Test for work

Sorry guys, but this is just a test for work

Finally

Ever since ~ 1995 I have been working off the handle of 'whomba'. It has been my email, aim, part of my phone number, Nickname and the list can go on. Finally I realized that I don't own the domain www.whomba.com, so this morning I bought it. Right now It just is forwarded to my blog, but hopefully sometime in the future it will actually do something.

At the very least it is here and mine!

Ugh, My Mac book, Yay the Genius's

So my Mac Book Pro of 2.5 years went and died the other day. I had my Mac here on my table and closed it then took it off to a coffee shop. Once I got to the coffee shop I opened it up and it flashes the screen (as if it was to wake up), then black screened.
Without going through all the specifics, after 2 hours of debugging, (trying to restart with and without battery, resetting PRAM, PMU, and others). So what was I to do?? Off to the Genius Bar and deal with the arrogant Mac jerks.
Now as you probably know I am a programmer, and build computers (for family and such) so I am not by any means a novice to technology. Unfortunately, whenever I go to the Mac store, the 'geniuses' treat you like a dumb ass. "Well sir, this is a computer, these buttons on the top are called 'keys' you type on it and magic happens then words appear on the screen. Am I going to fast??" So For this reason, I constantly dread going to them because i don't want to deal with their pompousness.
Thankfully, this time I got someone that didn't suck. I went in and explained to him (Mike) what the problem was. I then explained to him what I have already tried to fix it and he just replied with "Sounds good, you know your stuff.. well these are all things that we would have done. So I will have to take this in and send it out." I then asked If apple had some sort of 'lemon' policy, he stated that they didn't officially, however I could call Apple Care and ask them to help me out (get a new laptop). So I asked him if this was his laptop, what would he do? He stated that he would probably call Apple Care, and that I might get lucky. I then thanked him for all the help, and expressed how much I appreciated him not being a douche, and he just laughed and replied with 'ya, probably cause I am an older guy'
So The next day, I call Apple Care, and explain the problems. After 1.5 - 2 hours of talking with them they say that they will mail me a box for me to ship back the broken laptop. I then asked to speak to the guys superior and after talking with him I convinced him to give me a new laptop. So, I now am using a brand new Mac Book Pro!! The man apologized for the inconvenience and said that I should get it by mid week. So I sent my laptop in Friday at 3pm, and received my new MBP on the following Tuesday ~ 11am
The reason I am writing this is mainly just to say how pleased I was with Apple. They have done right in my book. They listened to my problem, and, albeit after much whining, they fixed my problem by giving me a new computer faster than I could have hoped for. So thank you very much Apple!!

graphics.lineBitmapStyle()

Hello all, here is my random AS3 statement / question of the day. I have posted this on numerous forums, however no one seems to feel like replying, so I figured I would put it on the blog and see what answers I can catch here.

I am trying to mimic a paint brush in AS3 (in flex) for a mock art studio. Right now I am simply checking for mouse down + mouse move then putting a copy of some bitmapData on a sprite, then adding that to the main application. This sucks because after a while it starts to get bogged down.

As a result I checked out graphics.lineBitmapStyle() (an AS3 Flash 10 Feature documentation can be found here), I was able to get that to work (technically) but not how I wanted to use it. Right now it just tiles it (yes, I know there is a switch to turn repeating off) thus causing it to act like a 'scratch off' lottery ticket. What I mean by this is that it looks like there is a static image underneath (this is my bitmap) and my 'drawing' on the stage just makes it visible. Any help would be greatly appreciated... code is below:
Code:

var oldWay:Canvas = new Canvas()
//get bmpdata
var bRect:BitmapData = new BitmapData(100, 100); //create bitmap
var c:Canvas = new Canvas(); //create spoof canvas
c.graphics.beginFill(oxFF0000); //start fill
c.graphics.drawRoundRect(0,0, 100, 100,10,10); //draw that stuff!
c.graphics.endFill(); //end fill
bRect.draw(c); //draw this out to the bmpdata
//now draw it on the stage
oldWay.graphics.lineStyle(bRect.height,0); //start a line style
oldWay.graphics.lineBitmapStyle(bRect,null,true,false) //set bitmap style
oldWay.graphics.moveTo(nX1, nY1); //move the point to my previous point
oldWay.graphics.lineTo(nX2, nY2); //draw to new location

