g.wygonik's flash experiments

...but my wife was.

We recently finished up a project for AARP The Magazine -- a look back at 1968 via a timeline with images, audio clips, video clips, best-of lists, and a pop quiz.

The project is way deeper than it appears on the outside; there were amazing audio interviews with some of the influential people that made 1968 so special. From Bootsy Collins talking about James Brown to John Kay (of Steppenwolf) to Tommie Smith (the Olympic gold medalist who came up with the idea to do the Black Power "salute" during the medal ceremonies) -- it was awesome to get to edit the audio interviews and hear just how deeply the year affected them. It also struck me just how apathetic today's youth are. When you hear about these kids that took a stand against the war and social injustice and really DID something, and you look at the news today you can't help but see that most people talk the talk (mostly online) but certainly don't walk the walk. I got into doing music because I had something to say and wanted to try to change things around me -- and music was a great way to get into people's heads. But it seems that most people are happy to just post something online in a public forum (Digg people, I'm looking at you) and think it's doing something. I don't know... I'm old and jaded now.

In other news, I've been dealing with an ear infection for a week now -- which has kept my left ear clogged. So much for working on music! Most annoying. Hopefully it clears up soon, as my antibiotics are running out.

I've been working on developing some apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch. While I've been doing mostly web-app development, I'm getting ready to transition to full-on SDK Objective-C work. I've been putting it off as I'll need to upgrade my Mac Mini to Leopard. I think I should have the means to do that soon. There are some great possibilities with the technology, so I hope I can make it shine (like it does in my head).

Finally, we're starting up VeggieAustin -- the Austin version of the vegan/vegetarian dining guide we did in New Orleans. While there are several pre-existing sites here that cover some of the places to eat, none of them seem to venture out beyond their favorite spots or get updated more than once every 8 months. We're not necessarily trying to "compete", but we see a need for something just to help ourselves out, so we're doing it "our way".

Beyond that - things are ok. Hope everyone is well.

g.

I'm happy to announce that a project I've been working on for many months finally went live this past Friday -- National Geographic's Genographic Project Atlas of Human History (whew!).

The company I work for has been doing the site for the Genographic project since inception (2005), and this app is part of the year three updates. The globe is AS3-based and uses PaperVision3D v1.5 along with a bunch of custom UI stuff and SWFAddress for deep-linking/browser-button integration.

Read more!

After much contemplation I have decided that I can no longer keep blazePDF going. I have had zero time in the last two years to work on the AS3 version, and it doesn't seem that any extra time will be forth-coming. I've been so out of touch with the project that I hadn't noticed that the forums on the site were/are down -- and I have no idea how long they've been out of action...

blazePDF v2.1 is still available for the time being, as it is still a working solution for AS2 projects, but there will be no new updates, and no real support (not that I've been able to provide support recently anyway ).

I thank everyone who has supported the project over the years, and I'm happy to have seen all the really cool projects that people have used it in.

I would suggest that people interested in an AS3/Flex PDF creation system look at the open-source project AlivePDF; it seems to have some momentum behind it.

Cheers
g.

Oh - i mean, all good things must come to an end.

I recently ended my stay at FanRocket due to issues that I won't get into. One of those "you'll laugh, you'll cry" jobs where the "cry" was happening more often than the "laugh". Had to give it up just to get back some of my sanity, my free time, and my self-respect.

That all being said, I wish them all well and I'm very happy to see that the Around the World For Free site is standing up to the apparently massive increase in traffic. While I don't know specifics about real traffic these days, the placement of user icons and media icons all over the map looks really sexy. The increase is of course due to Alex and Zsolt heading out on the trip; I wish them both nothing but good tidings and am anxious to see how they fare!

I'm now a developer at Terra Incognita - a fun company with a very impressive portfolio. I've had to jump straight in and hit the ground running, but so far so good. First tasks are several interactives for National Geographic Society. Nice to get back to work that is enriching people's lives and not just trying to sell them something. Plus, I get to leave work and not think about it until the morning.

Which means that I can finally get back to finishing up a new cut.rate.box album. Sheesh - it's only been 6 years! What do you people want from me?! I have a lot of tracks written, so it's now just a matter of picking and choosing and doing final recordings. Should have something out by the end of the year.

It also means that I may finally get back to the AS3 version of blazePDF, the Mac version of AFTERTHOUGHT (though there are other options that use the same technique now), and perhaps a few new things that I've had going on for a long time but never finished up.

Two years on from Katrina and we're finally coming out of shells. Obviously getting outside the house and interacting with people has been a switch for me, and I think that's kind-of rubbing off on Lorie. Her photo work is picking up - she has her stock site coming along, her "artifacts" moving swiftly, and will be vending her wares at the cool Stitch Austin event in November. Good stuff all around.

Groove on (assume the motion)

g.

This is more of a note to people that might encounter the same issue than it is a complaint or "OMG A BUG!!!" post... This is definitely one of those easy-to-overlook items, and not something that I've seen noted online.

When you browse for a file via the Flash FileReference.browse() method and have supplied a filetype description/extension filter, a user can bypass the filter by simply typing in the name of the file they wish to upload.

This is fairly consistent with HTML file uploads in browsers, as most (if not all) ignore the "accept" filetype filter param and just upload whatever to the server.

So - you might want to double-check the file type in your onSelect function before sending to the server, and triple-checking on your upload script. Just don't count of the file being what you set the filter for.