Flash Media Server, art and life...

Customising GTK applications in your KDE plasma desktop

2012-01-05T17:35:00.001Z

The KDE Plasma desktop has surged to the top of the class with regards to the various Linux desktop offerings. It enables you to have the best of both worlds re using the Gnome 3 kernel with Ubuntu ot Linux Mint without shackling you to the much unliked Unity, the underdeveloped Gnome desktop or the below scratch simulator that is MATE. In addition it has so many lovely features that none of the mentioned desktops have and you have native composting as well as the ability to utilise Compiz. The down side though is that when you install only the plasma-desktop, your GTK applications look really primitive.

One way to rectify this is to install LXAppearance. You can find it in your Synaptic package manager. It is a new feature-rich GTK+ theme switcher able to change GTK+ themes, icon themes, and fonts used by applications. ONce installed you can find it in Start>Applications>Settings as "Customise Look and Feel". You can do all your GTK customisation there. One thing to note - when customising change your mouse pointer there to macth your Plasma mouse pointer ( if you have changed it on the Plasma desktop), or it the mouse pointer will change every time you mouse over a GTK application to the default GTK mouse pointer.

Disappearing mouse cursor in Ubuntu and Ubuntu based distros (KDE Plasma, Linux MInt e.t.c)

2011-12-20T18:19:00.001Z

I've recently had the annoying bug on my Plasma desktop of my mouse cursor disappearing after a couple of seconds. The only way to see the mouse was to constantly move it. Annoying. Fortunately after a day or so of Googling I found the answer. It seems to be caused by an Ubuntu app, unclutter responsible for hiding the mouse. All you need to do is uninstall it

sudo apt-get remove unclutter

Restart and you will find that your mouse remains visible.
Worked for me, I hope it works for you.

Android Compatibility JAR not found:

2011-12-08T12:47:00.001Z

This error "Android Compatibility JAR not found:" popped up at me this morning. I had

Right clicked on my project
selected "Android tools"
and added the "Add compatability library"
Mega output but at the end I got this [2011-12-08 12:07:27 - Android Compatibility JAR not found:] /home/ayo/v4/android-support-v4.jar

After a couple of hours fiddling about it sans success, it seemed the only way to save my self any further hear pulling was to manually add it to the project.

So I,

Right clicked on the project
selected the Java Build Path
chose the Libraries tab
selected the "Add External JARs.."
and navigated to the folder wherer the errant JAR was hiding
/home/ayo/ToolsNUtils/DROID/android-sdk-linux_x86/extras/android/support/v4/android-support-v4.jar

After this all was well.

Bon Chance

"Reflections", mon premier "live wallpaper"

2011-09-02T08:24:00.007+01:00

One of the things that really made me want to develop for Android is the live wallpaper feature. Apps well... actually boring - there's no art in that but, live wall papers - the ability to create to have art - digital art that is constantly available to all. Now that's a reason to develop for. I am creating a digital version of my new painting "Reflections" as a live wallpaper. So far so good and I have learned some very valuable lessons about Android development. Here is the progress I have made so far, the display device is a Dell Streak 5, the particle animation uses OpenGL.The animation has particles flying from outside the scene to disappear into the depths of the scene. Reflections is now available in the Android Market, its in the Livewallpapers categories.
To install Reflections on your android device click here.

Please download and enjoy Reflections. The current version is the free lite version with 2 colour options, the original painting and an aqua tint of the original painting. A full version will be available soon. It will offer more colour options and a few more interesting additions :).

Removing files deleted as Root from your Ubuntu system

2011-08-23T11:56:00.001+01:00

If like me, you have been deleting files ar root and suddenly find that your disc is abnormally full you need to remove the files from the root trash. This is the way, type the following command in terminal,
gksu nautilus /root/.local/share/
That will show you your trash, you can now delete the files permanently by using "shift+delete".
Voila!!

???????????? no permissions on Ubuntu

2011-08-17T12:57:00.001+01:00

I could not access my Android Device on Ubuntu when I ran the command ./adb devices.
The solution was to do the following:-
sudo ./adb kill-server
sudo ./adb start-server

After the start-server command you should get this
* daemon started successfully *

Now run ./adb devices.
Voila!

Hip-resurfacing surgery - the week in hospital

2011-08-08T17:57:00.001+01:00

I have decided to document my experiences of my hip-resurfacing surgery, well actually my second hip resurfacing surgery. I intended to do the same with the first one and seeing that I never got off to doing it I'm doing it now. These were the experiences of the first week.
I arrived in hospital at about 10 am - the Princess Grace Hospital at Nottingham Place, apparently I arrived too early, an email that never arrived was to have changed the time. No matter, girlfriend and I sat in a nice waiting room - read papers and waited for me to be formally admitted. I had all my crutches but decided against bringing a raised toilet seat - just seemed a bit weird carrying a toilet seat around. In about half an hour I was called into an office to sign certain papers relating to my admission. A lift ride later I was shown to my room - very very nice and the thing began. First it seemed to be a meeting of old friends. The physio Louise, and all the nursing staff who had helped me through the business in January were all there, Miriam, Natalie and a few others, so it was a lot of Hallooos, cheek kissing and shooting the breeze. I had a brief chat with the surgeon - Prof Haddad and the anaesthetist Dr Goldsack and then started to dress for the affair. The open back gown, the disposable panties, no need for slippers though as I was carted down to surgery on a wheeled stretcher. In the ante room I had a chat with Dr Goldsack and his team, it was all jolity and laughter - a pinprick and the cool feeling of the drug inundating my veins and then..... I was waking up in recovery. The deed was done. I was wheeled back into my room and decanted into my bed with morphine drips and a catheter to drain fluid from my leg. I had some dinner and talked with Nkwo (girlfriend). I kept trying to send messages from the ole DellStreak5 and because of the drugs I would fall asleep midway into the message I was tying - very strange feeling. No energy to switch on laptop and do anything so the Dell Streak5 was a real boon.
Next day it was X-Rays to check the status of the operation. That went a lot better than the same procedure in January, far less painful. Then unto the main challenge of the day - getting to move on the Zimmer Frame. That was no problem at all and after a walk up and down the corridor we decided to try crutches instead and that was slow understandably but I was fine. Amazing crutches on the day after the operation. That was it really, the rest of the week consisted of walking up and down the corridors and doing my exercises on the bars in the ward. On Thursday I was able to actually walk outside the hospital down Nottingham Place round the block and back to the hospital. In January it was about 3 weeks before I could attempt such a walk so this was progress indeed. Oh and I had started showering on my own as well though help is needed to wipe feet and oil my back. The fact that I was mobile so quickly ensured that I avoided bed sores and that was marvelous. Oh watched Rango - and that was nice.
My warmest gratitude to Prof Haddad, Dr Goldsack his staff and all those on the 2nd floor of the Princess Grace hospital. The were absolutely marvellous.

