January 22nd, 2008
Author: Michael Krotscheck
Category: Libraries
Tags: actionscript, flash, flex, sprite
I saw the need to create my own sprite class because both Flash and Flex’s method of handling basic component functionality were contained in two completely different classes, both of which happen to be named the same thing. Given that I could at no time guarantee that a developer would have access to the codebase of either, it became necessary for me to roll my own. This way, at least, I can do cross-platform development without having to force my users to a particular dependency. Unfortunately, this class won’t fully solve the problem until Flex 3 is released as open source, since for proper usage in Flex this will have to implement IUIComponent, and that’s still licensed.
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January 20th, 2008
Author: Michael Krotscheck
Category: Articles
Tags: developer, ethics
The internet is an interesting beast. It offers privacy and anonymity, yet at the same time gives us plenty of opportunity to pull those curtains aside and become celebrities in our own right. In the world of community-shaped brands, overnight popularity and popularity as fickle as a mouse click, we are given plenty of opportunities to make a quick buck, win a quick victory, be a featured celebrity or make a quick contribution.
The only thing that seems to be tying all these things together on a consistent basis is speed. Contribution needs to be fast, results have to be instant, and if something doesn’t catch our attention within our rapidly diminishing attention span, the audience moves on to the next best thing. Things with real staying power are growing fewer and fewer, and the last thing that seems to have any kind of tenacity is reputation.
Let’s face it: Employers, clients, friends and colleagues will search for our names online, and an even sightly determined sleuth will be able to uncover a substantial amount of our history. As a result we each have to be very careful about managing our online activity, and in particular our professional reputation; Even the slightest negative comment found in a search result will raise unwanted eyebrows, and raised eyebrows mean lost interviews, bids, and job opportunities.
To that end, I’ve tried to list a few rules and guidelines that I follow. I’m hardly perfect at them, and there are exceptions for each, yet overall they are things that I’ve learned that are absolute must-haves in order to properly manage your reputation as a developer.
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January 14th, 2008
Author: Michael Krotscheck
Category: Libraries
Tags: actionscript, flash, flex, javascript, SCORM
The SCORMJavascriptConnector acts as a transparent implementation of the SCORM RTE API. Its intent is to be a ‘dumb’ connection bridge that automatically generates any necessary communication javascript within the encapsulating HTML DOM, finds the LMS API, and passes information back and forth from the same. Note that this class is written with the assumption that a SCO developer may choose to call Initialize(”") and Terminate(”") from a different location or instance of this class, and so does no connectivity checking or automatic state management. Documentation for the individual functions derived from the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Runtime Environment Documentation available at http://www.adlnet.gov/.
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December 17th, 2007
Author: Michael Krotscheck
Category: News
Tags: blog, introduction, News, welcome
Yes yes, another tech blog. Thousands are out there, some copies, some linkers, some parrots and some few are source of original content. The purpose and vision for this particular one is the latter, and while we are moving from “Content is Key” to “Community is Key”, I feel there remains a niche for the individual. Which begs the question: What is my purpose for this blog?
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December 12th, 2007
Author: Michael Krotscheck
Category: Tutorials
Tags: actionscript, javascript
Every Actionscript Developer will sooner or later have to interface with the webpage in which his .swf is presented, and Adobe has provided the ExternalInterface Class to simplify this process. Even so, communicating with an external javascript API almost inevitably requires some number of bridging functions to properly couple the two runtime environments. In cases where the developer has control over both environments this poses no further problems, as for example in an application where the .swf takes animation and event cue’s from an interface written largely in HTML. Some instances nevertheless remain where we don’t have that luxury, and are writing to an external API that we can neither guarantee nor contribute to; In short, we cannot add a javascript file to the HTML wrapper that will act as our translation bridge.
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