Sometimes you can find some rare videos on YouTube and you wish that you can download a copy of the video. I found a tool called GooTube FLV Retriever. It allows you to download videos off YouTube and from some other video sites. You will need to use a player that supports flvs and I recommend downloading the Adobe Media Player.

You can definitely embed the video in your blog in order to watch the videos in the future but they are more like bookmarks. If the owner of the video or the administrator from YouTube decides to take off the video, you will be out of luck.

Of course, I do wish you can purchase the legit DVD whenever possible. Anyways, have fun downloading!

I have finally installed IE8 Beta 2 out of curiosity.  It pretty much looks like IE7 but with a few new functionalities.  Under the page tab, it links to a new service called Windows Live Translator.  After a few tests, I figured it is probably just a more elaborated version of Babel Fish.  I like how it shows the original content on the left while it places the translated web content on the right.  With a widescreen computer, this service is actually very handy.  The only problem is that with most automatic translation services, the translation is not exactly up to par.  I tried to translate one of my blog entries from English to Traditional Chinese and it gave me the following:

去年春天多倫多星建議一種新增長容器內的薰衣草。 所以我從勒妮 ’s 花園網站購買這些種子，我總是有愛該等相當 lavender 的廠房。 我等待到達包時, 我發現出通過論壇薰衣草種子其實很難 germinate。 我發現我可能應購買薰衣草植物從花園中心而。 但由於我已繳付的種子我可能以及它一試。 也許 Beginner ’s 幸運是所有您需要，因為我宗種子 germinated 沒有任何特殊處理一星期內。 但是，幾乎五個月後植物是仍然只 5 英寸高的一半人數什麼它應該，我尚未看到任何花。

The translation is so literal that I can hardly understand a thing. 

Introduction to C#

FITC Presentations

What if you really want to surf the net using television?  According to Robert Reinhardt, you will still need to get some additional hardware and the Microsoft Media Center software.  The easier and cheapest way is to get an XBox since it comes preloaded with the software and you can connect that directly to the television.  The presenter then tried to demonstrate various things that you can do with the Media Center, such as playing music videos and online games.  But he tried several times without success due to the slow connection that we had at the hotel.  His problem with the connection in the hotel actually showed one important point:  when are we going to internet that is fast, reliable, and cheap so that a regular family can afford to surf the net on the television?  Robert could not really answer.  If you are interested in Microsoft Media Center, visit the Microsoft website.

While the marketing material on the Microsoft Media Center did not impress me much, especially with a failing demonstration, Robert Reinhardt did provide a few useful pointers on how to create websites that are suitable for viewing through the television.  Similar to the problem on designing webpage for the cell phone, it is important to remember that we need to design across multiple viewing distances.  It would be impossible to create a website once and publish it everywhere.  Effort must be made to change the design and make navigation as easy as possible for screens with different sizes.  When designing for television, one must be aware of the size of buttons since people who are sitting on the couch are usually far from the television.  Tasks that require drag and drop would also be impossible if people do not have a mouse.

Personally, I think that surfing the net on television would be a nice feature but it might be an idea that is too advanced for its time.  The technology required is still not be readily available to reguar people.  With the Mayor of Toronto’s effort to make downtown Toronto a wireless hotspot, hopefully it won’t take long for the future to arrive. 

Joshua Davis is one of the most prominent artists in the Flash community.  He is famous for creating graphic designs with the use of ActionScript.  I was at his presentation two years ago at the FITC and was totally amazed by the complex designs that can be generated by a combining simple graphics and ActionScript.  While most people view design and programming as two separate entities, he views them as an inseparable couple.  One cannot live without the other.  This concept is especially true in web development.  A website without good design would not attract any visitors; while a website without good functionalities and interesting content cannot keep any visitors.

Since the work that is shown in the presentation is actually an extension of a personal project that he has started 2 years ago, I think it would be important to get familiar with his previous personal project called “Once Upon a Forest”.  This project is built upon a really simple concept.  Joshua Davis wanted to experiment with creating artwork by using pieces of graphical assets that he had been collecting throughout his daily life.  It might be a pattern that he found on a piece of glass or the flowers that he saw in his own garden.  He then started to digitize these assets so that he could import them into Flash and he randomly placed them on a “virtual canvas” using ActionScript.  He continued to add on to the canvas without removing any assets.  From time to time, he took snapshots of his canvas and post them on the once upon a forest website.  The images are definitely eye candies and you should go and check them out!