Gwibber - This application is not allowed to access or delete...

2011-07-03T14:01:00.001+01:00

I started getting this alert
"This application is not allowed to access or delete your direct messages" after a recent update. I could not send tweets. This was how I solved it. Open Gwibber and go toEdit/Accounts and select the send messages tickbox - C'est tout.
N.B The alert still seems to come up but it worked and I can sent my tweets

Updating from Ubuntu Maverick to Ubuntu Natty and the Unity factor

2011-06-12T23:25:00.002+01:00

I have been one of those who have "raged against the machine". The machine in this case being Canonical and its founder, Mark Shuttleworth, a man I have the greatest respect and admiration for. For one thing he has given me Ubuntu and thus allowed me to comfortably and happily turn my nose up at other OS's (especially Mac's) knowing that I have (IMHO) access to the best and fastest OS in the world. The whole Unity thing perplexed me, I give you my honest word. It made no sense - why would they (the whole gang of smart people at Canonical) embark on this seemingly self-destructive path. More the point - what the devil was I to do - as ab-initio I really HATED Unity. It seemed to put me at the point where I was a few years ago where I despaired of Windows but, seemingly had no options - until Ubuntu. I started to do the research as to the why - and see if there were any alternatives to this problem.
The first light in the tunnel was the rediscovery of Linux-Mint. Katya is a marvellous offering and that gave me hope. I'm back as a Linux-Mint disciple PERIOD. It's one hell of an OS - Ubuntu with finesse. However this did not solve the problem - it seemed a short term solution to a huge problem. The problem being the fact that Gnome in their infinite wisdom or stupidity, have taken the decision to exclude Compiz from the next generation of Gnome kernels. I have no idea what they have in their long term plans but, for me a Linux desktop OS with no composting especially one as sophisticated as Compiz is not one I would consider using. The shot is simply not on the board for me there. I simply cannot imagine my workflow without the desktop Cube - FDT4, Firefox, Pidgin, Thunderbird and Chromium all in their separate desktops - eliminating confusion from my life. I definitely cannot live without the Ooohs and Ahhs that people ejaculate when they see the desktop spin. Well that decision by Gnome gave Canonical no choice but to migrate to Unity which uses Compiz and pretty much bringing Compiz development under Canonical control. Its a fantastic and marvellous move that ensures the long-term survival of this composting engine that all Ubuntunistas have grown to love.
Having armed myself with this information and allowing a month and a half to go by so all the Natty release bugs would have been fixed - I decided to take the plunge and upgrade one of my Maverick Laptops - an HP 8710w mobile workstation - to Natty. The fail-safe was if I spent a few days with it and I still hated it - I would install Linux Mint.
The upgrade was painless. and with fear in my heart I saw the dock that has become the recognisable hallmark of Unity. I detested and still detest the taskbar that displays the active programme links on it. Its too Applesque for my liking and I do not think I will ever like it. Having said that I started to navigate around the system trying to customise the system. Hey presto after some fiddling I got my 3dCube back and spinning :). From that point on I have to say the expetience has not been bad. Its a new way of doing things and perhaps not necessarily a bad way. I feel that over the next 2 or so offerings a lot of the feedback from the community will go to improving the look feel and performance of Unity. For the moment I am still discovering things and so far well... so good. I would recommend upgrading - but - I would warn that you need to give it some time and have some patience. Its actually not so bad. I believe my trust and faith in Mr Shuttleworth and his Canonical crew has been restored. If on the other have you find it unbearable then I strongly recommend Linux Mint or Ubuntu Studio, both of which simply KICK BUTT!!!

Linux Mint does it right - and with such finesse

2011-05-30T13:31:00.002+01:00

All the hoopla about Ubuntu Natty, Gnome 3 and Unity forced me to look out again at the Linux community in a bit to search for the perfect Linux desktop OS for me. UbuntuStudio was the first place I looked since their stand against Unity. The UbuntuStudio community has adopted XFCE as their new desktop environment so I took a look at the latest offering of Xubuntu. Not bad performance wise but, in my view, from an appearance point of view, not attractive at all - they are where Ubuntu was 3 or 4 years ago. Then I remembered LinuxMint which was actually my the first Linux distro I installed. I gave it up at that point because of repeated CUPSD crashes and a few other noob and hardware issues that made usage of the OS more than a bit challenging.
Boy oh Boy what a lovely surprise I had. This is without a doubt the most attractive OS on God's green earth PERIOD. I installed on a Dell Inspiron 1720 17 inch. Installation was intuitive and quick, much quicker than Ubuntu which was surprising as I opted to go for the full 64 bit flavour that had all the multimedia goodies set up in the installation ISO. These guys definitely know how to put an OS together because for the first time since I started to use Linux I have not needed to install any thing other than my own development soft ware. Media codecs, Flash player, VLC, you name it - any thing that is needed for you to be up and running immediately after installation was there. This is truly the way all linux distros should go. Quite frankly I am amazed that they have not overshadowed Ubuntu if this is the manner they have been offering this distro over the last 2 years. I'm a total convert. All I needed to do was install FDT4 and I was ready to develop. With Ubuntu every new installation and it was at least a days job to get the machine to the sort of state where I was happy with the look feel and performance. Katya, is a magnificent demonstration of what an OS should look, feel and perform like. The only downside and it was not really a downside was the fact that you had to configure Compiz yourself - but it was already installed so in a few minutes I had my DeskCube and all the goodies Compiz has provided that have made my computing such joy.
If you have not tried Linux Mint - Please please do. One should not deny himself such pleasures.

