Filed under News …

Nov 12 2011
7 Comments
AIR, Flash, Flex, IRL, Mobile, News

Don’t Panic.

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Dear Flash & Flex Interactive Developers, keep calm and carry on. The news from Adobe seems like a big deal now but I’m not sure that it’s soon enough to judge what the long term impact will be. In my opinion, it’s not yet time to panic (is it ever?) and in this post, I’ll talk about why.

First, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out the news. I think the best explanation comes from Mike Chambers’ Blog and a corresponding post on the Flex Team’s Blog.

Don't panic! Take a deep breath and look at this cute bunny

Continue reading →

Sep 13 2011
6 Comments
Flash, iOS, News

Flash is NOT coming to iOS!

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While we’re still hot on the subject of Flash on iOS, I would like to address the other recent news regarding Flash Media Server 4.5 and clear up some of the not-entirely-accurate statements being made.

First, let’s get one thing clear… Flash is NOT coming to iOS per se. To quote the press release from Adobe:

“With Flash Media Server 4.5, media publishers can extend their already broad mobile reach via Flash-enabled devices, with the new ability to deliver video content to Apple’s iPad and iPhone devices, enabling them to reach the widest audience possible.”

Unless I’m misreading this, it seems that this is only going to allow Flash Video to be viewed on iOS and only when streamed from the new Flash Media Server. This will be achieved by serving the video in an iOS compatible format so there’s no new player or plugin involved at all. Flash content in general (games, interactive sites, &c) will still bring up that familiar
.

This is only a little bit exciting (unless you host a lot of Flash Video). What the end user will experience is potentially more video content available on their iOS device, perhaps from sites that they couldn’t get it from before, and they may notice a performance improvement. It’s a far cry from the headlines stating things like “Adobe releases Flash player for Apple products” or “Adobe Flash coming to iOS”. Still, it’s a (small) step in the right direction.

Frustratingly, most of the articles I’ve seen are tinged with insinuations that this is some sort of surrender, for example, “Apple did not fold, Adobe did.” Really? Are we still acting like these two companies are having a little schoolyard rivalry? Nobody folded or cried “Uncle”. A company just found a solution to a technology problem. As I said in my last post, this sort of talk creates an artificial sense of certain technologies being inherently “good” or “bad”. It misinforms the general public and turns the choice of platform for a project into an emotional or political battle.

On the other hand, as much as I want people to get the story straight, this is more good news for Flash developers. If the general consensus is that Flash will run on iOS then our clients will perceive it as less “bad” and more “good”. So I guess this is bad reporting of so-so news that will make very good PR for Adobe.

Feb 08 2010
1 Comment
AS3, News, physics & motion

KitchenSync Version 2.0 is now available!

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I’m very proud to announce that the second version of KitchenSync has arrived! What started as a labour of love about 3 years ago has finally gotten its first much needed upgrade. Just about everything in this version is newer and more streamlined. The entire system for greater simplicity and practical functionality.

This version will not be backwards compatible, however, there’s finally some Decent Documentation!!! There’s also a new blog devoted to KS.

GO GET IT NOW!

Here’s some of the new features. You can view all of them by checking out the change log.

  • Usability
    • REFACTORED all classes with usability and stability in mind.
    • UPDATED all ASDocs
    • ADDED several new methods in the TweenFactory for easy tween creation.
  • Synchronizer and Time
    • REFACTORED The way time is handled throughout.
    • ADDED ISynchronizerCore and example core classes. This allows advanced users to switch between different methods of timing (e.g. enterframe or timer based)
    • ADDED FrameRateUtil for getting instantaneous and averaged framerates of the system. The FrameRateView now makes use of this class and has more options.
  • Action Architecture
    • REFACTORED action classes and extracted several interfaces from them.
    • ADDED jumpToTime and jumpByTime functionality to actions.
    • ADDED Looping via a new group called KSLooper.
    • REMOVED complicated and rarely used action triggers from AbstractAction.
    • ADDED togglePause() method and progress variable to AbstractAction (for getting percentage complete of an action).
  • Tweens
    • CHANGED constructors in KSTween. Emphasis is now on using TweenFactory.
    • IMPROVED Object parser in TweenFactory
  • Action Groups
    • ADDED Syntactic sugar to the group constructors. using an array in the constructor for a parallel group adds a sequence and vice versa.
    • ADDED totalDuration to groups to show the duration of all child actions in a group.
    • ADDED KSRandomGroup.
    • REMOVED KSSteppedSequenceGroup because it seemed kinda useless.
  • Loading Actions
    • REFACTORED Loading actions. Now they’re much easier to use and more powerful.
    • ADDED KSLoadQueue for quickly creating a class to load files from the network in a batch.
    • ADDED the resultList property to the ILoaderAction interface so that you can quickly access the loaded files in a batch.
  • Misc
    • RENAMED several classes and reworked package structure
    • ADDED KSAsynchronousIteration for running processor-intensive for loops spaced out over a period of time so that they are essentially asynchronous.
    • FIXED several minor and major bugs.
Tagged , , , ,
Sep 12 2009
2 Comments
IRL, Meta, News

