And this is how it goes: http://iam.mattkenefick.com

there are many things wrong with it and the people that use it.

“Think of Qapture as an “of the moment” aggregator. Inspired by all the chatter about Twitter as a real-time dimension in searching, it’s our shot at freeze-framing and sharing the finest links that stream through Twitter, all while keeping up with the flow.”

Check out Qapture.net to view some really great links. Go to the About section and download the Plugin ( Qapture Discovery ).

I’m noticing a lot of downloads to Fractal4D. I haven’t updated it in a little while, but now since the user base is growing a bit… I’ll see if I can dig up some of the files and fix’er up a bit. Feel free to log complaints, bugs, or anything of that nature. I’m listening.

If you want to override the “/feed/” link in Wordpress, there are a few steps to take. This was really annoying for me because I was trying to use it, but it’s not an .htaccess setting or anything like that.

Anyway, what you do is:

1. Go into “wp-includes/template-loader.php”.
2. Comment out TWO instances of the following code:

} else if ( is_feed() ) {
do_feed();
return;

Then you’re all set and the “/feed/” link is yours.

This is taken from the Google documentation but I’m going to attempt to explain it in common developer terms and relationships. Since they are specific, some examples will not be DIRECTLY related, but the idea will help you understand what it’s about a little.

Apps are typically built on a combination of 4 building blocks:
- Activity
- Broadcast Intent Receiver
- Service
- Content Provider

So I’ll jump into the first one which is Activity. This is basically each individual screen of your application. So if we were talking about a webpage… Your homepage is an Activity, your login page is an Activity, your success/error page is an Activity… Basically every screen is an Activity. Of course each screen, just like on a webpage, is built from different components. In the web world, these would be like DIV tags, INPUT components, IMAGES, etc… The page as a whole is an Activity.

Broadcast Intent Receivers (BIR) are similar to, but not identical to, events in Actionscript. In the Android world, a BIR would handle external events of the phone. So if the phone starts ringing, the time changes to midnight, or your lose service.. Your app receives an Event to the BIR. You can think of this as being similar to the Actionscript EventDispatcher. Like the EventDispatcher, you can also broadcast events instead of just listening for them. Some Android code examples would look like… “Context.registerReceiver();” or “Context.sendBroadcast();” .. Looks an awful lot like “addEventListener” and “dispatchEvent” doesn’t it?

A Service is something that will play in the background. The best example (and take THIS iPhone) is playing music. Attaching sound to an Service will allow you to listen to your song as you’re going through different screens in your app. Attaching sound to an Activity will cause your song to stop playing when you switch screens. Services are totally code based, obviously. Try to relate it to the services on your computer. You have services running all the time that manage your network connections, LAMP servers, audio controllers, etc. You don’t SEE them, but they’re handling code continuously in the background. You have control over these as well. You can communicate to see what song is playing, change the song, etc.

The Content Provider is a place to store data. SQLLite or other. It lets you share data with other apps on the phone. There is no specific directory, like “Uploads” or “Files” that every app can access. It must be passed through the Content Provider. This will be covered more later, but for now.. Just think of it as a database that you store/retreive information. Content Provider examples: Contacts, Media, Images, Groups, etc…

These will be covered more later, but hopefully gives a more ‘real-world’ approach to what these terms actually mean.

Online desktops are stupid. Stop making them. Thanks.

I haven’t written anything in a while. I need to get on that. I guess I’ll just make a plug for PrettyLoaded

PrettyLoaded

TTYL!

I keep seeing this over and over again. I do not understand why some companies feel the need to replace HTML style websites with Flash files. If there was some benefit of animation or usability, I could understand. I am talking about the ones that actually try to replicate the look of an HTML site but by using Flash.

To me, this seems like making an advanced 360-degree hologram projection of a 1970’s television set. You know, you could just get a 1970’s TV instead? Why use something that offers benefits to create something that has already been made (and better).

I have seen several websites that do this, but the one that recently just tipped me off into writing this is Fi’s latest creation Kontain. I mean no disrespect to Fi, the creators, or their intentions by writing this entry. The site is beautifully done and Fi has always been known for going above and beyond in their quality of work. I recently had to downgrade to Flash 9 in order to test some websites that used the Flash uploader (which no longer works in Flash 10 due to security restrictions). I went to Kontain.com to check it out and found that I could not view it without Flash 10.

First off, I have not so far seen a reason on this site that would require Flash 10. I have not even seen a reason to use anything beyond Flash 8 here, but maybe I have missed something. The site design is very well done, but replicates typical CSS style layouts. The animation is not much more than your everyday CSS / AJAX website so I do not really see the purpose of loading a Flash application here. Text could be smoothed using Flash and embedding fonts, but it is all regular just like HTML. The only thing I have seen that would be a “benefit”, if you could call it that, is a custom context menu. Then again, it does not really offer any benefits, so perhaps I used the wrong word.

The inital load, straight from the get-go, is a whopping 2 MB! lib_common.swf taking up the bulk at 345kb (!?) Followed by gui.swf (254kb), and with several others following … fonts.swf (90kb), another gui.swf (45k) and more.

Personally, and I may be alone in this, I think people should use the right technology for the right project. If you are going to making something that simulates CSS and AJAX… Just use CSS and AJAX. If there is an actual benefit to using Flash, use Flash.

And for the sake of everything holy,

OPTIMIZE!!

Stop producing sites that are 5MB+ that could easily be < 1MB. STOP BEING LAZY.

Check out this temporary page for Fractal4D updates!

—————————–

Here is the first public release of Fractal4D. It is still beta, but there is a built-in auto updater that will make sure you have all the necessary updates without having to check for announcements. The auto-updater does not affect any files or directories outside of its own application directory. This is an AIR app, so you will need Adobe AIR to use it. Please leave feedback, comments, and suggestions.

OR

Download F4D

Donate to help make Fractal4D better!

Notes:

• It defaults to exporting an illustrator script. If you want to save an image, you must uncheck “Export to Illustrator” in the Options menu.
• Version 1.22 is going through changes with easing methods. The only one that exports exactly for illustrator is linear. The others are undergoing changes. Sorry.
• Better documentation and cleaner menus are coming!

If you find any bugs let me know. I am going to fix the ones that exist and you will all be updated automatically when this happens. I wanted to get this out before Thanksgiving and there is substantial to play with and get familiar with before these bugs will affect you. I will also be adding an additional hotkey to simulate a mouse click to start/stop your lines.

More to come! View the other posts to see some demo videos.

Videos:
Exporting Illustrator - http://mattkenefick.com/blog/2008/11/f4d-export-to-illustrator/
General Options - http://mattkenefick.com/blog/2008/11/f4d-general-options-demo/
Color Shifting - http://mattkenefick.com/blog/2008/11/f4d-color-shifting-demo/

Examples: