there are open meetings, new clients etc etc. Being that it is all built on FMS, the updates to the admin area are live meaning there is no polling the database for new data! It just updates. Beautiful stuff, this has got to be one of only times I've really sat back and just felt amazed at what can be done.

I still feel like we are only scratching the surface though..

On a more fun note, we just finished up Cultus Lake Waterpark's site! If you don't know what park this is (if you live in the lower mainland or even on the west coast of North America, you probably do) I can explain :) It's B.C.'s #1 waterpark, and it now has B.C.'s #1 waterpark site! :D

Anyways, it was fun to make something like that. Nothing really exciting going on just yet, but we definitely see plans being put together for a phase 2 and in there will be some pretty cool video.

Not to even mention the other projects going on at the same time.. lots of fun going on here! Just need more time in one day..

To the Ask an FMS GURU people, thanks for the emails! I'll be replying as fast as I can after this post (I know of at least 2 that will go up today)

Had to take some time off for a bit..

Just wanted to quickly note on here that it's not like I've been ignoring this blog or any of the forums etc I generally visit, but with the combination of a rather large family tragedy and before that insanely busy work, it's been tough to get some good online time.

That should change from here on as things have settled down and there is a pattern forming once again which should get me back in the action.

First up will actually be an "Ask an FMS guru" question and answer, and then a quick posting on a new site we put together a month or so ago that turned out amazing. Of course it runs on FMS2.0 :)

Thanks for reading.

Looking for some mixed up tunes to work to? :: Neverrain.com ::

Just wanted to stick this out there to those who have yet to see it as I have only just now stumbled on it.

I usually code to some tunes of some sort, in fact I listen to an iTunes radio station called Playdio a lot. It's a mix of techno and dance music that just goes and goes. Sometimes though I find that the same songs keep getting played over and over again, and just seems to lack imagination. So I find myself constantly looking for stuff that I'm just not going to find on a local radio station, or even in the music store.

On that note..

If you like a mix of techno/dance then on neverrain.com you'll find Eric Jordan's mixes from the last 4 months in mp3 format and it looks like he's sticking one up every month. These mixes are about an hour each and sound pretty damn good to me.

Go check it out: neverrain.com

Adobe's Motion Design Center lacks "Experience Matters"

I thought I'd finally pop on over to the Motion Design Center on Adobe's site and check out the tutes they have but none of them will open for me. It doesn't matter what browser I use, the "Launch Video Tutorial" button does absolutely nothing. And it's not like I'm using linux or some odd OS, it's just plain old WinXP Pro. In fact, the window itself doesn't even show properly for me, with the video preview window and the button half hidden behind the scrollbar on the right. bleh..

I certainly hope that the folks at MM step up into their place of command and teach Adobe a thing or two on how to make a site work with all browsers and systems and make them understand that "Experience Matters". It looks great, I give them that, but functionality rates somewhere around 3 out of 10 for me (at least I could navigate to the page).

[Book] In Search of Stupidity

While taking a break from a *major* site renewal which I hope to post about in the next couple of days, I started going through some of my books that I still have in packed boxes from my move.

One that caught my eye was "In Search of Stupidity". I bought this book quite a while back from a review on somebody's blog.. I have no idea of who's anymore.. and read it through while on the train to work everyday in Japan.

I swear that I must have been the oddest foreigner (let alone person) on the train for that 2 weeks because I would just start giggling or snickering over some of the items that the author brought up. I'd literally have to close the book and look out the window or something to not burst out in laughter and be a total oddity. That along with the writing style, facts, points brought up, I definitely recommend this book to anybody that is around 26 to 40 and had their hands a bit dirty in the "techinical industry" while in school. A lot of the topics in the book will be very familiar and it will sort of "come together" and make some sense.

For example there is a section about the fall of Novell to Microsoft in the networking area and it really made me realize what a great decision I had made at the time because I was literally inches away from going towards Novell instead of Microsoft Server admin etc. I had the whole "network admin package" for studying. The author brings up this topic in pretty good detail and much humour, even reading it again now makes me laugh (good thing I'm at my desk this time). I didn't study it just due to the fact that it was insanely hard to manage and understand due to the lack of GUI. (for me at least)

There are a lot of good subjects and points brought up, if you have time to read a book for a few laughs and some interesting insight into what happened in the 80's and 90's in the techinical industry, pick it up and read it. It's a few years old now I think so getting a used one or borrowing from the library shouldn't be a problem if you're not up to buying it.

OFA Level 3 class finally passed

What's OFA Level 3 you say? It's Occupational First Aid (in Canada, BC), and somebody who has this ticket is the next best thing to a paramedic if you are physically injured at work or in an accident etc. I finally passed that course today and I am licensed now for the next 2 years. This is definitely a nice small milestone in my life.

2 weeks of non-stop classes, 8 hours a day, 2 hours of homework every night and then a midterm and a final test of half a day of practical and then a written test with 100 questions on it. It doesn't seem like much as I write it here but I've never been more physically and mentally exhausted for 2 whole weeks in my life.

It's most certainly not just sitting around in a desk copying stuff of a board or something, we got right in there rolling people around, applying all kinds of bandages and splints, tying people to spine boards and long minutes of continuous CPR. Anybody who has taken CPR before can understand exactly how tiring CPR can get when you don't have relief come in.. and this is pretty much everyday for 2 weeks.

In the test, the practical is a lot of work as you are given 3 scenarios with live patients plus a CPR scenario with a CPR doll called Annie. The 3 scenarios can really be anything and you have to be ready for it all. I think the hardest part really was just remembering every little thing that has to be done and in what order.

I had one scenario where a guy had been hit by a part of a tree that I was winching apart and it smoked him in the chest. Another was a crushed hand in a chain drive, and the walk-in (to the first aid room) was somebody who had stepped on a nail. As you can see these are all very different types of wounds, and the severity is all very different. Quite challenging.

