We’re pretty proud of our new site, so we thought we’d give some technical deets for all of our geek readers. We do hope the rest of you can appreciate it on a more laymen level.

The site is an aggregation engine that acquires feeds from both Wordpress and Yahoo Pipes. Pipes delivers Twitter and other social media feeds in a nice JSON wrapper to Flash. Wordpress data is acquired via XMLRPC. We made some custom modifications to enable it to deliver some specificity, however most of it was right there for the taking. A tip of the cap to Wordpress and its open source goodness.

We’re able to administer the entire site content using Wordpress as the CMS talking nicely with its Flash front. Given this, the site can function as our portfolio, social aggregate, blog, and company profile all wrapped up in a of sweet.

If you find any bugs or ideas for improvement we’d love to hear from you. More selfishly, If you’re a potential client and dig what we’re layin’ down, don’t hesitate to drop us a line. We’d love to get in bed with you.

Thanks, and enjoy – theGOOD team.

Analytics Anyone?

Analytics. The word doesn’t show up in any spell checker, and dictionary.com barely even knows what it means. Then why does every client want it? Better question : why does every client buy them only to not use them? Website Analytics is akin to life insurance and here’s why…

Life Insurance – Something you buy but never use

Every client wants the basic information that analytics provides. They want to know who’s coming, from where, and how long they stayed. All great information for sure, but merely the tip of the data heap. What needs to be examined here is a deeper understanding of interactive metrics. As I said, typically sites are measured in broad wide swath terms such as traffic, or time spent on site. These two numbers are often deemed enough information to base a site success or failure determination. This is a mistake. The determining figures are those metrics that directly relate to a sites goal, such as quality of traffic and the interactions that take place once engaged in the experience. Let’s consider the following scenario: Two sites successes are determined solely in terms of time spent on the site. One is an e-card site and the other is a social media network. The e-card site clocks in averaging :45 seconds per visit, and the social media network averages 3:00 per visit. It is determined that the social media network is clearly a more effective site. This argument would be incorrect because it is incomplete. What needs to be factored into examination are the goals of the two sites. The e-card goal is to have someone watch a short 20 second video, customize it and send it to a friend. Therefore, the appropriate metric to keep an eye on would be those statistics related to it’s goal. ie : How many people sent out an e-card? How many people who received an e-card came back to watch it? More plenary: Of the traffic coming to the e-card site: which referring site or campaign drove the most e-cards sent. The amount of time spent on the site is of course going to be low due to the goal of the site. By contrast, the social media network has a high length per visit because users are there filling out blogs, forums, and other time intensive applications. The metric goals should be tailored to these interactions. Therefore, using length of visit is arbitrary and wholly dependent on site content and goal. Furthermore, the raw amount of traffic is not an indicator of a successful site, instead it should be used to measure the success of a media buy, banner buy, virility of the site or advertising campaign promoting the site. This metric should then be broken down into quality of said traffic by measuring in detail said traffics interactions within the site. ie: What did users actually do after they landed there.

“it’s not in the budget”

Great, so we’ve determined that clients should be looking at much more data than they are. However, this is only half the battle, the remaining is actually doing something with that data. The fact is : no clients use analytics data for campaign improvement (wide sweeping generalization used despite the fact I called it a fact. But, its close). What is the reason for this? Why do clients purchase analytics packages, that we as interactive studios sell, only to never put the statistical data to use? The answer is simple : “it’s not in the budget”.

Clients budget money for an interactive campaign from concept to launch. The End. There is no budget set aside for improvements once the campaign is live. The interactive shop works feverishly to concept a grandiose idea, they pitch it, they sell it, they build it and bam! both client and agency claim the site as a major success. Portfolios are padded, corporate managers satiated and all is good. This is extremely bizarre to me. Like, idiotically bizarre. Nobody bothers to check if the campaign actually worked. Furthermore, if they are an advanced client they may check. But, if bad news is found it is a moot point for there is no budget for improvement.

An Opportunity

So, how do we as interactive agency/shop/think tanks solve this? The answer is akin to a sea change in interactive on the whole. It requires placing just as much importance on the post launch part of a campaign as it does the pre. It involves staying invested mentally and financially in a campaign after you’ve built it. It involves both client and agency to set aside ego and admit when a campaign went wrong. To embrace the wrongness as a tool for improvement. It involves educating clients on this topic. It may even be impossible.

