I’m working on porting over previous my entries from various blogging platforms to WordPress 2.2, so it might be awhile before this site gets an updated look.
In the mean time, my posts can now be found on the Lansun + Scott blog, Epizoic.
Got this in an email from the wifey and I thought I’d share.
Starting Sept. 1st
Traffic cameras = $75 ticket
Here are the locations of the new cameras that will automatically issue a $75 ticket if you are caught running yellow or red lights…good idea to sloooow down…and yes, the cameras will capture a picture of you, and the FRONT SEAT PASSENGER and it will be a VERY CLEAR PICTURE. They will issue a warrant for your arrest if you fail to appear in court. This is not a civil penalty but an actual traffic citation, Class C Misdemeanor, and will affect your driving record.
The first 10 camera locations are:
1 - Richmond at Dunvale
2 - Bellaire at Wilcrest
3 - Harwin at Hillcroft
4 - Milam at Elgin
5 - Brazos at Elgin
6 - JFK at Greens
7 - Bay Area Boulevard at El Camino Real
8 - Travis at Webster
9 - Pease at LaBranch
10 - Hillcroft at Richmond
I just got a chance to read through Andrew Guldman’s post on Guidelines for Flash application development over at the Flash Developer Center.
In the article, he breaks down the techniques that Fluid used to build RbkCustom. If you have a chance and you’re into following best practices, I’d recommend checking it out. My personal favorite was his page on following the rules of code; it’s most definitely worth a read and possibly a bookmark.
There was a somewhat similar article posted to Kirupa not too long ago, that shows the structure of a Flash site, which dynamically creates buttons from XML, CSS, and PNG files.
I’ve posted the first Free Flash Training module over at Connect Learning. The topic is Creating a Manual Motion Tween. I would really, really appreciate any feedback.
Now, you might be thinking, “Why did you mention ‘Manual’?” The reason is because for my next training module I want to show how to create the exact same motion tween using nothing but ActionScript. I’ll let you know when that’s posted.
Ray has released BlogCFC v5.1, which sounds like it has some really cool new features. I haven’t upgraded this blog yet, but I’m hoping to do so some time next week. If dot releases have this many features, I can’t wait to see what capabilites BlogCFC 6 will have.
For a little while I had considered working on some kind of “Pod Exchange” for BlogCFC but as it turns out there is something like that already in place.
ActionScript .5 for Flash Lite 1.1
It’s hard to roll back to the ASpoint5 frame of mind, so this download comes in real handy: grab it from Scott Janousek.
ActionScript 2
I usually work with the code hinting the AS Editor within Flash. Alternatively, SE|PY is quite brilliant to work with, if you’re into 3rd party editors. But the low-tech method of having a tangible AS2 Cheatsheet on hand is always useful. Snag it from ActionScriptCheatSheet.com.
ActionScript 3 (for Flash player 9)
ActionScriptCheatSheet.com also has several great sheets for those of you getting into AS3. There is so much to this new version of ActionScript, that even the cheatsheets are broken down by package.
Lyrics are not exactly work safe, so check your speakers.
“We had the have the $240, and we had to have the puddin..”
So, the IE thing where the user has to “click to activate” any Flash (or other active media) file in a page is quite obnoxious. Thankfully, Adobe has already addressed the issue in the form of updates to Dreamweaver and Flash. Be sure to grab the updates for each product and start publishing your content accordingly.
In trying to come up with thoughts for a tutorial, I started playing around with the
 Drag Slide Fade 2.0 Class Library and this is what I ended up with.
Â
I don’t know if it’s suitable material for a tutorial, but the DSF Library sure is fun to play with. If you want to check it out for yourself, you’re going to need to pop on over to Brendan Dawes download area and all of the relevant AS files in one nice zip file.
Here’s another sample of doing the same idea of scripted animation, only this one uses Flash’s built in Tween Class.
 Â
When I’m writing any code I have this little internal rule: any block of code repeated more than two times becomes a function. Naturally, I end up with quite a few functions.
Needless to say , one of the first things that caught me off guard when I started rolling back into the Flash4 ActionScript .5 state of mind, was the inability to create user defined functions. UGH! So, to that end, if there is anyone else feeling my pain on this issue, I’ve slapped together a quick sample of how to overcome the lack of UDFs in Flash Lite. I hope it helps.
You can view the really simple example that’s also available for download. Let’s get to it.
My first move was to create a MovieClip on the main timeline and gave it an instance name of ‘f’. Within my MovieClip ‘f“, I inserted blank keyframes on frames 2 and 3. Each frame was given a frame label, ‘foo’ and ‘bar’, respectively. On frame 1 of the same clip, I added a stop action
Whenever I needed the code on a particular frame (either ‘foo’ or ‘bar’) to be executed I would add the following code to any given button.
on(someEvent)
{
tellTarget(’f‘)
 {
gotoAndStop(‘foo’);
}
}
While this code would work, it’s not the most elegant solution to me. Instead of using the tellTarget command we could simply things a bit by using the AS.5 keyword call
Now, the same code above would be:
on(someEvent)
{
call(’/f:foo’);
}
Booyuh! Much cleaner and easier to read.
See attached files for samples. Remember this is designed to work with a phone so you’ll need to push the 1 & 2 buttons.
Thanks to the stellar preparation by James at Adobe, I aced my Flash Lite 1.1 Developer Exam today! That means we can start adding it to the Connect Learning Schedule. I can’t wait to start teaching the class to others and watching this stuff take off!
I’m going to try and have a tutorial about Flash Lite game development posted soon.
Speaking of tutorials, if you have any thoughts about a particular topic be it Flash, Flash Lite, ColdFusion, HTML, CSS, SQL or anything, I’d love to hear them. Just leave a comment and let me know. In addition to Flash Lite content, I’ll be posting a tutorial covering the Accordion Component in Flash as requested by Ray.
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