Thursday, October 30, 2003
I've been thinking about Microsoft's recent announcement of Longhorn's XAML development mark-up and I think this will be a welcome move by many front-end developers who don't necessarily want to get their hands dirty with C# and VB. Now I haven't researched into this but I'm presuming that using XAML, designers who are fond of tinkering with the odd bit of XML will now have a new creative outlet by way of Windows interface development. All the coding can be undertaken by a seasoned developer meaning there is a seperation of the two processes. This is similar to how developers and designers are working now with Flash projects, leave the designer to do his job and not worry about the ColdFusion/ASP/PHP interfacing which can be coded seperately by the developer. The only problem is that we have to wait another few years to see the new Operating System.Jon 3:23 PM Permalink
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
I have had a few problems with my weblog over the past couple of days, the most recent of which I no longer show up on MXNA? Could it be that I have been removed?!Jon 5:15 PM Permalink
There is a very interesting debate heating up over at Branden Hall's blog site Wax Praxis regarding Actionscript version 1.0 versus version 2.0. I am yet to actually use MX 2004 as I have too much work to do in MX at the moment to consider switching, it usually takes me a few months! Anyway I wanted to add my take on some of the comments raised.
Before Flash 5 arrived I knew some basic actionscript in V4 but it all seemed to confusing to me coming from a non-programming background. When dot syntax was introduced I started to understand how to reference objects a lot better and after reading Foundation Actionscript (FriendsOfEd) I was well on my way to understanding the language. I have consumed many books since as the standard keeps rising, Branden Hall and Sam Wan's OOP with Actionscript still the benchmark in my eyes.
What I am saying is that my programming knowledge is constantly expanding and evolving all thanks to Actionscript, the first language that I have attempted that I really understand. As for AS2 I am not qualified to comment but I think that any evolution of Actionscript is a positive move by Macromedia to position Flash as the premier solution to deliver RIA's, especially now that Microsoft are heading in a similar direction. AS2 may not be as simple to build quick applications and solutions with, but I still look forward to learning from Branden and all the other talented Flash Authors out there just how powerful the new language can be.
Jon 1:08 PM Permalink
Monday, October 27, 2003
I am just in the process of moving freaksauce to a new domain, f2o.org recommended by a few people, namely Mark at Gruden. I have had a lot of help from Daniel at f2o to make the transition as smooth as possible and they have been very patient with me! So expect a new look in the upcoming month and a new portfolio site is on the way. Also I now have coldfusion, php and mySql at my fingertips so who know what I will do now!Jon 9:28 AM Permalink
Friday, October 24, 2003
Andre Michelle has pointed out that the fantastic carting Flash game is called Fastfroots and it is actually developed by Extrajetzt.Jon 1:06 PM Permalink
I feel like shit today I had to concentrate very hard to stop me vomitting in the back of my mates car this morning, why? Well, last night I met up with Daniel Kvist (reccently mentioned on Linkdup and K10k) who has just arrived in Sydney and we went to the Bondi Hotel. Needless to say along with my ex flat mates we drank our way through a whole lot of Stella. It looks like I've got another couple of Flash mobbers to join SydMob though!
Jon 8:53 AM Permalink
Thursday, October 23, 2003
FastFroots have created a Mario Karts style game in Flash and it runs pretty fast even on a Mac!!Jon 9:54 AM Permalink
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
[ via James ] Some kids try out classic old school video games and ridicule them of course.The kids range from 11 to 13 and come out with some classic comments:
John: I'd sooner jump up and down on one foot. By the way, is this supposed to be tennis or Ping-Pong?
Becky: Ping-Pong.
Gordon: It doesn't even go over the net. It goes through it. I don't even think that thing in the middle is a net.
Tim: My line is so beating the heck out of your stupid line. Fear my pink line. You have no chance. I am the undisputed lord of virtual tennis. [Misses ball] Whoops.
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Tim: Oh, I'm starting to suck. John, you drained my skill.
John: Yes, I used a power-up.
Tim: What? There's no power-ups in Pong. The concept of a power-up hadn't been invented yet.
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Brian: What's this supposed to be?
EGM: Football. It's one of the first great portable games.
Brian: I thought it was Run Away From the Dots.
