2009 Resolutions

The thing about how each year unfolds itself is how it is so unfathomable that it seems pointless to make any new year resolutions. Take last year for example; I set myself out with a list of things that I barely completed by the countdown last month.

And now, before I know it, it's already officially the 4th week to the new year, and I'm left with less than 50 weeks (48 to be exact) to carry out my resolutions. However, if I am to stop short and not have any new year resolutions, I fear that another year might just slip by again with nothing to account for at the end.

Hmm.. Ok shall stop my long winded introduction (read: lamentations) and start penning down what I originally wanted to do since weeks ago. :D

***

#1 Sleep latest by 11pm daily
Over the last year, I find that late nights were really detrimental for me. No matter if the cause is TV, surfing online, gaming, or work, sleeping late is just bad. That's why this is my top resolution this year, and I'm proud to say that till today, I'm keeping it! At least roughly~ :P

#2 Get to work on time
This resolution has a small clause, which is "even if late, don't be too late". *loL~* Due to my previous job nature, I was accustomed to flexible working hours. I carried that habit to my current work and for the past year, I think the number of times I reach work on time can be counted by the fingers of one hand. I'm happy to say that I've kept this resolution intact till today too! :D

#3 Spiritual Growth
Read the following books for my spiritual growth this year (apart from the Bible of course) :)


#4 Exploration in my career
Self study the following for my career (will definitely spill into the following years). I won't be elaborating what they are or my decision to study them. If you want to know, just chat me up. Think not many people who read my blog are really interested in these dry topics. REALLY. *loL~*

• php
• jQuery
• dojo
• Adobe Flex
• Adobe AIR
• Design patterns
• Technical mathematics
• Game programming
• Artificial intelligence

#5 IPPT
I dint exactly get a chance to blog about it, but I got silver for my IPPT last year. Shall blog about it in another entry, but the resolution for this year, is that I'm aiming for GOLD. ;)

#6 Spend less time on games
Spent so much time on casual games last year that I really under perform in many areas of my life. I'm just going to spend at most *2 hours per week* and I shall stick to it.

#7 Blog more on all my blogs
Blogging is good. That is why people blog. To pen down their thoughts, to leave a mark in history, so that they can look back. I need to spend more time to pen my thoughts down. It makes reflection for the year a lot easier too. :)

#8 Japanese studies
Planning to make a trip down to Hokkaido this year with my bestie. Really want to brush up my Jap again before I head there. Shall see how aye?

#9 Build an application with Adobe AIR
Again, techy stuff. Just thought of building some applications that you and I can all get to use. Just have to pen down again what I should build. Anyhow, gotta start somewhere.

#10 Start using more social network services
Rarely will I upload photographs online because I'm not really an online social networking person. But since last month, spending time on facebook, commenting on friends' photos and stuff have really made me realised that a lot more things are more fun when it's social. At last, I will only do all those things if I have time left from what you see above. haha..

#11 Learn guitar
Been a resolution for a couple of years now, but still no time for it. Shall still put it here and see what turns out for this year. :P

***

As I reflect on this list, I think I'll be just contented to complete till Resolution #6. The rest I will leave it to their initiation in God's time. *loL~*

Apollo For Flex Pocketguide

Seems to have found this a little too late. :D

Apollo is already Adobe AIR Beta, while Flex 2 is already Flex 3 Beta at the moment. Anyway, found this pocket guide book on these two technologies and uploaded it to my box.

Download it to get yourself some direction (if you require any).

Personally, I would think I need it. :P

New toy: JSFL

I first came across JSFL when I tried to compile a Flash file through FlashDevelop. That was the time when I saw in Flash IDE's Output panel, some error message about a particular JSFL file failing to execute (I can't remember what's the exact error message, as it's so random and I never really take note).

Of course at that time, I had no clues about what JSFL was and I'm not bothered to find out what it might do. I'm more pressed with the concern that my Flash file is failing on me. :D (The dateline was so tight, JSFL don't blame me. :P)

Recently, while reading Grant Skinner's blog, I stumbled upon his gAlign extension tool for Flash IDE. In that blog post, he mentioned about using "custom JSFL calls" to accomplish his stuff. Seeing how JSFL is able to manipulate Flash IDE's content, that got me seriously curious about the technology behind it.

Googled for JSFL as I had absolutely no idea where to start from, and found this introductory article by Guy Watson. In the article, he establishes facts about JSFL and where did it came from. Unfortunately, it didn't seems to be what I'm looking for.

How can one ever forget about Flash Help? :D I did a search in there and found exactly what I needed. All the treasures and secrets about JSFL were all lying in the book Extending Flash, waiting for me to uncover them. hehe..

So now, I'm getting all excited about this new discovered "power" (of course the power itself is not new, and existent for a pretty long while. it's just my ignorance. :D but no more!). Got some opinions from friends about what should I develop as an extension for flash, and Arul in particular gave an interesting one.