Just to mention though, it's not like I plan on going out and working at a place to be the first aid attendent (even though I now could easily) I thought I'd take the course not only for my own knowledge (you never know what could happen) but perhaps one day I can get into volunteer Search and Rescue.

I'd have to say I learnt a LOT from this course and when I get a moment I'm going to put together a quick application I think with questions and post it here. Then people can test whether they know some of the basics of first aid and maybe a few hard questions. Hopefully people would be interested to see it and try it out.

If you are thinking of doing first aid for any reason I really recommend it. You really never know what is going to happen and it doesn't hurt just to have that extra info in your head when you are faced with some kind of emergency like a family member having a heart attack.

Snubbed by MXNA2.0

Not sure why but MXNA 2.0 no longer accepts our feed. We're in the list of blogs they take in, but no matter if I ping it with the blog or manually from the ping page it doesn't read in.

Banned perhaps? dunno.. anybody else noticed the same problem. Solution?

Translating over purchased applications to a language with different structure

I'm not sure how many of you out there have this problem but we, at times, find it much faster and easier to purchase a whole product (with the rights to change it up for our needs) and then translate it over to provide a solution for our clients or ourselves that is required for a project. Generally these products will have the ability to change over the language easy enough by placing "language" files in the application and have all the pages use these files to put in the strings for everything.

The latest we have at the moment is actually a mailing list application. I suppose it would be possible to go ahead and actually build our own, but with all the other development going on over here right now, we just are lacking in a competent developer with time to do it.

So it's a purchase and off to translation world.

We generally translate from English to Japanese (every once in a while the other way around, but there aren't many J apps that we want) and the problem isn't so much just converting words over. If it was, I'd be done in about 50% of the time it actually requires to do these change overs. The thing is that most of the translations actually have to have their orders changed around due to the major differences in grammer etc.

Take for example this:

strHello = "Hello"
strHowAreYou = "How are you"
strToday = "today"

In English we would do this:
greeting = strHello + " " + userName + ", " + strHowAreYou + " " + strToday + "?";

In Japanese the whole string for "greeting" would not only have to have it's order changed around, but all the spaces would have to be taken out.
strHello = "こんにちは、"
strHowAreYou = "お元気ですか"
strToday = "今日"

greeting = strHello + "さん。" + strToday + "は" + strHowAreYou + "?";

I'm starting to wonder if it is worth it to only doing the translation and not building from scratch... But in this case, we will now have an English and Japanese version so I guess it is.. *thinking out loud here*

ho hum..

Anyways, it's most definitely interesting and takes away some of the mundane feeling of "just translating", although at times can be time consuming when some sentences just don't go together so well. In those cases, sentences get deleted and others built into one long sentence.

This doesn't even touch on the "change-languages-on-the-fly-multilingual" apps that we put together as that is a completely different story... Definitely adds that "extra touch" to the development of a site or application.

OK, back to translating for me..

Scammin' the scammers

Thanks to our recent run-in with a scammer this site makes me feel good. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time to be honest, the stories are just hilarious.. This site is full of stories of people scamming the scammers. It makes me wish I could get a scam email so I can now practice what I learnt. I would assume it would take up quite a bit of time, and the imagination required for it might be a bit beyond me, but the justice served.. Good to see too that the money scammed from the scammers goes to charities. A nice touch.

I definitely recommend going through the first couple of letters. Just to see what it's about. Funny stuff too.. long though.

An OT post about half life 2

Since everybody else seems to be posting about it I thought I'd post too :)

This game is absolutely insane. I have doom3 as well but it doesn't even compare to half life 2 in graphics or story. The one thing that irks me about doom is that everything is extremely dark and all you really have to do is make sure to shoot enough and you are through everything. I've found that in half life you actually have to think a bit on how to get around things or on to a new area. That part I really liked. Also the physics engine they put in it is amazing... but does get a bit weird when you're carrying around a big crate or something and it gets all wiggy on ya when something else is in the way.. at least it makes you drop it though.. I guess.

The sound is absolutely amazing too. I have 7.1 surround sound hooked up to my pc and all the sounds come from exactly where they should come from. Especially when people are talking and you turn around and stuff... Really makes me realize how important sound is to a game or application.

But the one thing that I need some help with is the motion sickness. I've seen some posters saying that they have played it to the end and I'm still getting through the canal!! I can't play the game for more than 2 hours a day, and sometimes the motion sickness carries on till the next day.. I don't generally get motion sickness at all really. On planes or trains or automobiles. Is it because the screen is big? 19" or graphics are set too big? 800x600. What causes it? and how can I stop it so I can actually play more?

Funny thing, and a quick note, I have found that playing games improves my application des/dev abilities. I'm sure others have already mentioned or thought this too but I definitely see quite a few areas in a game, mainly ideas or concepts, that I can carry into my apps. Study and have fun all in one :D

2 sessions down and one to go

I've just finished up my second session on FCS here at MAX China and I have to say I am so glad it went so well. The audience was great, the environment was great, the helpers are extremely helpful and there were no problems at all. After all my worrying on whether the timing of my presentations would be right or too long or too short, both of them finished up exactly on time without me even looking at a clock. I found that there are a lot of people who don't know much about FCS here but there are a lot of interested people because my beginners session was full. There were a few people even standing, it was great. The other more advanced session had a bit less of a turnout which was a bit dissappointing but it's pretty understandable seeing how many actually turned out for the other one.

I'm sitting in Colin Moock's presentation right now and he's running his presentation (about multiuser apps) from his computer, but anybody can see it if they have a laptop and wireless connection. Which is really cool and I wish I thought of it because for the people who are sitting at the back. The screen isn't that big and it's a bit tough to read what's up there. A good idea to show the technology while explaining it.

