Flux, Flex, and Other

Our friend Kurt just ran the Florida Ironman…  Way to go Kurt!  Now he can get back to eating garbage and drinking beer with the rest of us…

A coworker of mine forwarded this along to me today, and it was really inspirational. I love it when technology, an idea that probably got laughed at, and a little effort can give a big middle finger to the forces of oppression…

Most people have heard that China maintains the Golden Shield, a state firewall run in order to censor unapproved websites from the Chinese people, and to survey who is trying to access them.

Picidae is trying to change all that, with a very interesting, and relatively simple idea.

• A person in China surfs to a website run off of a pici-server — a computer running Mac OS X, which is outside of the Golden Shield. The URL to the server could be found by talking to someone outside of China, by word of mouth, etc.
  • There’s a whole network of these, and the network can be grown by adding an inexpensive new computer anywhere in the world, so it would be nearly impossible and massively labor intensive to Shield them all
  • The individual servers do not know that any other servers exist, nor does the main organizer keep a list, so literally anyone, anywhere could be running one of these, and there’s no away to find it.
• That website has a simple text box and a button.
• The person enters the website they want to see, that may be censored.
• The page, locally on their computer, encrypts the URL so snooping eyes can’t see what they are requesting.
• The pici-server decrypts the data, surfs to the requested website, and generates a single image of it — one huge JPG. It also looks where links are, and maps those areas of the image to be clickable, linking back to the pici-server. It’s called an ImageMap, and has been around forever…
• The image and its maps are sent back to the person — nothing incriminating other than a JPG image that the firewall can’t read…
• The person reads the information off of the image, clicks an area of the ImageMap, and the cycle continues

Here’s a link to the main site.

Here’s how it works.

Here’s what the user in China will experience. I tried it on this blog and it looked identical - you’d never know unless you looked at the code behind the page…

Obviously content shown in Flash (Flex) or any other dynamic content (Javascript, AJAX, video, etc) will not work on this type of network, but hey, a big fat hole in censorship in a great thing.  It also looks really easy to set up your website to proxy to a server or to use your webspace as a server if you’re so inclined — you can even use your Mac to run the server over your cable or DSL connection!

I had run across this a long time ago, before working for Cynergy… The the other day on a project I had a need to pan, zoom and mask off a component I was using, and Andy reminded me that he had a free ImageZoomer component out on his Cynergy blog.

The component as is zooms an Image, but the code can easily be modified to zoom any other component, whether a built-in Flex component or a custom UIComponent you just made (as was my case). An added bonus is the mouse centric zooming using the mouse wheel, and the fact that it is preset to be ready to use any easing or other effects on the animations.
Anyway, I found it really useful, and as always with Andy’s stuff, it’s top notch. Have at it!

Adobe Max just happened in Chicago this week. I couldn’t go and drink the Kool-Aid, but it was nice of some people to videotape the sneak peeks a the upcoming features of Flash.

I never was a Flash guy - I just couldn’t get my head around the timelines, keyframes, and setting up tweens and such. It was too scattered for me. Looks like some of the new features will help this. But…

Peter Elst posted videos to his blog showing most of the features in development. All of these are cool in some fashion or another, but the author- and runtime- inverse kinematics shown at the end of the Flash Next video is really cool, and is the foundation (that I was missing) of an idea I had a long time ago that should, if my estimates are correct, make me a multi-millionaire.

Sweet. Stay tuned for more at a much later date…

Oh, and the Seam Carving demo is still really cool. You just can’t beat stuff like that.

Apple just announced a bunch of new features for Leopard today.  Like I already wasn’t having enough trouble NOT buying the iPhone…

Special standouts for me:

1. Automator will record actions in any app — nice.  It looks like creating a Photoshop action, which I use all the time at work.  I’ve used Automator some, but it never QUITE did what I wanted it to do.  This will make a big difference.
2. RSS in Mail.   I want me some of that.  I read a lot of RSS feeds from the developer community  and having a good central place to see them looks good to me.  I currently use the RSS Ticker extension for Firefox at work, but am mostly Safari user at home…
3. Stacks in the dock… QuickView in Finder.  I like the ability to find your stuff without having to open everything.  And from the looks of it, you can see the whole document, scroll, etc.  A lot less time worrying about applications and a lot more time using your information.
4. iChat presentations — nice.
5. Time Machine: extremely nice.  Especially with our iTunes and iPhoto libraries getting huge.  Good to have an integrated backup system.  I’ve been using SuperDuper! and really like it, but the built-in system is so much better of an idea.

I can’t wait.  And with Patty’s student discount, the upgrade will be cheap.  Sweet.

