A new user group has been formed in London to bring together like minded individuals interested in the Flash Platform. The first gathering will take place on the 22nd June at Play Bar on Old Street. Come along, get some drinks down, watch the presentations and talk about all things Flash. More info at www.lfpug.com
London Flash Platform User Group
June 14th, 2006Barcelona baby!
May 11th, 2006So, a good start to the day on Tuesday, when we started our mission over to Barcelona. We caught the easybus from Baker Street in London and it was supposed to take us to London Luton. There was only me, Tink and Mogs on the bus, so we were having a drink and a chat, literally 10 minutes into the journey, the driver was cruising down the bus lanes on Finchley Road and smashed straight into a little yellow MG, crushing the left hand side and flipping it round 90 degrees.
The poor little car which was being taken for a test drive by the local garage, probably in there for a little service was most likely a write off. My laptop took a beating, but the big beauty is still working, and we were just a little shook up, but luckily nobody was hurt.
We made it to London Luton in the end, after we were put on another coach which didnt have any air-con (hot and sticky) and the rest of the journey was plain sailing. We arrived in Barcelona about 10pm, then after a quick settling into our sweet little apartment in the centre of town, we headed out to explore, naturally the beer started flowing (i dont usually drink beer) when we headed over to the ramblas for a bite to eat. We even had our own live entertainment while we were eating, which consisted of three prostitutes bitch slapping some poor guy with sticks, i guess because he didnt pay or something, classic.
Then we explored the side-streets and ended up in some local Spaniard bar for more beer. We met two American girls and a guy from Canada, guess where in Canada? Edmonton, he he… i was shocked, ive been to Edmonton for Grant Skinners wedding, and obviously Grant is pretty well known around those parts i hear. Anyways, he turned out to be a bit of a nutta, and decided that we should go to the beach at 5am and go skinny-dipping, he was straight in there, swimming away, got out and was shaking away because it was pretty cold 
All in all a great night, we didnt go to bed until 8am, so slept until 4 in the afternoon. Lastnight was a great night too, it was Tink’s birthday, which ill blog about later. As for OFFF, we didnt make it to the conference today, since we didnt wake up until 6pm.
Apollo: Flash to jump beyond the browser
May 11th, 2006There is an interesting article on CNET which sheds some light on Apollo, the codename for a cross platform runtime that Adobe are working on to take the Flash Player outside of the browser, in other words, Macromedia Central revamped and done properly.
OFFF Barcelona
May 8th, 2006Been very busy lately, so its time for a little sun and relaxtion. Im heading over to OFFF in Barcelona to get some inspiration and soak in the spanish culture, yay to the siesta! Ill be out there for four days, then we are heading down to Alicante on Costa Blanca for a good 10 days of beach action. Ill be hanging with Tink and Aral is heading over to Barcelona now aswell i hear. If your there, say hi.
Flash Player 8.5 = Flash Player 9
April 22nd, 2006During the beta stages, even the name of the product can change. Flash Player 8.5 is now Flash Player 9.
Fun & Games in Vegas
March 28th, 2006Last week i was at Mix 06 in Las Vegas. Big props/thanks to Lynda.com and Microsoft for bringing the usual suspects together to play Halo and party in Vegas. Flash has taken me to see quite a few places in the world, but Vegas is something else.
I didnt see much of the conference, after 3 weeks of late nights and flying in and out of Sydney, Hong Kong and Washington D.C i was pretty wiped out, so some serious sleeping had to be done. I did manage to keep up with the rest of the crowd in the Adobe suite (as it came to be known in the Microsoft camp) thanks mainly to a bathtub full of red bull, alot of which was consumed by me
As always it was great fun to hang out with Mike C, Mike D, Danny, Chafic, Grant, Beau, Hoss and Andries. I will of course make a more serious post about my thoughts on the new Microsoft Expression suite very shortly but for now, id like to talk about the fun that was had.
Read the rest of this entry »
Some new webcam fun
March 15th, 2006Ive just uploaded a few more webcam experiments that i showed during my presentation at webDU in Sydney. The first one is a bunch of mirrors that creates some cool effects (kind of like a kaleidoscope) and the second one is a 3d cube that you can rotate, the webcam video is shown on each face of the cube.
It’s that time of year again, travelling galore!
February 24th, 2006So, its conference season again and ive got alot of travelling to do in the next few weeks which im throughly looking forward to. I cant wait to get out of the UK were it has done nothing but rain for the past couple of days. I have a serious Vitamin D deficiency- thanks to the lack of sun on this miserable island.
