Well, 2011 has come to an end. I, like most, am looking forward to the new year. I love all the hope and inspiration that a new year brings. Most feel like its a fresh start – so we come up will all these resolutions, which I think is awesome because it helps us try and better ourselves in some way, shape, or form.  How often do you try to do that? So if the changing of a new year helps you do that- then so be it!  I know that i am constantly working on myself and am always trying to do better. I will end this by saying- do whatever it is you want in life. BE YOURSELF! and Live the Life you want to live, no matter what someone thinks. But always be mindful of others because there may be someone looking up to you.

 Happy New Year my friends. See you in 2012

A Flash CBT module developed for the US ARMY.

*My hubby and I have an awesome trip coming up(counting down) and I am looking forward to it. Though pics will be posted on facebook.

Thanksgiving is here!  Time flies. I am indeed thankful for a lot. We’ve been in our house for over 1 year/feels longer. I also learned a lot this year and my spirituality has progressed. God has strengthened me in many ways and he still is.

We watched the move “THE HELP” last night. I usually stray away from movies like that because it brings up ill feelings. But I watched it. Im glad I did. Though it reminds me of struggles that are still faced in society, how far people have come, and how there are still those struggles throughout our  lives that will always be there-no matter what. We shouldnt let folks get the best of us and instead to “keep truckin”. It’ll only empower you to aim higher.

I crafted a panel in jsfl that basically automates most of the redundant tasks that my teammates face daily. We link to glossary terms, hyperlinks, media credits, manipulate text spacing daily. Having a tool that speeds up this tasks will definately cut down on time it takes to deliver these assets. I coded it mainly in a day. But it is cool to see flash pull up your custom built panel.

GOt some html5 ipad applications in progress.woo hoo!

My iphone also died-due to water damage.  I’m using a temporary phone. I just ordered another iphone and it should be here this week. Nothing is like an iphone.

Steve Jobs happened to pass away last week. We all chatted about it @ work. A lot of people seemed surprised. I wasn’t-I mean this guy lived for APPLE-and by stepping down that was a red flag. But the medical leaves also were red flags.

I read an article that listed some of his memorable quotes. One particularly stood out to me.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

On my free time, I have been continuing to learn more about the ext js framework. I finally managed to grasp an understanding of nesting both images and text within panels using css. I was struggling trying to get the html data to load while trying both. My buddy and I had a conversation about of course switching industries, well just upgrading to either web front end or backend. We are both on the same page about flash. About 6 months ago, I was trying to get into the flex environment, but with the whole downfall with flash. Totally not worst investing the time.

Mobile technology  is where it’s at-but i definately need some samples to showcase.I rather show my work then say–hey I can do this and that. I finally got data to load within a tabPanel…small to some-but very proud of that achievement. I have many wireframe sites that I have architected out and been creating

dummy sites for practice. I will be uploading images of the sketch, the psd mockup, and then finally the finished IP

AD version.

I also need to eventually learn JSON, which from what I have read-appears to have the same relation to javascript as xml does with flash. My goals have shifted  a bit this year, still headed towards the  mobile direction, but I am definitely seeing the direction I would like to proceed in as far as from a skills standpoint. Regardless of that, I plan on studying also UX and UI. User interaction along with user interface design go hand in hand and most companies have them as two different roles(which should be). Both are important when

developing mobile

applications, thats why I would like to study on that some more.

At home, I have a PC and Mac. All my mobile development is done on my mac because I have a web development environment set up on it. On my pc, I never setup one, but I can recall when I was reading tutorials, the first step was to setup a web development environment and I had no clue to what that was. LOL. I even contacted several developers(Flash)and they had no idea also because flash development is totally different from web.But finally, some great person at sencha told me what I NEEDED to

get going. and WALLA! I don’t intend on setting one up on my PC. I mainly use that for any 3d or flash stuff and even graphical elements that I may need..along with my gaming content. I have some goodies from the UNITE11 conference this year in CALIFORNIA. Seems like most folks have started up their own little miniture companies on the side. UNITY has big plans for the upcoming release.

I have also been checking registrations for other upcoming conferences and they are over priced-for instance, one conference is $2800. If I am going to pay that much just for entrance-I better be given a laptop..lol.

Before coding up
a layout- i started off with simple sketches. Seems like when it comes to
dynamic layouts and content nested within itself, sketches seem to be
highly important. I architect-ed nearly 10 ideas on paper. It was actually pretty fun. I was trying to “wrap my head” around coding panels within panels-stacking them vertically and horizontally. Once, this step is understood–you can create the most advanced of advanced layouts for your device.

So why create layouts dynamically instead of visually? Well, working with flash for the past 7+ or so years…i have always done everything visually and used a little xml here and there, but in order to achieve more I have to conform and start coding dynamically. It’ll help me better in the long run.

I have become quite fascinated with apps for magazines. It not only saves on paper, but they are highly interactive and appealing…More on this later.

I have been testing my web applications on the Ipad and Iphone. These should actually run on any mobile browser simply because they are not NATIVE.