There is an opportunity here for our industry. I do believe an entire company could be sustained in such an endeavor. Perhaps there are entire companies being sustained by this very idea. I wouldn’t know as I write these posts blindly without any research whatsoever. However, if you are out there, why haven’t we seen you in our analytics data?

Last night I presented “Using Interfaces Without Interfaces” at Show and Tell Pdx. I showed off some Flash motion detection, Flash color detection and even demo’d a little voice speech recognition in Flash. Some of you asked for more info on how last one was accomplished. I’ll be posting more on this later.

Thank you to Substance for hosting, and thanks for all that attended and enjoyed the show. I had a lot of you come up to me and say that my work has insipred you to experiment more. Just wanted to say, that kicks ass.

What’s a developer to do?

THIS:

1. Create a Google Docs Spreadsheet – For this example I’m using row 1 to hold the field vars.

2. Set it to publish as a webpage – Be sure to select CSV format. Be sure to set it to re-publish when any editing occurs.

3. Set up Yahoo Pipes to fetch the CSV data – Set appropriate data mapping, renaming and use Regex to ensure data is proper.

4. Publish Pipe as your favorite data feed – For this example I chose JSON.

5. Load JSON into your Flash app. BOOM!

Bladow, your client can now go on doing what they’ve always done — edit an excel doc ( Google Doc ). They make changes there, it changes on their fancy experiential website.

Genius.

Today is my last day at North. I’ve decided to leave my current position as Interactive Director to start my own business. The new business, an Interactive think tank with a focus on the experimental, is being developed and formed by myself and two other partners. In one short month we’ve gone from barely knowing each other to formally signing papers, creating our brand identity, designing our website, organizing business processes, locating and acquiring office space as well as the acquisition of new business. In short, it appears that we know how to get shit done. Instead of a long winded paragraph about our plans I’ve decided to break it down into some handy faqs. I’ll certainly be posting more as more developments occur, and as I can get some free time away from the madness that is the initial steps of creating a business. I’d like to thank the talented folks at North for the opportunities they afforded me, and moving me to the amazing city that Portland is. I wish them the best of luck and hope to work together in the future on a project basis.

Why would you start a new business with people I barley know, are you insane?
I’ve started a business before with close friends. I feel that a business can succeed or fail in either scenario. Each has it’s advantages and it’s disadvantages. Previous personal baggage vs. not knowing how to properly convey opinion to complete strangers. Therefore, the decision to dive into a business with strangers seems as logical to me as the alternative. That said, I indeed just may be insane. However, I seem to have found partners who fit the same diagnosis.

Where is your new space?
We are going to be located on the first floor of this building in the Pearl. Coming from Boston, where I lived and worked downtown, I’m excited to get back to a bit of my roots and the industrial feel of the location.

What is the name of your new venture?
We shall be called “The Good”.

What do you mean by experimental?
Interactive concepts that may not currently be widespread that we see as ubiquitous in the future. Some of my experiments here lean in that direction. We will also be focused on more ‘traditional’ interactive production such as mini sites, content management systems, development, design, online branding, social media and applications. Finally, time given, we’ll be creating our own software and applications which we hope to release to the public.

What new business have you closed?
These shall be revealed using traditional communications means. Meaning, we’ll be showing off the work on our site and across the many social media outlets we pepper.

What’s your url, let’s see the new site!
We have not completely settled on a domain and are in negotiations for one possibility that has been previously taken by a third party. The website has been partially designed but not developed. The Good is coming soon.

Who are these other two partners?
Jon MacDonald and partnerX*. Like myself, both have extensive experience and knowledge in the interactive domain. Both are also seemingly clean upstanding earthlings.

Why are you calling yourself a think tank?
We’ve gone with think tank in a response to industry changes. We feel it’s not ‘alright’ to call ourselves just a development shop, or just an agency, anymore. The industry has grown up a bit and people should take notice. People are taking notice. Interactive projects require more than just production. They require strategy, brand insight, technology chops blended with creative thinking. To use a political reference, they require someone to guide policy. We feel we are best suited to be the drivers of interactive policy.