The keynote was really cool, I'm assuming the presentation on Flash was the same thing they showed at the Tokyo MAX, so it was really neat to see the preview of the next version of Flash in person. It's a lot more interesting to see in person than watching Colin's video (even though it was a good vid).

Earthquake in Taiwan.. just in time for MAX2004 China

Like I don't experience enough earthquakes in Japan, I come to Taiwan for MAX China and we get a huge earthquake here... Sitting up on the 6th floor of the Westin in my hotel room and suddenly the whole room starts swaying back and forth. I can hear the creaking of the wood and walls all over the place and the water in the bathtub is sloshing back and forth so bad it's almost spilling out. Yes, we just had a huge earthquake and it went on for what seemed like forever.

But all seems fine and there aren't any casulties reported even though the earthquake was centered about 200km from here with a magnitude of 6.0 to 6.5.

Just to note, that size of earthquake in Japan a few weeks ago put thousands of people out of their homes and destroyed a fair amount of older buildings in the area that it was situated. That earthquake was scary enough but I live on the 2nd floor of the apartment building and it's not so bad. 6th floor is insane... I could've sworn that things were going to start crashing down, including the hotel.

Shoulda got some vid of it.. but that just wasn't on my mind. All seems good still for MAX tomorrow, and I can't wait :D I'll try to blog a bit on how things go here tomorrow and the next day.

Funny OT: You know you've been in Japan too long when....

I was recently cleaning up a forgotten corner of the house and found this list that I got a long time ago from a coworker. I didn't understand all of them at the time, but now I do... totally hilarious if you get it. Here are some of my favourites:

You know you've been in Japan too long when:

1. You don't think it's unusual for a truck to play "It's a small world" when backing up.
2. When in the middle of nowhere totally surrounded by rice fields and abundant nature, you aren't surprised to find a drink vending machine with no visible means of a power supply.
3. You have mastered the art of simultaneous bowing and handshaking.
4. You find yourself practicing golf swings with your umbrella on the train platform.
5. You buy an individually plastic wrapped potato (tomato, green pepper, carrot etc..) in the supermarket.
6. You use the "slasher hand" and continuous bowing to make your way through a crowd.
7. Back in your home country for a short visit you wait patiently outside your taxi for its door to spring open for you.
8. You start bowing on the telephone when you end the conversation.
9. You find it saves time to stand and retrieve your cabin baggage while the plane is on the final approach.
10. You have developed an uncontrollable urge to follow people carrying small flags.
11. You're not surprised when three men show up with a ladder to change a lightbulb.
12. You can't have your picture taken without your fingers forming the "peace" sign.
13. You run for the train pushing people left and right, jump on the train holding the door open to let your bag in.... because you know there won't be another train for at least a minute.

14. You understand all of the above.

Totally funny stuff to me as I've been here about 8 years now and these "quirks" of Japan are normal life now. I used to be amazed at some of the customs and behaviours but not anymore (or at least not as much). As for the taxi one, I've done that... :D I laughed at myself and then opened the door, but it did take me a few seconds to realize you open the door yourself.

If you have some funnies concerning a foreign country you live in or your own country stick 'em in the comments. This is most certainly not a culture bashing, just funnies on the difference in customs and normal everyday actions we all take while living our lives in whatever environment we are in. I'd have to say this is one of the coolest things to experience when living in another country.

Woe to ye that blogs just before JD ;)

I'm a poet and I don't even... ahem.. Is it just me or is anybody else posting something to their blog, and you go to check the agg's a bit later to see some click counts, pop into the goog and your post is like... half way down the page, and the only thing from the top to wherever your post is, is JD's posts? And you're thinking, "daaaammmnnn, if only I'd have posted like 15 mins later"...

One of these days I'm going to match JD and the macromedia technote team and stick on my Ultra-Blogging Cap (patent pending) and lay down the juice with some ultra-bloggining and post so much that I'll fill up the goog. And I'll time it right after one of the above posts ;)

:: note to self :: - it's just a blog dude :p - ::

No more wimpy DSL for me..

When I went to go buy a new laptop (current one is running at 366Mhz..) the other day, the store happened to have a special going on where you can get a hundred bucks of the laptop, plus 3 months free of internet connection and 2 months free for the provider fees. Why it is set to 2 and 3 months is a bit beyond me but... Anyways, since the laptop I got was expensive enough (Fujitsu Biblo MG75J) I thought this would be a good time to upgrade to fibre optics as the setup fee is free too. What more can you ask for really? So poo on all you DSL people out there, I'm moving to the next dimension :p

So in about a month or so I'm assuming that I'll be racing along the internet at an even more insane speed than I am now which is all cool I guess. I wonder how much of a dif it really is... If my FCS apps speed up I'll be truly happy :D (and iTunes stops cutting out when I'm listening to the radio..)

The laptop itself is super nice. Pentium 1.7M processor with a gig of ram (upgraded to 1 gig from 512MB), built in wireless, removable cd/dvd drive to stick in a battery if I want, even though the thing does run for a good 4 to 4 and half hours already. To top it all off, it's less than 2 kilos and small but not too small which fits great in my new laptop bag. I figure if my current laptop at 366Mhz lasted me so long I might as well splurge a bit and get something good that is going to last me just as long. As long as I don't drop it in the ocean or gets stolen or something... that would truly suck.

If I had to complain though I would have to say that manufacturers put in WAY too much crap software. I'm talking serious garbage.. it's insanve really. Stuff like little banners that are constantly blinking all over your desktop, the programs entry in the start menu is so full that it doesn't even fit on one screen. I actually ended up doing a recovery of the computer just so I could go back and not click that "You must click this!" icon. Plus it was formatted at 50 and 10Gig drives for one hard drive.. I guess it's just a matter of preference but I definitely wanted more than 10gigs on my "secondary" D drive. So a change to the partitions was definitely called for there.