Implementing Acoustic Echo Cancellation/Suppression in Flash/Flex applications

2011-03-09T12:02:00.003Z

The new Flash Player 10.3 (yet to be released) has a native Acoustic Echo Cancellation/Suppression algorithm as a feature. Implementation tests within a Flash Audio Video chat system have shown impressive results. In order to implement this though you will need to have the flashplayerglobal for the 10.3 player and update your Flex SDK to 4.5. You will also need to add to the ‘Additional compiler arguments’ input: -swf-version=12. You must have the 10.3 beta player installed - obviously. This is the code I used to test it.

private function getMicrophone() : Microphone {
            var m : Microphone;
            Logger.info('player version:: ' + Capabilities.version);
            if(Capabilities.version.search('10,3') == -1)
            {
                Logger.warn('Enhanced Mic unavailable');
                m = Microphone(Microphone.getMicrophone());
            }else{
                Logger.warn('Enhanced Mic available');
                m = Microphone(Microphone['getEnhancedMicrophone']());
                var options : MicrophoneEnhancedOptions = new MicrophoneEnhancedOptions();
                options.mode = MicrophoneEnhancedMode.FULL_DUPLEX;
                options.autoGain = false;
                options.echoPath = 128;
                options.nonLinearProcessing = true;
                m['enhancedOptions'] = options;
            }
                m.gain = 75;
                // set codec to speex
                m.codec = "Speex";
                m.encodeQuality = 5;
                m.setUseEchoSuppression(true);
                return m;
        }

Enjoy echoless chats :)

A simple ANT - FDT4 script to compile and launch a Firefox browser

2011-02-01T15:40:00.001Z

It seems that by default the FDT/ANT task to launch a browser, (fdt.viewDocument location="file") triggers the browser in the internal SWFbrowser. What I wanted was my system browser. The ANT exec tags provides you the option to do just that. It allows you trigger the browser of your choice. The full ANT script is:

[project default="doMyProject" name="PeugeotConfigurator"]
[property name="scr.dir" value="${basedir}/src" /]
[property name="deploy.dir" value="${basedir}/bin-debug" /]
[property name="browser" value="firefox" /]

[target name="doMyProject"]
[fdt.launch.application projectname="PeugeotConfiguratorMainStateMachine_FDT4"
mainclass="${scr.dir}/PeugeotConfigurator.mxml" target="${deploy.dir}/PeugeotConfigurator.swf" /]
[exec executable="${browser}" spawn="yes"]
[arg line="${deploy.dir}/index.html"]
[/arg]
[/exec]
[/target]
[/project]

Please note this is tested on Linux (Ubuntu). I have no idea if it solves the problem on Windows. Please use > and < in place of ] and [.

FDT4 + Flex 4.1 - ANT compile vs Default F11 compile

2011-01-30T12:30:00.001Z

I've recently been using ANT to compile my Actionscript and Flex applications. ANT is really wonderful when you want to do a little more than just compile. Its really useful for people like myself that have moved from FlexBuilder to FDT4. For starters nothing can compare to the feeling that I have the support and love of the FDT team. Honestly they really make it feel personal but, I digress. The point of that story is that one gets used to certain FlexBuilder features that do not exist in FDT 4. For instance when you compile in FlexBUilder files and folders in the src folder get transfered to the bin-debug folder. There are of course arguments pro and con - but, I do like this feature - ANT gives you the capability to do this, and a lot more...
What is however staggering is the foot print of the compiled swf. I compiled the same application (a full fledged application built with RobotLegs as scaffolding ) with the default Flex SDK debug (Debug button in Eclipse or f11) and with ANT. In practice I usually toggle between F11 and my ANT build script. The default F11 build produced a file size of 983K. The ANT compile created a file of size 76K. Less than a tenth of the size. Mind boggling but true.

Wrong Adobe FMIS SSAS Documentation:: Client.farId is Client.farID

2011-01-21T19:36:00.001Z

The documentation for the FlashMediaServer server Client.farId and Client.nearId properties is incorrect. In iteration of the client object after a successful RTMFP connection reads
application.onConnect = function(client)
{
application.acceptConnection(client);

for(var i in client){
trace(i+" = "+client[i]);
}

}

Output:

nearID = 824beb91c28fc2597df9........
farID = d3c32644eaacb09763b7c........
nearNonce = 0a7170efc94e3ee426695af......
farNonce = 938387fab82a36ea3aa03c3b........

The correct properties are Client.farID and Client.nearID

Creating the simplest ever AIR application in FDT4 for Linux

2011-01-06T09:22:00.001Z

Setting up FDT4 for developing an AIR application should be easy. However there is a paucity of information on how to do this on the web in a simple and concise way. A lot of the information for the set up in Linux is out dated and tends to lean towards a time when the AIR sdk support for Linux was fragile at best and thus you needed to fiddle and twiddle with the AIR SDK in order to gain any success. After googling, yahooing and binging for information as well as ploughing through Adobe and other sources of information I found that its actually quite easy to develop an AIR application in Linux. This method has been tested in FDT4 and FB4Linux - the unofficial port of the Adobe FlashBuilder4. The operating system is Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 64bit.
You need to have the following:

FB4Linux or FDT4 or both (I have both).
The very latest AIR SDK
The different Flex SDK's for Flex/Actionscript developement - try Adobe Hero the latest Flex SDK

The procedure is as follows using Adobe Hero:-
Setting up the IDE for AIR development:

Download the latest SDK for the AIR
Download the Adobe Hero Flex SDK
Unzip the Adobe Hero SDK into your Flex SDK folder. This is the folder that FB4Linux and FDT4 reference the target SDK for compilation reside.
Open FB4Linux and/or FDT (dependent on your choice of IDE). Using your IDE, assign the target SDK to the IDE.
Unzip the latest AIR SDK and copy the contents over the target Flex SDK. In my case I unzipped the contents of the AIR SDK over the Flex Hero SDK.

N.B In previous set-up you had to go into theSDK, change the adt and adl in the bin folder to adt_lin and adl_lin. Please do no do this. I found that when I did this FB4Linux could not find the adl to launch the debug version that you need to see in development. This procedure is no longer needed.

Developing with MXML or ActionScript 3.0
Now that you are set up, use your IDE to create an AIR project. Do not bother about creating the Application Descriptor XML document. In FDT4 and FB4Linux this document is auto generated -Thank God. In FDT4 the document is autogenerated in the bin folder when you launch the debug application. In FB4Linux the document is generated when you create the FlashBuilder AIR project. You're looked after in both IDE's.

The Hero SDK does not add all the necessary bits of the framework by default. You need to go into the project properties - accessing the properties is the same in both IDE's. In FDT4 select the airglobal.swc in the SDK Library. Click the Select button to open it and select the options you need for your AIR application using the check boxes. In the image below you can see the choices I made.

In FDT4 if you want to create the AIR project with Actionscript do the following:
Create an Actionscript class. Call it what you want. For the most basic basic AIR app use the following code:
package {
    import flash.text.TextField;

    /**
    public class AIRtest2 extends Sprite {
        public function AIRtest2() {
            var tf:TextField = new TextField();
            tf.text = "HMMMM an AS3 AIR app";
            tf.width = 150;
            tf.height = 20;
            tf.x = 200;
            tf.y = 200;
            addChild(tf);
        }
    }
}

In FDT4 if you want to create the AIR project with MXML do the following:
Create an MXML WindowedApplication class. Call it what you want. For the most basic basic AIR app use the following code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:WindowedApplication xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
                       xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"
    xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx">
    <s:Label text="FINALLY!!" horizontalCenter="0" verticalCenter="0"/>

</s:WindowedApplication>

Click on the Debug button in FDT or FB4Linux. Voila, you should see the ADL debug player with your application. This worked for me, I hope it works for you

FDT4 is fully supported on Ubuntu

2011-01-04T13:04:00.001Z

Finally the Linux Flex/Actionscript community and Ubuntunistas in particular have an IDE that is fully supported on Linux. FDT has long been touted as an IDE at par with FlashBuilder and FlashDevelop. Some of its features are certainly outstrip the aforementioned IDE's on the other hand there are things that it lacks. Having said that for the Linux user the idea of a fully supported Flex-Actionscript IDE is a real boon. Since Adobe pulled the plug on Linux support for Flex there have been precious few options and most are hacks that are unsupported or unofficial. For the professional these options are untenable and risky especially for the development of commercial projects. FDT4 have been sagacious enough to recognise that the Linux group is a viable market segment and we welcome their support. I implore all Linux user to do as much as they possibly can to support FDT and feed back into the development team in order that the product may some day outstrip FlashBuilder in performance, feature-set and penetration.
Without a shadow of a doubt there are kinks to be ironed out - importing FlashBuilder projects can sometime be flakey - the larger the project the more flakey. I find that rebuilding the project for FDT4 is a faster safer option. There seems to be a lack of certain key shortcuts that exist in FlexBuilder, off the top of my head I can think of multiline duplication and ASDoc tag creation, 2 shortcuts that I really miss. Having said that the ability to create variables in classes from the point of declaration is simply BOSS.
I'm still a newbie to FDT4 but I like it more everyday and I have pretty much started developing exclusively in the IDE. If you are a Linux Flex/Actionscript developer looking for the IDE - look no further.

Thunderbolt Logger does not work well with Adobe Flash Player 10.2 or Adobe Flash Player 10.2 Square

2010-11-11T17:19:00.001Z

I was looking through my Console / FlashConsole. I use both debug plugins in Firefox. I have recently been running Adobe Flash player 10.2 - Square. Suddenly I noticed there was something missing - Aha - to my horror I discovered I could no longer see the classes in the console output. That in effect renders the whole point of Logger useless. You might as well go back to the default flash trace. I assumed that it was an error of mine and tested with a project I know I have always seen my classes outlined in the debug output. No Cigar. I then did a sudo nautilus - and going the Ubuntu way changed my libflashplayer.so back to 10.1.x and then tried to run the applications again - Voila my classes were once again outlined with the Logger traces. Phew!!!

Interesting people you see in London

2010-10-22T21:48:00.001+01:00

Its always been cool sometimes the people you see or meet on the Underground or on the streets of London. Today got off the train at Warren Street and in the next carriage was Sophie Okonedo looking very squashed in her seat. Had her eyes closed to probably block out the rest of the populace in the tube. Could jolly well empathise with her. A few months ago I was on the train to Finchley Central when this fellow jumped in the carriage at East Finchley. I kept staring at him, then it clicked I had been watching him that morning - Kai Owen - on Torchwood. I went up to him to ask him if he was really the one - and he was. He was a nice chap we talked a bit - I told him I really liked Torchwood which I do and I toddled off at Finchley Central. Oh then there was the woman in Lark Rise to Candleford, Claudie Blakley, walked by her on St Johns Lane going to get biscuits in the local M&S at lunchtime. She was talking agitatedly into her phone. Oh then there was Omar you walked into this bar I was having a meeting in in some Theatre place south of the Thames. Well thats it so far. :).
Well I guess not - I saw Timothy Spall just outside the Farringdon train station yesterday Wed 10th Nov 2010.

Installing sun-java6-jdk in Ubuntu

2010-09-29T21:39:00.001+01:00

Type the following instructions into your terminal and you should get sun-java6-jdk installed in Ubuntu

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner"

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

That's it!!

