The Danosphere.

The company I work for, Decision Lens, is getting into the social media game [finally, somewhat... ok just a little]. Anyways, we have a youtube channel now, it’s pretty sparse at the moment but if you are a “youtuber” it never hurts to follow the Decision Lens YouTube Channel to keep up to date with our new videos.

In the meantime checkout this vid, it’s a little long but in all fairness it’s pretty hard to describe what the Decision Lens Suite does in a succinct way, it’s a very powerful software platform with a wide range of uses-and the video goes a long way in explaining that. Check it out, for more info visit the Decision Lens website.

Sorry readers! It seems every time I get a second to actually post on here it’s just saying why I haven’t been posting. And this post is no different!

I try to keep busy- but recently things have just been crazy. I finally moved into my new (and first!) condo (which I own, no more renting!), and I have internet here now, so hopefully the posts will be coming in more steadily, I have a healthy backlog of topics I have been meaning to write about.

Mostly I am just stopping by to let you know this blog is still active, I just have been between here and there a lot the last few months but now that I’m settled I want to get back into more regular postings. This blog also is due for an update and a new theme don’t you think? I’ll get on that.

Also shameless self promotion, if you’re in college or a recent grad, head over to collegeblender, it’s a pretty cool fast-growing community of college kids and recent grads from around the country. It’s a great way to meet people on campus or just see what’s buzzing at different schools. Also, it’s what has been taking up all my time! We are always working on something new so that makes it hard to do other stuff (like post on the ze blog!). Anywho, check it out, find me, and vote for my blog.

Here are some cool vid’s from around the internet, hopefully they will entertain you while I get myself organized.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Leno v. Conan late night wars, I’m with COCO for the record. I think when we look back on all this in a few years, it will play something like this:

Spike Jonze is collaborating with Absolut Vodka on a cool new short film. Here is the trailer, which I thought looked pretty interesting:

That’s it for now, more soon, for real this time!

Using the Flex 3 logging API is not really cut and dry. It is made to be rather extensible and flexible but at the same time it manages to be completely painful and hard to understand. The Log, ILogger, LogLogger, TraceTarget, LogEvent and LogEvent level classes and be rather cumbersome.

An example of a straight up ‘log write’ would be:

var mylog:ILogger = Log.getLogger("my.package.MyClassName");
if(Log.isDebug()){
     mylog.debug("Hello from the logger");
}

This would get you [DEBUG] level output with the message “Hello from the logger”. The problem with this approach is that I wanted to be able to log from any class, without having to create ILogger instances in all classes. I also wanted the logging to be dynamic so I could hide the class package if I wanted, I also wanted the LogEvents to carry all the information that the actual ‘log write’ contained.

So I created CustomLogger and CustomLogEvent classes that are built on the pre-existing logging API. This simple goal of these classes is to make logging easier. Now you can directly call:

CustomLogger.debug("Hello from the custom_logger");

or you can access it with a Singleton instance:

var log:CustomLogger = CustomLogger.getInstance();
log.debug("Hello from the custom_logger");

So thats all good and well but how does this make things easier? By using the CustomLogger you now have FULL control over the log messages as opposed to handing them off to a Flex ILogger/LogLogger and letting it do what it will with the log messages. Also, you do not need to instantiate a new ILogger for every class that wants to write log output. Additionally the expanded CustomLogEvent class gives whatever is listening the full rundown on what is happening in terms of logging as opposed to just a glimpse.

Here is an example that shows how useful the new CustomLogger/CustomLogEvent classes are especially when it comes to directing log output to a different target (in this case, a List component).

(Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. Please install the newest Flash Player.)

Whew it’s been a while eh? Life’s been throwing me some curve balls lately so blog posts have been few and far between but hopefully that will change soon. Let me give you a small update on what the hell I’ve been doing!

Life – Is Good! I’ve been mostly working the 9-5 @ Decision Lens and loving it. The commute is a bitch but I’ll be moving out to Arlington, Virginia December 1st, so I can put up with it for the next few months. Also I have been hard at work getting a new look together and some cool new features in place for The College Blog Network, hoping to make the changes public soon, oh if there were only more hours in the day!

Work – Is awesome. I love my job, the people I work with are awesome and the city I work in is amazing, clean and quiet yet full of people. I have been kicking ass and taking names as far as my work schedule goes, I’ve managed to get wayyy ahead of schedule and that means some sweet new features for our clients which they weren’t slated to get for months. We are planning a big release for Monday and after that the whole company is going out to the Audi Driving Event where I’ll get to tear up the track in an S5 and R8 as a teambuilding exercise… gotta love that!

So anyway, enough with the lame life updates, lets get to the good stuff. At present I have a pretty wicked commute into work, about 70-120min one-way depending on traffic, and in a crappy ‘98 civic with no A/C in 90F heat. So, in order to get my mind off the brutal situation I find myself in twice a day, I put together a banging playlist to get me through the traffic/heat I thought I’d share since I know many of my fellow TCBN bloggers may also be finding themselves in similar situations.