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John: But you can get this [Space Invaders] game on a cell phone. Why would you want to pay for it in an arcade?
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Tim: This is nothing compared to Grand Theft Auto III, because you can't steal a taxi cab, pick up somebody, then drive into the ocean with him.
Jon 4:35 PM Permalink
Monday, October 20, 2003
This Flash game puts you in control of 8 students and you have to keep them happy with Basketball games, tests and a few personal belongings like Mobile Phones. It's like the Sims but as a web game, not bad to waste a bit of your lunch time!Jon 1:59 PM Permalink
This kind of thing would never be allowed in England, however the Aussies have a knack for getting away with cheeky ad campaigns like this one. Nice Flash work as well!
BloodyVolvoDrivers
This is my new favourite campaign next to the litter ads, "Don't be a tosser!"
Jon 10:54 AM Permalink
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Doug Chiang has designed a home theater based on the Death Star."Dillon Works fabricated this 10 seat custom home theater, complete with automatic doors and twinkling star fields. (It even has a THX sound system!)"
must be a fan?!
Jon 2:03 PM Permalink
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
[ via WIRED ]Lego California are searching for a new master model builder, well surely this guy, Sean Kenney should get a look in (if he lives in America that is...)
Jon 5:29 PM Permalink
[ via WIRED ]
Soon we could all posses a supercomputer according to this article on Wired.com!!
Jon 5:22 PM Permalink
Friday, October 10, 2003
via [ BBC ]Sony is to start selling its revamped PlayStation console, the PSX, in Japan later this year.
The machine will be relatively expensive, costing 79,800 yen (£429), but Sony said it hoped to attract those looking for a good quality DVD player.
The PSX is being touted as a do-it-all games console that combines a 160Gb hard disk, DVD recorder and TV tuner into one box.
The machine is thought unlikely to reach the US or Europe before 2004.
The PSX is seen as a "hybrid" device that the electronics company hopes will appeal to serious game players, but also fans of its other products.
It has gaming at its heart with a PlayStation 2, but is also an entertainment system with a satellite TV tuner.
It can record more than 200 hours of TV, play DVDs, as well as digitally record and play music, all bundled in a shiny silver box.
Jon 1:31 PM Permalink
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
ok, with a little help from Ken Ford (thanks Ken) I have got Coldfusion up and running again, I now need to have a little refresher to understand why my code is suddenly broken... well actually I'm sure it's because I didn't backup my test mySQL database and therefore haven't quite named the columns correctly... oops!Jon 2:05 PM Permalink
I have a love/hate relationship with macs, I have just had a G5 and yes it looks nice and it's pretty fast and I like OS X and have done for a while but I'm not a UNIX expert, I'm also not a administrator techie type. This has led to a very problematic Coldfusion MX installation. I posted before that I had sorted it, I was wrong. The one way I can resolve the problem is to copy across my backup server instance cfusion folder but it was so long ago that I set this up and used coldfusion that I have forgotten the administrator password (yes I know I'm a dumbass). When I install a new copy of CFMX I can get into the administrator and JRun4 says the server is running and even dreamweaver recognises my datasources, but when I navigate to my files in a browser it says 404 file not found, even for my .html files!? This suggests a path problem I know but I have tried everything I can think of...annoying.
Jon 9:29 AM Permalink
Thursday, October 02, 2003
I installed the .ear instead of the .war and then installed the .war and .rds from within my cfusion folder in JRun and now it runs fine but as an Enterprise Application rather than Web Application. Now I don't know if this is correct (it isn't what the macromedia docs say) but it's working now so I'm not complaining. This has taken me an entire afternoon...Jon 5:59 PM Permalink
Yesterday my shiny new G5 arrived at work the monster is sitting proud on my desk after a few hours of installations and preference set up. However, I inevitably got round to installing CFMX which is when things went downhill. I installed JRun4 with no problems but when it came to ColdFusion it appeared to install correctly under the default server in JRun but when I try to access the administrator it throws a 403 Forbidden error in Safari and a 404 in IE. I have tried putting an absolute URL to the index.cfm page but it doesn't work either? Anyone got any ideas - I've only ever installed Coldfusion once before on my G4 and that took me days!!!
Jon 3:29 PM Permalink