September 09, 2005
Flash development for ACLU
As posted at somerandomdude.net, I had the pleasure to do some Flash development for the ACLU.
The project was fast and furious, but I couldn't have had a better time with the designers of the Flash project they asked me to build.
Have a look at their new shiny site www.aclu.tv.
Posted by PJ at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 27, 2005
Actionscript madness
Well, I just finished my one-and-a-half week at Carat and the project I was brought on to do turned out quite well. I met some pretty cool cats over there and it was a pleasure working with them. This project was one of the bigger Flash applications I've made recently with about 10 or so classes. I feel like I've learned a tremendous amount in such a short time just about how to better design and engineer a piece of software. It also makes me realize how much I've done wrong on past projects... While that's an obvious part of the process, it's a bitter pill to swallow.
Nonetheless, I'm really glad I'll be heading back to Form on Monday. I already know there's at least one very interesting project waiting for me back at the office...
Posted by PJ at 12:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 15, 2005
New font set completed
FINALLY...
My new icon set - Tonkyou is complete and available for download. All major formats sans TrueType are included since I was getting some strange PostScript errors for that format.
Please, by all means, download the font and enjoy. While you're at it, you may want to download my other font set, Iconitos.
With all my random posting about Iran, Iraq and all the other craziness going on in politics, it's nice to step out of the nice hard mold I was creating for myself. Hope you enjoy.
Posted by PJ at 11:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 02, 2005
New icons almost done
It's taking some time, but I'm on my way to finishing the new icon set. I still haven't come up with a name for it just yet, but I think it'll be a pretty nice collection by the time it's done.
Posted by PJ at 11:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 19, 2005
Personal work pushed back
Well, this week is going to be one hell of a busy one. I've really wanted to start playing with Greasemonkey and Django, not to mention finishing my new icon font set.
These will all have to wait unfortunately though. Nonetheless, I've been working on some really interesting projects at work and by the end of the week I'll have knocked a couple projects off.
Only a little more than two weeks before the wedding. Everything is just getting crazy.
Posted by PJ at 11:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 17, 2005
Icon Set Work in Progress
Pretty cool icon set in the works
Have a look.
Posted by PJ at 11:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 05, 2005
New icon font by yours truly
Have a look at this font set I made from random glyphs created through my study of pattern and distortion.
Very, very cool stuff.
Posted by PJ at 10:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 29, 2005
A little experimental design work
I've been playing around with some experiments in form with using patterns and distortion. If was a really interesting study and I've gotten very polar views on it so far. Believe it or not, I'm sort of liking that since it means that it's drawing strong opinion on it.
Anyways, have a look at the study over at SOME RANDOM DUDE.
Enjoy.
Posted by PJ at 12:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 22, 2005
One day project finished
Since I'm going to get some exposure for the Current TV logo feature, I wanted to get a portfolio up. It's far from where I want it to be and it really doesn't show much of my work, but it's up and I'm satisfied for now.
Posted by PJ at 12:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 19, 2005
Huge CyArk update
Big changes at CyArk.org. A whole new section of information and a bunch of Flash goodness added throughout the site.
Have a gander.
Posted by PJ at 01:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 18, 2005
New Flash Experiment
A new Flash tool that I'm working called What Have You Done? is now up on SOMERANDOMDUDE for your viewing pleasure.
Have a look and let me know what you think.
Posted by PJ at 01:16 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
April 08, 2005
Current.tv logo project
I have been working on an interesting logo project for an open submission for the Current.tv logo. I would both highly suggest checking out what Current.tv is all about and then taking a look at what I came up with.
Posted by PJ at 12:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 06, 2005
Finally a photo update
I finally got the chance to shoot some photos and get them uploaded to the server. I'm not posting photos on this blog anymore due to bandwidth constraints and a desire to not have redundant posts on my two blogs.
So if you're interested, have a look at my photos at SOME RANDOM DUDE dot net.
Posted by PJ at 01:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 21, 2005
Show some love folks
I've gotten a couple comments here and there, but I really could use some more feedback on my Flash Media Player. Please give me any thoughts on what sort of features you would like for something like this and how you could see yourself using an XML driven video player on your blog or any other site for that matter.
Any and all feedback is GREATLY appreciated.
