Studio Sedition: Designing with Code

Distant Measures product announcement

2009-04-02T09:35:00.001-07:00

Blog posts have been scarce on Studio Sedition because we've been busy releasing our latest product: Distant Measures.

Distant Measures encompasses all the features of typical email marketing software such as newsletter creation, templates, list management and statistics. However there are many tools not leveraged in other software that can help you retain your audience and deliver your messages more effectively. Automatic event, research and podcast integration with newsletters, social networking and RSS syndication are a few of the additional ways Distant Measures helps differentiate your marketing and broadcast your message to a larger audience.

We offer a free account to get you started and for a limited time get $10 off any account for the first month with the following coupon code DM09-10OFF. Visit www.distantmeasures.com to check out the full list of services we offer or check out our product blog to get the latest updates.

ffmpeg on vexxhost

2008-11-13T08:12:00.000-08:00

I'm currently working on a video conversion project on a vexxhost server using ffmpeg. I was using this article as a guideline for conversion on the vexxhost server, but apparently the ffmpeg_movie class does not exist... after some digging I found a solution.

First, download the getid3 package in order to access all of the properties you'll need from your uploaded videos. It may not be a pretty as using the ffmpeg_movie class, but if you don't have the option and you're hung up on using a class, you can always write your own.

require_once('getid3/getid3.php');
$getID3 = new getID3();
$fileinfo = $getID3->analyze('path/to/originalfile');
getid3_lib::CopyTagsToComments($fileinfo);
if(!empty($fileinfo['video']['resolution_x'])) echo '

Video width: '.$fileinfo['video']['resolution_x'].'

';
if(!empty($fileinfo['video']['resolution_y'])) echo '

Video height: '.$fileinfo['video']['resolution_y'].'

';
exec("/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i 'path/to/originalfile' -ar 22050 -ab 32 -f flv -s ". $fileinfo['video']['resolution_x'] ."x". $fileinfo['video']['resolution_y'] ." 'path/to/convertedfile'");

Query String to Object

2008-10-08T13:33:00.000-07:00

One thing that has always bothered me about PHP is referencing associative arrays for queries, sessions, etc. Here's an example of a quick fix using type casting to make your development a little more object oriented.

$query = (object)$_GET;

Now, instead of referencing: $_GET['property']
We can use: $query->property

Note: This only works in PHP5 and above.

ActionScript Tips

2008-07-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Five ActionScript Tips in Five Days blog series for Peachpit is now complete. You can always find these blog posts, along with other articles at www.studiosedition.com/articles or you can subscribe to the Studio Sedition article feed. The blog series is an example of what can be found in my latest book The ActionScript 3.0 Migration Guide, The: Making the Move from ActionScript 2.0.

Label Statements

2008-07-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

This week I join the Peachpit Commons Blog with five ActionScript tips to help make your transition from ActionScript 2 to ActionScript 3 a little less painful.

First up, Label Staments.

videoPlayer, a reserved word?

2008-05-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

I have been going crazy trying to determine why I could not add an FLVPlayback component to my AS2 application without creating an infinite loop. Apparently, I had a movie clip that contained the FLVPlayback I was attempting to add, which was named videoPlayer in the library. I'm happy I can rest now, but it leaves me wondering, is videoPlayer a reserved word?

FileReference to download server-side file

2008-03-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

I was asked today how to download a server-side file through the FileReference object. The issue was that the server-side file was executing before downloading. The FileReference object uses http, rather than ftp, to download files, so any server-side script will execute before being downloaded. You either need to zip it and use the zip as a download or use an intermediate server-side file to write and return a server-side file for download.

Casting: String to Boolean

2008-01-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

Convert the string value of a number to a Boolean with AS:

Boolean(Number("0"))

Apple Mighty Mouse

2007-10-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

It's been a year now that I have been using Apples Mighty Mouse and overall I love it, I must say that it is the best mouse I have ever used, but every once in a while the scroll ball will only scroll in one direction. I've been super aggravated the past few days because I have not been able to scroll up. While this may not seem like a big deal, it is something I have become so accustomed to that I really can't work well without it, in this day and age who can be bothered with scroll bars.

At last, I found the solution and it is so simple I can't believe that I didn't figure it out sooner. If you press hard on the scroll ball and scroll it in all directions it will eventually start working. It only took me about 10 seconds to get mine working again! I'm assuming the ball just gets backed up with dust, etc and it simply needs to be broken loose.

AjaxWorld Golden Pass discount

2007-09-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

As an upcoming speaker at AjaxWorld West in Santa Clara, CA. I am pleased to be able to offer a $500 discount for new Golden Pass registrations. Simply use the following referral code to receive your discount: ajaxreferral (case sensitive)

InformIT and Peachpit

2007-08-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

As some of you may have noticed many of the article links on Studio Sedition stopped working last night due to the new InformIT and Peachpit web sites. They have all been fixed this morning, sorry for any inconvenience. On the bright side, check out the new design for the sites, it's much cleaner and easier to read the articles.

