Go VOTE for Mezzy!! I’ll post more video etc soon as I can.

Technorati Tags: Dean guitar contest, guitar, Mezzy Shredder, shredder

I’ll have to look into this more as time permits. Is this a technology/API that we as developers work into our apps? Or, it seems from the article that it’s going to be part of the Flash Player itself in conjunction with Yahoo/Google’s technology so there may be no new steps needed to get your Flash/Flex app or website indexed on the biggies.

I’ve been horrendously busy lately so I haven’t kept up-to-date on my blog-sponsibility…my humble apologies. I’ve promised the late night code-high induced ramblings will not cease, in fact, in the very near future they may become more intense. In the meantime, this was a very cool read and one I’ll have to keep up on to see where it goes.

Technorati Tags: adobe, google, indexing, search engines, swfs, yahoo!

Going forward, I know which api I’ll be using for online image sharing I know some other AS developers, like Quentin, who commented on the last post were searching too and we didn’t see anything up on Google code yet, so we planned on maybe starting up a project. The guys at Photobucket beat us to it. So that was an easy job for us, can’t beat that!

Updating MyStylez with the Photobucket api for drag and drop went well easier than I had planned, that’s because I thought I’d be creating a brand new library to work with the api. Ahh a pleasant surprise! Nice work again!

So I guess you can call MyStylez a true mashup now that it uses Photobucket and Flickr. It has nothing to do with the MySpace api because there’s no fun to be had there. I think the MySpace api is just for apps that run purely on MySpace. Exciting…ehem.

If you were looking, like Quentin and myself, to mash up AIR with Photobucket, now you have something to do. You’ll enjoy working with the library. I’d like to try out a bunch of other methods on the api but that would entail having a creative brain wave on some new AIR app. I’ll keep you posted

Technorati Tags: actionscript, adobe air, flex, google code, library, photobucket api

I haven’t seen any ActionScript library projects yet, but then again I’ve been sitting in the dark for two weeks writing code and staying away from the sun…very healthy indeed. You may have noticed I didn’t exactly go to town on the blogging either, pardon my absense as I’ve been wholly absorbed with so much code flying through my neurons I feel like my head could split.

Does anyone know of any plans to crank out an AS3 lib for the Photobucket API? If so, I might want to jump on that one.

Technorati Tags: actionscript, adobe air, flex 3, flickr api, open source, photobucket

I decided it’s too much fun to watch the big guys go at it and was curious as to what the general consensus is for those following, or involved in, the Yahoo! vs Microsoft match.

Poll Answers

It does boggle the mind though to see both companies writing back and forth like two lovers quarreling. I could just see Yang and Ballmer up late at night, chatting on Yahoo! IM.

BigBallmer56: Hey baby, how ’bout a cool 62% premium and we could swing baby YA!!
Yang-A-Lator: ASL?
BigBallmer56: Ughhh……52 M MI, U?
BigBallmer56:…….u there? hello?
Yang-A-Lator:

Come on MS, pay your taxes, fix your OS’s, just retire already and let someone else own a business for once. Personally, I’d rather see Yahoo! stay where they are if only for the fact that I don’t want MS to buy the remaining pieces of the universe that they don’t own already. Give him the hand Yang

Technorati Tags: bill gates, Microsoft, steven ballmer, yahoo!

I decided that PXL Designs, LLC certainly must go green. Last night between 8-9pm I turned everything off and camped out in the living room with the acoustic guitar and had a sort of dimly lit party by candle light. It’s a small price to pay to make such a huge difference, and the coolest part is showing the big corporations that the PEOPLE on this planet don’t like the silliness going on. Grass roots movements are extremely cool! Big cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix and San Francisco joined in last night to make a statement. Not surprisingly, my old stomping grounds, NYC didn’t sign up, but I tend to think that has more to do with Mr. Bloomberg than the citizens of NY. Most of them that I know would and have joined in, but Bloomies wouldn’t want you to turn off his wonderful tv channel lest you be awakened from your hypno-stock exchange induced trance for a while and slip out of his control. Ha, just joshing ya Mike…..ya basti’d

Having lived in “the environment” for so many years, I’ve become pretty attached to it, as you might imagine. So I figured it’s a small price to pay to show some solidarity with the rest of the world and sign my company to take part in Earth Hour, and you should give it a look too if you haven’t already, since most of you probably live in “the environment” as well. I say this because I know very well that more than a few of you who read my blog regularly don’t necessarily reside in this environment, but rather, somewhere in outter-space most likely.

