Monthly Archives: October 2005

FlashObject turns 1

Posted on by

I just realized that it’s been over a year (a year and four days to be exact) since I first posted the FlashObject script.

Since then it has been used on countless websites, ranging from tiny sites to entertainment sites to huge mega-corporation sites. It has also been distributed with Adobe Photoshop, and included in a Javascript library (I heard there were plans to include a version of it with MochiKit, but I think Bob was side-tracked).

It has support for all the latest Flash goodies like ExpressInstall, ExternalInterface, and has been tested for accessibility and passed with flying colors (even though they spelled my name wrong).

It has also been packaged up as a Dreamweaver plugin, a WordPress plugin, and a Textpattern plugin.

Normally something like this would have to be accompanied by giving stuff away, but since FlashObject is already free, I guess that idea is shot.

Instead, I’d like to give everyone a chance to show off the sites they have used FlashObject on by including a link to the site in the comments of this post.

Drawing with Javascript and Flash

Posted on by

David Flanagan (you probably have his O’reilly Javascript book next to your desk right now) has been doing some experimentation with exposing the Flash drawing API -vector, not the bitmap stuff (yet)- to Javascript. In his example he uses the ExternalInterface class to expose a few of the drawing methods and then uses those to draw shapes in the Flash movie.

His example only had an embed tag, so here is another example embedded with FlashObject so you IE people can see it too.

Note: Opera does not support ExternalInterface (yet), so if you want to see it in action, use just about any other browser. Opera users: you may want to take a moment to send a new feature request to Opera and tell them to add in the NPRuntime stuff so this will work!

The next 5 albums you haven’t heard

Posted on by

About a year ago I posted The top 5 albums you’ve never heard, and I thought it was about time for another post on the subject.

So here you are, five albums you probably haven’t heard, and if you have, just shut up and enjoy the others!

  1. Sufjan Stevens – Come On Feel The Illinoise – Come on. His name is Sufjan. How could he not be awesome?
  2. Edison Woods – Seven Principles of Leave No Trace – Maybe it’s the weather cooling off, maybe it’s because I’m in Denver this week and got about 8 inches of snow dumped on me. Either way, this is great fall music.
  3. Bonobo – Dial M for Monkey – Lovely electronic selection. Some people find it repetitive, I think it’s great work music. If you like Amon Tobin (his earlier stuff) you will love this album.
  4. The Decemberists – Her Majesty – A friend introduced me to these guys a year ago by taking me to a concert. They rocked. I’ve been a fan ever since, and I just saw them at a sold out show at Webster hall, and they rocked even more. All three of their LP releases are excellent, but I think this one is my favorite at the moment. They aren’t exactly a secret, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song of theirs on the radio, so I think they can sneak onto this list.
  5. Since I hate picking favorites, no. 5 is a tie between Kaiser Chiefs – Employment and The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee. The Kaiser Chiefs are just some good old rock and roll from the UK. The Mountain Goats is this dude who rocks out with some acoustic guitar and some excellent lyrics. Just pick whichever one you are in the mood for. I also realize that the Kaiser Chiefs are fairly well known, so hopefully The Mountain Goats will help offset that a bit.

P.S. Last year I linked to allmusic.com for the album links, but since then I’ve decided that their website sucks ass because of the way they do their links, and with all the annoying Flash 3d crap flying around at the top of the page, the site is just too ridiculous to use. So I’m boycotting them and going with The Lesser Evil, Amazon.

My sweet new iTunes phone!

Posted on by

I was a little dissapointed at the iTunes phone (ROKR) stats. Who only wants to listen to 100 songs? Puhleese.

Check out these exclusive shots of my new iPhonePod. It’s got all the features of a RAZR, and all the features of a 4GB iPod nano.

iPodPhone closeup

So sweet. (click the pics to go to Flickr and comment if you like)

Me talking to someone very important about something very important

Here is me talking to someone very important about something very important.