My game stuff: I have started also developing a dune buggy race game. The dune buggy – I modeled my last year of college. I always wanted to do something with it, but of course @ the time- I didn know jack about game development. Why is unity merging with flash? = dumb.

I will be doing lots of traveling in 2012 attending several mobile conferences and events.
I will also be launching a web based application soon!!!

Check out my boo @ 34 seconds and 1:15 in the lime green (my fav color). Love you boo boo. He leads and manages the game design team over there. Hes also their in house “3d artist”.

Main screen and the main User Interaction  screens

The screens have been developed in photoshop. I will pull these in the engine and apply code to them.

——————————————————————

My buddy just recommended a book to me called “Being Geek”. I am definately interested in taking a look at it. Its a software developer’s career handbook. It has some interesting topics that I am excited to get some insight on.  I also purchased another book/video tut on developing rich media applications using flex and mxml. This appeals to me because it teaches youthe fundamentals of object oriented programming utilizing flex and mxml along with deploying effective web applications that can access xml from a database. Yes, very geeky-but I am sure it would be beneficial.

 The folks in Japan are definately in my prayers.

I am working on some portfolio elements that are completely geared towards web dev and mobile development. Along with rich media ads.

And now I speak of… Asynchronous recursion. What is it?

What is it. Its basically the continuous update of displayed tweets. This feature is used alot-and I wanted to tie that into a mobile app that I am working on. This can be accomplished with java using certain APIs. I am sure frameworks out there support this..maybe even HTML5. Lots of frameworks have their own sets up APIs that you, as the developer need to learn. Its not so much of memorizing(which over time–you inadvertently do) but understanding the syntax. Even if your not an expert code junkie, keeping the set of APIs open and glancing back and forth will do the trick. I will be posting web apps that I have been working on that are honing my skills.

Its a new year. Enjoy your life. Hang around good positive people and Great things will happen.

Heres what I have been messing with:Javascript,(x)html,css3, and the very cool xcode. I developed my first minature web application. Wait…..arent all web apps-miniture? Yes! Its actually very basic-does nothing to fancy, but functions beautifully on the iphone and also integrates the iphones nativity. Has the same style that is used within the “settings” application found every iphone.  yes=”Go Me!”;

HTML5 thoughts?

HTML5 will wipe a lot of flash out. sorry  I am a hardcore flash user, but more is needed. The support isnt really there for typical swfs as far as the future of the current mobile web goes. Yes, some things are possible, but too much to go through to get your content to work. I have seen the simple integrations that html5 will wipe out. The new tags and interactions will make html a more powerful language. Most current browsers wont support it, but I definately forsee the html5 capabilities within the future releases.

PHP.

I remember when i feared these 3 letters, but nowadays I have been wondering why I stayed away from it. PHP is pretty dorn cool integrated with HTML or actionscript. I only dabbled with it and read about it, but haven’d done too much.

What can i use it for? forms and storing data. In actionscript, flashsharedobj are used to store data locally(which is great for flash).For some reason I like forms. I think being able to develop some sort of application that allows an end user to input information is kick-ass. Having that data posted to a server and retrieved is very remarkable. Being able to develop that yourself is pretty sweet.

XCODE ERRRRR!

I like how APPLE came up with this crazzy azz syntax. They made their own syntax even sound cool and more clever than the typical syntax found in other programming languages.  I think web apps seriously about to take over.It is Highly understandable though because no one wants to keep going to the app store to get an app. Having that available immediately is convenient.

The past year and a half, I have watch mobile apps blow up. A year ago-I was only interested in
the casual game applications that could be developed for the iphone and ipod touch. 1 year later, I am delving into native apps for the iphone along
with mobile web application development. 2 years ago-totally not interested in APPLE at all, but
almost 1 year later,I have bought a used MAC MINI along with an iphone. Imagine my
status in another year. I suggest anyone who is a tad bit computer literate and have
some interest in designing or developing in  web related media to start learning how to work with mobile media.
To me, that seems to be where all the web media related jobs are heading. The mobile industry is only gonna get bigger within the next few years thanks to the lifespan of mobile apps.

Native apps vs web apps

What are the perks to native apps?What are the perks to web apps and what the heck does
that mean?
Well, native apps are developed for a specified party-ie: iphone, blackberry, window OS, andorid, nokia….
wHATS BEEN annoying me recently with XCODE is that it will only be beneficial
to the APPLE products.Whichever apps i developed with the IPHONE SDK will only run on the
ipad or iphone. Huge bummer because that means I would have to recode all their apps to suit
different phones..or learn different languages( javascript, object -c, C#, java). Well, in doing daily research
I came across SENCHA TOUCH. Sencha Touch is a mobile web framework that
will suit the iphone,blackberry,window7 and the android. Obviously, in a nutshell this is what
all developers have been waiting for.
This is what everyone will most likely need. Its a  javascript based framework(so i can work with it) and it also
ties in the new HTML5! This is a definite plus. It will give you the feel of native apps
but it is web based. So i suggest folks to jump on this but to not give up on their native
app development tools because I still  see businesses wanting native apps for some
of their clients.
This totally helps with the cross platform issues. Folks, i suggest you  grab a java script book + a cup of
coffee this weekend and get on the grind if you plan on having a job in the near future.

In having an iphone, I noticed a lot of unique features that really stand out to me. The small aspects such as the censors in the phone are really appealing. For instance, it senses when my ear or hand is close. If so,the light shuts off. If its away—it comes back on. I think thats a unique touch and it conserves power doing that. That minor detail comes in handy in the dark. This may be old and already duplicated in other phones, but i never had one that did that, and I find it to be rather cool. I am behind a couple of years in getting one, but I am glad I waited. Typically when products are first released, they are released with numerous bugs and are highly overpriced.

Sometimes its the small things that matters the most.

What i like about APPLE and steve jobs!!!

I like how they pretty much censor apps..remove them..basically keep the APP STORE clean. If it wouldnt be for that, there would be some pretty profane apps out there in which kids can download. I just read that the app store removed an anti-gay app.  Nearly 1 year ago, i read the requirements for apps. The rules are pretty strict-and if any violation your app will immediately be declined. Kids cannot be portrayed badly in apps either. For example, one guy had a baby being tossed into a  truck. The whole game incorporates kids being tossed into the back of a truck–and in someway it promotes violence or hatred towards children. That was REJECTED!!! and the developer was a bit peeved at that. But you cant portray celebrities and politicians of any sorts. I have seen many political  games rejected.  That shows thatAPLLE are not allabout the quick buck.

Well, in my game…I have been trying to add physics to the flat bridge. SO after she walks on it- I want it to collapse. Physics are a powerful functionality. What is it? Well, game physics simulates Newtonian physics and that involves classical mechanics,but I am not getting that indepth. Basically, if you study the laws of physics you read about matter and motion through space and time. A more broader description is the analysis on how our universe behaves. So In my game, I wanna to implement physics–why?because it will make it more fun, appealing, and life like. If my character walks on a bridge, it starts collapsing as she walking. Or….big huge rocks start dropping from the sky but bounces in away the mirrors a huge rock falling from a cliff….or I am sure you have heard of ragdoll physics. Most developers or aspiring devs have. Physics are fun…along with the usage of active  rigid bodies.

function OnDeath () {
Spawn ();
}

function UpdateSmoothedMovementDirection () {
var h = Input.GetAxisRaw (“Horizontal”);

if (!canControl)
h = 0.0;

movement.isMoving = Mathf.Abs (h) > 0.1;

if (movement.isMoving)
animation.Play();
movement.direction = Vector3 (h, 0, 0);

// Grounded controls
if (controller.isGrounded) {
//animation.Stop();
// Smooth the speed based on the current target direction
var curSmooth = movement.speedSmoothing * Time.deltaTime;

// Choose target speed
var targetSpeed = Mathf.Min (Mathf.Abs(h), 1.0);

// Pick speed modifier
if (Input.GetButton (“Fire2″) && canControl)
targetSpeed *= movement.runSpeed;
else
targetSpeed *= movement.walkSpeed;

movement.speed = Mathf.Lerp (movement.speed, targetSpeed, curSmooth);

movement.hangTime = 0.0;
}
else {
// In air controls
movement.hangTime += Time.deltaTime;
if (movement.isMoving)
movement.inAirVelocity += Vector3 (Mathf.Sign(h), 0, 0) * Time.deltaTime * movement.inAirControlAcceleration;
animation.Play();
}
}

function FixedUpdate () {
// Make sure we are absolutely always in the 2D plane.
transform.position.z = 0;

}

function ApplyJumping () {
// Prevent jumping too fast after each other

Update///

Got Ziggy walking, camera scrolling…and it is on!!!!

http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/developer-hacker-women-twitter/

Pam Fox, Jeri Ellsworth, Emily Chang, Hilary Mason,Danese Cooper, Leah Culver, Amanda Wixted,Sarah Allen, jenn Lukas, Nicole Sullivan, and Luara Thomson, Marissa Mayer Sara Chipps, Allison Gianotto, and Gina Trapani,so on…… this goes on for the top female developers in the world. Women like these who have made names for themselves in the industry. Alot of them are self taught developers like me. I definately cannot compare myself to them because these chicks are awesome, but this is who I aspire to be….some day. Im sure it took time, but these women are who they are for their hardwork and dedication and that the type of passion i admire!

Got an iphone!

The answer is A+B. Yes, my files are officially in some way corrupted. I have to start all over. Yes, it happens to the best of them. RULE #1. Always have multiple backups. See, i know this,but i tend to forget when it comes to game dev stuff. I should and know to pay attention more because of this. With flash and all my other–I am consistently backing up. So i will be rebuilding this game in less than 1 month. This will only make me code stronger and faster.(This is a low impact game anyways). ah,..technology