So I say, the next time Mike Bloomberg hops the train to work, turn the power off in the middle of the ride and you can utilize that time while stuck under the city of NY (as I have many times) to tell him how pissed off you are that he won’t shut off his silly tv channel for a stinking hour once a year, and tell him you’d like to enact a law that bans all Bloombergs from the bars, subway system, and positions in office in the city of NY, and I’m sure it’ll be an hour well spent. Plus, you’ll be doing future generations and the Earth a huge favor in the process.

Happy Belated Earth Hour!

Technorati Tags: australia, bloomberg, climate, earth hour, electric, environment, green, nyc, power, sydney

performs too slow to be useful on the iPhone

and that the mobile version of Flash

is not capable of being used with the Web

Steve Steve Steve. This from the same company that makes mice with one button. Now before we start a flame war where I’m accused of hating Macs, let me first say that I was a Macintosh user way before I ever used Windows. I currently use both. In fact, I was just looking to upgrade my G4 since it’s an old paper weight now. So rather than sort through the silly prices, I figured a new Mac Mini would suit my purposes just fine. While searching for one, I found heaps of them that were preloaded with…..oh man, Windows OS?! Ah yes, the old legacy of the Apple logo.

Buy an Apple machine, with the Mac OS ::cough cough UNIX cough cough:: with a nice new Intel chip, and wait……now you can get them with Windows installed? So what exactly warrants the insane prices? I’m getting a Mini because I refuse to pay a hoard of money for an Intel based, Windows OS dual boot with Unix. I can build my own box for far less

What’s wrong with you Steve? Now you’re giving Adobe some crapple because you say the iPhone, over priced ,AT&T one-widget-wonder of a miracle though it may be, won’t run the Flash Player (installed on over 98% of the world’s computers) fast enough? Why not just hand over it’s inards George Hotz, I’m sure he’ll get it up and running for you.

iPods and iTunes that you need a credit background check (practically) to play your freakin’ MP3s on? I have to say, I’m honestly not digging the whole Apple thing over the past few years. I can’t say that I’m sad I (a Flash and Flex developer) won’t be developing for the iPhone - oh crapple, NO! Won’t Bill Gates just hurry up and buy Jobs out already, don’t you owe him that much Bill?

Unless he’s got awesome evidence to prove it, and I’m leaning towards iPhone being a slow, over priced pile of crapple, than Jobs’ comments seem right up there with the folks who leave messages all over forums about how Flash is good only for annoying ads. Can you say, out of touch? I know, some of you will say ya but the iPhone allows this and that now, but to that I answer ” iPhone, iAmAnOverPricedPileOfCrapple” it’s the same crap. Sorry, but that’s about where I’m at now. I’ll still get my Mini because I MUST offer Mac support for my applications, but other than that, I think I’ll nail it to the wall pretty much just to show off the little Apple logo. I was thinking of just buying a cheap Dell Linux box, ripping out the guts and stuffing them in a shoe box with the Apple sticker on it and telling my clients that it’s a genuine “iAmNotFastEnough”.

Steve, I’m sure George would be willing to spend a weekend away from World of WarCraft and have a look at getting the Flash Player to work fast enough on your iPhone if you’d just ask him. Either that or take a look at the few 450 million Flash enabled devices that Ryan Stewart mentions, and maybe ask one of the companies who created them where they bought their hardware from.