Where is everybody? A general update from the authors of dispatchEvent() Blog

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Hi faithful readers, I realized that we haven’t posted anything new since, <GASP!>, back in May. A lot has been happening in everyone’s lives. Here’s a summary of what’s been going on with each of us.

Mims

Mims

Prepare to be devastated, ladies and gay gentlemen, for I am getting married next Saturday the 19th! As the day has been drawing closer, I’ve been more and more consumed by wedding planning as well as general stress and excitement which is my main excuse for dropping of the face of the blog.

After the wedding, I’ll we’ll be making my our way through Europe, driving from Barcelona to Amsterdam via Provence, the Black Forest, and a few Belgian breweries. I know many of you hail from Europe so give a shout out if you know some great, strange places to visit along the way!

In between tasting cake and buying championship quantities of wine for the wedding, I’ve managed to keep busy with some really great gigs. I recently built the media-rich Toyota Tundra Experience site in collaboration with Bad Assembly and Saatchi & Saatchi LA which launched this summer. I contributed Gumbo skillz to the insanely extravagant Cannes Multi-Touch Wall with Schematic. I’m also very excited for a project I recently finished in collaboration with the very talented and funny Duncan Brothers and Atom (It’s not launched yet but I’ll announce it when it is).

Sadly, I’ll be missing Adobe MAX and the infamous Flashapaloozastock even though they’re in my own back yard! But after returning in mid-October, I’m looking forward to getting back out there and working my face off! That includes dabbling in some new technology like XNA or iPhone, blogging about some of the stuff I’ve learned on my last few gigs and hopefully, getting my shit together and finally speaking at some conferences. I’m also working on a completely revised version 2.0 of KitchenSync, my incredibly underused tweening and sequencing library.

I hope you’ve all had a great summer!

Roger

Roger

Gentlemen, WE CAN REBUILD IT. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s finest programming book. The ActionScript 3.0 Bible Second Edition will be that book. We can make it better than it was before. Better. Stronger. Faster.

That’s right, I’m hard at work tearing the AS3B to pieces and building the second edition from the ground up, and I can’t wait to share it with you. I’ll post more about it when it’s ready to go to press. You won’t believe all the awesome new features in this book!

While writing, I’ve been traveling the world with my trusty laptop. This summer I’ve trekked out from my home in Brooklyn to Peru, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Montauk, Pittsburgh, Orlando, DC, Los Angeles again, Seattle, Portland, and Puerto Rico. Don’t worry, I’m taking lots of photos. I love traveling!

I’ve been working on some really cool projects, too! I made a website for the most wacky, creative filmmaker of our time. I helped to design (and hopefully I will soon program) an iPhone app for a gorgeously illustrated series of books for teens. Sorry I can’t be more specific!

When I’m not doing all this I’m rollerskating, going on long long bicycle rides, watching lots of movies, exploring all the amazing restaurants in NYC, and having adventures. I’m taking an intensive culinary class at the French Culinary Institute this Fall. I also got my motorcycle license and I can’t wait to use it more! Sadly, I’ve completely fallen off learning piano, but I really hope to start again soon!

What have you been up to, readers? Did you have a great summer?

caleb

Caleb

Caleb has left New York City. He is now studying hard at Cornell University in Ithica, NY. Aside from the mathy homework, he is kept up at night trying to determine what has gone wrong with his ray tracer. However, there may not be any better reason for a nerd to lose sleep!

Tagged ,
Dec 23 2008
5 Comments
Flash, News, Project, Videogames

Balloono: Based on a True Story!

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Balloono

Check out the latest ridiculous multiplayer chaos unleashed by those crazy, crazy test tube babies at IILWY, Balloono! I developed this game, but it wouldn’t exist without the awesome assistance of EJ, Ken, Daniel, and Charles. For taking it the last mile (or five) and adding lots of great art and polish, THANKS! Great work you guys! Oh yeah, and you’re cool too, Mark.

Keep coming back, ’cause I’m sure IILWY will be adding more levels and other bonus monkey jams! And hey, if you like the game, it couldn’t hurt to vote for it on Newgrounds, right?

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