creacog

Product Owner/Manager; Digital Project Manager, ex-Developer Available for Product Owner roles
Product Owner/Manager; Digital Project Manager, ex-Developer Available for Product Owner roles
05
Apr
2007

are adobe ripping off UK cusotmers?

If you read my earlier post, you’ll know I tend to think they are.

The software is great. I am happy to pay for it. I just don’t see why I should pay so much more for being British. My opinion of the reasons given: “Non Sequitur”.

El-reg are now highlighting this with respect to CS 3.

It’s just not cricket! 🙁

A question for Steve Burnard on the 17th I think.

Update (09/04/2007):

Update (19/04/2007):

Aral Balkan recently wrote an article around this subject. It and its comments are worth a read. I’m hoping that Adobe will listen and act, rather than trot out a stream of excuses.

Posted by creacog in Adobe, Flash Platform, Flex, 1 comment
01
Apr
2007

i finally hot-fixed flex builder

The hotfix was published a few weeks ago. I had been suffering the debug problem on the Mac (193086), so it was time to apply the fix. (NOTE: Unless you are suffering any of the problems listed you are adivsed not to bother applying this fix)

I found the instructions more confusing than they needed to be. They essentially boil down to ‘make a backup copy of your current installation prior to applying the fix’. This is kind of vital, because if you do a straight replacement of the old “Flex SDK 2” folder with the fixed version, and you happen to use charting, you’ll find that the charts.swc is missing!

Also you need to be aware that first time you run the application after the fix, you will need to re-enter your serial numbers.

Posted by creacog in Flex, Mac OS, 0 comments
27
Mar
2007

flash button sound disobeys master volume

Ok, this I am sure is an old one, and has probably been blogged countless times before, but it bit me for the first time last night and googling didn’t turn up any useful results.

The scenario:

I’ve been working on a container movie. It’s job is to hold a master navigation control and to load content movies developed by a third party, based on user actions. In addition it plays a sound track.

It contains a mute button which controls a Sound object created with a line such as mySoundControl = new Sound( this ); and then mySoundControl.setVolume();

On the face of it, it controls the volume very well. Including the time-line sounds within the content movies.

The problem: We found that certain items in the content movies triggered sounds independently of the master volume and simply disobeyed the volume. The common factor in each of these was that they were button symbols each with a sound applied directly to the over frame.

The solution: quite simply was to create movie-clip symbols containing the sounds, and replace the over frame sound with an instance of the new movie-clip.

Posted by creacog in Flash Platform, 0 comments
18
Mar
2007

apollo book available for download

“Apollo for Adobe Flex Developers Pocket Guide” available to download here.

Includes a link to get it from Amazon. Personally I prefer to have the printed document at my side. This book at 108 pages, is just about small enough to print at home, and with 2up full duplex I get four document pages per sheet of A4. However without introducing some scaling, you will end up with tiny text surrounged by huge white margins.

Which brings me to something of bug-bear with Adobe Reader on the Mac. It doesn’t allow me to do a sensible print preview. Nor does it give me the level of control over the print that I require. Fortunately this book renders correctly in Apple Preview. From which setting scale to 140% in page setup, then printing layout at 2 per page, full duplex gives me good results!

So all that remains is to get hold of the Apollo alpha. Watching this space. (Update: download now available)

Posted by creacog in Apollo, Flex, Mac OS, 0 comments
15
Mar
2007

voices for innovation – oh dear…

I just received a card inviting me to “Join Voices for Innovation today and have your say”.

Voices for Innovation, supported by Microsoft, is a community of voices with differing opinions and different experiences,

Sounds ok so far…

all working for the same goal: briefing policymakers on the importance of intellectual property protection…

Not so ok to me.

Looks to me like this is about Software Patents. We don’t have them yet in Europe. I think they are a bad thing. We didn’t need them to get to where we are, and we don’t need them going forward. I’m signed to FFII, with the hope of preventing their adoption in Europe.

Again, not wishing to turn this blog into a campaign site, comments are NOT invited on this thread. If you think sw patents are a good thing, head on over to Voices For Innovation. If you think they are a bad thing, have a look at FFII. If you are undecided, look at both and make up your own mind.

Posted by creacog
14
Mar
2007

apple update includes flash player (9.0.28)…

If, as suggested by JD’s post, the latest Adobe Flash Player will continue to be included in Apple System updates, this can only be a good thing for shoring-up and keeping the installed base current.

Unfortunately this morning’s update trampled over my debug player (already at version 9.0.28) replacing it with the standard plug-in. This is going to hit loads of developers similarly. It would be nice if Apple could add a rule to the updater to respect the presence of the debug player. That said, it isn’t a big deal to simply re-run the player’s installer from the Adobe Flex Builder 2 ‘Player’ folder.

Posted by creacog in Flash Platform, Flex, Mac OS, 7 comments
10
Mar
2007

Saying no to FACT

I have no intention of turning this blog into a campaign site, but feel the need to doff-my-cap to the FACTOFF site. Irritating as it is, the FACT impact on the consumer is dwarfed in my opinion by the potential for corporate abuse of DRM and software patents.

There are of course more important issues out there such as… Protect the human

Posted by creacog in Charity, Personal, 0 comments
01
Mar
2007

LFPUG looking good yet again…

Accessibility was always one of my chief concerns back when my work was XHTML/CSS. Since moving more into ActionScript development it has I’m afraid to say slipped somewhat, relying on the usual approach of Flash site with HTML backup. Niqui’s presentation I hope will help me get back into the habit of integrating accessibility into the process and maybe get away from needing a HTML backup?

The LFPUG presentations 29th March 2007…

  • A Usability Approach to Accessible Flash (19:00 – 20:00) – Niqui Merret
  • Lighten up: Rediscovering Fun ( 20:15 – 21:15 ) – Aral Balkan
Posted by creacog in Accessibility, ActionScript, Flash Platform, User Groups, 0 comments