 |
 |
 |
 |
|
home
|
Yes you can, as I'm now on Twitter. Note that there's more off topic chit chat flying around than on my blog but I will try and post some useful info at times. Sometimes. Ok, rarely.
Twitter is a funny one, isn't it? I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep it up. Is it a total waste of time or useful communication tool?
It's amazing how unscrupulous (and naive) some folks are these days. What's the matter with Flvmagazine.com (no need to go there by the way, the site is rubbish) publishing content that's blatantly scraped off other websites? And not only that, but after stealing the content they don't even give credit to the original author.
Simon just spotted one of his tutorials on Flvmagazine's website. I had a little dig around - and now I wonder if Lee Brimelow knows that some of his content is also being pirated. Who else? Flvmagazine (by Flvhosting.com) - the company which advertised on this site once and never paid their bill - should get a grip.
**** UPDATE ****
I have now resolved this issue. After a whole night of debugging I found the issue (and it seems to be a bug): I am running Flash CS3 on my machine and I needed to install Flash 8 as well (due to some legacy Remoting project which I could not get to work in CS3). It seemed that my problems started at around that time - so I uninstalled Flash 8 and the RTMP connections work fine again. MAC 9,0,115,0 RMTP Default Success 1.2s RMTP Port 1935 Success 1.3s RMTP Port 80 Success 1.1s RMTP Port 443 Success 1.2s RMTPT (Tunneling) Default Success 3.1s RMTPT (Tunneling) Port 80 Success 3.1s RMTPT (Tunneling) Port 443 Success 3s RMTPT (Tunneling) Port 1935 Success 3s **** END UPDATE **** Original problem: I'm having a problem with my iMac running Leopard (no, they are not perfect). A few days ago I noticed problems (long delays) connecting to standard RTMP addresses while RTMPT (tunneling) would still work fine. All other internet traffic also works fine. At first I suspected that this was a router problem but testing the same connection from my laptop (running Tiger) worked fine, and I tested from within the same network which (I believe) eliminates both my network as well as the router as a cause for this problem. I'm running the port tester on this page and this is the result I'm getting. MAC 9,0,115,0 Can somebody suggests ways to troubleshoot this? I always connect eventually via RTMP but it takes over a minute most times...
Goodness me, what is it with Microsoft that makes me like them so very little? Not a single day goes by in which I don't read about Silverlight and how it's apparently the next best thing since sliced bread. First it's 'Wait until Silverlight 1.0 is out', then it's 'yeah but Silverlight 1.1 is the real thing' and not so long after that 'Silverlight 2 is going to be flippin huge, everything before it was only half baked'.
I wish the talk could now stop and we could all get back to actually producing some real applications. Who could really be so naive and think that Silverlight is even marginally ready when even Microsoft's own properties are still pushing Flash video (and successfully so apart from the runtime errors I'm getting)? Seriously, let's cut the BS and let the technology speak for itself. I'm not particularly anti Silverlight either, I'll give any interesting technology a shot, but we still haven't seen anything from Silverlight that would benefit end users or is even remotely different from Flash applications that have been around for years. And yes, I really do care more about end users than about your latest codec or developer workflow. Someone explain to me what Silverlight brings to the table TODAY please? And no, I haven't given the Silverlight development environment a good spin - I wanted to but can't as I develop on a Mac...
Please be advised that I delete any comments which thank me for my 'wonderful articles' or 'this great post' in order to justify a link back to some sad and pathetic site. It's clear that you are the biggest scum that has ever walked this earth yet you have enough time on your hands to actually go through the trouble and adding your comments manually, including captchas as your bots are obviously letting you down, just to get someone - anyone - to link to you. I feel sorry for you.
Well guess what, in case you haven't noticed your comments are deleted after about 5 minutes of pathetic existence and your IP banned - and no I don't care if you are clever enough to spoof your IP, it gets banned anyway just because it makes me feel better. And don't post a 'thank you for this great site' to 15 different articles within a time frame 5 minutes, it kind of makes the game far too easy for me. Why not return once a week instead? Another piece of free advice: this site has a predominantly English speaking audience (doh!) so that could explain the poor response rates you are currently witnessing... Dang, had to get it off my chest. Saddos.
It's almost exactly four years ago to this day when I launched this site, Flashcomguru.com.
It started off as a rather small resource but grew steadily ever since. Flashcomguru.com rose from the ashes of Flashcomstudio.com, the first european Flash Communication Server hosting provider and a place where I posted my first ever tutorials. Right now there are 3736 users registered in the forums and 341 people are subscribed to my mailing list, the Flash Media List. Not bad I think for such a niche subject matter. Thanks to everyone for their contributions and support over the years, let's see what the next four years will bring.