I will be travelling with the one and only London Flasher known as Tink, who will be shaving off the beard which hes been growing for a good 6 months now
First stop is Sydney, where i will be presenting for the third year in a row at the webDU conference, this time on the subject of the Flash 8 - BitmapData API. We will be over there for 9 days soaking in the summer sun on Bondi Beach, cocktails in hand and then we are heading over to Hong Kong to break up the monster 24 hour return flight, we will stay there for 6 days before embarking upon the final part of the journey back to London.
The day after i get back to London, i fly out again, over to Washington D.C to stay with a friend for a few days, before we both head off to Microsoft Mix 06 in Las Vegas, where i will stay for 4 days and hopefully return with some money in the bank courtesy of the casinos.
Lots of fun will be had and lots of photos will no doubt surface on my flickr account.
BitmapData.loadBitmap gone in AS3
February 21st, 2006When playing with the BitmapData API in Flash 8, it was often necessary to work with an image embedded in the library. To achieve this you could assign a 'Linkage Identifier' to the image in the library and then use BitmapData.loadBitmap to retrieve a BitmapData instance pre-populated with the specified image from the library:
Actionscript:
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import flash.display.BitmapData;
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myBmp = BitmapData.loadBitmap('theLinkageId');
Naturally things have changed somewhat in Actionscript 3. There are no longer Linkage Identifiers and there is no longer attachMovie. Everything is created using the new operator.
So, how do you go about embedding an image inside a Flash Movie in Actionscript 3 you might ask? and then how do you get a BitmapData object for that embedded Image? Well im going to show you because these questions seem to be coming up alot of late.
Flex 2 Compilation - Hidden Goodies
February 20th, 2006We all like to know a little more about what goes on under the hood of our favourite tools. Undocumented features and the like have a certain appeal that gets everybody excited.
Flex Builder 2 which is currently in public beta has a little known gem of a feature (for which documentation is scarse) which you can use to learn alot more about what Flex actually does under the hood to make all that mxml markup goodness into a working Flash movie. This compiler option did not work in the previous public alpha build.
The brains of Flex 2 lie in the compiler (AKA MXMLC) which internally converts all your mxml markup into Actionscript 3 classes ready for the next stage of the process which is Actionscript compilation. The Flex 2 compiler accepts certain arguments (or compiler flags) that allow you to change the way it operates slightly.
There are plenty of these compiler flags but my favourite has to be the option that tells MXMLC to keep all of the Actionscript 3 classes that it has generated as part of the project building process. You can then view these actionscript files to find out more about how Flex actually works.
The compiler flag i speak of is called -keep-generated-actionscript and you can turn it on in Flex Builder 2 for your own pleasure by doing the following:
- Right-click a Flex Project in the Navigator Panel.
- Select Properties from the Context Menu.
- Select Flex Compiler in the Properties Window.
- Enter -keep-generated-actionscript into the 'Additional compiler arguments' field.
- Click 'OK' to apply the changes.
- Build your Flex Project by clicking the Run button.
- Right-click your Flex Project again in the Navigator Panel.
- Choose Refresh from the Context-Menu.
- A new folder should appear under your Flex Project in the Navigator Panel, named 'generated'
Inside the 'generated' folder lies the under the hood Actionscript 3 files that the compiler generates as an interim stage of the whole compilation process. Open them up and have a nosey as to what Flex 2 is actually doing under the hood to setup all the default component styles etc... it's an awesome feature, lets hope they keep it in there.
Enjoy.
Adobe Launch Party thoughts and observations
February 10th, 2006Who's that strange man in the background, and what's with those dots? Dust on the lense maybe.
This is Me, Tink, Grant and Bobbi in Waxy O' Conners fulfilling our appetite before the Adobe Launch Party. Steak for me and Bangers and mash for Grant 
We arrived at the launch party at just after nine, by which time the apparently dull keynote had long been forgotten and the drinks were flowing at the free bar. The free bar being the place were us and the rest of the Flash Envoy conveniently located ourselves for the rest of the evening.
I was interested to hear from some of the other attendees that the only mention of Macromedia or Macromedia Products in the whole of the keynote was that the aquisition had closed, which is fair enough i guess considering it was a party for the launch of Adobe Production Studio which doesnt include any of the Macromedia products, but still a little strange since they invited a bunch of Flash dudes.
I felt a little out of place amongst all these presumably photoshop/after effects users and me and Grant were saying it was pretty weird going to an event and not knowing many people. The venue was a gay bar, Rich Leggett came suitably dressed with pinkish stripey shirt and all and the music was along those lines aswell for most of the night (Madonna et al), although it did pick up in the last hour or so, at which point the empty dancefloor became a pit of jeering, swaying half-cut Adobe employees and others, which was hilarious to watch from above in a drunken gaze.