Image of results here:

and with repeating on:

HTPC hardware issue

So here's the deal, I recently (back in Feb 09) decided to build a HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer) and at first it worked great! Now it is F-ed. I am looking for help where people are willing, here is the skinny: When building it, I used the following hardware:

• DVD (LG)
  
• Hard Drive (WD 1TB)
  
• Thermal Compound
• Case, MoBo, Power Supply (shuttle)
  
• Processor (2.8 ghz intel)
• RAM (2gb Crucial 1gbx2)
• TV Tuner (hauppauge hvr 1600)

I got the computer, built it and all was well. I was using Windows Vista Ultimate (trial version) and that worked awesomely, everything was going super. I left the machine on at all times, and let it sleep when it ws inactive for > 3 hours. Then out of the blue, the computer started dying every once in a while (usually at night time, and I found it dead the next morning, no I didn't have any jobs set to run at night aside from windows update)

So I do some debugging and figure its the HD, this was 'confirmed' by the memory test running 10 times all turning up positive, along with seeing the following message on the bios screen "SATA Drive 1: Bzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbz...bz"

So I contact NewEgg and (as always) they exchange it for me with no problems. 1 week later I get my new HD, and re-install everything (same setup as before). After about 2 months, the same thing happens, and I get the nice old friendly "Bzbzbzbzbzbzbz" again. Once again I test everything, and while running my good ol' friend Knoppix, it shows that there is no hard drive... fucking super.

So I sent out and got ANOTHER HD (3rd one) and install linux (www.linuxmce.com) a distro of kbuntu and it is not even instaleld for a day or so and the Bzbzbzbzbz begins... so obviously, something is F-ed In the A somewhere else on the machine.

So the question is how do I start going about debugging this fuck-fest? If you can think of a way to help i will give you... um... a virtual hug.

Removing anonymous function from an event listener

Hey guys and gals, quick lesson in flex. One popular thing to do is use something called an anonymous function with eventListeners when you want to pass the function something more than just the event. You would typically just say:

myObj.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, function(a_event:Event):void{someotherFunc(a_event, additionalArgs);});

But this sucks if you are going to want to remove the listener. So something you can do is the following. You can create a function variable (func), then set the anonymous function to this var. Then the second function that you ultimately want to call (func2) will have an optional parameter ‘myHackFunc’ that will be the variable that you created (func). Then you just call remove event listener on ‘myHackFunc’.

I have heard of other ways of doing this, mainly, using ‘arguments.callee’ This causes my app to die, but the way described above, and shown below, seems to work all the time. Hope it helps!


public function myFunc1():void{
var func:Function = function(a:Event):void{ func2 (a, some_args, func)};
i.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, func);
}

public function func2(a_event:Event, some_args:*, myHackFunc:Function = null):void{
a_event.currentTarget.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, myHackFunc);
}


Oh, or you could just go and use a custom event class... but that isn't the point of this exercise :P

1234567890

So as you may or may not know today (2/13/09) at 5:31 PM EST we will have the time of 1234567890 in unix time. This is the number of seconds that has taken place since January 1st 1970 at midnight GMT. Above will show you if the time has passed, this is a little script that took 5 minutest to right, that will be 'screen shoted' later today so I will know where i was in my life at 1234567890... sitting alone in front of my computer watching a stupid flex app. None the less.. enjoy :D

Reason number 193 i love my job

Getting to put my face on alllll sorts of random things... for testing :P

Angry Dog Stripper

This is the final product of my latest product at work. It is called Be a Star. Basically, you upload a photo, add crazy assets and we insert it in to the movie that you choose. Many laughs were had during this product. Found on www.webfetti.com and www.myfuncards.com



--------------------------- :: EDIT:: ---------------------------
A company sent a cease and desist to our company because apparently they hold a patent on 'Dynamicaly Adding a head to an animated body' Who knew you could hold a patent on a fucking idea. As a result we had to pull one of the shining features on this product. At any rate, We have pulled the assets and the movie, but you can visit www.webfetti.com and www.myfuncards.com and check it out 'Be a Star'