Øystein Wika

The perfect 40th Birthday Gift

Sun, 4 May 2008 12:00:00 GMT

On April the 26th, I turned 40. Hurray! I decided not to throw a party this time, and instead do what I love the most: Go alpine skiing. So, a couple of days before my birthday, I packed my bags and headed up into the mountains, to a place called Hemsedal. Long story made short: I had a blast! Got two full days of perfect skiing conditions and warm (spring) weather. And yes - a little bit of sunshine too :) Now to the great surprise: This b/w picture! It was waiting for me when I got back to town. My mom found it among my late Grandfathers things. The picture was a small newspaper-clipping from 1981 that he had stuck inside a book about local sports activities. It accidentally fell out of the book again while my mom were going through his old stuff the other day. Funny thing, we never even knew the picture existed. Moreover, although I competed in slalom for at least 10 years - I haven't got one single picture from that time. Having found the picture among my Grandfathers things, my mom and dad immediately contacted the local newspaper, and low and behold, they actually managed to find the original. And so they had it framed, and sent for my birthday. Next after the book "Ego", by Erik Håker, this is the best birthday gift I've ever got. Thanks mom and dad! And a very special thanks to my late granddad :)

onAIR tour Europe

Fri, 4 Apr 2008 01:58:00 GMT

The Adobe onAIR tour has landed in Europe this spring, and I have registered for the Stockholm session on June 2nd. The tour is visiting eleven European cities in total. I was hoping they would come to Oslo, but Stockholm was the only Scandinavian city to make the bill. I hope they have booked a big venue! Quoting the onAir blog "...the entire first leg of the on AIR Tour in Europe is sold out", and i'm predicting the second leg is going to be sold out pretty soon too. I hope this will give Adobe a hint that they need to come talk to us Europeans more often in the future :)

Flex/AIR Pre-Release Tour: Oslo

Tue, 8 Jan 2008 01:00:56 GMT

Man I'm looking forward to this :) January 31st, the Adobe Flex/AIR pre-release tour makes a stop in Oslo. The tour is fronted by Mike Downey, Stephanie Sullivan, Greg Rewis and Jason Levine, who will be giving us a full day seminar in two sessions. 1. Unlocking Modern Web Workflows Morning Session (09.00 - 13.00) Workshops on Creative Suite 3 Master Collection: Adobe Photoshop, Fireworks, Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Soundbooth and Adobe Flash. Agenda and Topics Prototyping and Preparing Web Content with Photoshop and Fireworks - Greg Rewis Building Standards-based sites with CSS - Stephanie Sullivan Break with sandwich and coffe Progressive Enhancements using the Spry Framework for AJAX - Greg Rewis Preparing and Delivering Video content on the Web - Jason Levine Adding Interactive Content with Flash - Greg Rewis 2. The Web, the Desktop and Beyond Afternoon Session (14.00 - 17.00) Three hour event on RIA development using Adobe Air, Flash and Flex. Agenda and Topics Moving the Web to the Desktop with HTML/AJAX/ Air - Greg Rewis Building for Reuse - ActionScript 3 and Flash - Mike Downey Break with sandwich and coffe Flexing your muscles - Flex for RIA development - Mike Downey Putting it together with Air - Mike Downey Also coming is a couple of the Scandinavian Adobe contacts, Mattias Jonsson and Kenny Bogoe. And as the current Group Manager for FUGN.com (Flash User Group Norway), I'm really looking forward to meet Mattias and Kenny, who hopefully might be able to support us a little more closely in the future. Sign up for the arrangement here.

Papervision3D Test

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 00:16:24 GMT

Ok, so I got bit too! Papervision3D is really addictive. I started playing around with it a couple of weeks ago, thinking I might be able to use some 3D in a recent job. Unfortunately I had to give up on it due to pixel limitations, but I immediately brought the files back up when the job was done. These are my first results! Basically just playing around with something based on some solar system stuff, with the sun in the middle and the planets spaced out. Because the planets are so tiny, I added some cubes in the first example just to see how many things could animate simultaneously. Also experimented with some cubes and materials. Next: Collada :) Links: Solar 001 Solar 002 Cubes 001 Cubes 002

Designing Wika Media

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:09:44 GMT

Just started designing the new graphic identity profile for Wika Media, which is my own personal little web company. I've decided to give myself a challenge this time, and do all the design work inside Flash CS3. Since the release of Flash 8 - and the addition of bitmap filters and blendmodes, there really isn't much you can't do in Flash. So, there will be no Photoshopping on this one :)

Flash on the Beach '07

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:53:15 GMT

Flash on the Beach '07 is coming up, and I've decided to go. Didn't plan on it, but it's been a long time since I've tried those Old English Beer Holes! Think it must have been around 1987, so I guess it's about time. Oh - and they have got together a pretty nifty collection of speakers too... Got my ticket and flight booked a couple of days back, and I'm now doing some heavy research into the Brighton Hotel scene. Never been to the place before, so I'm kind of lost as to what to look for. There seems to be a lot of smaller family-driven B&B's around the Brighton sea front, as well as the more extravagant places like The Grand. We'll see!

