Very useful. Sometimes some flv conversion tools don’t include info that is vital for playback. In this case, the seekbar wouldn’t show up in the player until after playback finished. I’ll be testing to see if this resolves it but either way, this is good to know. The first hint was this post stating that the duration metadata probably wasn’t present in the file. A quick test with flvtool2 showed that indeed there was NO metadata. Using the command shown here, the data was added. I might either wrap this up in a python wrapper to batch a directory with it, or just bite the bullet and learn more shell programming to loop through all matching files in a directory.

[edit] I guess looping in shell programming isn’t so bad:

ls -1 *.flv | while read file; do cat "$file" | flvtool2 -U stdin "$file" ; done

Add duration metadata into flv movie - Shell Script (Bash) - flv, movie, flash, duration, metadata, flvtool2

By default an flv movie doesn’t contain the duration metadata. Using the flvtool2 program it is injected like this into the movie file.

cat mymovie.flv | flvtool2 -U stdin mymovie.flv

Excellent comparison and info on free DNS reporting tools which come in handy when DNS is doing what it shouldn’t… at least not what you think it should! In the end I used intoDNS, CheckDNS.net, and pingability.

Free DNS Report alternatives

Everyone that runs a web server or even a site needs to run a DNS
check from time to time. For a long time I have been a happy user of a
site DNSstuff.com. But couple of months ago they started charging for their main check called DNSReport.

For few queries a month I’m not willing to subscribe for $80 a year, and I’m certainly not alone.

Finally
I have done some research and tried to find alternatives. Here are the
results with ratings, where 10/10 is what DNSReport gave us.

I like autocomplete. I also like it when the compiler (or IDE) tells me I am doing something wrong BEFORE I compile. Flexbuilder is my AS3 compiler of choice. Although FlashDevelop 3 has come a really long way. It’s PC only though.

Anyway, just did some reading about Enums in AS2. This bit of reading below came courtesy of a link here about creating typesafe enums in AS3. I really like this. I particularly like the idea of the “Month” class given in the comments on the page below. In addition to being typesafe, by attaching an ordinal to each value, you can compare your values. So in that case Month.JAN would be less than Month.MARCH. (There is also a discussion about “SCREAMING_CAPS” that was enlightening. I digress…)

blog-j: Symbolizing, Coding, Objectifying, Processing » Code. Code. Code.

I’m in the middle of reading Code Complete, Second Edition by Steve McConnell
(a book which I can’t recommend highly enough). One of the key points
of the book is that just because your language doesn’t natively support
a certain implementation ideal (for example, private field members or
classes), you should work around those limitations by ‘programming into the language, not in the language.’ One example he gives of this is Enumerated types.

The definition of an Enumerated type is this: “A list of named
values used as the range of a particular attribute type. For example,
Color = {Red, Green, Blue} (source).”

This can be useful in limiting possible values for a methods
arguments (and more). For example, by using an Enumeration of
SearchTypes, you can ensure that the searchType argument falls into the
valid values for a SearchType.

I like autocomplete. I also like it when the compiler (or IDE) tells me I am doing something wrong BEFORE I compile. Flexbuilder is my AS3 compiler of choice. Although FlashDevelop 3 has come a really long way. It’s PC only though.

Anyway, just did some reading about Enums in AS2. This bit of reading below came courtesy of a link here about creating typesafe enums in AS3. I really like this. I particularly like the idea of the “Month” class given in the comments on the page below. In addition to being typesafe, by attaching an ordinal to each value, you can compare your values. So in that case Month.JAN would be less than Month.MARCH. (There is also a discussion about “SCREAMING_CAPS” that was enlightening. I digress…)

blog-j: Symbolizing, Coding, Objectifying, Processing » Code. Code. Code.

I’m in the middle of reading Code Complete, Second Edition by Steve McConnell
(a book which I can’t recommend highly enough). One of the key points
of the book is that just because your language doesn’t natively support
a certain implementation ideal (for example, private field members or
classes), you should work around those limitations by ‘programming into the language, not in the language.’ One example he gives of this is Enumerated types.

