Coding Cowboys

My First Article with InsideRIA: Web Analytics in Flash/Flex Apps

2009-05-20T08:37:00.002-06:00

I just published an article with O'Reilly's InsideRIA about web analytics in Flash and Flex applications. It's a pretty basic overview.Check it out: http://www.insideria.com/2009/05/web-analytics-and-flashflex-dr.html

AR and FLARToolkit Simple Application (source included)

2009-05-07T10:39:00.003-06:00

A client wanted me to work up a demo of using AR in a situation to detect what a person was doing, and afterward display contextual information related to where the user was at.Here's a demo:Really, I guess this isn't AR per se, as I'm not projecting any 3D image to augment reality back onto the web cam image. Rather, I'm using the marker detection found in the FLARToolkit to give the ability to

Sharp Media 2.0 Site

2009-04-13T09:57:00.003-06:00

We just launched a new site for Sharp Media Interactive Development.http://www.sharpmedia.com/Post: http://www.sharpmedia.com/blog/2009/04/sharp-media-site-20-goes-live_13.html

Flight

2009-02-13T09:08:00.003-07:00

Just a quick plug for Jacob Wright et al's Flight Framework. I've been using it for some time on a couple of projects; it's a very useful, dependable project. Thanks guys!

Google Watching Eyeballs

2009-02-06T13:53:00.001-07:00

Blog post on Google's eye tracking studies to improve search results display: http://www.cahlan.com/2009/02/google-eye-testing-for-usability-of.html

Teaching an ActionScript 3.0 Class

2009-01-12T23:13:00.005-07:00

I was approached not long before the start of 2009 about teaching an ActionScript 3.0 class at UVU. Besides the fact that it's pretty daunting to come up with a curriculum for a three credit class in only a couple weeks, I'm really excited.I made a wiki specifically for this class and classes like it, where I plan on posting all class resources (Syllabus, course materials, lecture outlines,

Why you need analytics in your Flash/Flex content

2008-12-11T11:55:00.004-07:00

I've had the chance to get a lot deeper into the web analytics world these past few months. I took a class taught by Clint Rogers where we explored analytics in general and its possible applications to online education. It was a paradigm-shifting experience.To be simple and direct: web analytics is powerful, powerful stuff. I knew of analytics before; heck, I'd even used Google Analytics a time

What would you say to a Flex beginner?

2008-11-02T21:11:00.006-07:00

Below is the Google Docs presentation part of the class discussion I'm leading tomorrow in the "Advanced Topics in Flex" course at Utah Valley University. I struggled with trying to figure out what to talk about in such a short time with folks who are just getting started.See what you think. Let me know what you would have done differently.

Bug with RichTextEditor/TextArea htmlText

2008-10-27T12:48:00.003-06:00

Found an annoying bug that corrupts the htmlText inside a TextArea when using RichTextEditor in Flex.Basically, if you apply bulleted formats in a not-so-hard-to-imagine way, you'll end up with a TextArea that bullets (gives

tags) to every line with a line break. Pretty annoying.Check it out, and vote on it if you get a chance.

Between a Rock and Hard Place with Flex/AIR

2008-10-23T09:47:00.004-06:00

I've been working on a really cool Flex/AIR app over the past year. The application is called eBuilder, probably been the most complicated/expansive Flex project I've worked on to date.eBuilder is an Elearning authoring tool based completely in Flex and AIR. It builds an XML representation of visual assets (Text, Video, Audio, Images, Flash) and then converts that XML to an MXML file that is

Easy Setup Guide for BlazeDS: Zero to hero in (less than) an hour with Amazon EC2

2008-04-06T20:35:00.021-06:00

Ever wanted to get started with BlazeDS? A bug bit me yesterday that forced me to sit at my computer for hours on end until I could achieve two things: setting up Amazon's EC2 Webservice and getting up and running with BlazeDS.I had to do quite a bit of hunting due to my inexperience with a few things, which led me to the conclusion that someone else out there might want to benefit from my

Papervision3D + Tweener + After FX = wowzers!

2008-03-31T10:27:00.005-06:00

Excuse the silly title, I just wanted to grab your attention and proudly announce that my company's new website is finally finished, www.sandmanstudios.com! Sandman Studios is a full-service creative agency specializing in CG Animation, Visual Effects Production, and Interactive Multimedia.We had a lot of big ideas of what we wanted to put into the new site and we have a lot more cool things in

BlazeDS = AMF/LiveCycle?