I believe in you Steve!
P.S. Please send me an iPhone but not until you get the Flash Player working on it, otherwise just send me a Mini instead.

Technorati Tags: adobe, Apple, flash player, iphone, ipod, mac, steve jobs, Windows

My software, Attest, the Adobe Flex 2 Certified Developer practice exam happens to use it’s copy protection from a company that just so happens to be one of the very few on a list of other companies who’s software is affected by this update. Most of the other companies directly affected by SP1 are primarily made up of anti-virus, internet security, and anti-spyware manufacturers…….you know, no big deal. Who cares for that kind of software anyway, not Bill!

So as you can see, Bill releases monkey patch for Vista, that makes certain software programs explode that otherwise worked great, so those companies release updates for their products and “stuff” rolls downhill…….good thing I noticed that my software would be mangled and created an update, or I may have been hit with a ton of support issues without knowing that Bill decided to revamp his OS yet again.

The company I use for copy protection made their patch for Vista, then I made mine for Attest. Meanwhile, Microsoft chuckles at us, “hehehe look at ‘em all running around!”. This is exactly why I still haven’t upgraded to Vista. Vista is Spanish for view, by the way, and I could see lots of monkey patches coming from a far way off and that’s why I’ll need to be forced to upgrade from XP Pro.

That being said, I have decided that the next version of Attest will be created in Java I wouldn’t mind some cross-platform goodness, and what’s more, I wouldn’t mind not having to deal with some Vista hole-patching that throws my plans for the weekend in the crapper when I could be doing things like running my teeny tiny company compared to Microsoft, or blogging on nicer things that don’t make my nostril hairs recede back into my nose tunnels when I think of Bill and his non existent retirement plan.

Technorati Tags: Adobe Flex 2, Attest, Microsoft, practice exam, PXL Designs, service pack 1, Vista, Windows

Hmmm, yup, says here:

Welcome to oDesk, the online staffing marketplace connecting businesses (Buyers) to remote workers (Providers).

Seems to me they provide a marketplace for connecting businesses to remote workers. This isn’t exactly a new concept, there are other sites out there not unlike oDesk (guru.com, gofreelance.com, ifreelance.com) and the list goes on and on.

All these sites are more or less the same deal, companies post projects and look for workers to make a match. Outsourcing I like to call it, though I hardly coined the term, you may have heard of it before. Nothing wrong with the sites themselves, including oDesk. Some sites provide better deals than others of course, and some have more quality project postings than others. Let’s do a comparison for giggles.

In my first search on Guru.com, I looked for Adobe Flex jobs and found about 6 posted, with a low budget of $250 and a high of over $25,000. A good number of projects I see listed on Guru.com seem fair enough, there are of course some that seem a pinch pathetic. Not Guru.com’s fault of course, but some companies, it seems, would like a whole heaping wad of work done and would prefer to pay next to nothing to have it done, and have it done quickly I might add.

I know this may come as a surprise to some of you, but I’ve found far more of these types of projects listed on oDesk.com. In one quick search for current project listings, I came across such winners as “Cropping images in Photoshop” where the Beijing company seeking work to be done states:

We are offering a rate of $5 for a batch of 500 images split into 2. There is potential for further batches upon completion of this batch.

Although that would not only give you tons of experience in image cropping, as well as a great spotlight for your resume, by the time you get done with 10,000 images you would have earned yourself a cool $100 bill! Now I don’t know about you, but the people who pump electricity into my office, the cable company, the food store, the gas station, they seem to randomly raise their rates due to the “cost of living” and $100 doesn’t go very far these days. If I had any fingers left after the cropping of 10,000 images, I might not be able to grasp my $100, let alone toss it over to the aforementioned companies.