The definition of an Enumerated type is this: “A list of named
values used as the range of a particular attribute type. For example,
Color = {Red, Green, Blue} (source).”

This can be useful in limiting possible values for a methods
arguments (and more). For example, by using an Enumeration of
SearchTypes, you can ensure that the searchType argument falls into the
valid values for a SearchType.

Well I wasn’t making a game but I just went through what the author describes: finishing up the app, gotta set up the preloader. I did a manual version of this but I like this idea. However I am not using FlashDevelop. I am in the Flash IDE for compiling. I have thought of being able to just embed assets from Flash CS3 into a Flexbuilder / Flashdevelop AS3 project. And it seems to be becoming a popular thing to do.

gamepoetry » The Last Preloader You’ll Ever Need

Zero Effort Preloading

Based on the fundamentals established in the bit-101 article, I have
provided an AbstractPreloader class. You must subclass this class in
order to create a meaningful preloader for your game. These are the
steps required to get your preloader working:

1. Extend the provided AbstractPreloader class.

2. Override the following protected functions: beginLoading,
   updateLoading( percent ), endLoading. If your Main class is not called
   “Main”, then override the mainClassName function too.

3. Embed the preloader with a single line of code.

4. Be mindful of gotchas.

That’s it, really.

I am just wondering out loud… is this possible? Is there a way to list all the symbols in a Flash file and the classes linkages defined for them? Ah, perhaps better still, if the symbols are the same name as the class they are to link to, scan all the symbols and scan all the classes in the project and see if they are all linked appropriately.

It’s not so bad though. If you miss the linkage, you get a runtime error. It would be nice to catch it earlier though.

I suppose with a custom Flash panel it would be possible though. Seeing what some do, like the very cool and have-not-yet-had-time-to-try-out Gaia framework, it looks like something like this would really be possible.

I have to say… if you EVER have to code in AS3 for Flash, using Flexbuilder is just downright awesome. Code completion (that ignore case unlike the Flash IDE), refactoring support, all kinds of goodness in general. Man… even things like searching for references to a particular function throughout the code base of the project. Sweet indeed.

The Morphic Group » Blog Archive » Using FlexBuilder 3 to debug & edit Flash CS3 projects

Recently I was working on a project that due to a requirement had to be compiled in Flash CS3. Having spent the last few years exclusively using FlexBuilder I was shocked at the HORRIBLE AS3 editor and debugger in Flash CS3. I quickly tried to figure out how to edit and debug from FlexBuilder 3. I got some help along the way, and wanted to share the process.

Some very helpful and good steps on getting consistent color out of your photoshop setup. Uncheck that convert to sRGB before you save as well! We’ll try it out and see.

The Mysterious “Save For Web” Color Shift | Web Design Blog: Web Design & Innovation in web standards : Viget Labs

What we’re doing here won’t make your colors look the same on all monitors or machines. Macs will display lighter (by default, at least), and monitors themselves will experience crazy color shifts based on age and settings. Reassure yourself: This is not your fault. The key is to calibrate your monitor as close to the center as possible, use Proof Colors (we’ll get to that) to make sure details aren’t getting blown out on other platforms, and be prepared to gently explain to clients why your green looks like aqua on their friend’s 1992 Trinitron.

This makes some interesting things possible. And it makes sense just looking at it. That’s even better.

Announcing django-sphinx 2.0.0 Full-text Search | David Cramer’s Blog

One of my tasks lately has been updating the django-sphinx
library to work with Sphinx 0.98, as it includes GIS components which
we have been wanting to possibly utilize on our new search engine. So
today, the conclusion of.. very few hours of work, I’d like to announce
2.0.0 of the Django integration.

The SphinxSearch manager has been completely
rewritten to rely strictly on the Python Sphinx API (a request from the
author of Sphinx), which means it should have much more compatibility
with newer versions in the future. I have also updated the querysets it
returns to work like normal Django QuerySet instances, to where they
clone themselves so you can fork your queryset into several different
actions.

Whoa! Well I haven’t purchased any music from MSN music, but it’s… *shudder*. If you did, you have to find some way to get your music converted somehow if possible. Or don’t upgrade your computer, or change computers, of buy another computer and hope to play that music…

Essentially, every time you play the music, it checks if the current system you are own has already been “ok’d” by the MSN music servers. If it has, like your current computer, you can continue to play them after the deadline.