Linpro wins NUUG Award

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:46:30 GMT

Congrats to Linpro who got this years NUUG Award from the Norwegian Unix User Group. They got the award for their outstanding work in the field of Free Software, in which Linpro is a clear leader. The reason I'm writing about this, is because Linpro was one of my first brand-id customers. Back in 1998 I designed their company logo. It's nice to see that the logo is still there, and it's my impression that it has become a very recognizable logo over the years. Recently they added some kind of L-shaped symbol to it, which I did not fancy very much. I basically think it looks like a "splat of blood", and it takes away the clean modern look of the logo-types. Oh well... But anyways: Bottoms Up for Linpro :)

SWFMouseWheel (alpha)

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 20:08:20 GMT

I've been working on getting a few samples of SWFMouseWheel ready, including sourcefiles. In case you wonder: SWFMouseWheel is an open source cross-platform solution for using the mousewheel in Flash, and it's currently in alpha mode. I will make a stand alone version of it, as well as an add-on version to Geoff Stearns SWFObject. A beta release of SWFMouseWheel is planned for late 2007. Link: http://oysteinwika.com/swfmousewheel/

Flash Player gets H.264 support

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:47:10 GMT

Finally(!), and probably thanks to YouTube's latest attempt to play along with Apple TV, Adobe has decided to implement support for H.264 video compression in the Flash Player. This means publishers can now distribute video using the more widely adopted MPEG-4 compression line (.mp4, .m4a, .m4p, .mp4v, .m4v, .3gp, .3g2) for streaming, instead of FLV only. Application developers will also have a field day with this, since they now can tap into the entire Media Player market for real. The only drawback I can see this far, is the decision to lock streaming capabilities to the Flash Media Server only. So if you are a publisher you'll need the FMS to do real streaming to the Flash Player. But on the other side, many publishers only use progressive streaming (where users can play while downloading), so it may not be so much of a problem in most scenarios. As reported before, I'm currently developing the Web Media Player which will benefit greatly from the H.264 support. No longer will it be a FLV-player only. It's going to be a complete Media Player. In addition to MPEG-4 compression, the upcoming Flash Player will also be able to use HW-acceleration for full screen viewing, which is great news. I'll be releasing the WMP alpha soon, and have recently been testing the full screen capabilities extensively. You will need to download and install the latest Flash Player 9 beta to benefit from the HW-acceleration capabilities. Follow the instructions and uninstall your old Flash Player first.

Flash Business Logic

Sun, 5 Aug 2007 07:25:44 GMT

One of the difficulties you face as a Flash Platform Developer in Norway is that there is virtually no business environment for Flash work here. Landing projects based around the Flash Platform has been almost impossible up until now, because it's simply not there. The industry is pretty much avoiding Flash. Well, maybe it has gotten a little better recently, especially if you do Flex work. But for an Old School Flash Developer like me, the whole Flex-wave feels kind of ironic. For years I've been kicking and screaming to get people to realize just how much better their web applications really could be, if they were to use Flash to its fullest. But no, nada! Then, here comes Flex: Oh, applications... Cool... Gotta have it! But, but... Hello?! So for me, the recent growth in, and interest for the Flash Platform is a bittersweet one, seeing that Flex gets all the cake :( Don't get me wrong here, I like Flex, and I'm not claiming that Norwegian Flex developers are suddenly rolling in exciting projects. Neither that there is a big difference between Flash and Flex development, which in fact are two converging disciplines these days. What I am saying, is that none of them is seen as valid technologies in this little corner of The World. As a Freelance Flash Developer you are pretty much out of work, period! As a Flex Developer in a consulting-agency, you're up against every java/.NET head in your own company. As a Flash Designer, well there is always a need for animated ads and those branded-by-cool-ad-agency flash sites that's been around since the dot.com days. But who wants to do those?! You see, Norway is AJAX land, or worse: Standardistas land! To get with the programming In-Crowd, you'd better keep your brain cells strictly occupied with XHTML/CSS/XML/XSLT/.NET/JAVA. Most importantly: Follow the rules! Don't stand out! Don't ever do something that hasn't been done before. Don't make the wheel round when the square one we have kind of works, and so on... For the most part, Norwegian Flash/Flex Developers are pretty much left out in the cold when it comes to enterprise application development. If you're lucky, you got a friend playing in a band that is in desperate need of an awesome Flash-based multimedia site, and well - that's about it as far as your Flash application market opportunity goes: Penniless musicians and starving artists, with bigger tech-needs than IBM. There Is No Spoon! Convincing business execs and tech decision makers that Flash-/Flex-based RIAs is the best option for most all front-end web applications and web sites, is challenging to say the least. But there are definite signs in the sky pointing to a potential shift of paradigms, especially regarding web applications. More and more, we see examples of major business apps falling apart, showing just how broken the whole HTML-front-end-dogma really is. At the same time we see RIAs picking up momentum day by day. It's no secret that I always thought of AJAX as a detour, fueled by the appetite for increased functionality for end-users, but held back by the markup hell of non-compliant browsers. Further more, I'm convinced this detour will eventually either have to get back on track (towards Flash), or it'll come to a full stop. In my opinion the only good thing the AJAX-hype brought about, was the revelation among web-techs that you can create way better user experiences if you leverage more of the business logic on the front end. And with it - the concept that maybe server apps should be used to pass data only, not format it. And this is what the Flash Platform is all about, and always has been. The client should be a natural environment for performing most user centric logic. We don't have to look further than to the success of the desktop GUI to understand this. Applications based on the Flash Player RTE have had the ability to perform all kinds of logic for at least 8-9 years now, but still the Flash Platform doesn't get the recognition it should. To me, this goes beyond any rational explanation, so I won't even try analyzing it. But times are definitely changing, and more and more people seem to 'get it' these days.

Oslo Flash Platform User Group

Sat, 4 Aug 2007 18:59:07 GMT

Update: The group is now active! See: Flash User Group Norway A couple of years back I attended a Macromedia User Group (MMUG) meeting here in Oslo. The meeting was great, but as a Flash person I felt a little off, as the majority of the people there seemed to relate more to the CF/DW category, and so I never went back. Instead, I've been following their activities via the website from time to time, and noticed that the activity level of the group has been decreasing steadily for a while. Last time I checked in, the group had changed the name to Adobe User Group (tp reflect the Adobe takeover), but it didn't look like they have had any meetings for well over a year. So this had me thinking: Considering the difficulties of landing Flash work in Oslo, maybe it's time we tried to get a user group started and really push the Flash Platform here in Oslo?! I for one think we need to join forces if we're going to get the wheels rolling. For starters I think it needs to be a Flash Platform User Group, not an Adobe User Group. If you are interested in taking part you should email me straight away. If you want to get involved in the managing aspects, then that's super cool :) But even if you simply just want to come along for the ride, please get in touch and tell me. I'll be spending some time this autumn getting it all together. Øystein Wika tel: +47 901 88 434 e-mail: post@oysteinwika.com

AIR Chat - Live from Dallas

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:15:14 GMT

Just wanted to post a note about the new AIR Chat app from Ted Patrick. When opened it connects you to the Live on AIR Video Feed. When writing this post, I'm viewing the live show from Dallas on it and chatting with the guys there. Very cool, and a nice example of what you can do with AIR :) The application is kind of basic, but hey - I guess this is a work in progress. So far it's one video pluss chat. It will show you a count of users, but it doesn't have a list-view of who these users are, so you have to continually follow the chat to see who is online. I get an echo-feedback if I hide/view the video, so there's probably some bugs in there. But all this is just fine of course. I also think it's very interesting that the app is utilizing the Amazon EC2 web services platform for developers. AWS is something I'll be looking into very soon.

I got Pownce Invites

Sun, 8 Jul 2007 04:29:27 GMT

Hey, I got my Pownce invites yesterday. Send me an email if you want one. If you haven't heard, Pownce is the latest social networking blip on the 2.0 horizon, created by the guys behind DIGG. Pownce is kind of an instant messenger service, where you can send files and links and such... A pro-account cost $20 a year, so it's quite obvious what they are trying to accomplish through this app. However, one of the things I find most interesting with Pownce, is the fact that they have made an AIR app out of it, so you'll be able to run it on your desktop. I haven't had the time to test this out yet, but I'll definitely come back with some views on this later.

Adobe onAIR Bus Tour Summer '07

Tue, 3 Jul 2007 08:23:44 GMT

The Adobe onAIR Bus Tour Summer '07 is soon hitting the road. They have been marketing the event for quite some time now, and it seems to be a real 2.0 kind of theme over the whole thing. Lee Brimelow did a video walk-through of the design process for the tour, together with the guys from Frog Design. Adobe RIA Evangelist Ryan Stewart claims he will be blogging his face off, keeping up to four blogs spinning at the same time! Well, if there's anyone who can pull that off - it's gonna be Ryan :) Mashing it up: Tour Syndication, Data Feeds and APIs Looks like there will be a lot of stuff for people who want to keep up with the tour online (or possibly mash it up). Here's the list: Bus Tour Image APIs and Feeds. Official on AIR Bus Tour Group RSS Feed. RSS Feed for latest images uploaded to the on AIR Bus Tour Flickr group. Event / Venue API. Event / Venue Data. XML data file that contains information about each stop and event of the tour. Data includes date, city, venue, and latitude and longitude of the event. Video Feed. on AIR Video Feed. RSS 2.0 Feed that contains all on AIR Bus Tour videos that have been posted online. The feed contains enclosures pointing to the flv video files. Twitter Feed. on AIR Twitter Feed. RSS Feed for the official on AIR Bus Tour Twitter account. Weblog Feeds. on AIR Tour Weblog. Weblog feed with the latest news, information and developments about the tour. Aggregated Bus Tour Weblog Feeds. Feed that includes a chronological listing of all weblog posts from the official Bus Tour and speakers weblogs. Weblog Feeds for Developers on the Bus. All details can be found on the Bus API page.

New Project: CTRL7.com

Sun, 1 Jul 2007 05:36:57 GMT

Posting about another pre-launch today, but this time it's only to get the domain name into bots-circulation. The site is named CTRL7 and will be the main outlet for all my Flash Tutorials and ActionScript How-To's. My ambition is to establish the site as a First Aid Kit for ActionScript. The name doesn't mean no nothing. I was literally looking at my keyboard when I tried to think up a name, accidentally hitting the Ctrl-key instead of the Shift-key to enter a slash-character (which is uppercase 7 on my keyboard). So of course it had to be CTRL7! But back to the important stuff: Site functionality and content! The idea is to multi publish tutorials to both text and video, where the textual content will be based on a transcribed version of the video voice-overs. The transcript is then split into keyword-specific "pages/anchors" following the que-points in the videos, resulting in very SEO-friendly video content. More details on this later... A weekly podcast is also being considered. The site will be up and running sometime this summer. URL: http://www.ctrl7.com

Web Media Player

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 22:56:52 GMT

Just launched a new development project called Web Media Player. The player will let you play online FLV and MP3 files/streams, in addition to files you might have stored in your local file system. Why? As Flash video has become the dominant video format online, we now need a new breed of desktop players that makes it easy to take back control over the viewing experience. We're building Web Media Player to give people that control. And of course, because it's fun :) URL: http://www.wmp.com

New Book from Adobe: Adobe Integrated Runtime for JavaScript Developers Pocketguide

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:03:08 GMT

Adobe has a new book out called Adobe Integrated Runtime for JavaScript Developers Pocketguide, written by Danny Dura, Kevin Hoyt and Mike Chambers. The book is released under a Creative Commons license and can be downloaded as a PDF from a post on Ajaxian, or be purchased in paper-form from Amazon. The target audience is, like the title may hint, JavaScript developers - which judging from the comments on Ajaxian, really could need some clearification on the different aspects of the AIR technology :) Not only for JavaScript developers Now, there might be a thing or two for Flash developers too in there. With AIR, Flash developers has a much wider pallet for reaching other parts of the application, like better bridging with JavaScript and the WebKit DOM. And so, this book is definitely going on my bedside table. Update [July 17. 2007]: The book is now available for download on Adobe Labs Wiki. --

MIDI to Flash

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:59:06 GMT

UPDATE Jul 1. 2007: I'm seeing heaps of log entries to this post with the search keywords "midi to flash". I realize my post doesn't give much meat to the bone, so I have decided to do some more research on the topic, and include it in the post. So please check back later if you are interested. Also feel free to post a comment if you are sitting on some important info. Thanks! In the meantime: Check out John Grden's drum demo from FITC Hollywood 2006, or his original home demo. In the demo he's playing back to a Dream Theater montage track, mapping MIDI from his midi-drum-kit through the Red5 media server, and out to a flash-application that displays a visual representation of his playing. This is awesome stuff!

AIR Beta

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 08:52:57 GMT

The Adobe AIR Beta 1, formerly code-named Apollo, was released on Adobe Labs today. I have just got the SDK up and running, and am re-building my apps with the new command line tools. Had some problems getting it installed correctly (forgot I needed the JRE to run the ADT command line tool), so I'm posting some links here, mostly for my own memory shortcomings. Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) download AIR SDK download FLEX/AIR SDK documentation AIR:Developer FAQ Java Runtime Environment

Creating a Killer Flash Site - Update 9: Browser Zoom and Flash

Mon, 28 May 2007 03:25:37 GMT

One of the biggest challenges developing Flash applications has always been getting Flash to correspond with the internal browser navigation. Deep linking, back button, bookmarking, resizing and scrolling, just to name a few. In the resent years we have been able to solve almost all of these issues. One issue that has not yet received much focus is how Flash corresponds with browser text size/resizing and the more recent addition of browser zoom. Zooming Normally, if a SWF file is published without any browser adaptations, the movie will zoom in/out when ctrl + mousewheel/+/-/0 are triggered. This is just fine in some cases, but is problematic if you have an application with its own internal scrolling-logic. Why? Because the browser adds its own scrollbars when the zoom is above 100%, and you'll end up with a double set of scrollbars. Not good! In this application (my website), and as I've previously posted, there is a mousewheel listener implemented through ExternalInterface. This has the added benefit that it also overrides the browsers mousewheel listener so I can implement my own zooming. However, this ctrl+mousewheel combination only works on Internet Explorer. I'm working on a solution for the other browsers. I'm hoping it will be possible to "steal/bypass" the ctrl-keyPress from the DOM, and then (based on the browsertype) do some logic in actionscript to trigger the zoomHandler. It should also be noted that on the MacOS it is not possible to override these functions, because the OS has its own accessibility-tools implemented system wide. It basically takes a bitmap-snap of the current screen, and manipulates that (zoom/invert etc.) My mousewheel-listener does not appear to get into any conflicts with these built-in functions, so it's not a problem.

Creating a Killer Flash Site - Update 8: Changelog

Fri, 25 May 2007 02:55:36 GMT

Lot of stuff going on here now. It's kind of exciting releasing while building, but I like it. I'm deep into the the code now, about 1200 lines written, and I guess halfway before I call it a 0.1 release (currently at: 0.0.5.64). Trying to get as many bugs fixed as possible as we go, but new bugs allways seem to appear out of the blue. How peculiar..?! However, I'm trying my best to have a running version online at all times, so a few bugs shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Here's a short changelog so far: Added scrollbar position memory implemented using Local SharedObject. This makes it possible to restore specific scrollbar positions, while moving forward/back between pages. Added right column menues with a few different menuItemTypes. Internal and external links. Added statusbar reflection of LinkURLs. I think I scratched my head for two hours before I finally noticed that Rostislav had allready implemented this functionality into SWFAddress. Very cool! I had to mod it a little, cause I wanted it to show external static URLs too, not only http://mydomain/#/myfile. On the other side: Getting people to allow scriptbased statusbar writing in their browsers, is probably too much to even hope for these days. Work started on the frontpage module. Added XHTML valid markup is now echoed to bots. Next: Starting work on inline/floating videoplayer and imageviewer. Change the component scrollbar on 'Add Comment' field with lightweight scroller.

Creating a Killer Flash Site - Update 7: Bitmap Caching

Sat, 19 May 2007 14:43:05 GMT

Using cacheAsBitmap we can get much faster screenanimation, which is important for creating smooth scrolling etc. Large textareas was a nightmare to deal with in the pre 'Flash Player 8' days, especially on MacOS. With cacheAsBitmap this is no longer a problem. ActionScript: // container with a textField that we want to cache /// stageContainer.mainTextArea.htmlText = "text text text"; stageContainer.cacheAsBitmap = true; However, I've discovered a small issue, where the cacheAsBitmap function make different results on Windows and MacOS, and that is when making a bitmap of htmlText using non-embedded fonts. On windows the fonts looses the aliasing, and becomes pixel clear, but on Mac they keep the aliasing. If you embed the fonts - they appear aliased on both systems. Strange?! In this application, I didn't want to use embedded fonts (to keep it as small as possible), so I needed to find a solution. Luckily Windows systems don't seem to have the same problem with large textareas, so my solution (for now) was to only use bitmap cache on Mac. On the end of my stageBuilder function I insert a small systemcheck. If it is a Mac, we make a bitmap cache. ActionScript: // container with a textField that we want to cache /// // but only if Mac OS /// stageContainer.mainTextArea.htmlText = "text text text"; if (Capabilities.os.substr(0,3) == "Mac") { stageContainer.cacheAsBitmap = true; }

Creating a Killer Flash Site - Update 6: Form Caching

Sat, 12 May 2007 01:43:11 GMT

One thing I find problematic with forms, is that they don't usually cache my input. Lets say you were writing a comment on some blog, and your browser crash or hangs - your comment is gone! You will have to write the whole thing over again, if you still can remember it that is... With the actionscripts Local SharedObject we can make a cache function to store user input continually. So if the browser crash, or the user accidently leaves the page, we now have a backup that we can use to restore the user input. Supercool! I first used this type of cache back in 2004, when I developed an application for The National Tests in Mathematics here in Norway.

Creating a Killer Flash Site - Update 5: MouseWheel Support

Fri, 11 May 2007 15:41:21 GMT

Update [September 30. 2007]: I've now set up a dedicated page for SWFMouseWheel. See: http://oysteinwika.com/swfmousewheel/ -- Update [June 2. 2007]: Found another crossDomain problem that only seem to affect mac systems. Inserted the line 'Security.allowDomain("http://oysteinwika.com/");' in my constructor, which took care of it. -- Update [June 2. 2007]: Found that mac scrollwheels may produce a NO DATA script error in mousewheeel.js, which will hang the flash application. Implemented a small if test, to check if _delta is in fact a number beetwen -50 and 50. Seems to be working. -- Update [June 2. 2007]: Mac support is back up! Might be buggy. Please report to webmaster_email if you notice any problems. Thanks! -- Update [June 2. 2007]: Mac support is down! Need to work some more on this thing - so until then... -- I have implemented a tiny AS3 MouseWheel function, using javscript and ExternalInterface. I'm calling it SWFMouseWheel, as I'm going to make it an easy addon to Geoff Stearns SWFObject. SWFMouseWheel takes care of mousewheel support for flash applications running on MacOS, which doesn't have native support for mousewheel. I'll put more work into it on a later date, but it's allready working fine. Currently I'm using SWFMouseWheel on all systems, including on Windows, where Flash can listen for a mousewheel event natively. Here is the code I've got so far: SWFMouseWheel.as: package com.oysteinwika.ui { import flash.external.ExternalInterface; public class MouseWheel { public function MouseWheel() { Security.allowDomain("http://mydomain/"); if (ExternalInterface.available) { ExternalInterface.addCallback("jsdelta", mouseWheelHandler); } } private function mouseWheelHandler(_delta:String):void { // do something /// trace(_delta); } } } swfmousewheel.js: function handle(_delta) { if (_delta < 0) sendToAS(_delta); else sendToAS(_delta); } function wheel(evt){ var _delta = 0; if (!evt) evt = window.event; if (evt.wheelDelta) { _delta = evt.wheelDelta/120; } else if (evt.detail) { _delta = -evt.detail/3; } if (_delta) handle(_delta); if (evt.preventDefault) evt.preventDefault(); evt.returnValue = false; } if (window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('DOMMouseScroll', wheel, false); } window.onmousewheel = document.onmousewheel = wheel; function callMovie(movieId) { if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1) { return window[movieId]; } else { return document[movieId]; } } function sendToAS(_delta) { // if test to catch NO DATA on mac scrollwheels /// if (v<50 && v>-50) { // sorry about the hardcoded ID /// // will change it later /// callMovie("myMovie").jsdelta(_delta); } }

Creating a Killer Flash Site - Update 4: ExternalInterface Bugs

Fri, 11 May 2007 02:54:08 GMT

It's come to my attention that the Opera browser does not live well with ExternalInterface, so Opera surfers might experience som quirks here and there on this site. The problem: Basically clicking forward/back button on the browser reload the entire flash app, which is not what we want to do. In addition, and after Opera reloads the page, SWFAddress stops working. I need to check more into the ExternalInterface implementation and Opera, to see if something can be done with this, allthough it's probably out of our (flash developers) hands. If anyone has some information to share, please do. More on this later!

Creating a Killer Flash Site - Update 3: The Add Comment Form

Fri, 11 May 2007 02:53:55 GMT

Comments are up and running. Comments does not appear before you do a manual reload, or until the cache is updated. This will of course be changed later, so that comments appear on page in a more dynamic way. Now I'm working on the Add Comment object.

Creating a Killer Flash Site - Update 2: Crossdomain Security

Thu, 10 May 2007 18:43:10 GMT

Ok, I just figuered out that the crossdomain security was causing some remoting trouble when accessing the domain without the www. The solution was to remove the static URL 'http://www.oysteinwika.com' from the ServiceProxy path. ActionScript 3.0 Code: // now with relative path /// public function loadDoc(_type:String, _file:String):void { proxy = new ServiceProxy("/services/gateway.php", "com.oysteinwika.LoadDoc"); proxy.addEventListener(ResultEvent.RESULT, onResult, false, 0, true); proxy.addEventListener(FaultEvent.FAULT, onFault, false, 0, true); proxy.addEventListener(FaultEvent.CONNECTION_ERROR, onConnectionError, false, 0, true); proxy.getData(_type, _file); }

Creating a Killer Flash Site - Update 1: Init()

Thu, 10 May 2007 17:49:37 GMT

Ok, so I'm building my new full Flash site from the ground up, all in ActionScript 3.0. First up is connecting it to a new simple blog engine that I'm developing in PHP/MySQL. I'll be documenting the whole process as we go. Application goals, overview, todo, specs: Flash frontend coded in AS3 Basic functionality just like any "regular" HTML page XHTML 1.0 Strict! validation Simple backend, database driven, PHP/MySQL Unique URLs, SEO using SWFAddress ScrollWheel functionality, Win/Linux/Mac Advanced page caching using Local SharedObject Added multimedia, inline videoplayer etc. Total frontend app size: < 100 KB

Sneak Preview: Adobe Media Player

Wed, 9 May 2007 14:39:06 GMT

Deeje Cooley and Mike Chambers gives us a sneak preview of Adobe Media Player (codename Philo). The player, which is built on top of Apollo, is expected for release in the fall of 2007. I first saw Philo demoed by Kevin Lynch at Adobe MAX 2006 [see webcast]. I think this application looks very promising, and it will definitely help Adobe give the Apollo framework a flying start.

Photoshop Tutorial: HDR

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:09:44 GMT

As a new DSLR camera owner it didn't take long before I stumbled upon the term HDR, short for High Dynamic Range. In this Photoshop tutorial you will learn how easy it is to produce your own HDR images! [Click here to see a larger image] HDR vs LDR HDR images are images with a wider dynamic range than what is possible to view on computer screens and other digital equipment limited to 8 bit RGB. When working with 32 Bits HDR images in Photoshop, you have full access to this higher dynamic range, making it possible to fine tune the exposure and compress the image down to a lower bit-range. This way, withe the help of Photoshop, we can pick up the best parts of several exposures, and merge them to an optimized version of the sceene. This HDR image can them be downsampled to a normal 8 Bit image. The 8 Bit Problem Working with RGB equipment means working at 8 bits per channel (256 values of each color red, green and blue), which gives us a very Low Dynamic Range. Here's what you typicaly end up with, shooting a nice sunset on a DSLR and viewing it in Photoshop: To be able to see the sky you'll need to under expose, and this will make the landscape too dark. Merging Multiple ExposuresTo make a HDR image in Photoshop, you will typically merge 3 or more exposures of the same scene, shot from a tripod. The different exposures should contain all the deepest shadows to the brightest highlights of the scene. Obviously, to get the details of a bright sky, the landscape will be too dark - and to get a detailed bright landscape, the sky will be way too bright. But like this tutorial will show you, this is what combined will produce a HDR image. How to work with HDR in Photoshop CS2 1. Import Source Files to PhotoshopOk, so lets start the tutorial. First, in Photoshop CS2 you will find the magic pathway under 'File>Automate>Merge to HDR...'. Here you'll first select the different exposures you want to use for your HDR, and optionaly if you want Photoshop to automatically align them. It's best to shoot source images on a tripod, or else the HDR image can get somewhat distorted. Shooting from a tripod you should be able to skip this option. 2. Set White Point PreviewThis step is basically a preview step. Photoshop gives you the option to deselct/select which source images you want to keep, and then preview the White Point result. It doesn't matter where you set your White Point, but as it will set the working space for the merged HDR image, you should set it to where you can see a decent preview of your image. When done, press OK, and Photoshop will give you a merged 32 Bits HDR image. 3. 32 Bits HDR ImageHere is the 32 bits HDR image produced by Photoshop. Yes, it still looks kind of dull, but remember - it contains a higher dynamic range than the computer screen can produce. So this image is really a super starting point for the tweaking ahead. First, we save it as an openEXR or TIFF for backup purposes. 4. Down to 16 BitsNow, to be able to do something with your HDR image in Photoshop, you have to change it to 16 Bits (if you use other software, like Adobe After Effects 7, you can continue to work in 32 Bits). 5. The difficult conversion stepAfter you select 16 Bits, you'll get the 'HDR Conversion' panel up. Select the 'Local Adaptation' method and start experimenting with the Toning Curve and Histogram functions. This part can be very difficult to get to grips with, but this is where you decide which exposed parts you want to emphasize in your HDR image. A tip is to use a high radius on larger images. 6. Adjusting ExposureYou can skip this. Some images need it, some don't. However, if you do see obvious exposure problems, then this is the right time to fix it. 7. Adjusting Color BalanceAnd this is where it will happen. Working with Color Balance in Photoshop will produce the most dramatic changes to your HDR image. Do Highlights first, then Shadows and Midtones last. I often find that I get interesting results when I tweak Highlight and Shadows to opposite values. Turn off 'Preserve Luminosity' as this will give you less contrast problems. 8. Final ResultThe final step is to crop the image and bring it down to 8 Bits, and you are done! Creating Your Own HDR ImagesThat's it for this HDR Photoshop Tutorial, and I hope you found it usefull. I'll be writing more HDR tutorials later, covering other aspects of how to produce good results in Photoshop. Last, if you want to have a go at it yourself, you can download three of the original shots here: photoshop_hdr.zip [5.94 MB]

Set White Point Preview for HDR

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 07:08:52 GMT

You will find a how-to set white point preview in my Photoshop Tutorial: HDR post.

Lightning over Oslo

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:09:25 GMT

Anyone that has tried to shoot lightning, knows it can be quite tricky. Last night we had a big lightning storm over Oslo, and tricky it got: [Lightning large version] As the amateur I am - a good half hour was spent just watching the inferno - before it finally dawned on me (!) that I probably should get my camera out and try to capture a lightning. Eh..! I need a ref After getting the camera on the tripod I started snapping away, just wanting to capture a first lightning for a reference shot. I needed a starting point for some camera adjustments. However, I didn't manage to capture a single lightning, so - after analyzing my utter cluelessness - I turned the exposure up to 10 seconds, adjusted the aperture to 10 and the ISO to 800 (just following my happy-go-lucky feeling of course). Still no luck, not one friggin lightning! I mean - there were lightning bolts going off all over the place, but they all seemed to happen in between my shots. (un)Lucky Strike Suddenly a big one went off straight in front of my viewfinder - and - I GOT IT!. I continued to shoot, but no more luck. Later, when I got the image up in Photoshop, it became pretty clear that it was over exposed and washed out. Now, if I only had gotten that first reference shot... Left is an overview of all the shots in the lightning serie, shot over a period of an hour. As you can see from the five shots leading up to the lightning, I adjusted the aperture down, then back up again. I wasn't confident on how much light I needed for a big lightning bolt. I wish I had kept it down. So where did it hit? The lightning hit right next to the Tryvann Tower, most likely hitting the Tryvann water (see the lightning strike location on Yahoo! Maps). Here's a link to the original shot.