Just testing my ability to post to the blog via email. That way I
can send text messages from the truck during the trip…

My dad is in his 60s and has been playing golf for as long as I can remember… so at least 33 years now. About a week ago we were talking on the phone, and he told me he shot a 71 — that’s one under par.

It was his first time EVER breaking par.

I think it’s pretty cool to do something for so long, to still enjoy it, and to still be getting better at it.

Way to go, Dad.  You da’ man!

Patty and I are currently Verizon Wireless customers. We got a discount from my employer, and have done okay with it over the last few years. Patty’s been having difficulties with her phone recently, and they keep replacing it with refurbished phones that seem to have the same issue. Not so great on the customer support and generally feeling like we need a change.

If anyone from the cell phone industry ever reads this: Why do I feel like I’m buying a used car every time I go into one of your stores?

So anyway, we decided to give Cingular AT&T a try - people we know have generally liked them, and we also get a discount for them from my job. Plus, all the phones (even the pretty nice ones) are free or like $10 when you sign up as new. Cool.

I currently have a Treo 700W - runs Windows Mobile, Mobile Office, syncs with Outlook, all that good geeky stuff. But also pretty expensive, and requires a monthly data plan. My good ol’ SuperEgo popped in the other day and helped me decide that I really don’t use those features that much, and should just opt for the free/cheap phones they offer when we sign up. I felt good. Like after you take a bunch of recycling to the recycle center.

Clean.

Right with the world.

Responsible.

All grown up.

And then the other shoe dropped. AT&T is getting the iPhone at the end of June… Hmmm…. And Patty (very sweetly) chimes in with “Well, if you’re going to get a new phone AND you have mentioned you want an iPod, it’s just about the same cost…”

Remember the crazy long armed monster in the Bugs Bunny version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

yeah. that guy.

That’s my Id going “I want it I want it I want it I want it”. I swear, that’s what my Id looks like. Replace Bugs with me, and the axe with an iPhone, and you’ve got my psyche right now.

SuperEgo pipes in: “It’s the first generation. Let them work the bugs out”
Id: “Shiny Shiny Shiny Shiny Shiny”
SuperEgo: “Plus they’ll come out with a new model with a lot more storage in 6 months or so”
Id: “Precious Precious Precious Precious”

And that’s pretty much where I am right now. No real reason that I can’t wait to get it for a while (and I probably should wait, thank you very much)…

… but did you see the new ads? (shiny shiny shiny shiny)

Saw this website today. It’s a project called RepRap which is, if I read it correctly, essentially an inject printer that can print with materials, not just ink, and do so 3 dimensionally.

So you fire up its (free) software, design a plastic or metal item, and “print” yourself one.

Sounds interesting, but one of the main claims to fame is that it can almost create itself by printing new parts out to be assembled into another one of itself. The first (and now the second) can both print new parts, and the population of the machines grow exponentially)

Did these people not see The Matrix??? Or The Terminator?

Seems to me making machines that can make themselves is pretty much baby step one into the tub of warm pink goo and the Ethernet port in the back of your skull…

Still is pretty freaking cool tho…

I like to think I’m a guy in touch with technology.

I’m a programming, developing, web designing, apple using, Tivo-using, web surfing, VCR clock setting kind of a guy. New things come down the line, and I’m in like I’ve used them all my life.

Except this new service from my bank. We use USAA for our banking (Patty’s dad was in the Navy, so we can). They released a service called “Deposit@Home” that answered my only real gripe about our accounts there.

USAA has no brick and mortar banks, and no ATMs. They refund any ATM fees you incur, which is nice, but depositing checks has always been a little odd. You can mail them the checks and a deposit slip, but it takes a while for them to get there, and there’s something odd about endorsing checks and putting them in the good ol’ US Mail.

This new Deposit@Home thig is really slick, technology-wise. I log into my account on the USAA website, click a link, and it runs a little app that lets me use my scanner to scan in and crop images of the front and back of the check.

A second or two of “Please Wait” crunching and boom! Money’s in the account. PLEASE VOID AND SHRED YOUR CHECK.

Let me type that again.

PLEASE VOID AND SHRED YOUR CHECK

I understand how the system works. A check is no different than an image of a check — the little routing numbers in the weird font are there, and the endorsement signatures get compared if a problem arises. I see how it works, but that’s irrelevant when it comes to SHREDDING THE CHECK.

Have you ever put a check for $497.38 into a shredder? That little part of our brains that we share with newts and frogs chimes in and says “Um… no…”

I scanned in my checks. I saw the money in the account — no holds… no processing delays… but I still waited 3 days to shred the checks, and I went to my account every day while waiting just to make sure they didn’t say “Oops, just kidding”.

I guess its the thought of destroying money… or I’m getting too old for these newfangled whippersnapper technologies.

It’s still pretty freaking cool, tho.