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K2 – Cool rich interface yet browsers compatible

Adi — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:46:11 +0000

I am very happy with the K2 wordpress theme (you’re watching it right now), beside having some pretty amazing browsing enhancements (I did not enable them yet, features like search results that appear as you type your search phrase, timeline view of your posts) it also has a very nice and intuitive sidebar manager, that allows you to write and manage the widgets and snippets in your side bar.
You can edit, rearrange them by dragging – works the same on all browsers! that’s pretty cool.

New year upgrades

Adi — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 09:33:11 +0000

After many troubles with my (old) hosting provider, along with the new year I finally moved to a new one, hopefully no more down times and mail issues..I grabbed the opportunity and also upgraded the blog’s WordPress to the latest version, and customized a K2 theme to fit my orange look (this is really simple, K2 supports customized style sheets on top of the standard css, so you do not have to deal with many definitions – change only what you want).I will probably fine-tune the theme during the next couple of weeks, and when I’m done – I will probably change it completely : )

WordPress blog in flash – in SWX contest

Adi — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:32:37 +0000

I was going through the SWX PHP contest entries, and was so happy to find an entry under the API category for the WordPress platform by Benjamin Wiederkehr, it is something I was considering to do my self ; ), and can be really handy for small personal sites or blogs that prefer a customized experience over the standard Html themes – portfolios, galleries, open for commenting – you see the potential..These APIs are best demonstrating the power of SWX, allowing us – flash programers to expand our possibilities and offering without messing with server-side too much – just what Aral was talking about.cool.

SWX PHP – takes only 3 minutes to set up

Adi — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 18:28:44 +0000

I am working on a new project that requires serverside development, using Apache, MySQL and PHP. However I didn’t want to change my current personal webserver configuration – the one that comes with OS X, and I remembered my friend Eran’s tip about MAMP – an independent standalone webserver, but never got to download it.Then, few days later, Aral released SWX PHP 1.0 (remember SWX?), and offers a very convenient way to start playing with SWX in minutes, using no other that a MAMP bundle, already configured with a useful Start Page linking to the SWX Service Explorer & Data Analyzer , can’t be simpler than that.. try it out!Great work Aral! I liked the Screencast explaining how to set it up, Aral simply explode you with knowledge : )

I also find the SWX icon very amusing in my dock..

FIVe3D – a new Flash ActionScript 3D package

Adi — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 17:45:02 +0000

A new open source vector based 3D animation engine for ActionScript called FIVe3D has recently been shared by Mathieu Badimon. Thanks Mathieu!It is a ActionScript 2 classes package, enabling 3D rotation and position control over objects such as movieclips and text fields.For setting up a simple 3D environment, with simple objects and basic interactivity it is indeed fast and pretty simple, as described by the author. I am sure in few months it will pick up some more advanced functionalities, we should be proud that such exiting initiatives are emerging in the open source sphere.I was impressed by the thorough (and beautiful..) documentation he provides with the source code, neatly packed in a pdf file. that’s the way!

3D in Flash CS3 – Papervision3D Component

Adi — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 13:33:39 +0000

Few days ago John Grden released Papervision3D Component for Flash CS3.I wanted to try Papervision3D (actionscript 3D engine, check this out!) for some time now, and didnt have the time, with this cool shortcut I simply couldn’t resist..This component adds a panel for controlling properties of ‘Papervision3D COLLADA Scene’ component, properties such as the Source 3D file (collada = .dae), Camera settings and Model rotation or scale. The component also enable design-time rendering in Flash IDE, which is great! Flash and 3D are combined, in one native IDE. cool times.
~~check this vid out:~~ (Sorry, the vid is no longer available)
Beside Flash components sweetness I still need the 3D modeling to be done on my Mac, I am not fluent in the 3D modeling world, but Blender is free and easily imports and exports Collada files, I guess it can give answer to my simple demands..

OpenOffice for Mac – great news!

Adi — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:12:33 +0000

According to Philipp Lohmann, Sun Microsystems joins porting effort for OpenOffice.org for Mac. I’ve been using NeoOffice for a while now, and even though it got better (it should with the amount of patches they release), it is still kinda slow. But the current OpenOffice Mac port uses X11, and performs even worse, it been years this way.
Better late than never.

Started using Eclipse for ActionScript, not leaving Flash yet

Adi — Mon, 07 May 2007 22:27:23 +0000

During the last couple of months I’ve been doing some heavy flash work for ICQ (that instant messaging thing), great guys there.Anyway, part of the project required generating SWF files on a server, compiled using MTASC, an open source ActionScript compiler. I decided to grab the opportunity and start using Eclipse (an open source development platform) for editing ActionScript on my Mac (instead of TextWrangler), and compile with MTASC without the help of Flash IDE.It is easily done using the Flashout plugin. a great tutorial found here, it works the same on Macs, as Eclipse is platform independent.Well, so far I am a bit disappointed, compiling is faster but using ASDT for editing the AS code is not that good, it is not so up to date with features… hope a new release is coming soon.In meantime, I still want Flash and TextWrangler available.Speaking of ASDT, can someone please explain why my ‘Refactor’ menu is disabled?!

SWX – a cool way to exchange data in flash

Adi — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:11:40 +0000

Great things are happening recently! SWX is a new data exchange format for flash, by Aral Balkan, basically delivering the data in swf format, so the flash is actually using a native loadMovie() function to load the data.Passing data to and from flash has been evolving for a long time now, recently it seems like it even accelerated. I am really happy with this one, cause unlike other solutions, it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to set it up (this means it is simple if you had doubts), and implementing this method looks simple enough to become very popular.I like the concept of passing data in swf format, but I wonder, are these data swf files cashed in users machines?I will keep track of this for sure.

Apollo this is earth, do you read?

Adi — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:21:58 +0000

Eric Dolecki wrote an inspiring post about “what Apollo might bring“, I must admit I share his excitement, I witnessed Flash evolve from a graphics and animation oriented application into a global standard RIA platform, empowering new approaches to User Interface, and changing the web application experience.

Apollo is a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop RIA’s.

Apollo will probably do the same to desktop applications, enrich our desktop apps experience – applications will talk to each other, be updated without user involvement, be more personalized, and best of all – platform independent.In addition to that, imagine the impact open source projects such as Red5 will have on the way we communicate – as the costs of server applications to “talk” to (or through?) are dramatically diminished.I am definitely optimistic.