Entries Tagged as 'Incoming From wil@mod7'

Chase Formula

Simple formula for easing to a target… (why do I keep forgetting this?)

currentval -= (currentval-targetval)/speedmodifier

Typetester

Typetester Graphic
Typetester
 is an awesome tool–a must for XHTML/CSS-heads–created by Marko Dugonjic. Also, make sure you check out his explanation for using the base font/ems approach. Very flexible and smart.

FlashForward 2007 Links

I’ve compiled some links for myself related my experience at FlashForward 2007. I’m posting them here in case there are others interested in checking them out.

Peter Elst OOP for the Noob
Giovanni Gallucci Branding via Social Media for the Interactive Artist and Small Agency
Flash and Search Engine Optimization
Seb Lee-Delisle AS3 Particle Effects
Kevin Lynch Adobe Keynote
Erik Natzke Beyond the Knowledge; The Art of Playing
Paul Ortchanian BitmapData and 3D Image Manipulation in AS3
Robert Reinhardt Deploying Video with Flash CS3
John Say Video Game Opportunities with Flash
Michelle Yaiser Working with Flash on a Multi-User Multi-Touch Tabletop

More thoughts/details to come soon…

Flash Forward 2007 Days Zero, One and Two

I’m out on the East Coast, and I’m attending Flash Forward 2007 in Boston. It’s been a great trip so far, meeting new people and seeing new places (my first time in Boston, can you believe it?). The conference is good, but, as usual, the most rewarding parts of any conference are the in-between and afterwards where you get to geek-out face-to-face over lunch, dinner and drinks. Some personal highlights to date: Marty Shaugnessy at Flash Forward 2007Before the Event In my hotel room, I fight the urge to shut my eyes and make it out. While at an informal geek-together at Bukowski’s (organized by Stephane Richer), I bump into none other than my old bud, Marty Shaunessy. While we’ve emailed occasionally, we haven’t actually seen each other in over ten years(!). Additional note: Bukowski’s makes a wicked non-Guinness Black Velvet (Crown Float for you Canadians and Brits). Finding a Starbucks before the opening keynote Though I’m quite sick of Starbucks coffee lately, it sure was critical to information retention that I get that morning injection of coffee after a late night and jet-lag. Also, there was entirely too much applause going on at this keynote. Ok, some AIR apps are cool, but c’mon… OOP for N00bs Peter Elst is a pleasant chap from Belgium who finally straightened out some ActionScript 3 OOP concepts. Well, at least for me anyway, judging by some of the blank stares around me. Grabbing some quick snaps of Boston during lunch Boston is a beautiful–and pretty clean–city. I was amazed by how small it is, relatively. And the fact that most of the major traffic arteries seem to go underneath the city. Boston is a beautiful–and pretty clean–city. Reconnecting with old mod7 Alumni, Jeff Weir Jeff came out to FF2007 because his amazing Viscosity project was a finalist in the Festival. We eat fresh lobsters after the awards show. Sweet. project was a finalist in the Festival. We eat fresh lobsters after the awards show. Sweet. “Receiving” an award My friend, Loc Dao, couldn’t make it to the festival so he asked me to collect the award for him, should his project win. It won. I collected. I acceptance-speeched. The award and I celebrated on the town. I just hope it isn’t too sticky… Craig Swann’s Session Craig Swann dazzled the audience at FF2007 with creative experiments using webcams, onboard mics, time, and alternative interfaces like the Wii remote. Neat, even if lacking described application beyond "VJ-ing". Mario Klingeman Mario presented his project to quantify the essence of Art into n-dimensional space using genetic algorithms and Flash, thus allowing a program to generate “art”. Very cool. Very German. Very Berlin. Oh, and he gave out pins! Awesome touch. It’s strange being in place where you can talk to a group of strangers about properties, event handlers, and document classes, and they know exactly what you are talking about.  More to come…

Crowd-sourcing for Ketchup

Crowd sourcing for ketchup
Crowd-sourcing is being utilized again by our advertisers, this time for the next great Heinz commercial. Starting August 27th you can vote online for your favorite from a group of 15 finalists, all hosted on YouTube. As with the Doritos piece, the caliber of some of the work is quite impressive. Of course, with the nearly 4000 entries, it’ll be tough going wading through tons of real stinkers. I wish the judges good luck and good speed in narrowing thousands down to the top 15!

The advent of user comments may make it easier to find and qualify the jewels, but given that the best comments will come from the most-connected submitters, it may boil down to a popularity contest. Despite the hopes for the great media democratization that the web provides, it’s still marketing and promotion that’s king. It just looks different now than ten years ago.

$57,000 for the winner? That’s a real bargain for Heinz. Near-infinite proposals, cheap labour, great content, Darwinian selection–it sounds like Nettwerk CEO, Terry McBride’s prediction at the VIDFEST 2006 keynote that the creative services will be crowd-sourced within 10 years is coming close to fruition (a prediction for which the keynote crowd itself was quite vocal over in the extreme negative)!

But getting back to Heinz, this is one of my favorite entries: