If you are excited by the thought of coordinating a team of interactive super heroes who are busy saving the world by creating online games, interactive activities, and promotional microsites, this job just might be for you.

Responsibilities include:

• Budgeting/Estimating
• Creative Concepting
• Scheduling
• Collaborating with the Client
• Rallying the Team
• Resource Management
• and more…

Sound like something you’re made to do?  Check out the job description and reach out!

A word to the wise; when including an external javascript file on an HTML page, always terminate your script tag with a closing script tag, not an inline closing slash.

I ran into an issue where Firefox does not recognize that the script tag is closed and therefore does not render the remainder of your HTML code. This is quite confusing when you specify your JavaScript include in the Head tag and end up with a completely plank render page in Firefox.

Simply put, for Firefox compatibility use this:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/js/externalFile.js”></script>

Not this:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/js/externalFile.js” />

On a lunch break, I decided to go for a quick dip in the ocean, but didn’t want to get my special Florida beach outfit wet (via Target $22.99), so I took some sweet pix instead.  There were some birds sitting by the water, and the nearby children couldn’t resist but run at them full speed, arms flailing and scare them out of their resting spot.  The birds would take flight, then begin organizing themselves in a two-dimensional grid, hovering above the ocean, mimicking the ebbing and flowing surface of the currents.

A natural particle-system!  It was a beautiful moment illustrating an intersection of complex math and nature.

I believe these birds are called “Terns”, and they are very common on Florida beaches.

//Create Body Definition
_bodyDef = new b2BodyDef();

//Prevent rotation
_bodyDef.fixedRotation = true;

//Create body in new b2World
_box2DWorld = new b2World();
_box2DWorld.CreateBody(_bodyDef);

As I mentioned, this solution cost me a couple hours. Hopefully it can save you a couple in return.

Facebook’s demo is as of 1/04/2010

Women = 54.3%

Men = 42.6%

Video Game Demographic is listed as

Men = 61%

Women = 39%

Gaming is projected to be a over 13 Billion Dollar Business for 2010 and women over 35 are considered the sweet spot.  Growth in social games seems to be the overall trend hence FARMVILLE’s Success.

I can let you know that I currently play on a home Wii, IPhone and here at work (research of course) as well as at home on my PC on Second Life.  Why do I play?  Well there is more opportunity to play socially.  With Wii – Fit, Rockband Parties, IPhone Bluetooth and with Second Life all these have a social element.  I enjoy talking and being social while beating the crap out of my friends.  So you could say I fit right in.  It’s no secret in most households women control the purchasing power, now maybe we can take to the joystick controller?

Box2D was a clear choice for this role. Not only is it better documented and supported than APE, it is also vastly more flexible, stable and efficient.

Originally written in C++ by Erin Catto, the version we used was a port to AS3 found here. We ended up using version 2.0.2 as opposed to the most current 2.1, as the documentation, example projects, and many support articles are still written for 2.0.x. There also exists a Cocoa port that may be useful for future iPhone development.

The API for Box2D has several important differences from APE. Most notably, the World object. APE works through a static APEngine object, physics objects are created independently and then added to and removed from the static engine instance. In Box2d the World object handles similar functions, however all physics object are created and destroyed inside the World object for performance optimization purposes. Furthermore, multiple World objects can exist simultaneously, although using this technique should be carefully managed to avoid performance issues.

Similar to physics object creation, collisions are also handled in a centralized manner through the World object. Where one would listen to individual objects for collisions in APE, a Contact Listener object must be used in Box2D and assigned to a World object. From this Contact Listener class it is then possible to notify physics objects and other systems of collisions.

Perhaps the most disorienting difference in Box2D is it’s unit system. Instead of pixels and arbitrary force values, the Box2D system uses the Meters/Kilograms/Newtons system of units. Anything being moved, sized or placed in the Box2D world must be translated into this system and then translated back out to pixels for things like updating a display object’s position based on it’s corresponding physics object. There is a general rule of thumb that 30 pixels equals 1 meter, which we adopted and currently use.

Overall, the transition to Box2D has been a smooth one. We are currently enjoying a sizable performance increase, increased flexibility (with things like object rotation, a variety of joint types, and separate control over mass and density), as well as a wider community and support base.

Let’s face it, there’s a LOT of poorly-produced Flash content out there. We’ve all seen our share of visually assaulting banners. But let’s not forget the processor-hogs, the unnecessary site headers and the flashterbating intro “splash” screens. As you navigate your way down the freeway of the internet, wouldn’t it be nice if you could avoid these potholes?

Enter, the Flash blocker.

Of course the primary function of a blocker plugin is, well, blocking your browser from downloading and displaying Flash content. This will keep out all the riff-raff, but also block the “good” content as well. What happens when you visit Hulu or YouTube expecting to watch a video?

