wheniwas19

My 2010 Session

2010-02-11T07:34:00.000-08:00

Now that FlashBelt 2010, happening June 13-16, has opened registration, I feel okay with talking about my intended 2010 session. I also got the thumbs up from John Davey to say I am confirmed for Flash on the Beach 2010, September 26-29, as well! They'll both be super fun and I highly recommend checking them out!

Here's the session description:

Consider your past projects. Tight timeline? An art director or a technical lead with a huge ego? A project manager that neglects to disclose specific details? While these things directly impact your project you'll find, more often than not, they can be more easily dealt with when you provide and receive proper, effective communication.

Let's delve into how we deal with the people we deal with. Let's look at how we speak to the people we speak to. Ins and outs of conversation. Lengthy meetings that test everyone's patience. Email forwarding and why a few minutes of editing can save hours of time. Setting alerts. The little things, the big things and everything in the middle. Nothing should be overlooked. Taken in perspective, every project starts with a 50/50 chance of success. It's how we as a team communicate that pushes that ratio one way or the other.

I've been doing this (making stuff in Flash) for over 10 years, working at large and small agencies, owning my own boutique flash shop, and as a freelancer. It's been an interesting path to follow.

I was surprised by the reaction to my session at Flash on the Beach last fall. It felt like something out of fiction. However, all I did was point out things that could help a person get to work. Gratifying is not a strong enough word for the encouragement I received by my friends and the people that attended my little session on the last day of the conference with my broken voice and punctuated by timely(?) cursing.

I spent the next few months wondering how I could follow The 10 Best Things to NOT do Amazing Work up. Then a light bulb went off.

As a freelancer, I am graced with the ability to work on many different projects for many different agencies for many different clients. Since leaving my last full-time position, I've worked for OLG, Subaru, Nokia, Pedigree and Gillette. That's exciting for me. After two years of one client, this potpourri of clients is like manna from heaven. It gives me pause to think how lucky I am.

Here's the crux; I now work in one position for many different team dynamics. I see good and bad, exceptional and accepted. There is something to be said for effective communication that goes beyond simply doing your job and hoping everyone else is doing theirs. Of course, I like to turn that notion on its head and talk about a lack of effectiveness. Que sera sera.

Anyway, here's my pitch. Come to my talk. Sit back, sit forward, stand up. However you like to watch and participate in sessions. I can promise it won't be boring.

Dear conference or festival organizers, if you like the sound of this session, you too can have a lifesized Hugh at your event! Just ask and, as long as I agree with the premise of the event, I will totally be on board.

It's Been That Long?

2010-01-23T08:36:00.001-08:00

I have a an idea for a post, but I really want to formulate the concept behind it before I set it down in writing.

Plus, I've been busy on a project. Meaning, tattoocapture is on hold. Yet again. Le sigh...

Please bear with me.

wheniwas19 Year in Review

2009-12-30T12:28:00.001-08:00

2009 has been one strange year.

January. Organic, where I was working as their Manager of Integrated Media, moved me from Creative to Technology. Like the Dude, I abide.

July.I was hired at henderson bas as their Director of New Media. Five weeks later, I quit and went freelance. A bad fit is a bad fit and I was a bad fit at henderson bas.

September. I spoke at Flash on the Beach in Brighton. I outlined what I considered the 10 Best Excuses to NOT do Amazing Work. I then went on to do the same presentation for Sheridan College, Seneca College and a mini-version for the monthly FlashinTO gathering.

December. I worked on a little thing for Galaxy Goo.

From July until now, I was/am working on Tattoocapture. As of this moment, it's still in progress.

My first freelance project went live. Very Exciting.

The Estée Lauder site I worked on with many others in 2008, won some awards this year.

I'm looking forward to 2010. If 2009 is any indication, I'm in for some fun. I like working. If you have some work for me, get in touch!

TattooCapture Update

2009-12-17T13:06:00.000-08:00

Here's the skinny on TattooCapture. I called myself out at Flash on the Beach, then Sheridan College, a FlashinTO user group meeting and finally Seneca College, for being a procrastinating chump (see my presentation 10 Best Excuses to NOT do Amazing Work)

Currently the site is still incomplete. I've spent quite a bit of time on it and have stricken plenty of items off my to do list but there are many many more items remaining.

image scaled roughly 50%

As you can see in the screengrab above I have a lot done. The design of the site is rough and will remain so until I can convince one of the many talented designers I know to make it pretty. But as Chris Pelsor has said "Get version 1 done and worry about the rest after".

What's working;

What isn't working (yet);

Anyway, I know the amount of egg on the face one wears when they commit to specific launch dates and can't make it. I'm relatively embarassed, but considering what's been accomplished so far, I can safely say I've done a lot.