RabbitVCS - a real Tortoise alternative for Linux

2010-08-18T08:20:00.001+01:00

I decided to try out RabbitVCS yesterday and I have been massively impressed. RapidSVN is not a bad SVN client but in RabbitVCS Linux users now have powerful SVN client with similar features as the uber SVN client Tortoise. Most impressive for me was the Nautilus integration of RabbitVCS. I was immediately able to commit and update from the folders by selection the options in the contest menus when you right click the selected folder. There are a whole raft of installation methods. I run 64bit Ubuntu Lucid so I added the PPA via terminal. I did have to restart my machine as I could not find the libraries after an apt-get update.. After a restart it was simple a trip to the SynapticManager to select the various RabbitVCS components to install. You will need to restart Nautilus to see the options when you right click. A simple killall nautilus should suffice. Try it out its very impressive. My only regret is that I did not find it earlier

Retrieving values from Flashvars

2010-08-18T07:51:00.001+01:00

To retrieve values from Flashvars, type this into your code
root.loaderInfo.parameters.p0

root.loaderInfo.parameters.p1

World Cup 2010 and RTMP streaming

2010-06-13T13:52:00.003+01:00

The potential of multi user Flash Streaming is being used to full potential by the BBC and ITV for streaming all the matches from the FIFA 2010 World Cup. The BBC has led the way in streaming all its content via Akamai and Native thus facillitaing live tv content via the internet. However the BBC and ITV have used RTMP in earnest for World cup video, ITV in particular seems to be streaming via a combination of traditional RTMP and the new RTMFP peer to peer (not confirmed but it does seem so). In addition the addition of a text chat to allow for user comments during the matches is a stroke of genius. I have not enjoyed watching a match as I did yesterday during the England v USA match. Vive la Adobe, Vive la RTMP

Lucid Lynx RC is fast as hell - and very very easy to use!!

2010-04-25T08:13:00.000+01:00

I love Ubuntu, no secret about that. I've also been one to rave like a mad man about each subsequent release of this OS - in my view each release has made significant gains on its predecessor in terms of performance and features. I have however until now never been bold enough to trial an Alpha or Beta release. I do not claim to be a 'nix' guru and I know that the bugs of a beta system will drive me crackers. This time given all the hoopla about the speed and performance of Ubuntu Lucid. I was temped to install the Release Candidate against my better judgement. My better judgement was very wrong. What an amazing Operating System, the upgrade was the smoothest I have ever done in my life, waht was actually quite striking was the fact that I did not need the files I backed up pre the upgrade. Ubuntu Lucid made all the changes around my data, changing what was necessary and leaving what it was not concerned with. As a result I had very little to do to bring my lappy back to full operational capability. I had to reinstall Flash and reload my Medibuntu drivers and codecs and that was that. The speed of the thing is blinding. From login screen to fully loaded desktop a mere 2 -6 seconds. From On button to loaded desktop around 15 - 20 seconds. Its absolutely brilliant.
My greatest fear was the fact that I would need to go through the whole process of setting up FlexBuilder Eclipse for my 64 bit OS - totally unfounded - my setup was intact. This is the Release Candidate and I know that there will be a series of upgrades to smooth out the kinks but I am a very happy camper with this new offering - I honestly do not know how they keep doing it. My respect and thanks to Mark Shuttleworth and the Cannonical team. You are all princes amongst men. I now look forward to the full release and it s upgrades which I presume will make the final tweaks to what I believe is the finest Operating system in the world bar none.
Lucid is now truly for the masses. I know a couple of people who cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called computer people - sending emails, web access and dealing with documents is pretty much their tour de force with computers, they whizz around my Ubuntu environment with out having to ask for directions with the greatest of ease.
Try out Lucid Lynx - Ubuntu 10.04 - you will not be disappointed

Peugeot's new car configurator launched

2010-04-17T08:39:00.000+01:00

After 8 months of work, the new car configurator for Peugeot has been launched. For the moment it has been launched in 16 countries across Europe. Its been very exciting watching the project grow from blueprint to product. It has also been the fulfilment of a personal dream of mine to be part of the development of a large scale project for a major automotive firm. The project has allowed me to test a number of OOP principles and design patterns in anger and I have to say I have been delighted with most of the results. I've also been fortunate to work with an incredible team of developers who have become my blood brothers, Vlad Exil and Sean(the Hakkman) Hakkinsson. I had initially hoped that the OSMF player would form the basis of the display interface but, certain requirements beyond its capabilities caused a rethink and a de-scoping of its usage. Having said that its part in allowing us to queue a variety of media and play them back in isolation or in series with no knowledge of the incoming media has been more than amazing. In its area of operations it is definitely BOSS. Click on the image and configure the new Peugeot RCZ for yourself.

Emitting Particles with the Stardust particle engine

2010-01-31T15:31:00.000Z

I never seem to get enough of particle generating systems. I just love them, the beautiful random shapes and patterns they make constantly keep me 'trippin'. Recently I've been experimenting with the Stardust particle system. Here is the first of my Stardust experiments. Click on the grey button to kick start things:-

package
{
import com.adobe.viewsource.ViewSource;

import flash.display.Shape;
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;

import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.actions.Age;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.actions.CompositeAction;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.actions.DeathLife;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.actions.ScaleCurve;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.actions.triggers.DeathTrigger;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.clocks.SteadyClock;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.initializers.Life;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.initializers.Mask;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.initializers.Scale;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.common.math.UniformRandom;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.actions.Damping;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.actions.DeathZone;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.actions.Gravity;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.actions.Move;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.actions.Spawn;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.emitters.Emitter2D;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.fields.UniformField;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.initializers.DisplayObjectClass;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.initializers.Position;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.initializers.Velocity;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.renderers.DisplayObjectRenderer;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.zones.CircleZone;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.zones.LazySectorZone;
import idv.cjcat.stardust.twoD.zones.SinglePoint;

[SWF(width="640", height="360")]
public class Particle3 extends Sprite
{
private var _emit2d:Emitter2D;
private var _renderer:DisplayObjectRenderer;
private var _point:SinglePoint;
private var _emitting:Boolean = false;

public function Particle3()
{
ViewSource.addMenuItem(this, "srcview/index.html");

//
// create a 2D emitter
// the SteadyClock class emits 5 particles per frame every time the
// Emitter2D step() method is called
//
_emit2d = new Emitter2D(new SteadyClock(5));

// particle graphic
_emit2d.addInitializer(new DisplayObjectClass(DemoParticle));

//the starting velocity of the particle
_emit2d.addInitializer(new Velocity(new CircleZone(0, 0, 10)));

// the life span of the particle on stage
_emit2d.addInitializer(new Life(new UniformRandom(45, 75)));