Any blocker plugin worth it’s salt (I use FlashBlock) will also include a “whitelist” option, which allows the user to specify specific sites or pages on which Flash content will NOT be blocked. Also, good blockers will provide the user with a simple way to allow Flash content to display on a case-by-case basis, such as masking the Flash content area with a button that loads the SWF behind it when clicked.

These features turn a blocker plugin from wall into a gateway, only allowing content the user approves to get through. As someone who spends most of their day on the internet, my Flash blocker plugin has become a vital part of reclaiming my time and sanity as I browse.

That said, I just got through playing Bioshock 2.  The second installment of the story of the wacky adventures you can have under the Atlantic if indeed a guy goes ahead and makes an underwater metropolis based on the question:

‘Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?’

“No!’ says the man in Washington, ‘It belongs to the poor.’ ‘No!’ says the man in the Vatican, ‘It belongs to God.’ ‘No!’ says the man in Moscow, ‘It belongs to everyone.’ I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose… Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”

So the thing I thought that was quite interesting about the plots of both Bioshock 1 and 2 is the fundamental philosophies of the antagonists.  Andrew Ryan builds this sweet Art Deco styled city on the concept of pure capitalism coupled with no religion or rulers.  ‘No Gods or Kings.  Only man” is the banner phrase that meets you upon your entering the city in the first game.

Now, this philosophy of a city of unbridled ambition and no petty morality (pfff* morality, who needs it?), we find the wheels fell off this plan long before you enter the city in the first game.  The problems that grip any city grip this city:  Poverty, Greed, Corruption, Power Struggles…the usual.  And so the city becomes this sort of tower of Babel where the great ambition is met with ruin.
A creepy ruined underwater city with crazy people all hopped up on genetic modification things.  Yep.  Kinda like Detroit only underwater.  Oooo burn.

Detroit, lift up your weary head. – sufjan stevens – good song

The second game continues the story threads, further uncovering other struggles rapture faced before it’s fall.  This time, rather than unbridled capitalism it’s good lo’ Socialism being pushed by  psychologist Sophia Lamb.  Her goal is to create a Utopia and the first perfect utopian though any means necessary.  She worked to destroy Andrew Ryan and those like him and to use this underwater city as the birth place for her dream.  Equally a crappy idea as Ryans’, just a different end of the spectrum.  Rather than the strong not being constrained by the weak, it’s equal misery for all under the sea.

Aaaannyway, Great couple of games i gotta say. Now what is the moral of the story you may ask?  Easy!  Don’t build a city underwater, dummy.   For your health!

With Video gaining market share I am very excited to use the new HTML5 Video Tag.  HTML5 is headed our way with new and improved features.  I will let the developers discuss the attributes of how it works, I am interested in producing HTML5 for Mobile video content specifically.  YouTube and Vimeo have both designed/developed in 5.0 format so that you can load very high res video to your IPhone, IPod or IPad without Flash.  I currently have an IPhone and I am constantly irritated when I don’t get to see what many people post to social media.  Facebook’s video based in flash isn’t compatible with IPhone and is becoming more widely used on the platform.

With Vimeo the only site I have posted video to, it’s painless.  With a paid plan you can have Flash, Html5 and IPhone files generated for you.  I am very excited to produce content for clients on the mobile platform moving forward.  Mobile is such a captive audience and when combined with video it’s very compelling.

Of course, there has been a non standardized adoption of two general formats Safari and Chrome prefer H.264 and Mozilla and Opera prefer Ogg Theora.  With Youtube and Vimeo preferring H.264 we may see a shift heavily weighted towards H.264.  But whatever the standard becomes it’s very refreshing to have video operating on a tag instead of inside a swf.  Tags are much easier to work with and looks far better then video converted to Flash.

I recently created a new class in the Flex Library Project that houses my core codebase. The Library Project is set up to automatically compile a SWC when it builds, this SWC is then imported in to any other projects that require the core by referencing the SWC in their build path (pretty slick little workflow). Only this time, the projects referencing the core SWC couldn’t find the class I had just added. Fail.

After trying all varieties of refreshing, cleaning, closing/opening the project, quitting/restarting Flex 3, I was beginning to wonder what had actually happened to my class. How had it gotten swallowed up in the gears of the Flex compiler?

The problem ended up being not with the new class, or the compiler, but with the .flexLibProperties. This is the XML file that stores a list of classes to include in a SWC. By default, it’s hidden from the list of files in your Flex project so you have to “un-filter” it from the Flex Navigator panel.

To do this:
• Click the downward-facing triangle icon in the upper left of the Flex Navigator panel.
• Now select “Filters…”



• Then un-check the box next to “.flexLibProperties” and the file magically appears in your project file structure.