Never fear, this is not the end. It's simply an update so you all know I didn't just stop. I'm really excited with the progress. If you want to play with the site as is, send me an email

2010 Subaru Legacy

2009-12-16T08:24:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I have to thank Tribal DDB Toronto for the opportunity to work on this project. Their timely assignment firmly planted me in my new freelance role.

Welcome to the 2010 Subaru Legacy

This project had some challenges. Not the least of which was the fact that when I was pitched it, the art director (the effervescent Missy Kelley) involved said they wanted PaperVision 3D. Although I took a workshop on PV3D with the inimitable John Grden, I can honestly say I still know next to nothing about how to implement this powerful class set. It's embarrassing to admit but I'll live.

At any rate, here comes the fun part; all the cool stuff I put to use. Either new to me or a finessing of things I already know.

Starting the audio experience

1. Audio triggering. I used flv video (f4v, actually) for the audio. The audio is in binaural format. Meaning if you happen to be wearing headphones, the audio will wrap your head in true surround sound. It's wicked cool. They want the image sets to appear based off timing in the audio. eg. the narrator is talking about the radio, the radio image ought to be front and center and the set that image is in ought to be the focus. To accomplish this, I used XML and a type of closed captioning. When using closed captioning, you can either set an event within the audio export or you can use XML with timecodes in it and look for these. I opted for the latter. A. because I couldn't be sure the audio wasn't going to change and I didn't want to have to input all the new events in the audio. B. because I'm really familiar with XML.

No PaperVision 3D? No problem. Sort of.

2. Fake 3D. Since I didn't know PV3D, I could use the 2.5D implemented in Flash 10 to allow for skewing and perspective. Therefore, when placing the images in their sets, I'd use a center point (locally, the 0,0 of the set) and randomly place the images around that point. Their distance from the center dictated the amount of perspective they would have. When that image becomes focused it swaps it's perspective on the vertical axis. It's a fairly good effect and easily set up.

Highlighting a feature.

3. Call outs. Now, having worked with auto minisites for pretty much my entire career, I know the four pinnacles of the industry; power, performance, comfort, safety. It never changes. Call it what you will, but those things are paramount. I think you can probably add cost in there now, but whatev. I used the image sets and XML to control callouts. If the callout existed (in the XML of an image) it popped open when that image was the focus.

4. swfObject loading issues. I blogged about this. Suffice it to say, thanks to Chris Pelsor and Stacey Mulcahy, this got sorted out.

Soundboard with downloadable MP3s

5. Downloading of files. There is a soundboard in this piece and the request to be able to download the MP3s came from on high. I'd never done that before, but it was fun to make happen.

En francais, s'il vous plait.

6. Localization. The request from a Canadian client was of course that this needed to be in french and english. I wanted to be able to easily access this portion by simply swapping a variable. eg. ?lang=fr (see french in action)

So that's Subaru Legacy in a nutshell. I'm pretty proud of this piece. Thanks again to the crew at Tribal DDB Toronto for the opportunity!

That's all she wrote

The Hype Over Hype

2009-12-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

I attended Joshua Davis' Hype Workshop last month at the RMI space in Toronto.

I had a hard time figuring applicability in my daily work life.

So I sat on Hype, undecided what I could do with it. What I missed in Josh's workshop was the fact that Hype is simply a collection of classes. Use what you want and ignore what you don't. Hopefully, I'm not the only one with that misconception. If I am, I'm dumber than I thought.

Yesterday I had some downtime as I wait on my friend to get to .NET changes for TattooCapture and decided to manufacture something I've always wanted: A class to plot points equally around 360°. Why? Well... that will become clear in the future. In the meantime, that was my goal. Feed it 8 points and it comes back with how many degrees each would be to be equally dispersed around a circle.

It was a pretty simple solution; divide the number of elements by 360. Tada! Then use that degree number within the class to return what degree an element would be. Further, use it to return what radian (what flash uses to calculate degrees) that element would be.

I ended up with the Orbit class right-click and 'save as'. Usage boils down to importing the class and an instantiation. Then using it's public functions. Therefore;

import com.orbit.Orbit;

var orbit:Orbit = new Orbit;
orbit.increment = 15; //15 being the total number of elements
var degree:Number = orbit.getDegree(8); //8 being the 8th element
var radian:Number = orbit.getRadians(degree);
//returns the radian value for the 8th element out of 15;

//alternatively, you can piggyback the calculations
var radian:Number = orbit.getRadians(orbit.getDegree(8));

So yeah.

Here's the first example. Each time you click the start button, the piece will pick a random number of elements, then run through that number and each element on stage in it's prescribed location. Sweet.

So once I figured that out, I started monkeying around with it, as is my wont. Change the number to see the progress.

In comes Hype.

Eventually, in version 4, I decided to muck about a bit with Hype. I wanted to draw to Bitmap was being done and with Hype, I had a built-in class to do just that. BitmapCanvas. Worked like a charm.