Goodies Goodies Goodies and stuff

I'm finally back from my trip to Ireland for a little over a week (a well deserved vacation if I do say so myself) to find a fedex box sitting on my living room table. It's from MM and full of stuff like a T and laptop bag which seems to be of quite nice quality, along with some trading cards for components (two boxes of the same thing so one is going to my partner :D)

So a huge thanks out to the MM flash team, it's these little things I think that really count. Like Jesse said in his blog entry, you don't see other companies doing stuff like this for their users.

I'll try to post again about Ireland, it was a blast really because we rented a car and literally travelled to every edge of the island. Bit expensive all in all but nice. Got about 1000 pics or so to sift through but will post some of the better ones when I get the first chance. Some very beautiful scenery in Ireland, that's for sure.

The long arm of the Japanese government

The long arm of the Japanese government has extended out to my former place of employment, Citibank Private Bank Japan, and crushed it like a grape *insert squishing sound here* (though I doubt you'll see this in any news but in Japan). *update* - You can find the news of this on bloomberg.com Supposedly they will have to shut down within a year.

I must say that I did enjoy my first 3 and a half years of working in a very serious and advanced corporate environment and I learnt a LOT from everybody that works there. I would have to say I am thankful for the training and experience I was allowed in such a short time. How projects work, how corporate companies handle new ideas, technology, ways of thinking and procedures of getting things done. I know for a fact that I am by far not fully versed in the ways of the corporate world but understanding the basics and a bit more sure does take me in directions that can only bring me forward into the success I drive for. I won't comment much on the remaining 8 months as this is when Citi started coming under the harsh scrutiny of the Japanese government for their thieving ways of taking millions from rich Japanese here. All management were, and probably still are, extremely tense and it just wasn't an atmosphere that one could grow and mature in.

Taking destiny into my own hands I immediately surged off into a new yet related direction and seriously couldn't be doing better. Sometimes we all need that extra kick in the arse to get moving in the direction we would rather be going and I think that's exactly what it was. I am not a religious person, but at times I truly wonder what these "signs" are that keep getting sent to me. Do you believe in fate or destiny? I know I do, but it in all cases does require a bit of shaping with your own hands. One extremley good example is literally me being here in Japan... but that's another story so..

As I sit back and reflect on the chain of events that has brought me to where I am right now, it amazes me as it is literally like a set of dominoes lined up just waiting to be knocked over. One thing leads to the next and then the next and it just seems to move forward like clockwork. Unconcious decisions I may have made "on the spur of the moment" fit in, and then fit in again later down the road. Is something steering us all in the directions we go? where one thing that may seem bad or against where we think we want to go really was put in our path to deter us from making a worse decision down the road? Or be forced into a worse situation than the one we may be in at the moment?

Had I still been working at Citi at this moment, not only would I have been miserable and unchallenged, but I would have missed out on all the things that I have experienced and given the chance to do and see now. Which have of course only contributed to my wealth of experience and knowledge which I'm sure will in the end be called into play sometime in the future. I *may* have learnt a little bit more, but the shape that I left the techonology dept in, it didn't seem so to me. Does it all happen for a reason? Yes, I think so :) I cannot wait to see what the future holds for me from here on, and as always wait humbly as new and exciting experiences and knowledge rain down from above like an unending Spring rain.

Holy Cripes! Thanks to the spoof my bandwidth all used up?

Just got a mail today from the hosting company about the account that I have this blog on and they have told me that I've reached 90% of my limit of 5GB. I know 5G's isn't much but this account is free so I can't really complain :) But anyways I'm wondering how a blog could possibly use up so much juice and went and looked at the logs (which I barely ever do for this site..) Taking a look around I found that the Macromedia video banner spoof I did (direct link) is extremely popular and has had over 2400 views already with that post alone going over 1700 times viewed... Looking at the referrers I found that people are linking all around the world with the largest amount of viewers actually popping in from China. Thanks for links all, but... this is gonna cost me cash on this free account! So, I moved it over to our server where we get oodles of Gigs to play with :)

I most certainly did *not* expect this kind of reaction from the community, but would have to say that it's nice people are checking it out. I'll most definitely have to be more careful next time I think, and no 2 spoofs in the same month ;)

On a side note, I've agreed to post a detailed article over on flashstreamworks on how I went about this project so if you're interested in a bit more detail then keep an eye on things there sometime near the beginning of next month. I might also be putting up an article on MM's dev area but no word back on that just yet so who knows..

A case study called "Easybum"

Reading through a magazine here in Japan, and it has case studies on building services. One of them was called "Easybum". What do you think this service is about?

Just another wacky example of putting together english words into japanese to sound "hip"... pretty funny stuff if you ask me.

*don't go thinking dirty* it's not like that.

A 200 dollar web camera!

me: Yes.. I bought a 200 dollar web camera.

them: Are you nuts?

me: No... I don't think so

them: Are you rich or something??

me: Nope..

them: Then what the hell you need a 200 dollar webcam for??!

Me: Well, here's the story. the management for the building I live in have decided that they need to change all the drain/sewage pipes (the pipes that take the bad water out of the building) 2 weeks from now and it seems that every single apartment here has to have a whole one week worth of construction. This totally sucks because these people will be coming in and out of my apartment from 9 to 5 everyday from Monday to Saturday. Yes, you read that right.. in Japan doing construction on Saturday is normal, which means there will be people in my house while I'm still wandering around in my boxers making coffee or something. It's not so bad otherwise because I'm not home during the day, so I don't have to put up with anything, unlike most people living in this building who have to go without a shower and toilet (anything that uses water) during that time.

Though, I don't trust these people because I won't be here to watch what they're doing. Not only that there was a special on TV the other day about how a guy would pretend to be part of a large construction crew working on a building. He'd wander around taking casts of the keys and then come back in a few months to help himself to stuff from the rooms he got keys of.. I'm already nervous about people coming into my house while I'm not here and a show like that just put me over the edge, SO! here's the reason a bought an expensive webcam.