More FAQ’s will be added here as I see fit. Thanks for reading!

*parnterX identity protected until he is free from his current position.

I commented on his post, but he moderates comments before allowing them to be published. In lieu of this I thought I’d post my comment here as a blog post.

your palm pre link is broken (404). as is, in my opinion, your synopsis. good developers choose the right technology for the job, based on project goals. saying Javascript and AJAX is the appropriate choice for all digital-ad campaigns is a weird choice and a blanket statement. Javascript and AJAX may be the appropriate choice some of the time, as Flash may be some of the time. and sometimes a combination may be appropriate.

your post makes it seem like the two technologies must be mutually exclusive. an odd view, in my opinion.

For a recent project a client wanted more control over the display of their Wordpress navigation. They wanted to be able to use any font. They also wanted a dynamic fold-able navigation that enables access to all categories without re-loading the page. This was a perfect project for me since I use Wordpress all over the mofo place. For example, you can see the navigation in use over there to the right. Also, as I’ve stated previously, I’m a big fan of leveraging the many publishing outlets I already use. So, I buit the nav in Flash connecting to Wordpress via XMLRPC using some classes from http://mattism.com/. This essentially allows me to use Wordpress as a content management system for Flash. You could obviously see how this could be applied to entire sites, like I have with my homepage. I’ve thought about building this a Wordpress plugin, and maybe down the road I will, but I doubt it as I’ll probably jump ship and start another project per usual. Besides, everyone knows you can’t make money writing Wordpress plugins.

How It Works:
Flash calls _rpc.call(”wp.getCategories”) to xmlrpc.php which returns an array of categories. I use this array to create a bunch of MovieClip()s. These clips add TextFields as children, are sorted and have events applied to them that enable the interactions. Two fonts reside in the library. One for the top node and one for the child and grandchildren nodes.

Features [the current goods]:

• Dynamic – Works dynamically with Wordpress categories. You update your categories in Wordpress, they show properly in Flash
• Sorting – Dynamically sorts top nodes. Controlled by Wordpress plugin my category order. For this to work I had to make a small addition to the Wordpress xmlrpc.php, located in your Wordpress root folder, to return the category term order. Added line 2776 – $struct['order'] = $cat->term_order;
• Page recognition – Recognizes the page you’re on and dynamically opens navigation to the parent node of said page onload. I could have used XMLRPC tomake this call, I’m sure. However, I opted to pass in the page url via Flashvars and run a check to find a match. When a match is found the nav opens to it’s parent node.
• Folding – Uses Grant Skinner GTween for interactions.
• Multiple – Allows posts to live under multiple category nodes.

Wish List [the future goods]:

• Multiline – Currently only supports single line category titles, so you’re limited in char length
• Scrolling – Currently the length of your category list is limited to the length of the swf. I plan to add functions to enable scrolling of the list based on mouseY. This will free up the nav to be as long as you desire.
• Post count – Do people really use this though? Probably not as its annoying.
• Levels – Currently the nav only supports 3 levels. It would be nice to be infinite.
• Build in the rest of Wordpress feature support for tag cloud, recent comments etc.

Total devel time: 2 days, or about 12 hours.

I’d love to see where other people take the code and what people build with it.

Source Code:
wpNavMain.as

/**
* wpNavMain by Chris Teso. Mar 19, 2009
* Visit www.christeso.com/blog for documentation, updates and more free code.
*
*
* Copyright (c) 2009 Chris Teso
*
* Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
* obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
* files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
* restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
* copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
* copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
* Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
* conditions:
*
* The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
* included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
*
* THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
* EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
* OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
* NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
* HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
* WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
* FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
* OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
**/
package
{ import flash.display.*; public class wpNavMain extends Sprite { /* ======================================================== | Constructor ======================================================== */ public function wpNavMain () { stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT; // add nav var wp:Wp = new Wp() addChild( wp ) } }
}