In response to Tink's post 'Are You Pushing Your Kids in the Wrong Direction?' my answer is no, they can make decisions for themselves very easily. Here we have prove of it, my eldest daughter Heidi busy extending mx.collections.ListCollectionView. As you can see she also recently made the switch from Vista to OSX without parental intervention :-)
A little off topic but still related to Flash video. I'm using a Plantronics headset for my audio/video chats over FMS and Skype. The headset is at least 3 years old and the ear pads are now wearing thin, so much that every time I put the headset on I end up with black particles around my ears :-)
I looked around the Plantronics website but could not find any replacement ear pads. In fact I didn't even expect to find them as the headset I own wasn't even showing on their site anymore but was replaced by a newer model. I didn't hold out much hope when I submitted a help request through their (admittedly slightly complicated) help system. To my surprise I received a reply less than 30 minutes later asking me for my postal address. I submitted that to them and less than another 30 minutes later I was sent a confirmation that a new set of ear pads was being sent out to me free of charge that same day. Plantronics are setting a prime example of a great customer service ecperience. Needless to say I am very pleased and will definitely buy my next headset from Plantronics again (however the current one is still going strong after 3 years). I also use their little desktop switch to toggle between speakers and headset, which ranks amongst the best $20 (10GBP) I have ever spent. I know we're often quick to criticize companies for bad service so I figured a positive mention for a company that 'gets it' is just as valid. Do you have any examples of great customer service? Post them in the comments.
Yeah ok, it's not quite like that but this post by Microsoft's Dan Fernandez is too good to be missed. Microsoft does not seem to be contend with threatening Open Source software but they are now going after their own, Microsoft style. The crime: Jamie Cansdale, a developer of a unit testing tool for Visual Studio .NET, has provided a free plugin for Visual Studio Express. MS alleges that Jamie is violating the product's EULA but does not seem prepared to tell him which part of the EULA that is...
I guess that's a bit like Adobe suing its own developers for adding functionality to Flash that isn't provided from the outset. I just can't get over the fact how dumb this is and exactly the opposite of what Adobe would do. Jamie states in his blog: 'Less than a year ago I was still a hobbyist .NET developer. I created TestDriven.Net as a tool for myself and something that I hoped other .NET developers would find useful. I have no intention of selling out and giving in to this kind of petty bullying without a fight.' I wish Jamie all the best in this David versus Goliath battle. May it turn into a PR suicide mission for Microsoft.
Warning, rant ahead... It's not very often that I get really annoyed at a piece of software but when it's as important as an operating system than I think it can be expected that it works borderline reliably
People that know me well will testify that you do not hear me swear very often but trust me that this changed dramatically since I upgraded XP to Vista and started to work - tried to work. The fact of the matter is that Vista rubbish (I'm trying hard to keep my language moderate here). Or let me rephrase that: my install of Vista is rubbish.
Just a brief message to let you know that I'm still around. I've recently moved house and had one week earmarked to get settled. Unfortunately British Telecom alongside my ISP have not managed to reconnect my ADSL connection in what is now turning into the third week. Apparently my line will be up on friday which will bring the excercise close to a full three weeks turnaround. I can confirm: the internet does no longer work on dialup.
Three weeks! that's pretty ridiculous especially when you consider that I kept my phone number, moved 300 yards around the next corner and had my actual phone line reconnected before I had time to unpack the first box. But there you go, 'no point getting worked up' I tell myself. To be absolutely honest I would have been very surprised if there hadn't been a hitch and I finally know why moving house is apparently one of the most stressful things one can do and no, I won't be doing it again anytime soon -especially now that I have a nice view from my home office window, with fields beyond. For those of you who play golf, yes I will be incorporating a cup (flag is still pending approval by my wife) onto that green ;-) More useful updates to follow soon, I promise.
Again a little off topic for the general subject matter of this site but as it's closely related to my business I think it deserves some attention.
I've jusy come back from reading Aral's blog and he's very annoyed with Vodafone as well as Abbey National Business, two companies that have given him nothing but grief - something I can very much relate to. Aral pointed out that he didn't want others to call the 0870 number when canceling a Vodafone contract but use email instead. Well here's another option: check out www.saynoto0870.com, a site which lists geographical phone numbers for hundreds of UK companies. You can then ring those numbers rather than the expensive 0870 number. The site is a bit heavily laden with ads but still worth checking out. You can combine this with the service from 1899.com, a company that offers a pre-dial number to make cheap calls. In fact so cheap that it almost looks like a scam: 0p/min (that's FREE!) for all UK landline calls and dirt cheap rates to most other countries. I have used their services for over a year now and my phone bills have come down dramatically. I've changed to the cheapest BT line rental package and then make all my calls via 1899.com. They are actually cheaper than Skype's skypeout feature, cheaper than Vonage (who really are a scam for UK users when compared to the US prices) and cheaper than TalkTalk. Give 1899 a try, you won't regret it.