// Spawn class allows for the creation of new particles after the parent particle ends its life
var spawn:Spawn = new Spawn(new UniformRandom(6, 8));
spawn.addInitializer(new Mask(2));
// give the spawner the display object is is to use as a particle
spawn.addInitializer(new DisplayObjectClass(DemoParticle1));
// set the life span of the spawned particles
spawn.addInitializer(new Life(new UniformRandom(10, 40)));
// assigne the velocity of the spawned particles
spawn.addInitializer(new Velocity(new LazySectorZone(5, 1)));
// assign a scale effect to the spawned particles
spawn.addInitializer(new Scale(new UniformRandom(1, 0.4)));

// create a gravity effect cfor the spawned particle
var gravity:Gravity= new Gravity();
gravity.addField(new UniformField(0, 0.075));

var commonActions:CompositeAction = new CompositeAction();
commonActions.mask = 1 | 2 | 4;
commonActions.addAction(gravity);
commonActions.addAction(new Age());
commonActions.addAction(new DeathLife());
commonActions.addAction(new Move());
commonActions.addAction(new ScaleCurve (0, 1));
commonActions.addAction(new Damping(0.01));
_emit2d.addAction(commonActions);

_point = new SinglePoint(stage.stageWidth * 0.5, stage.stageHeight * 0.5);

_emit2d.addInitializer(new Position(_point));
var trigger:DeathTrigger = new DeathTrigger();
trigger.mask = 1;
trigger.addAction(spawn);
//create the renderer

trace(stage.stageWidth * 0.5, stage.stageHeight * 0.5)
//add some actions that will make use of the settings
_emit2d.addAction(trigger)
_emit2d.addAction(new Age()); //reduces the life of the particle over time
_emit2d.addAction(new Move()); //makes the particle move based on its velocity
_emit2d.addAction(new DeathLife());
_emit2d.addAction(new DeathZone()); //removes particles from memory after use

_renderer = new DisplayObjectRenderer(this); //use stage as container for new particles
_renderer.addEmitter(_emit2d); //add emitter to renderer

var btnsprite:Sprite = new Sprite()
var btn:Shape = new Shape();
btn.graphics.lineStyle(6, 0x000000)
btn.graphics.beginFill(0x444444);
btn.graphics.drawCircle(stage.stageWidth/2 - 10, 20, 10);
btn.graphics.endFill();
btnsprite.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onClickHandler)
btnsprite.buttonMode = true;
btnsprite.useHandCursor = true;
btnsprite.addChild(btn)
addChild(btnsprite);

//start rendering
}

private function renderLoop(e:Event):void
{
//update position of particle effect
_point.x = stage.stageWidth * 0.5
_point.y = stage.stageHeight * 0.5

//update emitter
_emit2d.step();
}

private function onClickHandler(e:Event):void
{
if (_emitting)
{
removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, renderLoop);
_emitting = false;
}
else
{
addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, renderLoop);
_emitting = true;
}
}

}
}

Compiling and archiving Flash Media Server Server code as byte code

2010-01-10T16:22:00.000Z

One way to improve server code performance in Flash Media Server is to compile it as Bytecode. I really do not bother much about protecting code as, I feel it is the generousity of others who have not protected their code that has brought me thus far. Having said that it is also a good way to protect your server code if you so desire form peering eyes. In addition you can also archive your server code in the situation where you have more than one script managing the logic on the server. The tool to do this is the FAR executable, a compiler that comes with the FMS install. This tool gives you the options of compiling your *.asc files to *.ase bytecode and your files *.asc or *.ase into an archive that FMS interpretes. This archive is a *.far.
The method I detail below works in the Linux environment - If you use Windows the difference in syntax is nominal

1. Find the FAR executable, in Linux it is in the install folder. An easier way to get it is to untar the FMS package and look inside the root folder.
2. Place the FAR inside the folder of the scripts you want to compile
3. Open a Terminal and 'cd' to the directory.
ayo@W34PON-X:~/IDE/Tools$ ./far
4. Compile your *asc file into a *.ase file
ayo@W34PON-X:~/IDE/Tools$ ./far -compile ./getbytes.asc
This compiles getbytes.asc into getbytes.ase
5. Deploy the *.ase file to the application on FMS instead of *.asc

VLC media player disappearing when you play video

2010-01-06T20:11:00.000Z

My VLC media player suddenly started to disappear every-time I tried to play videos - the audio play-back was fine. This procedure fixed it. Look at your video output settings in VLC. Tools/Preferences/Video/Output. Change the video device out settings. Video play resumed for me without any hassles. Good luck

Google delivers on Chrome 4 Linux. Its a very good browser

2009-12-14T08:45:00.000Z

Finally Google Chrome for Linux is out. I've been a bit irritated by the 2nd class citizen status given to the Linux user when it comes to releasing software for Linux ( Mozilla excluded ). Having said that this browser is really good. Nice too is the fact that the ability to install 'extensions' (FF add-ons), some of which are also deployed on FFox. You thus get add-on-extension synchronisation - I like it very much.

Streaming Video in FIVe3D with the OSMF player

2009-12-02T22:33:00.000Z

To play the video click on the Red button, to pause click on the black button.
FIVe3D is an amazing vector based 3D engine closely integrated to the Actionscript 3.0 display scaffolding. Its light and has a very rapid processing response. It has become one of my favourite 3D APIs. Its close integration with the native Actionscript display architecture provides features that no other 3D API offers. One of these features is in the ability to deploy RTMP based streaming with outh the need to set server side raw data access permissions. This is based on another feature it offers viz the ability to add a native Sprite directly to its display stack. Both features are illustrated in this demo that uses an Open Source Media Framework player to stream video from FMS. In any other 3D API permissions will have to be set in FMS to allow client access to RTMP raw data. The retrieved data will be used to compose a bitmap that is used for the 3D objects material. FIVe3D dispenses with that. Here all that is needed is to add teh Sprite (in this case the OSMF player) to the FIVe3D scene3D and that's it. Mathieu Badimon had just ported a revised build of the FIVe3D API, you ca grab it on the FIVe3D repository. Thanks a lot Mathieu, I really appreciate your work :). Many thanks to the OSMF team for their continued work on this fantastic media display platform.
The code for this is as follows:

package
{
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.display.StageScaleMode;
import flash.events.*;

import net.badimon.five3D.display.Scene3D;
import net.badimon.five3D.display.Sprite2D;
import net.badimon.five3D.display.Sprite3D;

import org.osmf.display.MediaPlayerSprite;
import org.osmf.display.ScaleMode;
import org.osmf.media.URLResource;
import org.osmf.net.NetLoader;
import org.osmf.utils.FMSURL;
import org.osmf.video.VideoElement;