Messed around for another couple of versions and in version 8, added in FilterRhythm and TimeType. So far so good.

In version 10, I added in colorPool. Honestly, it all starts to get a bit silly and really I'm just messing around with minor alterations.

In version 13, I dumped my Event.ENTER_FRAME for SimpleRhythm.

Finally, with some more tweaks, I have this (basically) where I want it. Version 19. I might spend some more time with it, but it's in a place I like. I left it running while I wrote this post and this is what I got.

click the image to see it full-size

The moral of the story is; If you keep your eyes closed, you won't see the path in front of you. How's that for a fortune cookie? I oughta be a writer.

Life as a Freelancer - The Talk

2009-12-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday I presented at the monthly FlashinTO gathering. The topic was my new (semi) status as a freelancer. There are adjustments to lifestyle to make in terms of being a freelance developer. Freelance anything, really.

I went over money, schedules, over-work, under-work, etc etc.

Life as a Freelancer.

The dots on the bottom are the slides. Click away, friends, click away.

10 Best Excuses - Deadline Management

2009-11-05T05:52:00.000-08:00

Last night I had some time to myself to really mull this over. I had mentioned in my session that there often is a great difficulty meeting personal deadlines. The likeliest candidate for that is due to needing to meet deadlines every day professionally.

This is one of my personal hurdles and one I struggle with. Here are some pointers;

1. Treat your personal work as a normal project. If you set a deadline, do your best to meet that deadline.

2. Be realistic with your self-set deadlines. If you are too aggressive and you really won't make it, you've created a nearly 100% failure rate. "I can't get this done, I might as well not do it."

Finding that middle ground of being realistic while still reaching your goals is a difficult one. This is where being a project manager would be truly handy. Consider all the factors involved in your project. Try to include time researching, time developing, time co-ordinating (if there are other people involved) and time in QA. If you are able to break down your tasks logically, a reasonable timeline should evolve.

This situation is all too personal for me. I desperately want to finish my site, but I don't want to be too aggressive in development that I'll miss important things. However, I also don't want to simply ignore setting a deadline or I'll allow this project to linger indefinitely.

I am making every effort to be finished my site, TattooCapture, for my birthday on December 1st. A good present, if I do say so myself. I believe I've been reasonable with myself. I've worked a tremendous amount at the expense of my TattooCapture to provide a cushion so I can work in peace.

We'll see how it goes.

10 Best Excuses - Flexibility

2009-10-23T05:46:00.000-07:00

Possibly one of the hardest concepts to get a handle on is being flexible. Being dogmatic or inflexible takes a lot of practice to recognize. Namely because it's generally something you believe. "I need to do A. If I don't do A, I won't accomplish anything."

Sometimes, if you do B, A takes care of itself.

Here's an example.

My wife, Elizabeth, was working on products for her first craft show. She'd planned on 5 products; Dresses, bloomers, stuffed owls, pants and blankets. As she came closer to her deadline, she realized she could get all 5 products done. However, she'd only have one or two of each item. To me, this made little practical sense. Why have multiple products but appear to have almost nothing in stock? My advice to her was concentrate on fewer products which would allow her to have more of each item. You can get on a roll working on one thing, thereby increasing productivity and progress. It worked really well for Libs. She ended up with 12 dresses, 9 owls and 9 bloomers. That's a very good table at a craft show.

In the developer world, this applies itself thusly; (I always enjoy an excuse to use "thusly")

Let's say you've planned a site. You have multiple sections, multiple features. If, in concentrating on the whole, you start to run out of time. Can you identify features that aren't required for launch? Post-launch mini-launches (otherwise known as staged launches) can actually be exciting for your users and provide a fresh experience. As long as you've correctly identified what is absolutely necessary for the correct user experience, you can launch initially with a complete (from the point of view of the user) site. Every additional element you add becomes icing on the cake.

It's flexibility that'll keep you from going mad and living with 2 AM bedtimes. That's just an opinion. Maybe you enjoy 2 AM bedtimes.

10 Best Excuses - Common Sense, Explained

2009-10-12T20:04:00.000-07:00

I received my feedback today from my session at Flash on the Beach.

There were some exceptions, but overall the feedback was very positive.

One comment struck me;
although he is a very inspiring person, and there were some real true facts in his seminar, had i expected more, some excuses everybody knows...

To be called "very inspiring" is something I've never heard before, but that's not what I wanted to talk about. What this person ended with was "some excuses everybody knows..."

Something everyone knows is normally considered common sense. I think that's why I chose to talk about it. Things that are common sense and things that should be common sense are night and day.

I don't light my head on fire because common sense dictates that it will hurt, harm, scar and otherwise kill me. Common sense tells me if I choose to play a video game for eight hours straight, I won't be actually working. Common sense also tells me if I am working on a project and start a new one, the original project will stop being worked on.

