Latest Project Release: Make Magazine's Elements of Humanity

My friends at Fake-up hired me on this latest project. This has probably been the most complicated site I have done up-to-date. Here is a break down and some slide shows of elementsofhumanity.com. Fake-up did a great job on the art direction while my focus was on the technology.

Technology & API Services

Elements of Humanity has a robust Content Management System that facilitates user driven data as well as overall site media essentials.

We built the CMS with Django framework. The Flash and iPhone web app and dynamic banners pull data via Adobe ActionScript Messaging Format - AMF. This approached helped us seamlessly integrate all platforms to a central data server.

Highlighted technologies:

Back-end Content Management System (Django/Python)
Send-to-Friend
Twitter API
User comment and iLike ranking

Front-end (ActionScript 3.0, jQuery, CSS, xHTML)
Utilized Flash Cookies for unique user session handling
Built a video player light for social networking outlets such as Facebook

All content served via CDN for optimal user experience.

SEO, Metrics & AD Services

The site heavily implements Google Analytics via their GA Flash and JavaScript API. Make can easily track all user interaction, including the Apple iPhone Web Application version. Elements of Humanity has dynamic deep linking which facilitates SEO compliances with Flash content.

Dynamic Banner:
An important aspect to Elements of Humanity’s dynamic banner was to feature selective Experts via an Ad Served banner. By creating a banner that can feed data from the CMS - We were able to successfully accomplish this.

Technical Highlights:
Google Analytics
Gigya
SWFAddress Deep-Linking
Dynamic Banner w/ ClickTags

Robust Flash site with robust data-driven content

iPhone web application; Video enabled

CMS built with Django framework

Dynamic banner served by advertisement servers

Web site Launched: rebeccaminkoffstore.com

I'm proud to announce my latest project release, rebeccaminkoffstore.com. This site was developed with Django, jQuery and pure CSS. The site is feature crazy: Gift Certificates, Product Managing, Customer Order Tracking, Customer Purchase History. Please go to the site and check it out.

Web site Launched: creativekm.com

Finished micro-portfolio site for L.A. graphic designer Kyle Marvin. The site was constructed using jQuery, CSS and HTML. You may check the site out at creativekm.com .

14 Tips for Safari 4 Beta

Here is a blog post on useful Safari 4 Beta tips:

http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/12-tips-for-safari-4-beta.html

Project Launched: Metro Loft Management NYC

Another site launched this week. Welcome to metroloftnyc.com where elegance meets downtown NYC. It was most enjoyable to work on this. All done within the Flash IDE and a bit of animation scripting. The Metro Loft was beautifully designed by my wife, Trina Elstner Cintron.

Project Launched: unbundled - a creative company

The former chairman of Leon Burnett hired me to develop a small simple site for her portfolio. I was honored and very excited to do such a task. Here I present to you unbundledcreative.com

This site was entirely done via AS3 using the Flash Player 10 API. The work section is not done in Papervision, it was all FP10. I'm glad to launch this elegant simplistically clean site. Enjoy all the video spots they have to offer, most of them are classics.

Flash Paginator: Get total of pages

Here is a really simple algorithm to get total of pages in a paginator.

var itemsTotal:int = 33;

var itemsPerPage:int = 6;

var remainder:int = itemsTotal % itemsPerPage;

var totalOfPages:Number = Math.round(itemsTotal / itemsPerPage);

if ( remainder > 0 )

{

totalOfPages = totalOfPages + 1;

}

trace(remainder + " = how many items are left.");

trace(totalOfPages + " = total of pages");

GTweenFilter Error - no filter at index

I'm not sure how many people are playing with Flash Player 10. I'm enjoying this current project. It is all being coded via Textmate using the Player 10 API. I'm currently using GTween for all my animation/transitions and have a simple tip for adding GTweenFilters to dynamic objects.