Wp.as

/**
* Wp by Chris Teso. Mar 19, 2009
* Visit www.christeso.com/blog for documentation, updates and more free code.
*
*
* Copyright (c) 2009 Chris Teso
*
* Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
* obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
* files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
* restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
* copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
* copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
* Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
* conditions:
*
* The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
* included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
*
* THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
* EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
* OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
* NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
* HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
* WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
* FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
* OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
**/ package
{ import com.gskinner.motion.* import com.mattism.http.xmlrpc.*; import com.mattism.http.xmlrpc.util.*; import flash.filters.*; import flash.media.*; import flash.ui.*; import flash.display.*; import flash.events.*; import flash.net.*; import flash.utils.*; import flash.geom.*; import flash.text.*; import fl.transitions.*; import fl.transitions.easing.*; import flash.system.SecurityPanel; import flash.system.Security; public class Wp extends Sprite { /* ======================================================== | Private Variables | Data Type ======================================================== */ private var _navArray:Array = new Array(); private var _rpc:Connection; private var _topFont:Font = new topFont(); private var _roadSign:Font = new roadSign(); private var _topFmt:TextFormat = new TextFormat() private var _currUrl:String = "" private var _hideTimer:Timer private var _textYPad:int = 16 private var _navSpeed:Number = .2 /* ======================================================== | Constructor ======================================================== */ public function Wp () { loadRpc() } private function checkPage() { // load in title var paramList:Object = this.root.loaderInfo.parameters; // set var to hold text var _currUrl:String = paramList["url"] //_currUrl = "http://www.christeso.com/index.php/category/portfolio/truth/truth-found/" // scan through array and open nav to that one for( var i=0;i<_navArray.length;i++ ) { //trace( "_currUrl = "+_currUrl+" - "+_navArray[i].link ) if( _navArray[i].link == _currUrl ) { //trace( "found match!" ) // open it if( _navArray[i].childMc != null ) { showGrandChildren( MovieClip( _navArray[i].childMc ) ) } if( _navArray[i].grandChildMc != null ) { showGrandChildren( MovieClip( _navArray[i].grandChildMc.parent ) ) } } } } private function showGrandChildren( mc:MovieClip ) { //trace( "opening grandchildren" ) // amount to go down var yLeap:Number; // total that will be open as long as the node is not already open var _totOpen:int = mc.numChildren-1 //trace( "_totOpen = "+_totOpen ) // ok we can prob do this in one big loop for( var i=0;i<_navArray.length;i++ ) { // push down top nodes as long as they are below the top node you're on if( _navArray[i].mc != null ) { if( _navArray[i].mc.origY > MovieClip(mc.parent).origY ) { yLeap = _navArray[i].mc.origY + ( _totOpen*_textYPad ) new GTween( _navArray[i].mc, _navSpeed, {y:yLeap} ) } else { yLeap = _navArray[i].mc.origY new GTween( _navArray[i].mc, _navSpeed, {y:yLeap} ) } } // push down child nodes as long as they are below the node you're on and are a child of the node you're on if( _navArray[i].childMc != null ) { if( _navArray[i].childMc.parent == mc.parent ) { if( _navArray[i].childMc.origY > mc.origY ) { yLeap = _navArray[i].childMc.origY + ( _totOpen*_textYPad ) new GTween( _navArray[i].childMc, _navSpeed, {y:yLeap} ) } else { yLeap = _navArray[i].childMc.origY new GTween( _navArray[i].childMc, _navSpeed, {y:yLeap} ) } } } // make grandchildren visible if( _navArray[i].grandChildMc != null ) { if( _navArray[i].grandChildMc.parent == mc ) { _navArray[i].grandChildMc.visible = true new GTween( _navArray[i].grandChildMc, _navSpeed, {alpha:1} ) } else { new GTween( _navArray[i].grandChildMc, _navSpeed/2, {alpha:0, autoHide:true} ) } } } } private function hideGrandChildren( e:Event ) { // amount to go down var yLeap:Number; // ok we can prob do this in one big loop for( var i=0;i<_navArray.length;i++ ) { // push up top nodes if( _navArray[i].mc != null ) { yLeap = _navArray[i].mc.origY new GTween( _navArray[i].mc, _navSpeed, {y:yLeap} ) } // push up child nodes if( _navArray[i].childMc != null ) { yLeap = _navArray[i].childMc.origY new GTween( _navArray[i].childMc, _navSpeed, {y:yLeap} ) } // make grandchildren visible if( _navArray[i].grandChildMc != null ) { new GTween( _navArray[i].grandChildMc, _navSpeed/2, {alpha:0, autoHide:true} ) } } } private function childClick( e:Event ) { var i:int = e.currentTarget.indexNum var srcRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest( _navArray[i].link ); navigateToURL( srcRequest, "" ); } private function childOver( e:Event ) { trace( "mouse over "+MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).name ) // remove parent events MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).parent.removeEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, childClick ) // stop close timer _hideTimer.stop() // show grandkids showGrandChildren( MovieClip( e.currentTarget ) ) } private function childOut( e:Event ) { trace( "mouse out "+MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).name ) // add parent events MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).parent.addEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, childClick ) // start timer for close _hideTimer.start(); } private function grandChildOver( e:Event ) { trace( "mouse over "+MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).name ) // remove parent events MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).parent.removeEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, childClick ) // handle its events MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).addEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, childClick ) } private function grandChildOut( e:Event ) { trace( "mouse out "+MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).name ) // remove parent events MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).parent.addEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, childClick ) // handle its events MovieClip( e.currentTarget ).removeEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, childClick ) } private function orderTop() { var yPos:int = 0; var topCount:int = 0 // first we need to find all unique parents for( var i=0;i<_navArray.length;i++ ) { // if( _navArray[i].mc != null ) { // place the top _navArray[i].mc.y = yPos _navArray[i].mc.origY = yPos // calculate the next Y pos yPos = _navArray[i].mc.y + ( _navArray[i].mc.numChildren*_textYPad )+_textYPad } } } private function makeTopNode( i:int ) { trace( "making top node "+_navArray[i].title+" id = "+_navArray[i].id+" parent id = "+_navArray[i].parentId ) // create an mc holder var mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip() mc.name = _navArray[i].title // create a text field var t:TextField = new TextField() t.mouseEnabled = false t.name = "text" t.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT t.selectable = false t.embedFonts = true t.antiAliasType = flash.text.AntiAliasType.ADVANCED t.htmlText = _navArray[i].title.toUpperCase() _topFmt.size = 13; _topFmt.font = _roadSign.fontName; _topFmt.color = 0x666666 //_topFmt.letterSpacing = .5 _topFmt.kerning = true; t.setTextFormat( _topFmt ) mc.addChild( t ) addChild( mc ) _navArray[i].mc = mc // events mc.indexNum = i mc.origY = mc.y mc.buttonMode = true mc.addEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, childClick ) // now loop through this level and populate kids findChildren( _navArray[i].id, mc ) } private function makeChild( i:int, par:MovieClip ) { trace( " making child "+_navArray[i].title+" id = "+_navArray[i].id+" parent id = "+_navArray[i].parentId ) // create an mc holder var mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip() mc.name = _navArray[i].title // create a text field var t:TextField = new TextField() t.mouseEnabled = false t.name = "text" t.