The little Flash Envoy at the party consisted of in no particular order, Grant Skinner, Me, Richard Leggett, Stewart McBride (Temporarily), Aral Balkan (For a little while), Tink, Sean, Dave Williamson, Mike, Daniel Brown and some other guys from AKQA. Was nice to meet Dan and Mike with whom ive never spoken before, both top blokes.
All in all a good night, but the highlight of the night, for me was when the Flash Envoy on leaving the event decided to "borrow" the Adobe Marketing Product Boxes which were left behind on the stage and conveniently re-erect a pyramid structure outside one of the Adult Sex Shops in Soho for a group hug.
Till next time. More piccies here.
London, Adobe Launch Party
February 9th, 2006I'll be in London again tonight for the Adobe Launch Party.
Flash 8 Image API Seminar
January 24th, 2006This year ive chosen to skip the lure of the FlashForward conference that has moved location to Seattle and instead i will be heading over to Sydney at the end of February to present a seminar about the new Image API in Flash 8 for the webDU conference (previously MXDU).
This will be the third year in a row that ive braved the 24 hour monster of a flight to hang out with the Aussie Flashers and present at the conference. Ive said it before, and ill say it again, webDU is an awesome conference! My favourite of all the conferences ive been to and this year is shaping up to be even better than it was last year. Checkout last years photos.
Tink and LordAlex will be joining me this year to show the Aussies how to drink beer and party properly 
and im thinking that we will probably visit Tokyo or Hong Kong on the way their for a couple of days, to break up the flight and hang around for 10 days or so after the conference to enjoy Sydney.
Hope to see you there.
January London MMUG
January 18th, 2006I will be in London tommorow for this months Macromedia User Group.
My del.icio.us
January 11th, 2006Perspective Distortion
January 11th, 2006Perspective Distortion with Actionscript in Flash 8. Click here.
Magazine Article for .net Magazine
December 18th, 2005Here in the UK we have a great internet magazine called .net, the only one if it's kind worth reading. It's mainly aimed towards web designers & developers and their are often Flash related articles in it. This magazine replaced the much loved, but sadly less bought Create Online magazine that was around during the days of the .com boom.
Anyways, i am proud to have written the featured seven page article for the special "Web Design Trends 2006", January issue (The one with the black and silver cover) on the subject of Speed Improvements in Flash Player 8. If your in the UK, pop into your local magazine shop and give it a read.
Adobe += Macromedia;
December 5th, 2005Macromedia are now officially owned by Adobe, the aquisition was completed on Saturday and now their flag is flying on the Macromedia Homepage which has changed slightly here and there to get website visitors into the huge transition that lies ahead (Im glad im not the person responsible for the re-branding - the poor soul!).
Adobe have launched a new web product bundle to co-incide with the announcement, which includes Studio 8 Products.
The major concern at present for me and various others developers is the badly worded FAQ that kind of suggests that Adobe intend to bundle Flash Player and Adobe Reader together as one... apparently, and hopefully that is not the case, but i wouldn't put it past them. What a disaster that would be, Flash Player only succeeded because of its small footprint, Adobe Reader is a good 20 mb download which would make Flash Player bigger than Shockwave Player to download - which we all know didnt reach the masses quite like Flash, simply because it was bloatware - something that Adobe have worryingly mastered down to a fine art.
I must admit as a developer im not very familiar with Adobe (Although i am presently learning Adobe After Effects), the only thing i know for sure about them is that i hear they are not very good at working/communicating with their community/customers (Although they did start blogging not so long ago), their beta programs are elitist, their website kind of sucks to say their products are primarily for visual thinking people (what's going to happen to DevNet and Macromedia Forums) and they have alot of learning to do when it comes to making tools for developers.
Hopefully Macromedia Developer Relations as we know them (Mike Chambers, Danny Dura, Christian Cantrell at al) won't be over-shadowed by the Adobe regime and that Macromedia Labs and the new open initiative/customer driven product development cycles dont die an early death (How cool would it be to see public alphas of Photoshop and After Effects up there?), and lets hope MXNA doesnt become a censored AXNA.
All in all im hoping that good things will come from this aquisition and that Macromedia can teach Adobe a thing or two about the web, dealing with customers, keeping the filesizes down and working with developers not designers.
Exciting times? Im not too sure yet, it's too early to tell. But still, farewell to Macromedia and welcome Adobe - we are watching you very closely
Hopefully your watching us too!