If you're trying to apply a GTweenFilter effect on a programmatic object you may get a 'no filter at index [number]'. Don't forget the filter for your object hasn't been created yet. You need to create a new filter and add it to your objects filters array. Here is a short example:

clip.filters = [ new BlurFilter( 0, 0, BitmapQuality.MEDIUM ) ];

new GTweenFilter( clip, 0.6, { blurX: 40, blurY: 40 }, { reflect:true, ease:Sine.easeInOut } );

Play with Vectors in Flash CS4

Play With Vectors in Flash CS4

View more presentations from newmovieclip. (tags: graphicsdata matrix3d)

Microsoft Silverlight & Adobe AIR/Flex Battle

Check out this video debate on Silverlight and Adobe Flex. When will Microsoft know that they are very smart, but not at all cool and creative.

Click here to view video

New Artwork: untitled

New Flasher Magazine - Issue 2

http://www.flashermag.com/issue2.html

Deploy Django Apps with Capistrano

Great article on using Capistrano to deploy Django applications. It's a Ruby tool that allows developers to manage deployment to multiple remote servers.

http://www.unessa.net/en/hoyci/2007/06/using-capistrano-deploy-django-apps/



...thanks Trevor

ActionScript 3 API Reference for the iPhone

http://www.mikechambers.com/as3iphone/

Josh Kirby Mini Store Launched

Hooray - The Josh Kirby mini store is now launched. It's a fairly small site for the moment. The idea is to have it grow with the company's business. I chose to use Django as the back-end framework. I used its Template system for the front-end as well as using yahoo's girds. The design is very simplistic with most of the focus on Josh's art.

Inventory
The real power of the store is the back-end. In future phases we will advance to the open source eCommerce solution, Satchmo. Right now we are doing basic inventory to track products coming in and going out. The "Complaint" department is a pretty neat side of the back-end which allows The Josh Kirby Estate, track refunds, damages, and returns.

User Registration
I installed the almighty usefull django-registration application. The registration user path is so: User wants to purchase a piece of artwork; User must create an account; User signs up for an account; User receives an activation key via email; User then uses that key to activate the account. This eliminates bots and other users that aren't really interested in purchasing. If a user does not activate their new account within 48 hours, the account is then deactivated. I will have to eventually implement some kind of CRON job.

It is great, I tell you, I couldn't be more happier with the outcome.

check out the store here.

Sweeties & Gangsters Service & Capabilities

Check out Sweeties & Gangsters capabilities page

Josh Kirby's Official Blog

The Josh Kirby Estate has hired me to help establish an online presents. I will be helping them in creating a integrated e-commerce platform for their online business. They are also committed to have me create a robust application to help facilitate their day-to-day needs. Today we launched one of the planned beginning phases of the 6 week project. You can check out their new blog here. These people are very creative, very fun, and very intelligent, I'm excited to have the opportunity to work with them and Josh's legacy.

Josh Kirby was an amazing, talented painter. He was one of the most sought after illustration artist of his time, samples of Josh Kirby's prolific career are found in illustrations for books by Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Alfred Hitchcock, and in film posters for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and Monty Python's Life of Brian to name a few.

Facebook Application

I'm currently working on my first Facebook application. It won't be much from the start, but hopefully it can evolve into something interesting. Here are a few links I've gathered so far. Most of these have nothing to do with Flash, they are php and AJAX concepts.

Build A Facebook  Application:
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/building_facebook_applications/


Creating a Facebook Application:
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Creating_your_first_application#Creating_a_Facebook_Application


Facebook AS3 API Docs
http://pbking.com/projects/facebook-api/doc/index.html


Facebook Developers
http://developers.facebook.com/


Facebook Developers | Get Started
http://developers.facebook.com/get_started.php


Python - Facebook Developers Wiki
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Python

Flasher Magazine

Lee Brimlow released his first issue video magazine, called The Flasher. Check it out here:

http://www.flashermag.com/issue1.html