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT t.selectable = false t.embedFonts = true t.antiAliasType = flash.text.AntiAliasType.ADVANCED t.htmlText = _navArray[i].title.toUpperCase() _topFmt.size = 10; _topFmt.font = _topFont.fontName; _topFmt.color = 0xffffff _topFmt.letterSpacing = .5 _topFmt.kerning = true; t.setTextFormat( _topFmt ) _navArray[i].childMc = mc mc.y = par.numChildren*_textYPad mc.addChild( t ) par.addChild( mc ) // now loop through this level and populate kids findGrandChildren( _navArray[i].id, mc ) // events mc.indexNum = i mc.origY = mc.y mc.buttonMode = true mc.addEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, childClick ) mc.addEventListener( MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, childOver ) mc.addEventListener( MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, childOut ) } private function makeGrandChild( i:int, par:MovieClip ) { trace( " making grandchild "+_navArray[i].title+" id = "+_navArray[i].id+" parent id = "+_navArray[i].parentId ) // create an mc holder var mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip() mc.name = _navArray[i].title // create a text field var t:TextField = new TextField() t.mouseEnabled = false t.name = "text" t.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT t.selectable = false t.embedFonts = true t.antiAliasType = flash.text.AntiAliasType.ADVANCED t.htmlText = _navArray[i].title.toUpperCase() _topFmt.size = 10; _topFmt.font = _topFont.fontName; _topFmt.color = 0x999999 _topFmt.letterSpacing = 0 _topFmt.kerning = true; t.setTextFormat( _topFmt ) _navArray[i].grandChildMc = mc mc.alpha = 0 mc.visible = false; mc.x = 5 mc.y = par.numChildren*_textYPad mc.addChild( t ) par.addChild( mc ) // events mc.indexNum = i mc.buttonMode = true //mc.mouseChildren = false //mc.addEventListener( MouseEvent.CLICK, childClick ) mc.addEventListener( MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, grandChildOver ) mc.addEventListener( MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, grandChildOut ) } private function findGrandChildren( id:int, par:MovieClip ) { for( var i=0;i<_navArray.length;i++ ) { // hunt for children of the parent if( _navArray[i].parentId == id ) { //trace( "-- found child "+_navArray[i].title+" | id = "+_navArray[i].id+" | parent = "+_navArray[i].parentId ) // found one, now make a grandchild makeGrandChild( i, par ) } } } private function findChildren( id:int, par:MovieClip ) { for( var i=0;i<_navArray.length;i++ ) { // hunt for children of the parent if( _navArray[i].parentId == id ) { //trace( "-- found child "+_navArray[i].title+" | id = "+_navArray[i].id+" | parent = "+_navArray[i].parentId ) // found one, now make a child makeChild( i, par ) } } } private function findParents() { // first we need to find all unique parents for( var i=0;i<_navArray.length;i++ ) { // analyze the node... is it a top node? if( _navArray[i].parentId == 0 && _navArray[i].title != "Uncategorized" ) { //trace( "-- found parent "+_navArray[i].title ) // create a top node container makeTopNode( i ) } } } private function loadRpc() { _rpc = new ConnectionImpl('blogaddress/xmlrpc.php'); _rpc.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, rpcCompleteHandler); _rpc.addEventListener(ErrorEvent.ERROR, rpcErrorHandler); _rpc.addParam(0, XMLRPCDataTypes.INT); // Blog Id _rpc.addParam("blogusername", XMLRPCDataTypes.STRING); // Username _rpc.addParam("blogpassword", XMLRPCDataTypes.STRING); // Password getCategories() } private function getCategories():void { _rpc.call("wp.getCategories") } private function rpcCompleteHandler(evt:Event):void { var response:Object = _rpc.getResponse(); for(var i:String in response) { // need to first grab all the top nav categories trace( response[i].categoryName ) trace( response[i].htmlUrl ) trace( response[i].parentId ) trace( response[i].categoryId ) trace( response[i].order ) trace( "------------------" ) _navArray.push( { title:response[i].categoryName, link:response[i].htmlUrl, id:response[i].categoryId, parentId:response[i].parentId, order:response[i].order } ) } // Sort the array according to your category order setting in WP _navArray.sortOn( "order", Array.NUMERIC ) // setup close timer _hideTimer = new Timer( 500, 1 ); _hideTimer.addEventListener( TimerEvent.TIMER, hideGrandChildren ); findParents() orderTop() checkPage() } private function rpcErrorHandler(evt:ErrorEvent):void { var fault:MethodFault = _rpc.getFault(); } }
}