A little off topic post here but maybe it's helpful to some of you. I am often in a situation where I want/need to publish my email address on my website but doing so results in endless amounts of Spam due to email harvesters crawling the pages. What I do - and which seems to work pretty well - is to use Javascript to embed the email addres:
<script type='text/javascript'> var a = new Array('stefan@','flash','comg','uru.com'); document.write("<a href='mailto:"+a[0]+a[1]+a[2]+a[3]+"'>Email me.</a>");</script> Once rendered by the browser this gets displayed like this: The email harvesters don't seem to be able to evaluate the JavaScript expression and therefore can't grab my email address. Do you know of any simple yet effective solutions to the ever increasing Spam problem?
This is an off topic post considering the focus of this site but something that I will make an exception for.
You may have seen the recent image on Engadget showing the striking similarities between Apple's iPhone and the LG KE850. The term that comes to mind is 'inspired'... So here's another Steve Jobs talked about 200+ patents for the iPhone which he plans to defend, but I am starting to wonder to which features or design aspects they may relate to... surely it can't be the Multi-touch UI, can it? I had Jeff's presentation video boomarked for over a year because I was so impressed by it and I hope Apple hasn't just ripped his ideas off. Check out Jeff Han's 'interface-free', touch-driven computer screen on TEDTalks. UPDATE:
Notice the question mark at the end of that headline... I'm not certain that this is going to happen but if you believe Bruce Chizen - and he should know, being Adobe's chief executive - then there is a distinct possibility that Adobe is backing up some of its traditional desktop products by online versions or services.
How else would you interpret a statement that outlines Adobe's plans to offer 'some of its more sophisticated software for photo and video editing over the Internet, financed by advertising'? Surely he must mean Photoshop, Premiere and/or AfterEffects (maybe Flash or Flash Video related tools) when he says that (in a slightly unrelated article on Adobe's possible intend to sue Microsoft over Vista's PDF support). Add to that the statement that 'it would be a shame if we could not fit this into our business model' and I predict that Adobe is already hard at work to make this a reality. I wonder how they will deliver this... it will surely be interesting and a logical next step for the company that believes so much in RIAs.
I'm not going to reiterate the news that's all over blogland this morning but want to clarify:
Contrary to some blog posts that I have come across, Adobe has NOT open sourced the Flash Player (they'd be mad if they did). Instead the source for the AVM2 virtual machine (which is a core part of the Player) has been released to the Mozilla Foundation. This will have an impact on JavaScript rendering more than it will have on Flash content. I recommend MXNA for more details on this story.
I promised to post a few more details on my BlogCFC upgrade.
The situation was as follows: I was running a really outdated version of BlogCFC (I guess it was version 2 or 3 at the most) and I had put off the upgrade for a long time because it scared me... I knew it would involve database changes (new columns and tables), additional pages and of course design changes on my end because the first thing I did back when I first installed BlogCFC was rip the layout to pieces, navigation from right to left, new headers and footers, tons of CSS changes and so on.
*Drum roll*
So I have finally done it and upgraded to BlogCFC version 5.something (I don't actually know which one exactly). Some stuff went smoothly, other stuff didn't and to be honest I am too tired right now to write much more. I've kept a log of what I did to the blog (I used to run a really old version of BlogCFC) and what to watch out for. To be honest the CSS and layout changes I had to do far outweighed the blog itself. Add to that my forum which runs on ASP and you have a nightmare on your hands - not helped by the fact that I still run a gazillion of static pages. Anyways, night night (yes I do go to bed early when I can and I love my sleep), more on the upgrade shortly (it's not finished yet). Please post any problems here. There's bound to be stuff that I have overlooked. Thanks. Oh and if nothing's broke and you simply like it then feel to post that too. It took me frikin' ages...
...when I wrote this. How time flies.
No such announcements at this year's MAX by the looks of it, in fact very little news on Flash Media Server in general. How is this possible when Flash video is reportedly amongst Adobe's top three priorities? There's still so much educating to be done in the field, many people are only now starting to accept that Flash video isn't going away but I see little effort by Adobe to market this technology in a big way. Why for example weren't they present at Streaming Media Europe? I felt that they missed a huge opportunity there. At the same times other technology providers such as Vividas were directly pushing their products (a bit too heavily for my liking) while others such as Windows Media were indirectly present through large brands that showcased their implementations. And Adobe's marketing team? Oh yeah I guess that was me... incognito.