Posted by PJ at 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 20, 2005
Flash Video Player (A First Look)
OK, it's still very rudamentry, with a lot of features that still need to be added, but I still think it's worth a look. Head on over to SOMERANDOMDUDE and have a look-see.
I'm shooting for a 1.0 by the end of April. I'm not sure if I'll be releasing this at that point though because through all this work I sort of stumbled upon a really big idea that, if I ever get the perfect combination of time, energy and help, could be VERY cool. Please head on over the the link above and give me your thoughts/reactions at this point.
Posted by PJ at 11:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 08, 2005
Bye bye to the photos
Say goodbye to all the photos on this site. I've done quite a bit of work on my other blog and while it's far from finished, I'm still going to consider it live.
So from this point on, all the photos will be on Some Random Dude as will the Weekly Links of the Week (maybe). This is definately going to mean a definate idenity crisis for this blog, but I have quite a few ideas on what I'll be putting on here.
If you came here for the photos, you may just want to mosey over to the other site and update you bookmarks.
Posted by PJ at 02:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 04, 2005
New blog nearing completion
Okay, before you start carpet-bombing me with criticism, it's still in a very rough phase and has only been tested on IE6/FF1 on the PC. In addition, there are a lot of things that are going to be changed (most notably a very extensive overhaul both visually and structurally to the right-side navigation.
Still, the Some Random Dude blog is nearing completion and should be done early next week. This will pretty much be the beginning of a site where I'll be able to document my work as well as showcase what I have done without mixing it with useless Ashlee Simpson posts (hell, most of you seem more interested in those sorts of things anyways). This blog is still going to be around to allow me to have a little fun and talk about things outside of design that still interest me. I'd like to tweak this blog's design as well later on in the future, but that's way down on the list.
Posted by PJ at 02:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 24, 2005
More 'fun' with IE & CSS
I've been working on the finishing touches to the revamped Kacyra Foundation site (the old version is still currently live) but I've run into small issues along with way which has slowed things down now and then.
The latest issue that was recently resolved was a margin problem I was having in IE5.
Here was the bug:
After figuring out where the problem was, it wasn't much a of problem to resolve with negative margins and a little sprinkle of the Box Model Hack. I still have to test it on the Mac when I get home, but I don't think it'll be a problem.
Why is this even brought up on my blog? After looking through the CSS file I put together, I noticed there were a ridiculous amount of conditions and hacks throughout each style that it seemed as though I was spending more time patching the styles to work across browsers than actually creating the initial style attributes. I know the standards movement isn't getting much resistance from the designer/developers, but I have to think that the average-Joe viewer would like to have sites work properly no matter what browser they choose to view a site with. If they knew more about the process of making everything work on the web, I truly feel they'd voice their opinion with a little less ambivalence.
Obviously, Firefox is the hot topic in terms of standards-compliant browsers. However, Opera ain't bad and Safari is quite good as well. Hell, IE6 is a dream compared to IE5. Hopefully, in a couple years, IE5 will go the way of NS4 and we won't have to worry about whether or not the public decides to stand up for standards. Until then, I'll be writing CSS that isn't very fun to look at.
Posted by PJ at 06:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 18, 2005
XML/Flash slideshow fully functional
Well, the slideshow is definately at a good stopping point. I've added new features such as viewing the full image, checking to see if the slideshow image is larger than the swf stage, better XML organization, easier queries, etc, etc, etc.
All in all, it's a damned fine slideshow tool albeit a bit rough around the edges in terms of coding. I'd like to do a little more before I release it since it will be a little difficult to modify the Flash file if you don't know where to look.
Still, I'm very satisfied.
Posted by PJ at 05:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 15, 2005
Finally almost there...
I finally have my XML-driven slideshow up and working. It still needs a lot of work, but the worst is behind me. More to come.
Posted by PJ at 10:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 13, 2005
Just your average, run-of-the-mill beta test...
Actually, it's FAR from your average, run-of-the-mill beta test. This thing is going to be the friggin' life of me and I have a deep desire to throw my laptop across this zip code.
Alright, I should probably explain this a bit before the rest of the world thinks I'm crazy... I've been working on an XML-driven slideshow that should have been easy as pie. Unfortunately, it's been far from it and I have not a clue where to begin to fix it. The code is literally hanging together by a thread at this point and so is my sanity.