Download CS4 AS3 FLA and Classes

Enjoy.

I’m a novice. I joined Flickr 3 years ago not to learn how to take photographs, I would have learned that regardless of participation, but to display the fruits of my learning. I went through many stages of post processing tricks, camera hacks, and pure photographic techniques. As this Times article poignantly states, I became a typical Flickr user delving in typical Flickr styles. I learned how to use the Flickr interestingness algorithm to acquire more views, make explore, and spread the display of my learned lessons. As with most online forums, I learned how to use their features to my advantage. After all, I know how to build these systems, I certainly know how to exploit them. To my moral credit I did not exploit it as much as I could. There are some on Flickr who have gone the distance. After 3 years of doing this I still find myself advancing very slowly through the level of novicity [merriam webster inclusion recommendation] on the verge of potential decency. However, I am still a novice.

Yet, as a novice, I’m able to sell my services and prints to the entire world, and have. I’ve sold prints to publishers, been commissioned for projects, been invited by Getty Images to sell stock, and made various other business connections via Flickr.

And now for the ironic portion of this blog… As I try and transition past novicity and become more of a professional, however subjective that term is, I find I now hate myself and Flickr. I don’t really hate either of those two things but hyperbole makes for a more interesting read, agree? yes, you do. I’ve recently been contacted, via flickr, about the purchase of a few more of my images. One from a Holland magazine, the other a French magazine. Upon further investigation and email correspondence I’ve found that lo and behold, they have little to no budget, but would ‘love to purchase my art’ for their campaign. Since I work in advertising, this is not a new concept to me. We do the same thing at our shop. When budgets are low we scrap, and find quality on the cheap. This is what Flickr has to offer. I disagree with the Times article in some ways. I believe there is quality, in advertising terms, on Flickr. It’s one reason Getty has partnered with them. However, since this quality exists in abundance it has simultaneously made millions of professional photographers that earn next to nothing for their work. Again, this is not a new internet concept. You can see the same trend happening across various other creative mediums. Anyone can be a designer these days. Traditional professional designers will argue that these people are not true designers, and as in the movie Helvetica, you’ll hear Mr. Carson say that ‘just because they have the tools doesn’t mean they are designers’ or something like that. What he doesn’t mention is that in the industry he works in, that doesn’t matter. All that matters is what will sell and what the industry will buy. And more and more, the playing field is leveling and ‘novice’ talent is producing actual work for unreasonably cheap flow.

The same can be said for my native medium, interactive design and development. Tools are making it easier for the masses to join and compete. It’s the reason I was livid at Macromedia when it came out with its Dreamweaver product allowing non coders to build websites. It’s one more step towards not needing to know a craft to actually produce the results of said craft. Go on Craigslist and post a web development or design project. The majority of the responses will be appallingly inexpensive and equally shameful in portfolio quality. However, there will be a couple that come close enough to make the grade. The result is a lowering of the industry wage and the promotion of marginal quality. I’m forced to lower my rates to compete. Again, I wasn’t complaining about this when I was a novice web designer in 1999, but it kicks me in the boo boo now.

The book The World is Flat explains these processes in detail. I tend to agree with the synopsis of the book that the overall result of this process is actually for the global good. India is able to compete which drives US innovation, and so on. Globally this is great. I know that I need to think globally, but personally, at this moment, it is bad.

I could go on and write about this topic for hours, but It’d just be more novice writing garnering page views. Oh wait, I forgot to mention, anyone can be a published writer. Anyone want to hire me to write for their blog?

Over the last couple of years my addiction to taking pictures every day has grown in intensity. More recently this addiction has heightened my curiosity to a point of seriousity. You do realize that seriousity should have inclusion confirmation from Merriam-Webster. If truthiness can make in, seriousity should. Seriously. Ok, back to the point. I’m getting more serious about photography. I even purchased a serious camera. Along with this serious camera, and an overabundance of seriousity about it’s use, I’ve gone and constructed myself a website dedicated to my photography. It is my hope that this will inspire and urge potential clients to contact me about my services.

The concept of the site is to take as much distraction out of the interface as possible to allow all focus on the content, the photography. I decided the entire site could be controlled by a small non intrusive control. I also wanted users to be able to interact with the photography by zoom and panning. Users also have the option to zoom out to see the full photo. Finally, I wanted a super easy way to content manage the site. Since I’m an avid Flickr user, its API was a natural CMS choice. I merely have to tag my photos in Flickr and they show up categorized on my site. I’m a big fan of leveraging the many publishing outlets I already use.

If you are a photographer, and are interested in owning a site similar to this one, chirp me.

Chris Teso – Portland Photographer

Tax time = new toys, so I bought a Canon Mark II. The video above is me trying to get comfy with it. I realized last night that I probably need to move beyond iMovie. Hey gimme a break, I’m a Flash guy.

Taken with a canon mark II inside Gravy on Mississippi in Portland, Or.

She had no idea I was filming.

Music: Brushstroke-Reprise – Dredg