Migration…

I’ve moved my blog back to my own server and domain:

• http://radleymarx.com

See you there…

blip.tv hidden job offer

found in my Flash debug logs when I come across a blip.tv video:

Hello there, Flash cowboy!
If you can read this message, you should apply for a job at blip.tv.
Send an email to careers@blip.tv with your resume and make sure to
let us know that you saw this message.

Love,
The blip.tv dev team

iPhone / Flash cover-up

Found this article suggesting that Steve Jobs demoed a Flash enabled iPhone at WWDC 2008. Reading further, that’s not the case, but it was… revealing.

The demo was a side by side comparison of nationalgeographic.com being downloaded by old iPhone vs. iPhone 3G. Both worked and got the NG homepage… but not really.

You see, the Nation Geographic homepage uses Flash. And if you don’t have Flash, you’ll see this placeholder & link:

See, this presentation requires Flash. Good graphic, well done.

But the iPhone demo, the one that puts the entire internet in your pocket, got this instead:

As you can see, someone (*cough, Apple*) edited out the text that states Flash is missing. Yet this is a “live side-by-side demo” of the iPhone browsers.

So, not a real live demo, and not really the NG website.

To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, “I yell rat!”

 

Adobe – Make some noise

I’ve been doing a lot of research on how Flash manages sound. Naturally with Mixwit, we’re going to want to have various tools to manipulate audio, including pitch control, tempo control, EQs, etc.

A few days ago I was researching a few audio visualizers and made several discoveries.

One biggie is a conflict bug in AS3’s SoundMixer.computeSpectrum(), a class that appears to be directly tied to the actual Flash Player plug-in rather than the current flash movie. The problem occurs if you’re trying to use computeSpectrum when you also have another Flash movie that requires sound, regardless if they’re on the same page. So if you have audio+spectrum in tab #1 of your browser, and a YouTube video in tab #2, computeSpectrum won’t work… and in some cases will crash Firefox. Woot.

On a high note, the coolest discovery path begins with popforge, an AS3 code-base containing several new audio classes. I haven’t delved too deep into this but expect to very soon. Popforge is a collaboration between two amazing Flash/audio developers: Andre Michelle and Joa Ebert, both developers for Hobnox. They’ve been a big buzz in the ear of Adobe, making demands for more control over audio in Flash. They’ve also set up the Adobe: Make Some Noise website to chronicle the changes they want in the upcoming releases. As a result, Adobe has already revealed details on how Flash 10 has already implemented a new dynamic sound generator. Extra cool.

More Preface

Last fall I Started working on my first blog with the determination to help Flash designers overcome the banality of programming and learn to understand and embrace OOP AS2 (Actionscript 2) programming. Without going too far into detail, many things changed that caused me to re-evaluate that plan.

I’ve been working like mad in AS3 and Flex and expect to tap into AIR very soon as well. There’s a part of me that wants to also talk about mid-to-high level tricks and solutions, which doesn’t go along with the previous focus. Finally, since my previous blog, I co-founded Mixwit – an online social media platform that has raised many eyebrows.

So if you ever wonder why my posts seem completely random, it’s because I’m trying to fill in holes in many different places and trying to relate my experience of designer/developer/media-professional…

I want.

Start-ups: your blog is your soul, baby.

A couple of our W08 YC brethren got side-swiped today. One was hit with a ton of unexpected traffic. The other hit with a drive-by blogger for appearing to be dead.

In both cases neither team had updated their blog in over a month!

C’mon guys!

I’ve been working on the Mixwit blog for a couple of months now. I think I’m getting the hang of it and thought I could share my thoughts on start-up blogging:

A start-up’s blog can be very important and revealing. They’re followed differently than other kinds of blogs (news, personal) by providing insight into their personality, work ethic, and history… and if the start-up still cares about what they’re working on.

Posts don’t need to be every day, but they can have spurts of dailiness. In contrast, the longest socially-acceptable gap of silence seems to be around two weeks, provided it’s not always two week gaps.

Most posts are expected to point out new features and updates, which demonstrate life and activity and provide easy milestones that cover their history.

What if you haven’t added any new features in a couple of weeks? Simple:

- talk about recent press (up to a month ago)

- thank (and link back to) supporting blogs / users

- share recent user feedback

- post personal stories and company events (i.e. parties)

Hopefully this will save you from posting the dreaded “sorry I haven’t posted in a while…” entry. ACK!

My Blog v3

Hi All,

This is my third attempt at writing a blog to share useful ideas and tools with the Flash community.

The first two attempts went very well but were obliterated due to my lack of understanding (and patience) for hosting, maintaining, and updating my own WordPress blog. Between Aug ‘07 and now were five software updates to WordPress and I quickly lost control of my files.

After the simplicity of hosting the Mixwit Blog on wordpress.com, I’ve learned that stability is far more impressive that cool third-party features. I’ve always hosted my own sites and email, so this is a really big concession to turn it over to wordpress.com.

I’ve also been really busy with Mixwit and made a point of not working on any other projects during my Y-Combinator incubation period. VJTV (vj.tv) will also be re-emerging and public this week.