[SWF(width="640", height="360")]

public class OSFM_Player_v7 extends Sprite
{
private var $scene:Scene3D;
private var $sprite:MediaPlayerSprite

public function OSFM_Player_v7()
{
stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;

$scene = new Scene3D()
var box:Sprite3D = new Sprite3D()
box.graphics3D.beginFill(0xAF0000);
box.graphics3D.drawRoundRect(0, 320, 100, 30, 10, 10);
box.graphics3D.endFill();
box.buttonMode = true;
box.useHandCursor = true;
box.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onControlPlayHandler)

var box_:Sprite3D = new Sprite3D()
box_.graphics3D.beginFill(0x000000);
box_.graphics3D.drawRoundRect(540, 320, 100, 30, 10, 10);
box_.graphics3D.endFill();
box_.buttonMode = true;
box_.useHandCursor = true;
box_.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onControlPauseHandler)

$scene.x = 0
$scene.y = 0

var $2box:Sprite2D = new Sprite2D();
$2box.name = '$box'
$sprite = new MediaPlayerSprite();
$sprite.height = 360;
$sprite.width = 640;
$sprite.x = -320;
$sprite.y = -180;
$sprite.scaleMode = ScaleMode.LETTERBOX;
$sprite.mediaPlayer.autoPlay = false

$2box.addChild($sprite);
$2box.x = 320;
$2box.y = 180;
$scene.addChild($2box);

$scene.addChild(box);
$scene.addChild(box_);

// $sprite.element = new VideoElement(
// new NetLoader(),
// new URLResource(
// new URL( "http://mediapm.edgesuite.net/strobe/content/test/AFaerysTale_sylviaApostol_640_500_short.flv" )
// )
// );

$sprite.mediaPlayer.bufferTime = 5
$sprite.element = new VideoElement(
new NetLoader(),
new URLResource(
new FMSURL("rtmp://8yourownfmsuri",true)
)
);
addChild($scene)
addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onEnterFrameHandler)
}

public function onControlPlayHandler(e:MouseEvent):void
{
$sprite.mediaPlayer.play()
}

public function onControlPauseHandler(e:MouseEvent):void
{
$sprite.mediaPlayer.pause()
}

public function onEnterFrameHandler(e:Event):void
{
var xdist:Number = mouseX - stage.stageWidth * 0.5
var ydist:Number = mouseY - stage.stageHeight * 0.5;
if ($sprite.mediaPlayer.playing)
{
$scene.getChildByName('$box').rotationY = ydist * 0.25;
$scene.getChildByName('$box').rotationX = xdist * 0.25;
}
}

}
}

Installing FlashBuilder on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2009-11-21T23:37:00.001Z

The only way to describe using the Ubuntu OS and the daily pleasant surprises I get is to compare it to Christmas coming everyday. Honestly its no exaggeration. In my view no OS is better, Ubuntu is just BOSS, period!!! ... and it keeps getting better.
The latest 'Christmas present' comes in the shape of fb4linux a port of the Adobe FlashBuilder for the 'nix' platform. I give my heartfelt THANKS to the wonderful person who has spearheaded this project. Once set up its a perfect working copy of FlashBuilder. I really was not keen on the idea of installing Wine in order to experiece FlashBuilder, and though I could install in VirtualBox that would mean I'd be developing in Windows which I did not want to do. There is the usual problem of there not being a designview in this IDE as well but, I've been developing on FlexBuilder for Linux for so long that frankly I do not miss it at all.
I installed fb4linux on Ubuntu Karmic 64-bit, my Eclipse build was Gallileo. By Golly does it rocket when you compile, you hit F11 and before you can say 'F11' your build is up. There are some set up procedures to adhere to if you are developing on a 64 bit linux distro. You need to set up a 32 bit Eclipse build as neither FlexBuilder nor FlashBuilder can be run on the 64 bit versions of Eclipse. The instructions for doing this are detailed quite clearly on this blog .
I have copied the main parts of the blog post relevant to setting up FlashBuilder here (this was how I set it up) on the assumption that you have downloaded Eclipse Gallileo and the fb4linux project zip. With a Ubuntu Karmic 64 bit you need to install ia32-sun-java6-bin and all its dependencies.

For 64 bit: In a terminal window run “sudo update-alternatives –config java” and select ia32-java-6-sun as your jre of choice.
Unpack your Eclipse download and place it where you want it to be, I like /usr/local/bin/eclipse-galileo, by running “tar zxf eclipse-SDK-3.5RC2-linux-gtk.tar.gz” to unpack it.
For 64 bit: Move the eclipse.sh script into your eclipse install folder and run “chmod a+x eclipse.sh“.
For 64 bit: Set java back to the regular 64 bit variety using the same method as step 1 (but obviously selecting just java-6-sun).
Untar the fb4linux package in a folder of your choice. I would suggest you have a parent directory called FB4Linux and untar your package in here. Mine was placed here home/ayo/Adobe Flash Builder Beta 2 Linux
Download the Flash Player 10 debug player for Linux from Adobe. Create a directory wherever you like and place the standalone player there. Mine was placed here '/home/ayo/DebugFlash/

Please restart Eclipse after you have done this to be certain that Eclipse works. Once you are in Eclipse go to Help>Software Updates> Configuration. Add the path to where you untarred your download of fb4linux. Thats it - done. Well almost. You need to create an 'sdks' folder in the parent folder, in my case the 'Adobe Flash Builder Beta 2 Linux' directory. You need to set up your SDKs and the location of your web browser and standalone player, in my case /home/ayo/DebugFlash/flashplayer.
Now create your first test project and enjoy the goodless of Ubuntu and FlashBuilder

For a very LIMITED time only download FB4Linux here

Installing Google Gears on Ubuntu Karmic 64 bit

2009-11-15T19:40:00.001Z

Some nice individual has packaged GoogleGears for Ubuntu Karmic 64 bit. All you need to do is open a Terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install gears

Really nice and simple eh? Sometimes the best things in life are free :)

Flash Player not responding to mouse clicks in Ubuntu 9.1 64-bit

2009-11-15T10:18:00.001Z

After installing Flash player on Ubuntu Karmic 64, I was a bit disconcerted to find that all the Flash video players I tested did not respond to ant mouse clicks. Google-time. this particular solution worked for me.