2008-02-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've been lucky over the years to always have someone that can build the back-end data structure for a project. But, as a result, I've let myself become less knowledgeable as I should be on what technologies to use and work best in certain situations. So lately I've been trying to get up to speed in this area and have been playing around with RubyAMF, AMF PHP, and SWX PHP as solutions for Flash/

Passing ...rest arrays to another function

2008-02-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

Quick tip on how to pass ...rest arrays to another function. I ran into this on my current project at work and wasted a good half hour or so before I figured it out. Duh!private function myFunction1(strVar1:String, objVar2:Object, ... rest):void { myFunction2.apply(null, [strVar1, objVar2].concat(rest));}

Yahoo! releases Flash CS3/Flex components

2008-02-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! Developer Network releases ASTRA, the ActionScript Toolkit for Rich Applications. A collection of Flash and Flex components, code libraries, toolkits and utilties developed by Yahoo! for ActionScript developers.ASTRA Flash components comes with the Tree, Menu, TabBar, AutoComplete, Charts, AlertManager, AudioPlayback, and MenuBar components for Flash CS3.ASTRA Flex components include

Flex (Now LiveCycle) Data Services: A Beginner's Perspective

2008-01-08T20:16:00.000-07:00

I got the chance over the last few months to work on a very cool project that required some pretty advanced (well, complex at least) architecture and abilities. I thought of LiveCycle Data Services and decided to look a little more into what it could do.First, LiveCycle Data Services is really powerful. It includes four basic services that run as "middleware" (i.e. between the server and client

From designer to developer using Adobe "Thermo"

2007-10-05T13:52:00.000-06:00

I wasn't able to attend Adobe Max this year :*( . So I've been watching all the video coverage posted on the web and I have to say I'm very excited for Adobe's designer to developer app, code named, "Thermo". Aral Balkan posted some videos of Adobe showing it off at Max:Thermo Sneak Peak - Part 1Thermo Sneak Peak - Part 2Thermo Sneak Peak - Part 3Adobe also gave a sneak peek at Flash 10, code

MTV Adobe AIR Challenge

2007-10-04T16:11:00.000-06:00

MTV and Adobe are teaming up to bring you the "MTV Adobe® AIR™ Challenge." Think you can make the coolest Adobe® AIR™ application worthy of MTV's digital age? Then give it a shot! MTV has made a variety of RSS feeds, Video & Podcast mRSS feeds, Blog feeds and outrageous MTV Art available for the contest. Grand prize includes a two night trip for two to New York City! All submissions are due by 12

Thermo, Connect, and Free Massages: MAX Day 2

2007-10-02T10:53:00.001-06:00

Thermo was definitely the highlight of the day. A designer's tool, Thermo will allow users to quickly design and easily prototype RIA's. The demo covered the creation of a Flex app via thermo, starting with importing a Photoshop file into Thermo and being able to convert different elements or layers into Flex components. You can even work with the creation of more complex elements like pseudo

Astro, Hydra, Moxie, and more: MAX Day 1

2007-10-01T21:03:00.000-06:00

Adobe is definitely all about the experience. I must say they did a pretty swell job with the keynote experience this morning. Seemed a little Apple-esque (in a good way) and maybe even a little more rockin'. Here are some really cool things introduced at the keynote:Astro. Code name for Flash player 10. They did a simple HD demo with H.264 in Flash on the big screens, it looked great. They're

Sharp Media Website

2007-09-23T22:18:00.000-06:00

Sharp Media Interactive DevelopmentRegretfully, I haven't been able to post much about the work our company has done in the last few months. Some are entering final stages of development and are still under NDA or are waiting on other factors, others just aren't worth posting about. I've finally been able to implement a rough-and-ready website for our small development company. It's one of those

H.264 Flash Video Test

2007-08-22T10:21:00.000-06:00

If you haven't heard by now, Adobe released a beta update to the Flash Player, codenamed “Moviestar,” that adds H.264 video support to Flash. This is a big step for Adobe in securing Flash as a major choice in delivering video over the web. Flash Player developer, Tinic Uro, gave a great post on his blog explaining all the new video/audio functionality added into this latest update.Here is my

Adobe AIR update for Flash CS3

2007-08-21T10:03:00.000-06:00

Adobe released a beta update to Flash CS3 that will allow you to package and preview AIR application files. Its nice to have it built into the IDE, but Grant's AIRPanel plugin just looks cooler.

Meet Saffron, UML Modeling tool for Actionscript built on AIR

2007-07-20T14:27:00.000-06:00

I'm currently working on a desktop media application that is growing out of control, both in scope and in class structure. What I thought was going to be a breeze, is quickly turning into a nightmare. Large portions of the application will need to be rewritten because of the last minute features that have to be added. (Gotta love clients who can't see more than 2 feet in front of them!)So to

Pull a free trip out of thin AIR

2007-06-11T08:55:00.000-06:00

Wow, I should slap myself for that one, enough with the cheesy AIR references. If you haven't heard by now Adobe Apollo = Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR). So how do you win a free trip? Well, enter Adobe's AIR Developer Derby and win a travel certificate valued at up to $100,000 to be used for the travel of your choice! The are two categories you can enter: Business Application and Community