My new class was notably absent from this list, so I included it using this syntax:

<classEntry path="core.path.path.ClassName"/>

After building the Library Project again the SWC was recompiled, now complete with my new class.

This new site shares many similarities with those of the latter trend, but we’ve conceptualized it as something more permanent. In essence, we’re using our enormous, 12-year body of work to our advantage. Instead of a straight chronological listing of projects, we’re using their many common attributes (represented as tags — hardly a novel abstraction, but an easily understood one) as the basis of our system for navigating the site — a much more contextually meaningful way to browse our work. Everything is connected, allowing for a maximal amount of content that is tempered by a minimal and structured presentation.

While we don’t yet have everything up for your perusal, we’re working on it, and plan to continue adding newly completed projects to further improve our system with more data — the idea being additions, rather than editions. So check back soon.

Technical stuff

• Let’s get it out of the way upfront: IE6 isn’t supported. Given the design, it just wouldn’t be a reasonable concession. And given the tiny percentage of our visitors still using that albatross, it’s not much of a loss. Progressive degradation is a nice concept, but it only goes so far, and in this case “so far” is IE7 (through no small effort in itself).
• We’re not entirely in HTML5 Land yet — the benefits just don’t outweigh the requisite browser-sniffing. That said, as soon as SublimeVideo or Vimeo’s promised HTML5 player come to fruition, we’ll switch over our video reel player, the only remnant of Flash/non-mobile-friendliness on the site.
• Cufón is a stopgap, but an awesome one.
• Firefox has horrible text rendering of CSS-rotated elements. Somewhat excusable given that it’s not an official CSS standard yet, but annoying all the same. Safari and Chrome fare much better (and add a few proprietary-but-cool aesthetic flourishes here and there).
• We’re running everything on WordPress, which I’m sure our developers can tell you more about. It’s a bit jury-rigged, but has proven to be quite stable and usable, and, more importantly, allowed us to move away from pie-in-the-sky custom CMS talk and actually produce something real, which you’re seeing before you today.

All the while I’ve found that the key to success on the web is understanding. Not only understanding the web as a medium but understanding your client’s needs, your audience and the other members of your team.

My skills include AS2, Flash & Flex development in AS3, CSS, HTML, JavaScript and XML. My interests include iPhone Development, 3D AS3 engines, audio visualization and data visualization.

Clients I have shared success with: Adult Swim, Cargill, Cartoon Network, Hoover, Hormel Foods, Kelloggs, Marvin Windows, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Payless ShoeSource, Pfizer and Syngenta.

We’ve all noticed that Photoshop does a little more of what illustrator does. After Effects does a little more what 3D software does. Adobe programs aside, I think this is a trend that goes beyond our normal digital authoring platforms.

I see traditional print designers now being able to design for “interactive”. (Welcome to digital my print friends, we’ve been here for awhile) Marketers creating and distributing content through Facebook and Twitter without need for extensive tools. Videographers can easily create titles and basic effects.

So before the discussion about “needing to broaden your skillset” takes over, or a discussion about “knowledge of all master of none”, I want to extrapolate this into the future based on the idea that all things that are technical will become easier.

When you take into account all the places we place our time for entertainment and knowledge; movies, video, blogs, news, games, webertainment, info sites –there is a specific technical challenge needed to overcome each in their own world. Right now to create a website you need to choose Flash, html or something else. A video needs a editing tool and then needs to be exported to be viewed. But this is starting to change.

Games need a performance machine, but we’re realizing that the base system  you need to play a game is accelerating faster than our ability to create meaningful rich content. Likewise the ability to create on multiple platforms is now creating ubiquitous exporting of games. Video tools are now becoming more affordable and the ability to create stories without need for expensive shoots or sets is totally possible.

So when the tools arise to create fundamentally original art, that is neither game or movie or website–what will the tools be to create it? Single creators will usually lead the charge, so this new authoring platform must be accessible, none of this Avatar $300bn stuff. It will also need to work across so many forms of our current concepts of “media”. It’s hard to think how it coud be accomplished. But that’s where it’s going.

Web video and moving images is my passion well next to DJing. Some locals know me as natosha and occasionally I play a gig or two. I have opinions I am opinionated, which will probably creep in end up here on this blog — mainly about video and the web as well as art, design and music.

Now to HAM — I had heard of them a while ago and wanted to work in the fun and highly respected environment that Ham always had the reputation of being. So here I am about a month and a half into the adventure and I love it! What a highly creative and very collaborative staff we have! Our staff’s backgrounds are as diverse as the projects I produce for them. BTW — I just can’t believe watching Spongebob episodes is considered part of my job. I am very excited to be here and hope we can create something very cool for whomever is reading this :-).