My talk and the excuses I explained occurred to me over a long period of time. I mentioned at the beginning that I have been a flash "guy" for over ten years. That's ten years of ignoring work, focusing on one job over another, playing video games, not being inspired or being TOO inspired. The thing that matters is not necessarily whether or not everyone knows these things, the thing that matters is whether or not you're solving your problems. My solutions weren't going to work for everyone, either. They work for me. I still find myself a victim of my own head. But I'm working on it.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback! I really enjoyed reading the comments. Even the bad ones. To clarify;

I am NOT American. I'm Canadian.

I wasn't hungover and never said I was. I said my voice was suffering due to flashonthebeach-itis. Otherwise known as, too much drinking, too much smoking, too much yelling and not enough sleep. But I was definitely not hungover for my session.

10 Best Excuses - There's This Great Game

2009-10-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

One of the excuses I outlined I called "There's This Great Game". In the explanation, I mention that “Games are time”. To further the point. Games are time that could be spent working. Time that either you could be getting paid in using or spent furthering your knowledge.

If you're playing games as a way of ignoring your work, you're doing yourself a disservice. However, if you're playing a game as a way of disconnecting momentarily and clearing your head, play away.

I just got myself out of the former reason. I bought Halo ODST last weekend. Not surprisingly, I sat down and played it immediately. Work be damned. It's now Wednesday and I haven't touched TattooCapture in that time, beyond some minor modifications.

It's timely I ran into this issue again. My point in the session involved World of Warcraft, the great time-waster, but any game is applicable.

Moderation is key. If you know me personally, you know I am not a moderate person by any stretch of the imagination. However, when it comes to games, I rarely fall into the trap of hours spent playing because it's happened so often I can recognize the problem. You might say, "But you just admitted to ODST'ing yourself for four days." True. I am not playing it right now, am I?

There are two approaches I use when it comes to games. One is as a break reward. I'd like to take an hour because I accomplished something and will move on to something else after the hour. Two is at the end of the day. You've accomplished what you set out to do in the day and are finished. Go ahead and play.

What I do not do is use a game as a way to get over a hump. ie. “I just can't figure this out, I'll just go play Fable II.” This never works. You get into your game and keep playing. You forget why you started playing. As a means of distraction, a game is extremely effective. So what to do when you are in a jam if you can’t play a game? Get up and get away from your computer. I'd recommend writing out your problem long-hand in your notebook. I've mentioned having a notebook, haven't I? A lot of problems can be solved by spelling them out for yourself.

If this doesn't fix the issue and you like being a lone wolf? Google. Seriously. I cannot tell you how many times my problems have been solved with a simple Google search.

If this doesn't fix the issue? Contact your peers. Your peers are a wealth of knowledge waiting to be tapped. Get to know your peers. They will become invaluable resources in the log run. Besides, more friends are good. Don't be a pain in the ass and bug them for every little thing.

I digress. Suffice it to say, a video game doesn't teach, doesn't give back and doesn't earn you money.

swfobject, IE7 and flash can get along.

2009-10-02T05:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a panicked email from my client with a bug from their client. This sort of tertiary contact is part and parcel of being freelance.

The email contained a bug in my latest project. The bug was;

This is the exact error in IE7. I’m running Flash 10,0,2,54 Debug.

TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at com.utils::MainImporter()
at subaruLegacy/checkFlashVars()
at projectClass()

I love Flash errors. No, I really do. The fact that I can instantly look at this and know precisely where the problem lies is amazing. checkFlashVars is the function I use nearly instantly at instantiation of the entire project to grab the provided variables from swfobject. ie. project language "en" or "fr", location of the xml content, locations of external links. I didn't want to need to update this project after delivery so i externalized quite a bit of it for editing outside of flash. Always a good plan.

So back to the bug. What happened is swfobject isn't passing the flashVars to flash in time. The likeliest reason is the page isn't loading completely in time for swfobject to know precisely what it's sending. I didn't know this at the time, but I obviously knew something was amiss.

In comes Twitter.
wtf is with fp10 and IE7? they not friends? got an email from the client and they're freaking out.

You want to be concise? Use Twitter.

Nearly instantly, my good friend Chris Pelsor IM's me and says "We had the exact same problem, hold on." After over an hour of him cleaning up my html, asking Stacey Mulcahy to join in on the fun, having her ask "Is your code smart enough to know when it's failed?" and "What version of swfobject are you using? 2.1? Update, Hugh." and the both of them testing, Chris found the project where they figured out the solution. I don't want anyone else googling "IE7 flash player 10 not working" like I did initially. So here is the solution.

Obviously, you'll need a div called "content" or whatever you are determined to name it.

I had to admit a couple of things to two people in who's opinion I respect;
1. I know very little about html. I look stuff up, I copy, I paste.
2. I know even less about css. Copy, paste.
3. No, I don't know why there are three different methods of commenting in the html. Copy, paste.
4. I agree, I should learn. I've written it in my agenda.