However, if you are on a new system, or a new device, or whatever, and you try to play your music that you purchased, it’ll try to check with the MSN music servers, as normal, but after the deadline those servers won’t be on. There will be no reply for your player, system, Windows Media Player, etc., and it’ll assume you have an illegal copy and that music will no longer be usable.

Is there no recourse?!

The day the music died [dive into mark]

This is a letter I sent to my father to explain what it means that Microsoft is pulling support for MSN Music.
Tech issues like this often bubble up into the media that he reads, but
they are rarely explained well. My father assumes I have an opinion on
such stories, and he is rarely wrong.

Actually, it is still technically in the future tense. The day the music dies will be August 31, 2008.

that are more or less ready to use. The list is at the following link.

Empty Thoughts: Django Blogging Apps

People ask about blogging apps for the Django platform all the time. I
have not investigated each and every one of these, but so far I still
feel pretty confident that not one of these is fully baked (although
some are getting close) in any sort of manner comparable to something
like WordPress or Typo. That said, there’s a lot of great code here, and if you’re not interested in creating your own, use one of the following.

A note… definitely something to come back to.

Talk Funnel » Blog Archive » Django bash shell shortcuts

SmileyChris had a post up recently on setting up bash aliases for Django. He uses the classic alias command which works for one-line shortcuts. I got inspired to put mine up too, but if you want to do something more elaborate, bash gives you this handy scripting language along with ’shell commands’ so you can do something a bit more involved.

What I tried to do with these shortcuts was to create a set of
mini-commands that quickly do what you need to do when developing
Django. It might help someone out and squeeze an extra 2-3.5
microseconds each time you run a Django command. Hey, it all adds up.

So you get the dreaded illegal mix of collations:

Pythoneer » Convert MySQL table to utf8

Illegal mix of collations (latin1_swedish_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,COERCIBLE)

What do you do? Not too bad fortunately. And if you’re working with Django, it’s a little bit easier. Launch the shell with python manage.py shell. Then in the shell do something like this:

from django.db import connection
cursor = connection.cursor()
cursor.execute('SHOW TABLES')
results=[]
for row in cursor.fetchall(): results.append(row)
for row in results: cursor.execute('ALTER TABLE %s CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;' % (row[0]))

I’m sure this can be optimized a bit but it got the job done simply enough.

Just making a note…

Extending Django’s database API to include full-text search (Mercurytide)

Pretty cool. Just making a note of it.

SWFUpload News | SWFUpload

SWFUpload is a small JavaScript/Flash library to get the best of both worlds. It features the great upload capabilities of Flash and the accessibility and ease of HTML/CSS. See it in action….

* Upload multiple files at once by ctrl/shift-selecting in dialog
* Javascript callbacks on all events
* Get file information before upload starts
* Style upload elements with XHTML and css
* Display information while files are uploading using HTML
* No page reloads necessary
* Works on all platforms/browsers that has Flash support.
* Degrades gracefully to normal HTML upload form if Flash or javascript is unavailable
* Control filesize before upload starts
* Only display chosen filetypes in dialog
* Queue uploads, remove/add files before starting upload

Just a tip. I loaded it but haven’t put it through it’s paces. But it’s still cool to have and XCode does syntax hilighting now. I am not sure if it did before.

Xcode actionscript3 code completion

As I really like to work with Xcode as my primary IDE, I created my own code completion for actionscript 2 and actionscript 3 with full code hinting. Get it here .

A good tip and set of instructions on how to show the date in the menu bar so you don’t have to click, hover, etc.

How To: Display Date in OS X Menu Bar - PaulStamatiou.com

While getting things settled down on my MacBook it became apparent that I did not want to rely on the calendar widget to find out the numeric date. I simply wanted to view the date alongside the time in the menu bar. Unfortunately this is not an option in OS X. However, with a slight of hand, you too can easily display the date in the OS X menu bar without the need of additional applications.