I plan on making a security style app with Flash/FCS so I can watch these people from anywhere on the net. I think FCS is extremely ideal for this because for example, say you have a cam setup and you want it to watch your room. Though thanks to high pricing of bandwidth and license or hosting of FCS, you most certainly don't want to be publishing full time. So you connect up with the "watcher" side of the app and make a call to the webcam side of the app to turn itself on and publish at whatever rate you choose. Maybe keep it at a low level of FPS to conserve bandwidth, but when you really want to know what's going on, you remotely turn up the FPS or quality. Also if somebody has broken into your house or whatever it is you are watching, while you are calling the police you can send a call across for it to start recording the video too so you can use it later in court. That would be a first I think. "Crime fighting with FCS". Anyways, back to my problem. There isn't a free line of sight that I can get the area where they are working in, so I had to somehow have the camera move, or get one with a huge line of sight. But at the same time I also wanted to setup another camera in my "office" room so I will know if anybody wandered in without permission. This means I need not only another camera (I already have one connected to my comp) but I need one that meets my needs. Hence the expensive camera.

them: ah.. I see. Isn't that being a bit paranoid and untrusting?

me: Umm.. no. I don't see it that way really, it's just a small step to better security.

them: So what's so special about the camera that makes it so expensive?

me: It's so cool! It's the Logitech Q-cam Orbit. It follows your face automatically and has a 180 degree swivel with a 60 tilt so that it can pretty much follow anything that doesn't go completely above or behind it. I've played with it a bit so far and it does quite well in following along as long as you don't zip around too fast. I wish I could control it from afar though.. there must be a way.

My biggest worry though was that it might not work with Flash (there seem to be quite a few people having trouble with some cams), but there wasn't any problems and it showed up crystal clear. Here's a pic of it in case you haven't seen one in the stores. I'm not sure if these are available around the world, but they have been out in Japan for quite a few months I think. I've included in the central usb memory I got so you can get a perspective on how big the cam is.

I'm actually looking forward to building the app, even though it'll be a bit tough because there are a lot of things to think of. One thing that runs through my mind is what happens if for some reason the network goes down and then comes back up. In this case I thought "If Central had true network awareness I'd have my killer Central app!!" but it doesn't, so I have to rely on polling for the connection status or something. It should be fun, and when I get closer to finishing up I'll try to post some screenshots.

So, how do you feel about somebody tramping in and out of your house for a week while you're not there? Would you take any steps to increase security in your house, or at the very least, the rooms you don't want people in? Or trust in the superintendent of the building and the construction company to keep security high?

Working with peoples memories

This is just something that was running through my mind last night, so I thought I'd put it up to see if any of you have had the same experience.

I've had the privilege of working on quite a few video projects in the past year or so and I'm working on a new one this week for a client who wants to give, as a wedding gift, the video that she took of her friend's wedding. They had the wedding in Hawaii and of course had a local pro video editing company come in and take some vid and edit it up to a DVD (which I personally didn't find very pro-like.. but that's just my opinion) but the stuff I have is what the client took. The more "personal" side of things that the pro's weren't around for. The job is to take about an hour of this home video and scrunch it into about 15 mins with some specially selected songs from the client. It's not an easy job as there are so many places that can't be "used" as well as I'd like to (video shake, bad lighting etc..) but I really enjoy working with video so that's not biggy to me. The one dif I see with the "pro" DVD and what this video is going to be is that the look and feel that is coming across is much more personal and close up with the main characters, bride, groom and family. It's got the comments during the lunch and dinner before the big day, the look of each family member while they get the normal butterflies we all get before such a big day. It fades into the wedding day, and there are all these feelings just written all over everybody's face as the bride gets out of the limo at the church, father walks her up the aisle, he's nervous and you can see he's doing his best not to shed a tear in front of all because he's giving his beautiful daughter away to another man. It pans off again to the happy couple at the alter, the mother dabbing her eyes in the background, clapping, happiness, sunlight and then off for the photoshoot where this happy young couple get captured in time in a variety of places while the rest look on in pride and happiness. It's nothing like a presentation vid I did a while back for Disney where you just have to line up some neat graphics with vid and music.... these are peoples memories. Touching and hearstring-pulling memories. More than once I choke back a slight sniffle in happiness for this couple as they share the start of their new life together. *sniff* *sniff*.. getting all mushy just thinking about it again. Way off topic, but I had to get it out. Thanks for reading :)

Japanese Blog Aggregator is up and running (with some thoughts)

Well, I officially got it running last wednesday but wanted to watch to make sure there were no strange things going on like the last problem I was having with posts coming in each time the server would go out and get the contents of the blog. I actually solved that by comparing the link of the blog entry instead of comparing the titles of the blog entries like the original MXNA code does. My CF was a little rusty (read: not good at all) before this project, but I think I've improved my own skills a lot by changing things up and making it work and look better to accomodate different character sets. The one thing I really like about CF is that it is quite intuitive and since I already have an asp background (vbscript) with quite a bit of DB experience under my belt, it's easy to catch on to. I still have to get the FAQ and ABOUT section done, but there is a short explanation on the forum so it'll do for the week I think.

On a different note, I wanted to bring up a point that Alex did in my last entry's comments area of the situation of blogs and getting information in Japan and Japanese. I have found that at this time there aren't a lot of Japanese people who write blogs on web related technical issues. Why? Well I think there are a few reasons. The biggest one is that it just hasn't caught on yet. Almost all the blogs in Japan (that I have seen) are literally just an online diary of that person's life. More personal things, and much less "information". There are of course exceptions. The next reason comes in a close second to the third in that most people probably don't find writing a blog worth it as either they don't know enough to write about certain things, or they know a lot and don't want to share their secrets or it could be that they think people will see them as a "know-it-all". It's a different mentality here and kind of hard to explain, but I think within a year or so the amount of web related blogs will increase quite a bit. As long as there is a way for them to get their thoughts out to a wider audience (hence aggregators) and they realize that the increased attention is actually quite beneficial to them.