AjaxWorld - At a Glance

2007-07-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

The schedule for AjaxWorld West in Sanata Clara is starting to fill out. My presentation on Creating a Multi-User Server-Side Engine for AJAX is listed on the first day at 2:20 - 3:05. Here's a link to the full schedule so far: http://www2.sys-con.com/ajax2007west/schedule.cfm

--UPDATE--

It looks like my session has been updated to a different time on the same day: 5:40-6:25.

Hope to see you there.

Trick question: zip on PC

2007-07-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a trick question for you. Let's say that you send a zip file with HTML and images to a client on a PC. They open the HTML and say:

"I can't see the images in the HTML page"

Why do you think this could be happening?

AjaxWorld in Santa Clara, CA

2007-07-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

Sessions for the upcoming AjaxWorld in Santa Clara, CA are in the process of being posted: http://www.ajaxworld.com/general/sessions0907.htm. The event is occurring Sept. 24-27 2007 with some heavy hitters such as Jouk Pleiter (Backbase) and Adam Sah (Google).

You can also check out my session details: http://www.ajaxworld.com/general/sessiondetail0907.htm?id=8 on Creating a Multi-User Server-Side Engine for AJAX.

Consecutive onRelease/onPress bug

2007-06-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

Here's an old issue that suddenly stumped me today. I have a button that acts as navigation and tends to be clicked consecutively in order to advance from screen to screen. The action would only register the first time unless the mouse was moved. Since I had such a hard time finding a solution online I thought that I would add mine to the few I found.

btn.onRelease = function()
{

this._focusrect = false;
Selection.setFocus(this);

}

Feel free to add your two cents, I would love to see other solutions.

Why defensive programming is important

2007-06-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

The situation:
A flash movie that uses the ExternalInterface to receive data from the LMS through JavaScript.
Receiving the data just fine.

The issue:
The movie freezes as soon as the data is received.

The solution:
When the course initially launches the lesson_location is undefined. Apparently Flash freaks out when setting a variable to an undefined value through the ExternalInterface, so its as simple as setting the lesson_location to 0 in the JavaScript if it is undefined.

News coverage from AjaxWorld East

2007-06-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

The news is out from AjaxWorld East and my free slideshow and code samples from the event are featured. Check it out and take the freebies.

Ajax for Web Application Developers Source Code

2007-05-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

I have great news... The source code for Ajax for Web Application Developers is now available for download on Studio Sedition. http://www.studiosedition.com/publications

Today I spoke with Sams Publishing regarding issues with readers getting access to the code on their web site and they are allowing me to add the source code to my web site. They also said that the source code will be available directly on the book page of their web site.

To everyone who has had issues getting the source code, I truly apologize.

Call for contractors

2007-05-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

Studio Sedition is looking for a few top notch contractors to help with some ongoing web design and development work. If you are interested in finding out more details let us know what you know and why you think that you'd be a good fit: http://www.studiosedition.com/contact. Please allow us some time to get back in touch with you.

PHP 5 installation on Windows 2003/IIS 6

2007-05-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

Since I have had such a fun time installing PHP 5 on a Windows 2003 server/IIS 6 this weekend, I thought that I would share the fun with you all. I have installed PHP many, many times, but this one was a real pain... The short answer is to follow the directions at: http://tinyurl.com/m8uud and get the downloads from http://us.php.net/downloads.php. There are many explainations on the downloads page at php.net and I did many searches on Google, but this is the only one that worked for this server. Hope this helps someone save the time I lost.

3D Illusions

2007-05-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

I was recently introduced to Julian Beever's chalk drawing work, it is brilliant. Check out the 3D illusions, some of these look incredibly real: http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm

IT360: Sample code from Real World Ajax

2007-05-03T22:02:00.000-07:00

The source code from my Real World Ajax presentation at IT360 is now available for download: http://www.studiosedition.com/events/IT360

A good cause

2007-04-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

I don't usually blog about web sites that I have developed, but one of my latest, Phil's Friends is really just a great cause. Phil's Friends is an organization that seeks to help patients, families and friends affected by cancer.

There is even an Ajax-enabled prayer request page.

Article and Event Feeds

2007-04-24T01:08:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to let you know that the Studio Sedition article and event feeds have officially been launched. By subscribing to the article feed you will immediately start receiving notification about new articles as soon as they are published, while the event feed will keep you up to date with company related presentations at upcoming conferences.

Flash CS3 Preview

2007-03-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

Flash C3 can be previewed on the Flash Magazine web site. It looks amazing, from a design standpoint it integrates with Photoshop and Illustrator, even layers are supported! My favorite is the ActionScript editing and error checking, this has been an issue with Flash for many years and may finally be what all flash developers have been looking for. Check it out for yourself...