The hell with this, I'm going to bed.
Posted by PJ at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 11, 2005
Almost there...
I've almost finished the new PHP/XML engine for the CyArk site but not without a serious bruise on my forehead from bashing it into a brick wall for hours on end. The site should be up and running with the new code and out of my life in a couple days, but the scars will be there forever.
From the project, I've learned that I have a whole hell of a lot more to learn.
Posted by PJ at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 29, 2004
Javascript & Flash working together nicely
I've been wanting to redo my portfolio for some time now... More than two years to be more precise. It's been a combination of a lack of time as well as a healthy dose of procrastination, but I was determined to get something up before the end of the year. Problem is, time was of the essence and I had to come up with a design that not only looked and worked nice, but was quick to implement.
I wanted to incorporate some sort of Flash development into the portfolio but didn't want to go the full Flash route due to the time crunch. In addition, while I feel Flash has a ton of advantages, I feel it still has some shortcomings as well. I decided to go the route I usually go which is a static/embedded-flash hybrid where navigation and content are static and the media (be it images, sound or video) are in Flash. I've designed sites where Flash would talk to the javascript and php from the static page which was a piece of cake, but I had never gone the other way around where the javascript talks to Flash.
So I thought up an design where the navigation would be static form elements (dropdowns) which would then communicate with a Flash movie to view the content. The Flash file would be XML-driven so all the javascript would have to do is set a couple variables in the Flash movie to tell it where to look in the XML file and then restart the movie. Well, there are already javascript functions that do just that - setVariable() & GotoFrame(). One big problem though, they don't work in Firefox the same way they work in IE.
So after some heavy Googling, I ran across a great little solution which did the trick. Brajeshwar wrote a simple little browser detector that then converts the javascript commands needed to do javascript to Flash communication. You can find the example and the source here
This was a huge help and with the assistance of this code, I have the hardest part of the portfolio finished thanks to all the Actionscript/XML code I had been working on for the CyArk projects.
Posted by PJ at 11:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 23, 2004
Site changes
Well, it was a good idea, but the poor little guy is just tuckered out...
I had noticed that in the last week or so, my flash banner on this site, which runs on a web-service backend, had not been working about 75% of the time. I thought this may had been a bug in my code, so I scoured the Actionscript to see if I could find the problem. Well, the code is a piece of crap, but there is definitely nothing innately wrong that would cause it not to work... Unfortunately, I'm almost certain the server that hosts the web service is either not prepared to handle the traffic I'm putting on it OR they blocked my site (which, in retrospect, is totally understandable).
So unfortunately, after the first of the year, I'm going to yank the web-service flash movie from the site and think of something else to put in using dynamic data (perhaps site stats). It was a fun little project to learn how to work with web services in Flash, but I think I'm causing a lot of people a lot of frustration...
Posted by PJ at 11:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 18, 2004
The bad, the ugly & the uglier
You know, once you get into the whole 'developing with standards' thing and start hanging around standard-developing web communities, you tend to forget that most of the world ain't doing the same. I found myself in a crash course with this very scenario recently...
I was asked to take a look at some basic HTML being generated from server-side code and a database. When doing a search, it definitely caught my attention how long it took to output the results from the query, but my first thought was that it had something to do with the backend. While I can't rule out that the backend isn't slowing things down, once I looked at the HTML generated, I could certainly say the the HTML wasn't helping anything. Just looking at the HTML send shivers down my spine...
What I was looking at was your run-of-the-mill mis-used table with all the trimmings: COLSPANs, nested tables, spacer images, the works. This isn't too big of a thing when isolated to one result, but after being repeated roughly 200 more times, this seemingly small issue turned into a disaster. As you can imagine, the code was far from easy to decipher at first glance and, sadly, there was more HTML tags/attributes than there was text (a very bad sign). When all was said and done, I was looking at a 200-result query with 9900 lines of code which ended up being a 250 Kb hulking mass of tags. Yikes.
The data was perfect for tables since it was tabular in nature. I mean, this is literally what tables were made for. Within about 20 minutes, after reducing the table to nothing more than its neccesary tags and relying on CSS to set the appearance, we had a 200-result query with 4500 lines of code and a 128 Kb file. Yes, still big, but significantly smaller.
