Articles
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Collaborative Search
Collective intelligence, the shard knowledge within a group, can be utilized to optimize search results. I introduce research being conducted on the topic.
Monday, November 16th, 2009
Compressed, High-Performing Animations in Flash
Multimedia applications often have interactive elements based on video. The Flash Video data used for such scenes is compressed but processor intensive. I discuss a solution that decompresses the data on the client side, in order to enhance display performance.
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
ActionScript Performance Testing
Unlike Javascript, ActionScript usually runs on the same engine (the AVM). This makes specific performance tests worthwhile, in order to compare different code execution speeds. I start a Wiki, where I document such tests and display my results.
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Linking a Site’s Search Function to the Browser’s Search Bar
The search bar has become a common feature in modern web browsers. Equally common, are search forms embedded into web sites. I talk about a format named OpenSearch and show how it can be used to link site- and browser search functionality.
Monday, October 19th, 2009
The Forgotten Intro Video
A video fellow students and I produced is revived and analyzed. The short clip was made with the theme of “stealing the show” and involves a street musician and a talented passer-by.
Sunday, March 1st, 2009
FITC Amsterdam in Hindsight
A talk about my first attendance of the FITC conference and compare it with my previous visit to Adobe Max.
Friday, December 5th, 2008
Upcoming Flash Platform Goodness
Adobe presented new Flash related products at Adobe Max in Milan. Three favorites of mine are Flex 4, BlazeDS for .Net, and the RTMFP protocol. Based on the announcements, I make some predictions for the future of the Flash platform.
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
Debugging in Flash Revisited
An update to my previous post about debugging in Flash. I introduce the Flash Tracer Firefox plugin, and describe why it’s better than the formerly used Javascript-Firebug combo.
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
How Descriptive Variable Names Affect a SWF’s File Size
A create a brief test to compare the file size overhead of long variable names to short ones, and conclude that descriptive code is worth more than the reduced file size.
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
SWF WMODE Transparency Hell
I have been having trouble with the WMODE=”transparent” embed setting in combination with Firefox. What I wanted to do was show a SWF on top of some HTML with the background set to transparent. Turns out that it’s just not possible in Firefox.
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
1001 Ways to Debug in Flash
I have been looking around at all the different ways to debug content when developing Flash applications. The Flex folks already have a decent way of doing this, since the debug version of the Flash player communicates everything back to the Flexbuilder IDE. In Flash it’s not that easy. As soon as the SWF is being run from within a browser all those Trace statements don’t get through anymore.
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
Lessons Learned Implementing the hResume Microformat
A digital resume or CV has a few plusses over its paper predecessor. One of these extras is the ability to give the information more meaning to the reader - human or machine. The hResume microformat introduces some nice additions to the usual HTML markup, but some rocks lay in the path of the implementor.
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Bridging the Gap – A Method for Managing a Physical and Online Store in Parallel
Small brick-and-mortar stores run on a tight budget and often rely on open source e-commerce software for managing inventory. I describe a setup I have made for a boutique, that allows the booking of in-store purchases online.
Monday, February 18th, 2008
Making Sign-Up Forms That Much Easier
Having to create an account is a barrier for new users to join a site and should, therefore, be kept as easy as possible. I propose a user interface improvement that pre-fills the user’s city based on the entered postal code. In addition, I describe the programming process using PHP, MySQL and AJAX.
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
Xpath Library for Actionscript 2 Updated
I took over hosting an abandoned open source project for Flash that allows XML access using Xpath. I also fixed some known bugs and included code optimizations.
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
Free Stickers
The submission of the Jajuk logo to the Free Software Sticker Book and why I think stickers are a good way to promote Open Source Software.
Saturday, February 3rd, 2007
Commons Identity
My research paper titled “Commons Identity: A Conceptual Model for Designing Brand Identity in Free and Open Source Software Projects”.
Friday, June 2nd, 2006
For the Zillionth Time: Coke Versus Pepsi
Out of all competing brands there are in the world, the rivalry between Coke and Pepsi is the classic. In this text I will analyze their efforts in the Australian corner of the online medium.
Sunday, May 21st, 2006
The Required Skills of a Web Designer
I research the key qualities a web designer should have in 2006 by making a questionnaire and analyzing web design job postings. I find that the top quality is writing web markup, followed by JavaScript and image editing skills.
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006
Why I use Firefox
I argue that the most important reason to use an Open Source browser is political: The people should have the freedom to define what technologies they want to utilize on the web.
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
Valentine’s Day Massacre
Got a small text of mine published in a List Apart article. The magazine asked what the readers love and hate about the web.
Tuesday, February 7th, 2006
For the Sake of Collective Intelligence
I present a report titled “Wikipedia and the Authority of Collective Intelligence”. A conclusion is that Wikipedia is taking the web back to what it was initially intended for: sharing knowledge.
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006
Page Last Updated: February 1998
I revive my first web site from its Geocities crypt. The site is devoted to the PC/Amiga game known as “Stunts” and features animated GIFs and a guest book.
