Posts
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Flash 8 : BitmapData.threshold
One of the things that really struck me about the Flash 8 BitmapData object and the Filters, was the sheer speed at which they operate. I’m so used to vector based operations in Flash, that these new methods just seem blindingly fast. Today on BIT-101, I posted an example that uses an embedded video, draws it frame-by-frame into two Bitmap data objects, converts one to grayscale, blurs it, and applies a threshold operation on it, dynamically cutting out all pixels below a certain value, copying over the full color data for the other pixels. Flash handles this all quite happily at 31 fps. In fact, on my low-end Toshiba laptop, it only pushes the CPU to 23%. Unbelievable!
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Sudoku. Do not click this link.
I read about the Sudoku craze about a month ago. Then I saw that Aral Balkan had a Sudoku book with him in NY. Then I found this site, https://www.websudoku.com/, and I am hooked.
Sudoku is a deceptively simple number game where you try to fill in the numbers of a 9×9 grid so that no row, column or group of 9 cells has any duplicate numbers. Of course, a handful of numbers are thrown in to start, and you have to work around them. The word “Sudoku” is a made up abbreviation for a Japanese sentence that basically translates to “the number is not married.” In other words, each number does not have a match in the same column, row or 9-square.
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ActionScript Animation : Making Things Move! Almost done!
Those of you who know me, know that I’ve been working on my book, ActionScript Animation : Making Things Move! for quite a while and have been steadily using it as an excuse to not do all kinds of other things.
Well, the book is coming down the home stretch, and I hope to have the last of it written by next weekend. Wow, does that feel good. There will still be some editing to do, but we have a pretty good jump on that, so it won’t be much. It should be off to the printer well before the end of this month, and in stores sometime in October I guess.
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BIT-101 Ripoffs
It happens to the best of us. You do something cool and the next thing you know, people are copying you, even stealing your name, without giving you any credit whatsoever.
Here are just a few blatant examples of people trying to cash in on the BIT-101 name:
https://www.profchoice.com/htmldocs/prd/horseman/prd/bit101.html
https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=783
https://www.arrowline.it/nuoveimmagini/bit101.htm
https://www.matech.org/~infotech/syllabus.htm
Where will it end???
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PrimalScript 4.0 FTP Explorer
Just got a new build of PS 4.0 Beta. Pretty cool new feature: the FTP Explorer. You click on the connect button in the FTP toolbar and create, manage or open a connection:
You get a new FTP view window, right in the tabs along with your other documents.
From here you have full access to your remote file system.
Double clicking on a file will download it to a temp directory and open it. But that’s not what you really want to do. Instead, right click on a file for options, including “Open in PrimalScript”:
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August is BIT-101 month.
Hard to believe, but I started www.bit-101.com four years ago this month. A little trivia: the first few experiments were actually part of my former site www.kpwebdesign.com (if there’s anything there now, it’s not mine). I then decided to get a new domain, wrote up a long list of potential high-tech-sounding names, crossed out the ones that were taken, and somehow ended up with BIT-101. I purchased the domain in early September, and it went live on September 11, 2001. Yikes.
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FlashForward NYC 2005 photos now on line
I’ve been hanging on to these for too long. Finally broke down and paid the $25 for the full flickr account and shot them up there. Though it’s mostly pictures of the city and a lot of drunk people (including shots of the first annual triscuit-eating contest…), I’m sure they’ll be fun for a lot of people.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bit-101/tags/flashforward/
These were all taken with my Canon A95 at full res (2592×1944), so if anyone wants full size copies of a few, just let me know.
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Back to school
A bit of history. I graduated a technical high school in 1982 with the idea of being an electrician. Went right to work. Shortly discovered that I had absolutely no interest in that field. Wound up doing some other construction, painting, odd jobs for a few years. Then discovered computers in the mid/late 80’s. Started trying to learn programming on my own. Never learned enough to actually do anything serious with, but got good enough at using pcs to get out of the construction site and into the office. Worked at various office manager/admin type jobs throughout the 90’s, then discovered Flash in ‘99 and the rest is history. Found my calling, so to speak.
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What happened to Central?
Wow, the Macromedia Central universe has been awfully quiet for an awfully long time. There’s no Central category on MXNA, and when I do a search there, I only see one blog entry over the last month that really has anything to do with Central. A year ago there were quite a few developers talking it up, with plans to make big money from a killer app. Now, silence.
One thing I noticed, that I’m not sure many people caught onto, was that at Flash Forward in NY this month, I heard MM representitives use the word “experimental” to describe Central at least twice. I’m sure no one ever used that word with it before.
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Flash Debug Panel v2
There are a number of these LocalConnection external trace panels around now. They are very useful, especially if you are using an third party compiler like MTASC. Of course, something like AdminTool is the ultimate, but sometimes you just want to trace a few values out to see what’s happening.
Anyways, I made my own a while back, and blogged about it here. Although it was no-frills, I found that several people liked it and were using it regularly. Cool. One of them was Tim Walling, who not only used it, but offered a few enhancements. So, over the past week or two, we collaborated on version 2.
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