On a more personal note. The people I have talked in chat or mail, usually say they just have nothing to say to the world. Though they do have ideas and are constantly improving their skills, they're just not the sort to go about blaring it out on a blog. Another reason is that they think if they put some good code up, or some ideas that they have, they'll lose the edge they think they have and start losing work to people who take that knowledge and do more with it than they do. I think we were all like that at some point maybe, (or of that sort) but once we saw the usefulness or just wanted to be a piece of the community, we hopped on the blog bandwagon and hooked up with some aggregators. Person by person, day by day the community can only grow I think :)

Need help with the MXNA aggregator code

I need some help on the aggregator that I'm hoping to make live tomorrow. It's the MXNA code, so anybody who is quite familiar with it or Coldfusion can hopefully push me in the right direction here.

The problem is that for some blogs, it is importing the same entry more than once when I have set the server to automatically go check. So far out of about 20 blogs, it has happened to 3. One of them is Mike Chambers's blog... I thought maybe it was just because they were old or something but that doesn't seem to be the case. Not only that, for 2 of them it continuously keeps importing the latest entry and only that entry (I guess until there is a new one) and for Mike's blog, it pulls in some old entry from a while back (not the latest entry).

Is there a way I can fix this? I've looked all over but have yet to figure out how to get this worked out. If anybody can point me in the right direction, I would be forever grateful :)

In the end it's the presentation of the app that counts (thanks flash!)

Well have I got an interesting story with a happy ending. It's a flash story :)

It's a bit of a .... no.. it's a damn long long story (now that I have finished writing it..) as the beginning stuff is actually needed to understand the full weight of the ending so if you haven't the time then just imagine that Flash is the devil of devils in the beginning but ends up being the saviour of all... or some other kind of mushy weird analogy like that. :) Some background stuff if you will:

I took over the intranet here at work about 2 years ago. At that time it was administrated by one guy, updated by hand, and was ALL html. There was absolutely no back end and nothing moved unless it was an animated gif, even at that it most likely just a little "new" gif or something lame like that.

So my goal at that time was to at the very least start making some parts work with a back-end (especially the staff list, I can't believe that was all written by hand). So I was allowed to install Oracle, get some asp pages up and messed with the design from there to make it a bit easier on the eyes. While designing, I took a look at a lot of sites on the net and of course Flash really caught my eye. Pretty much being a beginner at HTML in general (I ooohhhed and aahhhed at font tags...), I had never even heard of flash and immediately jumped into a few books and in time found myself hanging out over at Flashkit looking at all the tutes on flash there. Which lead me to Ultrashock and so on and so on...

Of course being the "enterprise" company that we are, Flash was not readily accepted and I had to keep my interests in Flash more of a hobby than something I could actually use at work. In time I managed to add a flash menu that "moved"... wow! the effect it had on people at that time (especially me hahahaha). Some people were blown away that something like that was possible, others a little more practical or knowledgable in web stuff immediately found it useless eye candy. So that brought about the "modified menu" that didn't move and was already open to what most people used. ho hum..

At that time I got a small request from one of the product departments that wanted a "Latest Nav data" which is the latest pricing on certain products that they offer. Well, here was another great opportunity for flash because they actually already had an animated gif (which didn't move very smoothly ...hmmm.. it sucked actually) So I immediately went off to create a little "radar" looking app that went over really really well and things took off from there. It moved, and was useful and not in the way of people getting to info they wanted.

By this time I was ready to move on to the next version of our intranet to keep up with corporate standards and branding, and another department took advantage of this time to request a new page that would show their products and information in a bit more of a dynamic way. They wanted a ticker running across the bottom and buttons that moved when you moused over them, jumping animations.... Well this lead to a disaster and that page was actually rebuilt within 6 months to the version it is at currently that incorporates much more backend DB stuff and Coldfusion remoting (getting Coldfusion here is another messy story that I won't get into here... MM, you guys need a better reputation ;) ). To get this far though was like getting water from a rock and was not fun in anyway at all. Constant complaints from upper management, sneers as they walk by saying in a way "there's no way that'll go anywhere", and "flash sucks, only good for annoying animations". Frustrating stuff.

So you get the idea I think. This brings us on to our next project that started about a year and half ago. I've mentioned this project in past posts here so I'll just touch on it briefly. It was a project to create learning material for the sales people to understand the products we have and why they work the way they do. Good points and bad points, when to sell and comparing to what will it do well, kind of idea. For this it required simulations, multimedia factors, ineractiveablity, and a great presentation front (even though there is some backend work involved). I immediately brought up Flash for the job. I got the usual "you only want to use flash because you like it.." crap, but was in luck on this one because the department head that brought up this project also likes Flash and helped me convince my boss that Flash was the way to go.

So off we went on this project that was supposed to only last about 5 months. The first thing we needed was people who could build it. I did the framework, interface and backend of the app but we needed somebody (or more than one person) to build the actually product simulations. The material. You wouldn't believe how long it took to find somebody who could actually do it... why are there so few good flash designers/developers out there.. especially in Japan. We ended up getting 2 people (who I ended up training..). Throughout the whole time though, the project was belittled, sneered at, and in general just left to itself to finish up. Why? because we were using Flash... talk about a bad rep.

Anyways, that project finished up last month. It took 1 and half years. We ended up hiring another 3 people in total to help in the end, and not only that it has been translated into 2 other languages (we're a global company) at the cost of the technology department (the guys that do the sneering). But even with all this help from upper management in the end, you could tell that it still took a lower rung on the ladder of importance as they had hired cheap temporary people, and also outsourced quite a bit to cheap cheap China. Economically it's good I suppose, but you get what you pay for really.. which created more work for us here to push for higher quality overall.