10 Best Excuses - One Complete Thought

2009-10-01T06:29:00.000-07:00

Last night I had an interesting conversation concerning the process of how I work. I talked a little about the idea of "one complete thought". That phrase didn't actually form until this morning, but it's stuck with me now.

When I set out to work, I specifically say "This is what I want to get done." Sometimes that task is difficult, sometimes it's easy. It doesn't really matter. The fact of the matter is, it's a task. When you set yourself a task and concentrate solely on that task, you can then feel you've accomplished something. One of my previous issues was moving on before completing my task. When I did that, the started but uncompleted task starts to hang over me. I begin to ignore it until finally I realize I have painted myself into a corner. This doesn't happen every time. Some of the time it's fine. I get distracted, work on something else, and come back to the original task. But occasionally I forget my intentions and can't regain my train of thought concerning the original task.

Back to the point. What I wanted to accomplish was to build a form and have it hook into a webservice so a user could register for my site. I spent an entire afternoon and half the night doing this. I wanted, desperately, to move on. Every error, every bug pushed me to give up. However, I knew that if I relented and allowed my .NET dev (John Breton) do as he suggested and "Just build the form in ASP" I would never get back to my flash form. I'm obstinate that way.

Sure it took longer than I wanted. That isn't an issue. When I was finished, I could stand up and step away from my computer. The next day I would start something else. The fact is that the next thing on my list took 1/3 the time. Because I had the knowledge of hooking into the webService from my form. The time I spent the night before directly affected how much time I needed to spend the next day.

My advice is don't move on. If you set yourself a task, complete that task. There is something utterly satisfying about completion. That's "One Complete Thought".

I realize that this won't work or be applicable for everyone. Some people can multi-thread their efforts. However, I know myself and I can't.

10 Best Excuses - Distraction & Recognition

2009-09-29T05:37:00.000-07:00

Now that the rush of speaking at FOTB has lessened, I thought it relevant to expand on some of the things I said on stage. As I write these posts, I'll be sure to tag them 10Best so you can click on the tag in the post and have all the pertinent posts lined up for you.

To start with, I'd like to talk a little about recognition. Typically, the most difficult thing to do when you're avoiding work is realizing you are avoiding work. If you haven't done any work in a while, it might all of a sudden hit you, "Why am I still not working?"

I'm here to tell you, recognition is extremely important. Once you can see from outside yourself what you're up to, you can make the effort to move on. If you're not avoiding work, per se, but simply taking a break, that's something else entirely. Let's pretend you're not taking a break.

So how do you do something introspective when it's not immediately in your nature? This actually requires effort. However, once you're used to doing it, it's difficult to stop. Besides that, you might start blaming procrastination on things that really aren't. LOL.

Anyway, let's figure out how to rejig your thinking.

Look at what you're doing right now. Maybe not right now, since you're reading my post. No wait, yes, right now. Are you reading this post because you're geniunely interested in what you're reading? Or are you reading it because you don't feel like working? Either way, thanks for reading my post, but if your reason is the latter, stop reading and go back to work.

Are they gone? Good. Good for them. If you're still here, it's the former. Please read on.

This applies to everything online. We can get distracted, often, by links that lead to other links that lead to other links. That's the wonder and the curse of the interweb.

Turn yourself around, it's fairly easy. Schedule distraction time. Give yourself a half hour or an hour a day to just tool around looking at links. Copy and paste links into a text file for later perusal. But do not go immediately to the links you're given. You'll find you discriminate more in what you look at when you wait to look. Sometimes it helps to even copy whatever the description that your friend or the referrer provided with the link. For instance, "LOL. HILARIOUS. http://randomLink" You know, and I know, that that's a link that can wait.

It's not intentional but getting distracted from what you're doing and losing your train of thought (or as I started to say "My train of thought's derailed") is really, really easy. Since we're social animals by nature, we don't like saying "Just give me insert # of minutes minutes and I'll get back to you." Even if it's in IM. I say social and distracted can be two different things. Be polite, but keep your momentum.

Now, this doesn't apply only to monkeying around looking at links. Do you get up from your desk to have a smoke? Do you refill your coffee and find yourself standing at the carafe chatting with someone about their weekend, wedding, trip, kids, itch? You need to figure out why you're not working. If you genuinely need to take a break, take your break. Look at your reasons. More often than not, I left my desk because I simply didn't want to deal with what was on my screen. Avoidance is procrastination, by the way. Thought I'd share that.

This mindset has paid off incredibly for me since going freelance. When I stand up from my desk now, I ask "Why am I getting up?" If I look back at my computer and see something that's been hanging me up, I sit back down. If there isn't, I get up and take five minutes of free thought, stretching, smoke, coffee, water, bathroom, whatever. But I don't let myself get in my own way anymore.

