I've been playing around quite a bit lately with Central. You know, that obscure Macromedia Widget app that it seems never really caught on? I'm not sure why people have been stand-offish about it, though. I mean, to create an uber-simple Central app and pod, I added a whole whopping 1 line of code to an existing database driven Flash app! 1 LINE OF CODE!!!

Granted, that's a bit of an understatement as to how easy it really is to create these widgets. But it really isn't that difficult. Creating something that has some intrinsic value, on the other hand, is the tricky part. I ran across this app by Smashing Ideas the other day. It's nice. they made it for USA Today, and it is quite well done.

Equally well done, albeit not as pretty, are these apps at PowerSDK. The XML editor is pretty slick, and actually quite useful.

What is really needed though, is for some folks like Grant Skinner, or Colin Moock to come up with something cool. It's going to be up to us (obviously), the development community, to either make or break this thing. So get up off your arses! The next best thing is Konfabulator, and it isn't even close. Can't even begin to touch the functionality available through Central. Sorry Yahoo!, but it's true. I'm glad you guys bought up Konfabulator, and it's free now - but it's no Central... Hell! You can even place Flex apps into central - so you can have online purchasing with one click shopping from a widget! That alone makes want to buy something...

So come on guys/gals, give it a go! Download the SDKs, it's cross-platform, and see what comes to mind. I will be posting some new widgets shortly as soon as I finish them up. I will be sure to try to make up some tutorials for them too...

Toronto

I found myself in Toronto this past weekend for a seminar put on by Shawn Pucknell and the FITC (Flash in the Can). The speaker was the somewhat infamous David Carson, so naturally I was intrigued and very much desired to go - hence I did.

The start of the seminar was a rocky one, as David was detained, late, bored - who knows. But he did not appear for the first day, which left a very :: weary  :: Mr. Pucknell to break us the news, and send us on our merry way - hoping that he would show for Sunday. As Shawn was very gracious in the past, with me missing several of the workshops I had paid for, I left returning the favor. Actually, I didn't really care in the least. I had never been to Toronto, and the city seemed very interesting. So off I went, plodding along the streets, camera in hand; clicking away.

The city is pretty damn big, and I must say quite clean, well organized; and well... a bit strange. Litsa and I found it a bit hard getting around, and getting our bearings to figure out where everything is/was. Once we did - it was great. I must have walked 4 or 5 miles on Saturday. It's been a long time since I have wandered that diligently around any city, never mind one as large as Toronto.

After much wandering, I went back to the room, and sat on my arse for an hour or two before Litsa was done with the spa, and then we were off to a glorious dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. Freakin' YUM! Since it was sort-of our anniversary trip/dinner, we ate it up in style, and it was worth every Canadian penny.

Back to David Carson

So on Sunday, the session went off without a hitch, and I must say that I found the whole thing quite worth-while and rejuvenating. I mean, I work.live in a creative vacuum, so it's not like I get a ton of hands-on, face-to-face exposure with this level of creativity and inspiration on any sort of regular or imaginary basis. I soaked it up like a sponge. A lot of what David talked about was his own work, and how he comes to the culmination of a project. It's funny, how when you really start to think about this kind of thing it seems like a big fat DUH! after someone tells you that's what they do - but you never really think of it that way - or give it much credence.

Some of the aspects of Davids work I find most intriguing is his typographical flow. Not so much the placement, or the fonts used. But the flow of the type as it sits and creates a direction and movement within the design. How it directs visual traffic, how your stops, or bounces from one point to another. There are quite few things that I wouldn't have thought to do before seeing it done, and that it works. For instance, letting lines of text flow over one another, obscuring the other letters, and creating shapes out of small bits of text.

It's all still fairly difficult to come out and explain coherently, I am really still trying to figure it all out, and see how it will affect me and my work....

Even still, I was energized the entire trip home last night, and still am for that matter. I have a lot of work to do for our new site coming up, and i am chomping at the bit trying to figure out ways to liven things up and create a less web-sitey fell to the whole project - introducing more intelligent typography and design elements into the whole site structure.