National Tests in Mathematics II

Sun, 2 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The past two years I've been involved in the development of an application for online assessment in mathematics. The project is led and financed by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training in collaboration with Matematikksenteret/NTNU, and is called National tests in mathematics (Nasjonale prøver i matematikk). The entire frontend application is developed in Flash, with PHP/MySQL running on the backend. Link: http://pilot.matematikksenteret.no/

National Tests in Mathematics I

Sat, 15 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT

We have just released the Flash based application for the voluntary national tests in mathematics (Nasjonale prøver i matematikk). This web-application marks a huge step forward in the development of automated math assessment applications. It paves the way for more interactive test-objects, moving away from simple multiple-choice tests and quizes. Application features include: dynamic content delivery asynchronous client interaction client based logics client based memory and state-keeping server backup and restautration of client based memory Dynamic content The content is served via a DB, but from reaching the client it lives on the client. This means: No page refresh is necessary to update or fetch user data. If the user ends a session, and then re-enter, the application will first look for the cached state on the client, and if found - repopulate the application with that data. If no cache is found (changed PC etc.), it will look to the server and then restore the client cache using that data. If no serverdata, then we know it is a new user, and the application init from start as normal. This prosess is totally ubiquitous for the user, and is performed in a millisec. We see numbers that show serverloads redused by 10, which is awesome. Usability testing A prototype was ready in early december 2004, and has since been usability-tested on a variety of users. The reception has been phenomenal - the kids love it! We were curious to see how quick they would pick up on the navigational freedom, and we were happy to see that most users got in a matter of seconds. It was especially funny to see the different strategies regarding navigating forward and backward through different test-items. Some just clicked on the wanted item in the menu, but some went straight for the back button when they wanted a previous item. This really shows how important it is not to remove browser based navigation on this type of application.

Kjell Bjørgeengen

Fri, 10 Oct 2003 00:00:00 GMT

We have just finished a new flashweb for the Norwegian video artist Kjell Bjorgeengen. The entire User Interface is built in Flash, and features browser back button functionality, deep linking and a solution for bookmarking. The site is fully DB-driven and generates XHTML content to bots, making it indexable for searchengines. Link: http://www.kjellbjorgeengen.com/

Ballectro

Tue, 21 May 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The application is located under 'Research documentation' at: http://www.intermedia.uio.no/ballectro/ R&D Project The work was commissioned by InterMedia at The University of Oslo, as part of a new media research and development programme they have going down there. The programming was mostly done in Flash 5, but as soon as I saw that the new Flash MX finally had video implemented, I exported the whole thing to MX in one night. The whole application took about three weeks to complete. All data is loaded from a simple XML-document, which was a definite requirement for this project. Idea being that the documentational research material will be easy accessible for another, or possibly several more applications in the future. Prototype The application goes under the term PROTOTYPE, and is definitely not intended for the general public as is, so please bear over if some functions appear a bit too hidden. Hints: When playing a video, try pressing some keys on your keyboard (f, space, comma, period, enter, h, +, - ). Also try the arrow-keys for scrolling. Backbutton should also work on most browsers. Experimental Navigation From a usibility standpoint there are a few things I would do differently on this type of application, but the project group at InterMedia had some very specific ideas they wanted to try out. The three layer matrix for Dance, Media and Learning being one of them. I don't think this is a particularly good way of separating the content, because it interferres with the videonavigation, which can be somewhat confusing to the user. Another thing I have issues with is the hidden navbar on the videoplayer. Oh well, maybe I'll make a 'developers version' someday... Flash MX Anyway, I'm so excited about the current Flash MX upgrade, and I really think/hope we're going to see some major sites starting to utilize flash for inline video. I also hope to see more videomaterial published to the web in the SWF format, so that people can start building some serious videoapps for the web. The video codec is delivered by Sorenson. It's definitley not optimal for larger screensizes yet, but I'm sure this will be tackled by Macromedia in the coming years.

Flash Back Button

Tue, 21 May 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Using LocalConnection and a hidden frame with a history.swf, we can get the browser back button working on Flash Web Applications. Update [June 5. 2006]: Back in May 2001, Robert Penner was the first to publish a working back button solution for Flash Web Sites, using only a little JavaScript and a hidden historyframe. I still have vivid memories of the many complaints from certain besserwissers on this topic, so it really was a huge thing when Robert solved it. My localConnection solution, kind of a mod on Roberts solution, was first posted on Were-Here, the main Flash community forum back in the day. However, it didn't receive much hoopla. Oh well :)