Don't discount the value of taking a break to reset your head. You can bang your brain against a bug for hours and never get there. Sometimes the only answer for it is to stand up, step back, blink the stupid out of your eyes and breath.

FOTB 2009 - The Experience

2009-09-28T06:56:00.000-07:00

It's hard to describe Flash on the Beach to someone that wasn't there, but I'll try.

This was the second time I'd been to FOTB, but the first as a speaker. The difference between the two is minimal. You might sit back and think, "WTF? It ought to be awesome as a speaker." It is. But the last time I attended, I felt like a star just attending. And that's the magic of FOTB. Everyone is important to John Davey and his crew. From the volunteers, to the speakers, to the attendees. We're "family" and he treats everyone as such.

Let me break the experience down;

Sunday, I arrived at heathrow after flying the red eye. I was tired, but felt manageable. Made my way to terminal 5 to catch the bus and ran into Dave Schroeder of FlashBelt fame. Once on the bus, we saw Jared Ficklin already seated. We had a fantastic chat all the way to Brighton and I knew I was going really enjoy myself over the week. We rolled in around 11 or 12 and attempted to check in. No room in at the inn, yet. So it was store the bag time. Sunday essentially just turned into a hug-fest as speakers trickled in and people I see only very occasionally but feel an incredible kinship made their presence known. The speaker dinner was awesome and myHotel did a fantastic job.

Monday, the official start of the conference, was the first keynote I've ever attended. Possibly the funniest part (apart from the screenagers mariachi band) was Mark launching the Twitter Air app and Keith Peters' Tweets taking up one entire column as he commented on the keynote. No vetting, FTW!

I then went back to my room to agonize over my Wednesday presentation. However, there was no way I would miss Dr. Woohoo because of my nerves. Drew Trujillo has one of the softest voices that can yet captivate with the information he's providing. Believe me, that's a difficult thing to accomplish. His enthusiasm for his subject matter left me so inspired. I am fortunate enough to count him as a friend and he has time and again made me wonder why I'm not smarter. I think he dumbs down our conversations to let me save face. ;P I digress. He unfortunately ran out of time, as often happens when you are passionate about what you have to say, but saved himself by just moving along to the slide he wanted to end on. Awesome job, Drew!

The end of day one was the inspired session and I sat up in the balcony with the inimitable Chris Pelsor and his sneaky bar to watch Joel Gethin Lewis. Perhaps the biggest takeaway I had from Joel's session was "Be it. If you want to be a director, make a movie." To me, stirring stuff.

It's a little sad that I only managed to attend the keynote and two sessions on the first day, but with my own session stressing me out, I just couldn't do it.

The official party was at Audio and although I went, like most speakers it was overwhelming and the word went out to head to the original crash pad and speaker hotel The Old Ship. This is where you chill, it's quieter and you really have an opportunity to kick back and chat. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

Day two, I started with Grant Skinner. Grant's optimization research really made me rethink some of my own foibles when it comes to code. Not to mention being called out and having him tell everyone first to avoid my session then telling them that it would be "the best of the conference" and they needed to go. Thanks so much, Grant. No pressure now, eh?

Once again, as my session loomed, I went back to my room and messed with my presentation. I must have looked odd pacing my room and gesturing as I talked out loud to myself. It's terrible I was remiss in attending sessions, but again, nerves got the best of me.

The official party was at Oceana. It's hard to describe the smell there, but someone said to me it was like "a locker room". According to one person, a rep from Oceana admitted they cleaned the floors with dirty water. At any rate, unfortunately, a bust. So it was back to The Old Ship. Heh.

Day three, or as I started to call it, "Doomsday" had finally arrived. The first thing I noticed was my voice was in really rough shape. Not an auspicious beginning. I took my time getting moving. Joshua Davis offered to let me use his laptop as my own laptop was borrowed from my wife and I suspected was not up to the task. We rolled into the end of Stacey Mulchahy's talk and I am so glad I caught even a part of it. She was funny, engaging and, well... Stacey. Great presentation.

She wrapped up and I nearly started to hyper-ventilate. I posted about my session so I won't go on about it here. Suffice it to say, I have been completely taken aback by the response.

With my session out of the way, the calm that suffused my body was evident. Following lunch, I headed in to watch Ralph Hauwert. Ralph is amazing. He's so smart, it's a little on the scary side. He was freaking out about his session as much as I was about mine and there was nothing indicative of that when he presented. Simply incredible.

The day was ended with Josh. There is not much I can say about Josh that hasn't been said. He is a gifted individual and deserves all the kudos he gets. His work has inspired countless people and he will continue to do so for years to come.

There was no 'end of conference' party. This was okay with the speakers as we converged on the restaurant and bar of myHotel and just chilled. Drinking and chatting in such a relaxed way that can only be described as perfect.