Just before that project finished up, there was another new page that was going to be going up (our department!) and the boss wanted an organization chart of our department of about 30 people. The cheap cheap company wanted to put up some pics with arrows on it (maybe powerpoint...) so in I jumped again with a neat idea to use video. Each person would only have about 1 sec to turn from their comp to the camera and smile. This all over the place I think, and I thought I'd take advantage of that idea on the intranet for the organization chart. I rounded up a few people who weren't camera shy and built this little Flash app to show my boss. He liked it and we went full out on it to have it ready for the production day. It runs off of an XML backend so updates are easy, and it is multilingual. A success if I do say so myself. But of course in the beginning that "we hate flash" eyeing was all over the place. Getting used to it by now though and haven't failed yet (well just that once...) so we pushed it through and it became a hit throughout the department with giggles coming from cubicles all around.

So here's the happy ending (finally). The head of Technology for the whole of the company (not just Japan), and I'm talking the big cheese of the big cheese, seems to be in town this week, and my boss proceeds to brag about all the accomplishments we've made here. It just so happened that I had walked by his office at this time when they were looking at some stuff, and there was this ooohhing and aaaahhhing so I put an ear out to hear what they were talking about and it was the Flash designed and developed organization chart. The big cheese starts asking all kinds of questions as to how it was built and they had a fun filled time mousing over peoples pics which would then turn into video and the person would face the camera. I walked off to what I was doing at the time thinking "cool, seems to be going well" and didn't think much of it after that. About an hour later I was called into my bosses office and heartily commended for the Flash work that I have done up until this point. Talk about irony.. but a happy ending for all I think. This gives me a great stepping stone for the next FCS app that I have on mind (and have been given the go ahead to start preliminary dev docs to present to the boss for approval).

And that's it. A long read but goes to prove that it's the presentation of the app that is extremely important. Sometimes you gotta break the rules to make new ones. You can't do that kind of stuff with html and animated gifs or even DHTML. Of course the head of tech doesn't know that we used multiple apps that aren't standard here, which is bad bad, but it stood out in his eyes and he was impressed. That impression goes well for my boss, and of course down to myself and my team. Kudos to all involved. Hopefully the next app goes just as well.

Have I finally broken the thick black hard rock crust of Flash implementation possibility?

Here at the company I work for, the security of technology implementation is so strict we aren't even allowed to place icons in the quick start bar (even though we all do) due to the fact that there might be a possibility of failure of startup or some kind of error (never happens). They delete them remotely from time to time... Always use the start menu - programs - app menu to start an application. It doesn't stop there. There are so many procedures and steps that must be taken for anything to get implemented here, it's almost not worth it to even try unless one of the business users has *explicitly* requested it, and even then they had better be a high roller here or nobody would really listen to them.. For the past 2 years I've been preaching and implementing bit by bit Flash into our intranet. Creating more dynamic pages, pages with no refreshes, interactive pages, and a high level FCS application that was used in training for the bankers to understand buying and selling currencies. This wasn't a web based app, but it was of course created completely with Flash. With each and every one of these I was mocked at the ability of building something with flash.

To continue on from that we are now just finishing a project that we've been working on for the past year and a half that uses pretty much nothing but flash to teach the bankers (yes more training stuff..) how to sell certain banking products that we have. It's a really cool scheme and has also been translated over to 2 other languages (this does cost a *lot* of money, so great investment into a flash app here), so it's going to be huge when it hits global. Currently still only in Japan. Once again, in the beginning I had barely got approval to build this completely with flash. "Can't you build that with HTML?".... no.. you can't.

This brings me to the point of my post. Flash has a bad reputation. I mean a really really bad rep. Nobody thinks it's useful for anything other than annoying you with stupid intros, moving popup ads, and crap that they stick on the front page of yahoo that zooms across the screen and hinders your ability to actually read what the heck is there. I swear it gets worse everyday... Even against all that bad rep, slow and steady *good* implementations of Flash have turned my management around and opened their minds a bit more at what is now possible.

At first, when I would suggest creating something with flash to take advantage of some ability of it (no refreshes, slight animation to catch attention or whatever) I was almost laughed out the front doors of the company. They mocked the ability of using flash for anything that wouldn't annoy the users here, and that it couldn't possibly be any better than what you can already build with a good asp application with html. It did start slowly, but turned into a snowball effect I think. Once the ability of flash (combined with Coldfusion and Oracle) is seeable, I mean right in your face not just on paper or some powerpoint presentation, it really does have an effect. You can make things move, have data cache in the background without the user noticing (efficiency in the browser makes users happy). Save info for later in an SO maybe to save some choices they made, play nicely with XML, read in jpg's... This is already known to most I think, but the one thing I'm really impressed with is the effect that Flash has on people who were once critics.

I recently brought up another new idea for using flash except this time it wasn't for the intranet, I'm looking to get something going with FCS and a standalone app that would be converted from swf to exe with screenweaver. If I had suggested something like this about a year ago, there would be a pretty good chance I would have been not only laughed at, but most likely reprimanded for bringing up something so crappy. Using flash for an application! Unthinkable! Or so they thought, but once it's in your face.... The power is invigorating, keeps me on the track. Funny thing now is that when I suggest a flash page or app they now look at me very seriously and talk about the functions that can be implemented, and abilities that we can offer the users.

Chalk one up for flash in a corporate network, and soon FCS I hope.

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.
------------

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.

Developing and designing multilingual applications

Here's a topic that I've wanted to write something up on for a while now. Working in Japan I've had a lot of chances working in teams or the head of team developing and designing multilingual applications. Thinking of just one language for an app is not so bad I think. You accomodate in the design the right amount of space to put in the text you want to show. All your strings are relatively static so you don't have to put too much thought into what's going to be placed in and it's quite easy to get a decent layout going. This is where the difficulty of multilingual applications come in.