In FITC 2006, Joshua Davis showed us the project that he has been working on for BMW’s Z4 Coupe along with the Director Designer at BMW, Adrian van Hooydonk.  Unlike any corporate projects, BMW actually allowed the designer to create artwork that is related to the product but in a tasteful way that does not throw the product right into the viewer’s face.  Joshua used a similar approach to the “Once Upon a Forest” project, but instead of using any everyday items, he replaced the assets with shapes that he could find within a BMW Z4 Coupe.  He followed a similar process of creating assets, defining the assets’ behavior, and mapping the system so that the state of the image could be recorded.

You might have noticed the wavy pattern that is in the center of most of the prints for the BMW Z4 Coupe.  The pattern is actually generated by using perlin noise, a new feature in Flash 8.  Grant Skinner used the same feature to generate a fog effect.

 

The resulting artworks are very eye catching.  You can simply feel a swirl of colors that move on the canvas.  And the most interesting thing is that he can create hundreds of unique copies since the placement of assets on the canvas is generated by ActionScript; therefore, the assets are placed on different locations every time.

One might argue that if the images are generated by a computer, are they really a piece of art?  In my opinion, if it looks good, then it is art.  Moreover, it probably takes as much creativity to create the code that generates these interesting effects than a regular classical artist.

The presentation was wrapped up with the following messages:
“Love and believe what you are making.”
“Think and grow rich.”
“The only obstacles we face are the ones we place in front of ourselves.”

For more information on Joshua Davis’ work, visit his website.  You can also purchase one of his unique BMW prints from the Z4byDJ website.

The new Flash Player 8 includes an automatic update function which helps to make adoption of the plugin a lot faster than before.  During the first 8 months, there are more than 600 million successful installs.  Improvements in Flash 8 include Flash video and tools integration.  Adobe has made efforts to integrate AfterEffects into the Flash workflow by allowing AfterEffects to export flv video directly.

The representative, James Talbot, talked about FlashLite 2 - a lighter version of Flash Player that is suitable for mobile devices.  They have developed emulators that allow developers to experiment with creating content without acutally having to own one of the supported phones.  (* The emulator is only available on Flash Professional 8.)  FlashLite 2 is based on ActionScript 2.0 and Flash Player 7.  It has XML and image support, dynamic media loading, text enhancement, as well as device video.  Verizon Wireless has committed to use FlashLite 2 to deliver interactive experience through mobile devices.  Some practical uses include allowing users to watch various movie trailers, then allow them to order tickets using their cell phone.  For more information, visit the FlashLite Development Centre.

Another representative, Sho Kuwamoto, talked about how the Flex framework works with Flash Player.  He mentioned that the new Flash Player 9 will have a new virtual machine that supports ActionScript 3.  For ActionScript 3, they are looking for ways to further standardize the language into a ECMA Script Standard language, add a debugger that does runtime error checking, and add in support for regular expressions.  Sho Kuwamoto then introduced the Flex Framework which is a class library for building RIAs.  It uses tags (similar to xml) to include different components of the application.  The good thing about Flex is that you can develop flash application without using Flash since Flex can create swf files that are ready for publishing and the Flex framework is free!  If you are interested in Flex, you can download it through Adobe Labs. 

The next topic is on Adobe Apollo.  It is a project in its early stages that is focused on creating a client that allows developers to create and deploy applications and content using a combination of Flash, HTML and PDF.  The applications created can be installed from the web browser or on a file system and it will launch like any desktop applications.  The aim of the project is to integrate Adobe’s products with usual desktop functionality.  The main problem with a lot of the online application is that it cannot be run offline and/or it cannot have access to the file system due to the security sandbox.  I wish I can find more resources on this but google does not really give much meaning search results. 

This is the first year that Adobe has participated in FITC since Macromedia has finally merged with Adobe.  Hopefully this power couple will continue creating excellent products.