I don't often blog about off topic subjects but this one got my attention. Apparently Apple has quite a bad reputation when it comes to reducing the use of toxic chemicals in their products, trailing behind other companies such as Dell, HP or Sony. yes, I am talking about the Apple you know, makers of the famous iPod, iMac, iBook etc.
It's a fact that electronic waste often ends up for recycling in developing countries and is handled by children. Why it may be a topic for another day to discuss child labour let's at least make sure that these children (and adults of course) don't have to handle toxic substances. I like to think of myself of being a fairly environmentally conscious person. I recycle my waste as much as possible, dividing it to plastic, paper, metal, organic waste and non-recyclable materials. I try and walk when I can instead of using the car - or use public transport but oh boy that's easier said than done here in the UK. It annoys me greatly when producers make their products virtually non-recyclable right from the start. I'm hoping to do my part in kicking Apple up its ar*e by blogging about this issue. Maybe you'll follow. I dedicate this post to my late grandfather who was a keen Greenpeace supporter.
This is a great site: www.ie7.com
But may not be what you expect. Nice one to whoever set this up :-)
It was about time: today my new chair arrived, courtesy of ebay, and I already think that this was the best money I've spent in a long time. If you work from home like I do and you don't get your backside treated to something like an Aeron (like me) then take my advice and set up an ebay alert for an BMA Axia Profit chair. This thing is super comfy and adjustable in every imaginable way. I've paid roughly USD $300 for it which isn't bad for a chair that's in almost new condition and retails for around USD $1,000. My last seating arrangement was some $99 run of the mill Officeworld type affair - and the difference in quality only becomes apparent once you try something better. And how much better it is...
All that's left now is to convince my employer to reimburse me (Phil, do you hear me? :-) What chair do you use? Got any recommendations?
Nice surprise yesterday. My games repository Lunchtimers.com was featured on Yahoo's The9 show, a daily video roundup of recommended links and sites. The show picked out my Just Letters game which is suprisingly still going strong. Check out number 3, it was the nicest looking presentation of my site to date ;-)
Thanks to Paul from vidilife.com for sending me the link.
I don't really like blogging about stuff that already been said a dozen times but in this case I'll make a difference ;-) As you have probably heard already IFBIN is free and open source as of today. It contains some of my own examples including a simple FMS driven chat application.
 As part of the Adobe Community Expert program we were all entitled to some free Adobe merchandise recently. With prices being so low in the US I managed to fill a whole box of stuff with $50 worth of goods: Rucksack, mugs, pens, caps and more. And then there was one more thing which my daughter particularly liked... 2 minutes later it was covered in yoghurt.
That's it from me for today, I'm making my way down to London now for the MMUG meeting.
I remember coming across this site a long time ago and dismissed it as a scam. Today I read an article on The Register which again mentioned AllofMP3.com as a 'quasi-legal Russian site' that sells full albums for around USD $2.
As my wife would confirm I am a tight german git who likes free stuff (or at least cheap, isn't that right Jake ;) so I signed up at AllofMP3 and loaded my account up with $10 which allowed me to download about 5 or 6 albums. Too good to be true? Yes it appears so but I did a little bit of research and found some interesting articles that seem to suggest that this service is indeed legal and that so far neither the RIAA nor the IFPI have managed to either successfully challenge this operation nor to shut the site down. In fact AllofMP3 is apparently the busiest MP3 download site after iTunes... Don't take my word for it, I am not a lawyer. But do feel free to make up your own mind.
A while ago I mentioned something which I presume is a bug in Flashpaper or Flash. If you follow this article for loading Flashpaper into another movie and try and load the Flashpaper file from a full URL (such as http://www.mydomain.com/flashpaper.swf) then this is likely to crash the Flash IDE very hard, at least it did so for me and some other people.
I never got to the bottom of this and instead resorted to loading my Flashpaper files from a relative URL (such as ../flashpaper.swf). But recently Neil Thomas told the chattyfig list that applying System.security.allowDomain("www.mydomain.com"); would fix this problem (where www.mydomain.com is the domain where your Flashpaper file resides). I tried it and it worked! What an easy fix to this nasty problem. I am unclear why this bug crashed Flash so hard for me; I would have understood it if the application didn't work because of crossdomain issues but crash the IDE... nothing as simple as a loadMovie should do that. For a fix on the focusmanagement bug in Flashpaper check this post.
This is a workaround supplied by Macromedia to fix a major issue that occurs when you load a Flashpaper2 swf into another Flash movie which contains Version2 UI components. The Flashpaper file causes the focusmanagement in the original movie to go ballistic and often renders the entire application unusable.
|
|