As a surprise for John, Niqui Merret organized a photo shoot on the beach as John's extended of past and present speakers and FOTB supporters.

There's a lot left out since FOTB has a very personal side and no-one needs me blubbering about my friends.

Cheers, John, Joey, Jo and Hippie. You guys managed to do it again! To the speakers, damn, I couldn't be more pleased to count you as friends. To the attendees, you make us all try harder, thank you!

FOTB 2009 - My Presentation

2009-09-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

This will be the first of two blog posts; My presentation and then the conference experience.

This was the first time I'd been invited to speak by John Davey. It was my top-most priority to do a good job and not let him down. I chose what I thought was a subject useful to me, procrastination and how to steer away from it. I titled it "The 10 Best Excuses to NOT do Amazing Work". Here's the opening slide.

The first three days I was there was really me freaking out about my preso and dry-running it repeatedly. Removing Slides, adding slides and removing them again. Hammering out exactly what I wanted to say because I didn't want anyone to feel that their time was wasted.

Josh Davis was kind enough to let me borrow his laptop. On wednesday, I transferred my files, tested it out and we had some laughs at the expense of my poor, beleaguered voice. Turns out three days of too much drinking, too much smoking, too much yelling and too little sleep wore out my throat.

We headed over to Stacey Mulcahy's talk Can play well with others and caught the last half. I've never seen Stacey speak and she really did a great job. Funny, engaging, comfortable and smart. Besides, a picture of a giant bottle of liquor on screen with a suggestion of "If all else fails, get drunk with them." Thumbs up, Stacey.

When it came my turn to get on stage, the fact that I was on stage for the first time in a year and a half hit me and I had the worst case of stage fright I'd ever encountered. Then as people sauntered in, it hit me "Fuck it. Too late." So I felt myself relax slightly and I stepped off the stage to chat with my friends who decided to forgo Seb Lee-Delisle and Colin Moock, who were both presenting at the same time. The support these people gave me by coming to my talk was really appreciated. As the seats filled and I got back on stage, and time was creeping up on me, a volunteer came forward to let me know he was introducing me.

The hour went quickly. The audience was top-notch; helpful, attentive and communicative. They laughed when I hoped they'd laugh and didn't when I hoped they wouldn't. So if you were in attendance at my presentation, you should know that a presenter feeds off their audience as much as an audience feeds off their presenter. Not in a creepy vampire way, but a buffet kind of way. No... wait... not like that, either. A good way. My throat held out and the applause was boisterous at the end.

If you're looking for the presentation, I'd used Keynote to build it, and exported the slides as jpegs. There are some fundamental things missing, but it is my presentation. You just click on each image and you're off to the races.

The response since has been gratifying, to say the least. I wasn't really thinking that my own procrastination and excuses were universally understandable. It's been a whilrwind of compliments and I'm truly pleased that y'all liked it.

Next post, when I have time, will be thoughts on the everything that wasn't above.

Estée Lauder win

2009-09-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

Update September 25 Turns out Estée won in the "Beauty and Cosmetics" category at the OMMA Awards a few days ago! This thing is a monster.

I've found out the site I worked on, Estée Lauder, has won;

two WebAward awards (Outstanding Website, Best Fashion Website)
one Internet Advertising Award (Outstanding Achievement In Internet Advertising)

It's also an entry at Cannes! (Cosmetics, Beauty & Toiletries)

More after the jump;

Managing a team of five Flash developers and co-ordinating remotely with the New York office was a true test of my managerial abilities. The site went down to the wire, but in all, I was really pleased with the efforts of my team. Todd Fraser and Stephan Tanguay, especially.

Not to mention, it was my very first AS3 project. I've learned a ton since then in implementing AS3, but I cut my teeth with this project. My favourite self-built classes, TextFormatter and MainImporter were first coded for Estée Lauder. I owe Organic, a debt of thanks for being able to work on this project.

My focus, beyond management, was the Skin Care Diagnostic Tool

Honestly, what better way to start the day than to find out work you've done won awards?

In case I forget, FOTB, here I come!

Life/Career Update

2009-09-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I quit as Director of Rich Media for henderson bas. There were a number of suprised comments that I wasn't there very long, 5 weeks. Sometimes you can recognize a bad fit in a short period of time. As I did. Better to end it than to drag it out.

On that note, I've rejoined the world of freelance! Although I'm apprehensive about a leap of this kind, I am also excited about the new possibilities. I've already found my first gig and looking forward to this chapter in my life.

If you have anything flash-related, big or small, send me an email. I'd be more than happy to do the work.

Facts about Fees

2009-09-02T09:14:00.001-07:00

I forgot to blog about the re-release of Fee & Processes on Bank of America. Now known as Facts about Fees.