Heck, I know I do! So I've been looking at ways I can take my love for Legos and turn it into something really geeky and I think I have found just the thing.

First off, I found this guys site(Drat Robotics), where he gets into the details ( a bit) on how he has built a few gliders out of some Lego Technics parts. Pretty cool stuff actually. The longest flight I think he got was around 30+ feet, which isn't bad. Not too long though, and I think I'm going to have to see if I can get better than that. His Drat Glider, looks pretty standard and the design seems to make sense - and being the good Internet junkie I am - it's an excellent jumping off point for me to give my own glider a whirl.

Then I ran across this site for the First LEGO League. Now this really got my ol' brain a-twicthin'! It would be really cool to get a team together and get this Lego robotics stuff going for one of these League challenges. I read through their documentation and it seems like it would be a blast! With different challenges and equipment to make up the obstacles and bots, it could really get to be a lot of fun. So I'm sure I'm a bit older than the average Lego builder, but so what!

All things considered, I will most likely start of with the Mindstorm sets, and go from there. The RIS 2.0 Basics Collection is what I am looking at starting off with, and see what the heck this is all about. There is a wealth of information on the Mindstorm site, with forums and technical starter guides and links to get you going in the right direction. The problem is that there is just so much to do, and so little time to do it all in... I want to get some of the big arse Ultimate Collectors Series Lego kits for the Star Wars series, and I want to get the Mindstorm kits, and then I want to build gliders and such using the Technics kits....

I just don't think it will ever stop. Oh, did I mention they have motorized train kits too....

So I have added a new feature to the blog here, for all of you folks who wish to receive an update whenever I get off my arse to post something - SIGN UP!

There is now an email notification service. Free of charge too. just plug in your email addy, and ::  poof :: an email will appear in your inbox straight from the intarweb.

Check it out, it's in the side bar to the right, near the bottom.

Not a very original name, I know, but this place is pretty cool. It almost reminds me of home in lots of ways. Okay, I guess I should be careful how I use the word home now right? Errr.... I mean it reminds me of Or-Y-Gun.

  Anyway, this place is very interesting. It's basically a large grouping of flat-top rocks that form alleys, junctions and paths going every-which-way. This area has quite a few of these features, this is the second that I know of but have heard of a few more. Since it was a wonderful day last Sunday, the wife and I drug the monkeys to this place and they had a ball while I was toddling about trying to be a useful photographer and make good pik-choores.... We wandered about for about an hour or so. There are a ton of really interesting features here, caves, corridors, amazing root structures the way the trees cling to the sides of the rock. We also ran into a mountain biker who told me about the trail he was riding. The Porcupine trail, I believe; which runs smack-dab through the heart of Ellicottvile (or helicopterville, as Donovan calls it) and keeps on trucking. According to this dude, it runs quite a ways and has some wicked descents and brutal climbs (the way it should be right?). Might have to check it our next summer.

I plan on revisiting this place with one of my real cameras, and not just the digital. Although I must admit, it wouldn't have been so bad with just the digital camera if I had a tripod or mono pod with me at the time. But since the kids were taggin' along - I didn't drag the tripod with us. next time though - no doubt. I might have to bring my 4x5 pinhole too. I think this place would be extremely conducive to the way the pinhole captures images. The dense forest will make for some 4 or 5 minutes exposures, but it's worth it.

I would be really interesting in the winter too, but since I neither snow-shoe or ski - it might get a little dicey trying to get back into this place via the narrow server road. Especially since it isn't maintained over the winter months.

Heheheheheeee... giddy. Giddy like a school girl actually. Studio 8 is now shipping, which also means later tater to the flash 8 beta player, and halloooo to the full-blown version!

I'm really excited now, that means I should be getting my copy of Studio 8 any day now, and I will have a ton more stuff to goof around with!

So, very soon, I will have my copy of Vista beta installed, with all my new apps to do some testing on my desktop for the next several months!

Yaaaahoooooooooo!!!!!!!!