What struck me was that this was about as easy of a problem to solve as there is. This was a slam-dunk, obvious solution that took minutes to fix and will make a monumental change to the performance of their site. After adopting this approach to designing for the web a while back, I tend to forget this still isn't the norm. What I like about it is that I feel eventually this will allow web designers to reclaim the term 'web designer'; a term that is about as devaluated as 'compassionate conservative'. Either that or script-kiddies will find ways to horribly misuse CSS to do stupid little tricks and we'll be in the same boat we are today...
Posted by PJ at 02:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 17, 2004
Another project almost done
Gah, boring night. All busy work.
A much needed revamp to the Kacyra Family Foundation site is nearing completion and will be online in a week or so. Not a moment too soon... It was pretty much lacking from head to toe and this refurb will bring it back up to the 21st century. The site currently uses table layouts, very crude imlpementation of Style Sheets, and is too image-dependent. Now, the site is run all on CSS, is valid XHTML, not image dependent in the slightest and there's some fun geeky stuff going on behind the curtains, but I won't bother you with the details.
We also decided to spend a little more time on the addition to the CyArk site and add a few more features. I'm starting to get a little concerned though because the navigation may need to be re-thought in order to scale to where we may need it to be. I don't see this being a huge problem, but it's going to take a little thought.
The design process/write-up for the CyArk site has hit the coolest part of the backburner with all these projects and with additions to the site looming, I may want to hold off until it's done. I really was hoping to get that completed by this week, but that ain't going to happen.
Posted by PJ at 08:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 12, 2004
Exciting days ahead.
Keep an eye on Sugar CRM in the upcoming months because I have a feeling it's going to be getting a huge improvement on its visual design...
A good friend of mine just landed a job there and it sounds like he will have a very large amount of responsibility on the corporate design. I'm definately going to be going there now and then just to see how things progress.
Ahem... Shameless Plug
Onto someone else, more specifically, me - I've started on the write up for the CyArk Design Process and it's going to take a while. The basic idea of what will be written is all set up and I'm going to try to be good about writing one section a day. I'll need to collect all the sketches and note and then take about a half-a-million screenshots, but it'll all be worth it. I really think this will be a great little piece to read for the beginning to semi-moderate web developer about how one person went through the whole process of creating a website (design, implementation & optimization). It'll be even more useful for myself though because it's going to force me to put in writing my process and methods so I can go back and really examine weather they are the best way to go about what I do.
I'm assuming this should be done in about a week or two...
Posted by PJ at 08:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 07, 2004
I hate Google
OK, I've whined about Google here and there without really holding an animosity. Now I'm pissed. My CyArk vs. Google project has taken a big step back with the complete disapearance of cyark.org from Google's search. I'm assuming this is temporary, but that still doesn't take away how frustrating this sporatic houdini act is...
On top of it, my blog STILL doesn't show up on ANYONE'S search engine which is the strangest thing I've encountered in a long time. My latest idea is to carpet bomb small search engines and indexes with submissions so that there are more links for the big daddies to pick up. I also really need to start getting some linkage from other sites (something I have ignored doing for far too long).
Seriously, this is going to be the death of me.
Posted by PJ at 07:36 PM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2004
Internet Explorer 7?
OK, this was very strange indeed...
I was looking at the current browser stats for no reason other than idle curiosity. Strangley, I saw 'IE7' as one of the browsers detected. Here, take a look for yourself. I'm not sure if this is just some hoax, but I was quite surprised when I saw it.
I wonder what's on the horizon for everyone's favorite crappy browser...
Posted by PJ at 07:37 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2004
Weblog design FINALLY altered
Now, I must premise this by saying that I hope this is the tip of the iceberg...
I finally got a chance to screw around with the look of my blog and at the very least, it doesn't make people's eye spontaneously bleed at first glance... I'd like to add some web-service driven Flash to the site which I think would be a very fun little facet to the site, but that definately isn't in the cards right now. I'm hoping that this blog will eventually be picked up by the Google spiders and will allow me some exposure for some projects that are moving forward, most notably my book.