This had several fun challenges. The flash was loaded and reloaded by the html wrapper every time the user changed sections, so I made extensive use of the SharedObject to store visits. This way, the user gets a different experience from the video on the first visit and subsequent visits. Quite fun.

There were some alterations to my base once I left Organic, but it's still functioning and I'm quite pleased with the site on the whole. Take note of the Asked & Answered windows with their cross-linking and the control you have over the video, muting, volume, etc.

Plus, I incorporated pre-existing AS2 demos from the original site and brand new demos from the InfoCenter engine. This piece is rife with yummy hugh goodness.

FoTB 30 days away!

2009-08-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

Things are really motoring. I've moved http://tattoocapture.com over to my friend John Breton's server. John is a .NET guy and knows his junk, lemmetellya.

I have never done so much using webservices. Registration, login, updating, uploading, friending, messages, world locations, etc, etc. I have exclusively been using Carlo Alducente's WebService class. It's been invaluable and I don't know where I'd be without it.

Soon enough I'll be making use of Senocular's Transform Tool.

Interested in being a beta-tester (or as I like to call it, Better Tester)? send me an email. I hope to be ready for full-scale testing in about a week. Many hands make light work, as they say. Many eyes make amazing work, I say.

The end goal for this is to be finished by Flash on the Beach where I am presenting my session The 10 Best Excuses to NOT do Amazing Work. I hope to see you there! I did say I would light a monkey on fire to compete with Quasimondo's presentation happening at the same time as mine.

I've been updates about TattooCapture.com development on Twitter : tattoocapture

News wheniwas19 styles

2009-08-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month since my last post. Things are afoot, as they sometimes are.

I've left Organic to take the position of Director of Rich Media with henderson bas. Todd Fraser, a Senior Flash Developer at Organic came with me. Very cool.

I've joined the cool kids and started a Twitter account

I'm working on the site I've been talking about for the last almost 3 years. I've mentioned it a few times. I renamed the site TattooCapture.com because Camgasm might seem funny, it's just not appropriate. Follow the development over Twitter

Not coincidentally, I am working on my presentation for FlashontheBeach in conjunction with building the site. "What? A presentation on how to get your work done, and you're doing work?", you ask. "Yeah, it's silly, but true.", I answer.

I am super happy to have a friends like John Breton. He has been instrumental in being my go to .NET and DB guy. Without him, I'd likely still be sitting around moping about how I can't make TattooCapture.com Also, I lucked out that Jason Munger will be doing some tattoo designs for me. He's a super-talented guy and I'm lucky to count him as a friend.

Many thanks, John and Jason.

Suffice it to say, there have been a lot of late nights and new challenges. I'm going to be looking for beta-testers sooner than later. If trying out something new appeals to you, let me know.

Flash on the Beach Brighton '09

2009-07-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

I've blogged a couple of times about speaking at Flash on the Beach Brighton in September.

Finally I took the time to fill out my session description.

I've titled it The Ten Best Excuses to NOT do Amazing Work. Have you ever had an idea but found yourself unable to get started? Or, once you've started, unable to work on it? Or, once you're working unable to finish?

There are ways to get past these little stumbling blocks before they become huge hurdles. I have run into these roadblocks from hurdles from stumbling blocks. I look at these situations with suspicion and wonder how much is self-manufactured and how much is legitimately stopping me from getting my work done.

Honestly, this title could end with just "work" as opposed to "amazing work".

Tickets are going fast!

Getting Married

2009-06-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

Although I intend to maintain this as a Flash-related blog, I feel it's important to mention that Libs and I are tying the knot on Saturday, June 13th!

We're really excited. We've been together for over 8 years, so it's about time.

Declan's all gung ho and keeps saying "Maybe have a wedding?"

Breast Cancer Awareness

2009-05-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I was part of a brainstorm involving breast cancer awareness. The idea that popped into my head after the brainstorm made me execute without discussing it with anyone.

However, once I was finished, I sent it off to the man in charge and was told "It's a little dark for what we're looking for."

I don't want it to go to waste, so here's my push for breast cancer awareness.

This links to the donation page at the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

Not Canadian? No problem.

American Cancer Society

Cancer Research UK

Network of Strength

Information on Breast Cancer.

Those are just a few links. Do a Google search on breast cancer and you'll be inundated.

I'm not an activist, I just really liked the image and didn't want to see it discarded.

FlashontheBeach

2009-05-24T11:26:00.000-07:00

I am so excited about speaking at Flash on the Beach (or FoTB, depending on your interest in acronyms) Brighton.

Get your tickets here.

Suffice it to say, this is a must attend conference.

Besides that, it appears there's a contest for a giveaway pass to the conference.

To quote
Put an FOTB09 badge on your site, link it to us, then fire us an email at badges@flashonthebeach.com to let us know the URL and we'll enter you in a draw for a full 3 day pass!

Now that's a good deal.