The Ultimate Commuter / Driving Playlist

1. Mas Que Nada – Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66
2. Roda – Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66
3. Shake It – Metro Station
4. Paper Planes (remix ft. Rye Rye and Afrikan Boy) – M.I.A.
5. Young Folks – Peter Bjorn and John
6. Girl, I Wanna Lay You Down  – ALO ft. Jack Johnson
7. Where It’s At – Beck
8. Still Not A Player - Big Punisher
9. Run Around – Blues Traveler
10. Stand – Blues Traveler
11. Hook – Blues Traveler
12. Inside Out – Eve 6
13. Ready or Not – The Fugees
14. Neighbors – Gnarls Barkley
15. Grey’s Groove – GreyBoy and Karl Denson
16. Have It All – Jeremy Kay
17. Waiting On The World To Change (Live) – John Mayer
18. Canto De Ossanha – Jurassic 5
19. Concrete Schoolyard – Jurassic 5
20. All Falls Down (ft. Syleena) – Kanye West
21. Paper Planes (ft. Bun B & Rich Boy) – M.I.A.
22. N 2 Gether Now – Limp Bizkit ft. Method Man
23. Gold Watch – Lupe Fiasco
24. 29 Ways – Marc Cohn
25. Behind The Moon – Matt Costa
26. Sunshine – Matt Costa
27. The Dock Of The Bay – Otis Redding
28. New Shoes – Paolo Nutini
29. Like Yeah – Tech N9NE
30. The Denial Twist – The White Stripes
31. Juicy – Notorious BIG / Biggie Smalls
32. Dani California – Red Hot Chili Peppers
33. Ghetto Superstar – Wyclef Jean ft. Maya

Hope some or all of these songs ease your driving pains like they did mine! I would normally pepper in some Jason Mraz too but I overplayed the hell out of his new stuff last week so, he’s on the shelf for now. Also keep an eye out for a blog redesign, it’s about time this thing got a change of clothes. Rock on!

That’s right folks, somehow five years later I have managed to graduate RIT with a BS in Interactive Development. I was quick to switch my TCBN status to “Alumni” (via Control Panel>My Info) now that I’m finally free of the bonds of education (although the student loans will linger for quite some time).

In general it was all pretty surreal, after being in school for 5 years and being used to an endless stream of papers, projects, presentations, quizzes and exams day in and day out, now suddenly its all over. Done with. In my field masters degrees aren’t as benficial as some other fields so I plan on staying away from school for at least the next few years. I have a job lined up in D.C., where I’ve been working the past 6 years or so and I’m excited to finally get in and be working in the office (as opposed to the telecommuting I usually do).

I’ll be moving from NY down to MD and although I’m gonna miss the college life and my boys in NY, I know we will keep in touch so I’m not worried. I am very pleased to be leaving the gloom that is upstate NY for 8/12 months every year and covered with treacherous pathways they seem to call roads (responsible for 4 bent rims, 1 busted axle, and a blown lower ball joint), and some of the worst drivers in America hands down. So sunny MD with its blue skies, four season, and smooth roads is a welcome change.

I still have a bit of backed up work I have been meaning to post up [on this blog], that will be up soon as I now have some lounging time for the first time in what feels like ages. I also will be devoting a large portion of my time to upgrades, advances and new features for The College Blog Network. I have been meaning to redesign it to be easier to read and more interactive but these last few weeks of school had me truly “under the gun”. Now that I’m free I hope to pick up the pace on those improvements.

That’s it for now, expect more frequent posts and cool new TCBN features soon (if you found this through blogwire). But for now, I must get back to relaxin’… oh the joys of life after college

Hey blog fans! I have been MIA for a bit as I was at FITC2008! The conference was amazing, it’s really cool to see what other people are using new media for, and how the industry and the products that support it are advancing. I could ramble for hours about all the cool thing’s I saw but in a few words: Adobe Flash CS4 (Bones, true 2.5d, GPU-based shaders, advanced After-Effects style tween controls), AS4 (actionscript continues to mature), and lots of inspiration (Flight404).

But now I’m back in rochester, hammering away at school again. Actually I should say school is hammering away at me, FITC caused me to miss 4days of school, not that I really “missed” anything but I did fail to turn in 2 projects because of it. So now I have to bang out a Data Analysis I Minitab Exercise, finish my After Effects “slate”, animate and finish my “Earth Day” after effect piece, write a Query Letter for science writing, and finish an MVC framework for New Media Team Project. Ah and also continue to maintain TCBN, and do work to create some income. My life is dandy!

It’s all a huge pain in the ass but I’m working through it, updates are sure to follow as my time opens up. Some very cool thing’s I’m looking forward to posting about but for now I’ll just give my readers a sneak peak:

• TCBN Widget – That’s right, now if you blog is on TCBN it’s content will be published on sites around the world through the new TCBN widget. Some sites are already using it but the official public release is coming soon! All members will get their own unique API key and have the ability to tailor the widget to their liking!
• Some Cool School Projects – Hopefully my After Effects animations turn out looking cool, although we definitely aren’t given enough time to make anything amazing (see also: 10week quarters) but I’m doing my best to push it to be all it can be.
• AS3 Particle Engine – Inspired by Robert Hodgin and his work in processing, as well as the work of Joshua Davis I have decided to try and write an advanced particle engine in AS3. I am not usually one for these “creative” projects but these 2 really inspired me to try and apply my hardcore application programming knowledge to a completely different field. I am having to learn alot of math but I’m hoping the end result will be cool, updates will be posted regularly on this one

That’s all for now! Back to slugging away at school work, but keep your peepers open for updates some cool stuff should be coming over the next week.