Recently, my business had a need for some Flash development and I had just come off of a rather demanding project that, today, finally went live (yay!). Now, I’d never done any Flash to any degree of seriousness in the past; however, there was a need to be filled and I’m not afraid of a challenge. In a couple of days I was able to write a pre-loader that could be configured to play multiple videos in a time line for set intervals. For those of you out there on the Flash scene, that’s a rather minor accomplishment… but I’m pretty pleased with it, having never done such a thing before.
I’ve never been a big fan of Flash for general purposes. It’s too heavy for my liking. I like the web to be neat, structured and nicely degradable. Now, I never said that I don’t like it. I believe that there is a purpose for it; that purpose just happens to be its nom de plume. Should you want it flashy, so shall you do with Flash. Hey, all-in-all, it’s a neat trick.
Well, it used to be just a “neat trick” back in the archaic days of ActionScript. ActionScript 3 is, actually, quite respectable. After writing my pre-loader, having abstracted my objects to levels that made me happy, I took on a whole new respect for the use of Flash. Sure, ActionScript 3 is practically Javascript with a shiny coat… but I’ve also come to respect well-written Javascript a heck-of-a-lot more than I used to. Key word being: well-written. I guess that’s two words…
After writing a few things in ActionScript 3, I started thinking of the possibilities… Oh, the games I could write… Oh, the fun little effects I could accomplish. I still don’t think it should be used as the multi-purpose happy-web-solution that it’s often hyped to be; but I can definitely think of a number of things that I’d use it for.
Recently I’ve been a bit obsessed with Mandelbrot sets. It turns out, there are a bunch of programs out there on different platforms for generating Mandelbrot sets. One of the better optimized that I’ve found so far is called QuickMAN (get it here). Here’s a pretty high-quality image that I generated using QuickMAN:
Kinda looks like a dragon, no?
That’s a very interesting question.
Throughout my web existence, I’ve written, blogged, and posted photos on various sites using various platforms. After moving to DC about a year-and-a-half ago, I’d started to neglect pretty much all of it. My photography site, which I custom wrote, hasn’t been updated in over a year; and my various rantings and ramblings on Facebook and Twitter hold little-to-no value. I kept a LiveJournal back in the day — most of it amounting to the ravings of a new professional who couldn’t catch a break. Recently, I remembered that the landing page for www.spisoft.net still contained a placeholder page.
At work, I’d spun-up an number of WordPress instances for various purposes; sometimes I forget just how simple it is. Until today, every website and every application that I put my name on was custom-built. I concede defeat to that lifestyle, as the time for re-inventing the wheel is long since past. So, until I can get around to reviving www, this blog shall suffice.
So why even have my own blog? It was that question that kept me from spinning one up. As my professional life marches on, I find that I’ve taken far too little time to sit and reflect upon my life’s experiences. Being now 27, heading into 2010, I’ve accumulated a rather large set of skills and amassed a vast array of memories. I’ve met many people, and I’ve said goodbye to most of them.
Unfortunately, maintaining a professional exterior in this day-and-age is a fine balance of personality and discretion. As my voice becomes further quelled by the powers that be, I’m thrusting my stake into the ground in an attempt to regain my voice and my own version of the truth.
But it’s mostly I desire, as Audioslave would say, “to be where I can speak freely.”