My first JSFL project will hence be,




*drum roll*




*drum roll*




*drum roll*








an Arrow Drawing Tool!







Stay tuned!

Day 10: Project Flexas

Wa how time flies. I'm into the tenth day of Project Flexas, and I still have not introduced it at all!


Project: Flexas
Duration: 30 Days
Objective: To learn Flex 2 and ActionScript 3.0 within 30 days, after which, able to confidently develop and deploy projects using the skills learnt.

How does this name come about you ask? Well.. simple! ActionScript is called AS in short, so by simply concatenating "Flex" with "AS", you get Flexas! :)

Part of my technology ride that I've recently began, I've been very very busy and absorbed daily by Flexas! Well, what more can I say, I'm a geek! The original motivation started when Adobe announced the launch of the alpha version of Apollo. I want to be able to deploy something on Apollo!!

Guess you probably know why my blog is not getting updated as often as it used to be. I actually had so many things that I want to write about~! They're still sitting in my drafts folder and hopefully by the time I write them, they will not be outdated. haha...

Looking back at the last 10 days, they had been very fruitful. I'm now able to navigate confidently around in the Flex IDE, and able to do simple events and states setup, loading of external XML and doing some basic ActionScript 3.0.

Unfortunately though, I think I'm not pushing myself hard enough. Mmm... I seem to be lagging behind my milestones. Gotta keep pushing!!

Wish me luck! :)

Box.net

Welcome welcome to Flashmech's Technology Talk. *waves*

*people claps & waves back*

Today we'll be talking about Box.net.

*cheers*

Haha... I've been writing so many stuff on technology recently that I feel that I'm more like creating a technology blog. Nonetheless, credits to Shunjie for giving me a sneak peak into this website, Box.net.

Sign up here, and they give you 1GB storage space for free. Simple. That's it. haha... the end.

*booo~~!!!*

OK OK!! That's not it~! haha...

Several perks. They allow you to share your files, if you want, with friends and families, view photos, blah blah blah all the regular stuff. What's nice too, is that for music files, they have their own player to play it too~ end~ lalala...

*BOOOOOOOOOOO~~!!!!!!!!!!!!*

I know stilllll not very convincing... Well at least, it makes me think about why I bought my thumb drive in the first place can? Haha.. I mean, both of them are 1GB, this is online, so it basically syncs to everywhere(PRO) as long as I have internet connection(CON). Yet, I can never lose data from Box.net(PRO), cos the data is always online and not in storage media. In addition, your files online will not deteriorate over time(PRO), unlike storage media, where you run into risk of dropping them, life span, etc... Transfer rate is a major problem though, cos it entirely depends on your bandwidth. Either way, it's never ever gonna be the same with the rate that thumb drives transfer(CON). But hey!! It's FREE!!! I know human are mostly cheapos *pointing to myself*, haha.. so that's definitely a PRO!!!

"Yeah!!!" *laughs and claps*

The real great factor will be that they allow me to have a name space in their address, and people can come to it and see what files I had explicitly shared. Feel free to download any file, any time((PRO), when I make them available lah!~(Another PRO)). haha...

Another plus, they provide widgets for bloggers like me, to add direct stuff on my blog to allow people to come and download! How cool is that~~! I can put my resume here when I'm finding for jobs, and other things necessary when they become necessary(PRO PRO!!). :P

Final note, they provide API for developers like me to create some really nifty stuff! Shunjie has already began some very very very very very interesting works regarding this. When he's done with it, I shall get it from him(if he does not consent, I'll probably steal it! :D), and share with you guys using Box. hahaha...

So what you waiting for? Sign up now and start uploading. Share with me too!!! :)

Flickr API

NCRs! BUGS! FIX THEM!!!!!

Oh man... getting quite sick of this routine. This had been what I had been doing for the last month or so, fixes and more fixes to make VP more stable and bugless. I'm starting to complain about how monotonous things can get.

I want to do something more exciting, more fun! Learning keeps me going, and if I'm not learning, my passion will slowly burn burn and the wick will shorten shorten and then I will sian siannnn....

Then Arul came along and said, "Hey, why don't you go look into Flickr API, and get them into VP?"

NICE IDEA!!!

And thus I embark on my tour to learn the API essential for Flash. Once I get some demo working, guess I will post them up.

Maybe even to my long long neglected tutorial site??? hahaha....

Introducing Design Patterns

After getting into my third month as a flash developer, I have finally learnt how to use classes effectively in my project. However, there seems to be many places of duplicated codes that I hope will be either able to optimise, or gathered at a central area where they can be reused.

Here comes my current excitement!

Design Patterns!

Just started reading on my next book, which I’ve added in my reading list as well, is the Head First Design Patterns. Observer, Delegation, Command, MVC, Singleton!!!

Design Patterns here I come!!! whoohooOoOOo~!!~ (Kinda feel that I'm sounding like a complete geek now. :P )