I've continued to work on Google-izing some additional sites and I intend to spend at least the rest of the year flushing out some projects that never were given the chance to reach their potential. The project which I'd like to spend the most time on (sans book project) is my senior thesis project on data-driven layout-adaptive websites (definately need to work on a better explanation of that). While I think this would be a much more enjoyable project to do in Flash, I'm not sure how smart it would be to move in that direction since the project was really intended to prove that contemporary static websites could be fluid, user-centric systems. We'll see.
Posted by PJ at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2004
More Google hilarity
Not even sure if 'hilarity' is a word. If not, then it should be.
Since a lot of my work on the new CyArk website has been to both tighten up the HTML/CSS and improve the writing throughtout the site mostly to aid in Google searches, I find it very comical that the chronicles of my progress ranks higher than the progress itself.
Right now a Google search for 'CyArk' has my personal DeviantArt page where I talk a little about my current progress in my journal. That's just pure irony...
I'm assuming that eventually the CyArk site will take over the #1 ranking, especially after the latest version is uploaded. Still, my escapade with Google has been interesting. On another note, my blog STILL doesn't show up when I Google my name. That pisses me off a tad as well...
Posted by PJ at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2004
CyArk site almost done.
Man, what a difference. I took a look at the old CyArk design (which never really had a chance to reach its full potential due to other deadlines and priorities) and now after seeing the latest version of the CyArk site which is about to go live, you can't even compare the two. The new version takes much more advantage of all the original ideas set in the first version of the site. Pretty much every aspect was completed to the 'barely good enough' stage. Now, everything just seems so much tighter. I also just noticed that our Google rankings shot up the roof which has just about everything to do with the design modifications.
Very promising... With a little luck, everything should be online in a week or two.
Posted by PJ at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2004
Dancing with Google
Google is definately the lead in this dance. I have had mixed results with my attempts to get a higher Google ranking and I'm hoping that this is just a case of impatience on my part. Still, this has been a great learning experience and I'm coming to learn how important it will be to link up all the projects I've worked on as well as getting outside links from other folks. Man, I hate that side of the business...
Sigh.... This sucks.
Posted by PJ at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2004
More XML/Flash work
I've had some time at work to really fix up some of the Flash projects I had been working on for the last couple weeks. They aren't too specially visually, but they're doing some really cool things behind the scenes. At this point, I have three separate XML files for different tasks of the site. I'm hoping that I can consolidate all three XML files into one which would be absolutely great.
By next week, the site will have some major additions and fixes including flash-driven streaming video (which was an absolute piece of cake). Cheers Macromedia. :)
On other subjects, the book is actually making progress (much to my surprise). Leah brought up the fact that it would be cool to have the book done by Christmas and that idea sort of stuck in my head... So, without saying, I've been working like a madman on it to try to get it done by then.
Posted by PJ at 04:52 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2004
New domain = somerandomdude.net
Finally got my new domain name (somerandomdude.net). Eventually, after I finish my book, I'm going to concentrate on getting that site developed...
May be a while.
Posted by PJ at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)
More CyArk work
I've been working on the CyArk site (www.cyark.org) to be a solid, standards-compliant site which also uses some interesting tools for both asthetic appearance and functionality. The latest design of the CyArk site is a hybrid of php/xml/css static pages with embedded flash pulling data from xml. I have to admit, maintaining and editting the site is a snap and further additions to push the data-driven aspect of the site will make it even better. It's no Picasso, don't get me wrong, but I'm really happy with what the site attempts to do both on the front end and in the back end.
Please take a look at www.cyark.org and give me your thoughts if you could.
Posted by PJ at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2004
XML/ActionScript goodness
Well, it was about a 14 hour day today, but Yousuf and I pretty much finished up a Flash-based presentation piece with an XML backend for editing & customization.
Pretty rad stuff. There are a ton of other things I'd like to work on for this project, but I don't think time will permit that. Even without my desired tweaks, the piece works pretty damned slick.
Yay for us.
Posted by PJ at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2004
Coding, coding, coding
As of late, I've spent a lot more of my design time tinkering with both Actionscript & Javascript. While niether are the hardest of languages to learn, it's still always a bit of a challenge to throw down working code in a new language.
Hopefully these projects will line my pockets with a little cash so I can have some free time to work on some fun projects. :)
Posted by PJ at 06:04 PM | Comments (0)