The one thing I have found up until this point is incompatibility with a certain language of an OS, or applications that only support one language (which are only too often...) If any of you have used After Effects, you would know that you can choose which language you want to install it in. This is close to my idea of an ideal multilingual application. To make it one step better, it would be best if you could change languages on the fly. FlashMX2004 is absolutely horrible in this way as you can't install 2 versions of the app anymore (even if you have licenses) on one computer which means it is FOREVER English or Japanese or whatever language you have bought. From what I understand, even if you uninstall one and install the other it won't work but I haven't tested this myself. This is the third worse situation, the second worst would be that there just isn't the language your are looking for so you settle for English (this sucks..). Last of all, the worst would be that there isn't anything but English, so you settle for it, but it doesn't read 2 byte characters so you only have the alphabet to work with, which means you can't even render out text in your own language...

While working on a new application we had decided that the application must support language changing on the fly. The world is too closely knitted together now, thanks to the internet, to only support English. If you do that, you have already cut out a HUGE chunk of customers that don't want to work with English apps (there are a lot of people who disdain English apps... trust me) If you want to use it in English, you change it to English, need it in Japanese, then just change it over. The interface changes up nicely, all the fonts change and the font size adjusts to a new size to fit the font that has been set up for that language. This is where Flash excels! I can't imagine doing something like this in html as just messing with the fonts alone would cause the page to reload... either way this isn't a web based app. But the ability to just change a language up at the push of a button is a nice feature I think.

To do this, we took advantage of the textFormat method and just made sure to set the fonts and sizes properly. Then it's just a matter of telling all the text boxes to switch over to the new language and then subsitute the strings with the appropriate words. With the ability to read in XML as well, it's simple enough to keep on adding languages for when the user base grows out of your own locale.

If you have never worked on an app that uses more than one language in it's interface, I stronly suggest giving it a try. Find a team you can join or come up with your own application maybe. There is a lot of knowledge that can be gained from the experience and it makes you look at application des/dev in a completely new way. Though the one thing I have found hardest is conforming things to match up grammatically correct. Though with some heavy planning in the beginning it's not too big of hurdle to jump over.

Definitely worth the experience though, and not only that, going back to one language apps is almost boring in a way because you have no need to implement different types of tricks and fixes to get around the interface going all weird on you when you switch over.

All about the beta testing world

I've beta'd for a lot of companies I think. Checking software, seeing where it is going wrong, making sure to post as many details as I can with my PC specs and how the heck I made it mess up. These things are very important to a developing team. If the team is large enough, the bug itself get's sent to certain section of the team and they ponder away on it. So now we are in beta testing world. Not that I have never built an app before, or been part of a team that has, but this is my biggest so far I think. Got an app built, we played with it, had fun, didn't find any real bugs and let the testers go at it. In one day there are already over 20 bugs and suggestions of improvement (all put together).

This doesn't really amaze me as much as overwhelm me. Bug squishing is not a fun job, unless you're the type that really likes it... I'm not. But I do like to solve puzzles and riddles so it's not so bad. The biggest problem I have found so far is that it's sometimes hard to figure out if it's your own bug or the software you are using to build the app.

We currently are using Flash and Screenweaver (tried Flash Studio Pro but it sucks badly..the built app crashes everytime it's launched...I do not suggest using this software) for a desktop app. It's fun to put together and harness the power of both pieces of software (combined with FCS of course :D ) but there sure are some weird quirky things that go on depending on the settings you use.

One thing that I'll mention here, is to never set the cursor to anything. If you do that, it'll never go back. For example, you set the cursor to the help cursor (little question mark next to the arrow) when rolling over a button maybe. When rolling off you set it back to the arrow right? The problem is that it never changes back to the little hand when rolling over buttons... bummer.. thought we could add in some neat cursor work. Instead that'll have to be done inside of flash I suppose.

This has definitely given me a much greater respect of the hard working fellows taking a look at beta remarks and implementing them into the application. Can't wait to get this app out, lots of work but seeing a high quality application go out your door into the world is a very neat feeling.

PowerPoint - Menace to Society

I was recently reading an article in the new edition of ID (The International Design Magazine, Nov 2003), which was a Q+A with information design evangelist Edward Tufte. It only reinforced what I and many others have known all along.... PowerPoint is crap.

It puts the power in the hands of a lot of individuals to make presentations, who probably should not be making presentations (or at least visual presentation materials). Now, I am NOT talking as a snobbish designer here. While ugly design in one thing (don't get me started), the failure of a medium on a whole to actually be able to properly convey information and educate the audience is another. It seems that most presenters fall back on PowerPoint simply to give the audience something to stare at, in case what they have to say is not enough to keep attention. Is there hope?

Quote from article:
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"The minimum we should hope for with any display technology is that it should do no harm."
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You can read excerpts of the article at http://www.idonline.com/qa/

Mr. Tufte has also written an Essay on the topic, The cognitive Style of PowerPoint, that can be obtained from his site (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint) for $7 (USD). Also a nifty poster that made me chuckle.

*This is in no way meant to be an advertisement

"Will change the way you work."

With RIA des/dev being a deservedly hot topic, I have read developers claiming that their apps will "Change the way you work.". My thought on this is along the lines that changing the way our clients work should not be the goal when designing/developing an application. The point should be to create an application that is flexible enough to adapt to the way the client works, not the other way around.

Most people have developed their own style of working that, well, works for them. While we should surely strive to create tools that help them make the tasks at hand easier and/or more efficient, if the solution created attempts to make them totally change the way they are accustomed to working, more than likely, it will simply be an application that gets shelved. This in and of itself is an extreme failure in usability.

To put in in perspective, how would most designers/developers feel if their next client said, "For this one, I want you to forget about the normal workflow you have developed for projects and instead do it the way I tell you."