Let’s look at another project posted on oDesk.com. Here’s another, oh wait, is this a project? For a budget of $5 (literally) The listing says:

I am programming in ASP and using MYSQL database I just need the code for the following: 1. Say there is a tab on the navigation bar that says Buy. When a user points on buy a drop down appears with Land, Apartment, etc. If the user clicks on Land then I want all the land listings to display. So I need a query that would allow me to get all the land listings from my database and display on more …

Hold on hold on wait wait wait……I’ll need my $5 now if I’m going to read the rest of that post, I’m getting a headache. Again, not oDesk’s fault, it’s the people posting projects on these sites that give me indigestion. So to clear things up, follow me here, if I know anything about oDesk.com at all, its a guru.com-like, project outsourcing website where global buyers match up with global workers and either both parties end up with a handsome deal, or one party makes away with the goods while the other takes a good 5 across the eyes.

Does this sound like a reasonable assessment? Again, nothing against Mr. and Mrs. oDesk and family, but maybe they should weed out these types of silly projects. Or maybe they don’t mind those types at all? One of the testimonials on oDesks’s site says about a customer:

He has been using oDesk’s online service to find development help and said he works most closely with a programmer in Russia who is paid $15 per hour. A U.S.-based programmer doing similar work would expect hourly rates of $60 to $120

Firstly, to that I say, nay, not always so. Some of us American programmers would be willing (and have) worked for a Digg click, or maybe a trackback. In the near future, I may not be above doing a quick banner for a sandwich barter type arrangement. Secondly, being an American programmer as I am, this means one more job overseas for money I couldn’t compete with. Why? Because my cable company, the people pumping electricity into my office, the food store etc won’t be happy when I offer them a ham on rye as payment (barter deal once again) because I’m too poor to afford to pay them the frog skin.

The same company, however, would expect me to pay full price for my sneakers, aspirin, big screen tv that will be obsolete inside a year, and so on even though I may collect payments via an order to Subway.

Another company testimonial on oDesk.com states:

Drive your labor costs with oDesk, which makes it easy to find talented programmers on the cheap.

To add “mwahahahahhahaha” at the end of that sentence would most likely get even more buyers in the future. Here’s another company who wrote:

oDesk continues its efforts to improve tools that track jobs and knit together virtual workers from India to Russia ever more closely with the home office.

Very global of them. Here’s two lists of providers testimonials and buyer’s testimonials for your consideration if my post has you anxious to jump on in and sign up right away. You can find such buyer testimonials as the one who speaks almost lovingly of his Russian programmer he found on oDesk:

He is as talented as the best I have ever hired and he is easier to manage than many other programmers two offices down the hall.

Used in this context however, I’m not sure that I’d add that testimonial to my website if I were the Russian programmer. This being said, think of me what you will, vote for my post or shart upon it, I care not. This is a matter that strikes home for me, outsourcing and watching companies manipulate workers whether they be American, Russian, Indian, or even from a country that sounds like mangina. If we keep up at this rate, we’ll find ourselves working for such circus sideshow acts as

Technorati Tags: developers, guru.com, oDesk.com, off-shoring, orangutan peeing in mouth, outsourcing, programming, you tube video

I’ve been so busy this last two weeks or so that I slacked off on the blog posts for a bit, but I did see on MXNA that Sean Moore, and Chad Udell posted they got the same package in the mail. Congratulations guys!

It’s definitely an honor to receive the recognition and join the team. Many thanks to Suzanne Nguyen and the team at Adobe! I remember trying to explain what Flex was to fellow developers back in 2006 when I was a Flash consultant, and it’s awesome to see it develop and grow and gain in popularity the same way I watched Flash grow since it’s infancy. The coolest part is that there is such a strong community that started out not too far back, and I’m seeing it grow faster every day. More and more companies and developers are catching on about Flex and joining up on FlexCoders, checking out Flex.org for info. I remember when there were but 4-5 components up on the Adobe Flex Exchange and now it’s filling up with heaps of cool stuff donated by the community.

Thank you again Suzanne and Adobe, and congratulations to everyone else who will be wearing their medals around town while food shopping for a week or so…..er ok, maybe I won’t go that far. But still, it’s a great honor and I’m glad to join the team.

Technorati Tags: Adobe Flex Developer Community Champion