Doesn’t work:

ids=request.GET['ids[]‘]

Does work:

ids=request.GET.getlist('ids[]‘)

A typical Facebook friend invite sends the ids to be invited to your site as an array in 'ids[]‘. Normally, you can pull values out with just request.GET['key']. But since the value of this particular key is an array and not just a string, you can’t (at least I wasn’t able to) just do ids=request.GET['ids[]‘]. That returns the first value of the array as a string. Not very helpful.

But, this is a QueryDict object, not a standard {} dict. As such, Django provides the getlist(key) method.

Django | Request and response objects | Django Documentation

getlist(key) — Returns the data with the requested key, as a Python
list. Returns an empty list if the key doesn’t exist. It’s guaranteed to
return a list of some sort.

Oooooh sweet. According to this article, Yahoo’s search API is still more “developer friendly”. Either way, having them available is quite cool.

Google Search REST API

More than one year after Google discontinued the SOAP Search API, it finally got a proper replacement. The AJAX Search API can now be used from any Web application, not just in JavaScript. The other two Google AJAX APIs for feeds and translations were updated for non-AJAX use, as well.

“For
Flash developers, and those developers that have a need to access the
AJAX Search API from other Non-Javascript environments, the API exposes
a simple RESTful interface. In all cases, the method supported is GET
and the response format is a JSON encoded result set with embedded status codes.”

“Using
the APIs from your Flash or Server Side framework couldn’t be simpler.
If you know how to make an http request, and how to process a JSON
response, you are in business,” says Mark Lucovsky. Here’s a simple example for web search:
http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/web?v=1.0&q=Earth%20Day

I had heard about passing by reference vs. passing by value. Here is a case of passing by reference.

In [76]: a=[1,2]
In [77]: b=a
In [78]: b.append(3)
In [79]: a
Out[79]: [1, 2, 3]

That’s not what I was looking for. I was hoping to get 'b' to be [1, 2, 3] leaving 'a' unchanged. Oops. It passed 'a' to 'b' by reference so any changes to 'b' affected 'a'. So… need a copy. Simplest way I’ve seen of copying an array in python so far is to use [:].

Learn Python in 10 minutes | Poromenos’ Stuff

A useful use of the array range colon is to copy an array:

newary = oldary[:]

Here is a good discussion on concatenating Django Querysets. Very helpful! It also introduced me to itertools. This leads to some other talk about itertools. Very interesting!

The jist though is like this:

How do you concatenate two querysets? - Django users | Google Groups

import itertools
q1 = Model1.objects.all()
q2 = Model2.objects.all()
for thing in itertools.chain(q1,q2):
do_something(thing)

Very handy.

Not sure where I saw this, but if you have an OS X Finder box open to, say, upload a pic to Facebook, if you hit Command-shift-G, it’ll give you a box you can paste a path in. You can also type the path in and it should give path completion so I’ve heard.

Nifty.

I think whereivebeen is far, far over 250,000 users. It’s successful. The problem is getting it to at least pay for itself. I haven’t seen an update past what is here though. I know some ads were put in and they aren’t obnoxious or anything so as a user I am fine with them. But does the ad revenue cover it? Just wondering… all the best to Craig though! It’s a great story any way you slice it.

Facebook | I have 250,000 users, what now?

Well my application has become incredibly popular, and I’m very excited about it, don’t get me wrong!

Monetize monetize monetize… it’s the big mystery. How to do it? So that it actually works? VideoEgg has done interesting stuff so this is another one to take a look at in the future.

Ad Platform - Publishers | Videoegg

You can integrate the EggnetworkSM AdPlatform in less than a day and begin monetizing your site traffic with quality brand advertising designed to fit into virtually any space.

So says Miro. Interesting. Will have to look into it more later.

Creators: publish your videos the open way.

If just a few companies dominate online video, creativity will be restricted. If the most popular video tools rely on closed, proprietary distribution systems, free speech will suffer.

Miro is specifically designed to give video creators and viewers more freedom. We’ve built Miro to work with as many video hosting sites and video search engines as possible. We believe that the future of media depends on creators being able to choose the publishing services that work best for them, rather than being forced to use a few monopolistic services.