Grant Skinner talked about how experimentations can help to advance yourself and your career options.  There are three reasons why he does experiments:  enjoyment, education, and exposure.  He believed that experimentation helps to develop passion in what you are doing.  “Love what you do, even when you don’t.”  Moreover, focued experimentation is one of the best (and cheapest) methods for learning new techniques.  It is also a great way to get noticed so that you can get more interesting clients.  He further emphasized that experiments do not have to pretty.  They are exercises that push yourself out of your comfort zone and force yourself to apply best practices.

After a brief introduction, he presented some of his experiments.  Most of them involved the use of the bitmap data obejct which is a new feature in Flash 8.  The bitmap data object allows you to work with individual channel.  The value of each channel consists of a number that is between 0 and 255.  If you exceed that range, you might get into the problem of modifying the neighboring channels.  You might ask why bother with the bitmap data object when I can modify each pixel on an image by using the getPixel and setPixel methods that are available in the previous version of Flash.  The problem with those functions is that it actually involves a lot of math when those functions are executed; therefore, it is very slow and when you need to do some complicated modification on an image, you might get into some performance issues.  With the bitmap data object, you can use filters and bitmap methods that are very fast since they run in machine level.

When you are trying to create dynamic images in Flash, Grant Skinner hightly recommands the function, BitmapData.draw().  The advantage of using this function is that you can create infinite number of movieclips without reducing CPU usage nor RAM requirements.  He then demonstrated his point by showing an animation with infinite number of sprites.  According to my own experience, if you try to animate too many sprites in Flash, the application will eventually slow to a halt and froze.  The trick for animating infinite number of sprites is to keep only one real sprite.  The sprites in the background can be converted to bitmap animation.  That way, the CPU does not need to make computation for every single sprite on the screen.

Grant Skinner also showed ways to do pixel perfect collision detection in Flash 8 by making use of bitmaps.  For example, if you have a red ball which you can drag it along within a grey map and you wanted to know if the red ball has collided with the map.  The trick is create a separate bitmap for the ball and the map and then put them together.  If there is any point on the resulting bitmap is cyan, that means there is a collision.  That is a great improvement since in the previous version of ActionScript, you can only specify the collision area as simple geometrical shapes.

 

Perlin noise is another feature that is new in Flash 8.  It provides a more controlled, organic form of randomly noice.  You can use this feature to create many different kind of effects, for example, a fog effect.  It can also be used to produce partially random data.

Many experiments that were presented involved the use of webcam.  Grant Skinner has written a morphing application that can morph images and even videos.  He has used a colour tracking system that finds the differences in the blend mode.  He is very interested in the concept of getting active with the computer without touching.  He created an experient called Curious George where the eyes of George Bush is allways looking the object that is moving in front of the webcam.  He has also created other experients where users can interact with flash applications by using the webcam, for example, drawing on the screen without touching the computer, playing the drum, playing a two player pong game, etc.

This presentation is definitely very inspiring.  I have seen some of the webcam experiments from GestureTech before.  This company builds a lot of interactive games that involve the use of webcams but they are usually heavy weight programs that are intended for kiosks.  This presentation shows that these kind of applications are possible in Flash as well which open up a lot more possibilities for creating engaging applications online.

If you are interested in the slides that are used in this presentation, visit http://www.gskinner.com/talks/play/.

Brandon Hall then introduced a research project that he is working on.  The project is called “flow”.  He tried to organize his code by creating code in the form of patches.  A patch is a swf file that contains a single class.  All patches extend from a single base patch class and interfaces are used to categorize patches.  Due to inheritance, each patch has access to its parent’s canvas and/or sprites.  The advantage of creating your own event patches is that it gives you more control over how things are rendered on the screen.

Personally, I found this presentation a bit confusing since there are no examples of how his ideas can be applied to real applications.  I guess the most important message that I have got from this presentation is that “If you don’t know OOP, learn it now!”

*  For some reason, he has mentioned comtastic in his presentation but I can’t remember what is it all about.  Regardless, check out the comtastic website.  It has a neat application that allows you to play with puppets online.

Here are some links that Brandon has provided:
http://www.automatastudios.com
http://www.automatalabs.com
http://www.waxpraxis.org