First you need to open and edit this file: /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer . You can do it from terminal by typing:

gksudo gedit /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer

Add the following line before the last line of text

export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1

Save and close the file. You will have to clear these changes when you next upgrade your system. I hope this works for you :)

Installing the flash player debugger on Ubuntu

2009-11-14T12:07:00.003Z

There are lots of ways to install the Flash Player Debugger in Ubuntu. My favourite however is to do the following:
Open Nautilus "sudo nautilus".
Drill down to /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/
Download the debugger from Adobe.com
Open it up, take out the libflashplayer.so
Replace the version in the flashplugin-installer with the debug version
Restart firefox
Thats it

Open Source Media Framework: Playing video from a basic FlashMediaServer application instance

2009-11-04T10:42:00.000Z

In OSFM (Open Source Media Framework) version5 the ability to streamvideo from a default Flash Media Server application instance was broken. It only worked if the stream-application folder on FMS was set up as a facsimile of the VOD directory, and the stream accessed with an absolute URI. The fix to access stream using the native FMS instance URI has been implemented in version 6. My thanks to the development team of the OSMF. This is the code you need to stream using the OSMF player and an application instance instead of a VOD set up with an absolute address.

package
{
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.NetStatusEvent;

import org.openvideoplayer.display.MediaPlayerSprite;
import org.openvideoplayer.events.LoadableStateChangeEvent;
import org.openvideoplayer.media.URLResource;
import org.openvideoplayer.net.NetLoadedContext;
import org.openvideoplayer.net.NetLoader;
import org.openvideoplayer.traits.ILoadable;
import org.openvideoplayer.traits.LoadState;
import org.openvideoplayer.traits.MediaTraitType;
import org.openvideoplayer.utils.FMSURL;
import org.openvideoplayer.video.VideoElement;

[SWF(width="640", height="352")]
public class HelloWorld extends Sprite
{
public function HelloWorld()
{

var sprite:MediaPlayerSprite = new MediaPlayerSprite();
addChild(sprite);

sprite.element = new VideoElement
( new NetLoader
, new URLResource(new FMSURL("rtmp://localhost/clearwater/darkwater/yourFLV-F4V",true))
);
}

}
}

Thanks to Will Law

Generating particles with Flare Visualization API and Papervision3D

2009-11-03T21:35:00.001Z

I've been quite busy at 4Digital - my new workplace. Finally I got to do a bit of work with my 2 fave API's Flare and Papervion3d - but that's no secret. I've put up a number of demos with both API's. This is the result using the Simulation class one I've been very intrigued with and unfortunately barely understand. I have not put up the code yet because I've hacked and cut and used glue to create this demo. I'm working on getting a better understanding of the class, once I can put up some code without embarrassing myself I will - for the moment just enjoy :)
Click on the grey disc to start and stop the particles

Ubuntu 9.1 - Karmic Koala is unleashed

2009-11-01T19:11:00.001Z

I promised myself I would skip one distro and wait before upgrading my Ubuntu OS. Well I did not suceed - I had been reading the pre-release reviews and every thing alluded to the fact that this was arguably the most advanced Ubuntu release ever- naturally. For the first time Ubuntu got mentioned on the BBC news. Seriously I knew that there were a number of new features added to Ubuntu, and lots of improvements. A few of the core changes like the Grub2 and the Ext4 filesystem were introduced in Intrepid but, I felt at the time probably too error prone so I left them alone. At any rate I could not resist the pull of a new OS so on the release date I downloaded and did a fresh install on my HP 8710w. The first ISO did not work so I had to do it again. Success it did work - Gosh, the speed of the thing - installation time definitely much faster, about half the time. I have to say I was a bit disappointed at first glance, the default look is ghastly- wallpaper and all - I cannot believe that such a nasty looking interface can pass Q&A - why oh why does Canonical keep with the this livery - it really has to change. They should take a cue from the Intrepid Ibex wall paper which, in my view, was very nicely done. That should be the benchmark. The default desktop look and feel inspires no confidence with any user whatsoever except, you're colour-blind which I'm not. This is made considerably worse when you know how much resource there is out there with regards to stunning wallpapers, icon themes and GTK2 themes. There really is no excuse for such a poor looking desktop. Fortunately, this so far seems to be the only negative point against Karmic. Now the tough part - checking what worked and what did not.

Changing my login screen - Impossible, there's a new login screen and no tools and probably no new GDM themes for such a modification at the moment.
Flash Player 10+ - The plugin-installer does a good job. However I am an Actionscript developer so I need a debug version. The traditional way did not work. Untarring and trying to install via Terminal using ./flashplayer-installer. I got an error stating that my glibc needed updating and that was that. The only way was to do a sudo nautilus and replace the default libflashplayer.so with the debugger version. The destination folder is /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer. After that all was well.
Eclipse - Installing new application did not work - Buttons clicked did not call the action. Apparently this will be fixed in the next Eclipse build but,that will not help with Flex Buiildre Linux which at the moment can only be deployed on Eclipse Europa 3.3 - no update for that I'm sure. So for FlexBuilder on Europa all you can do is the workaround - click on the button of interest and then hit the Enter key.
Software Center - I do not really like it and I think the older method of 'add and remove programs' is much better and definitly easier especially when you want to select multiple application for a to install. The Software Center seems targeted at the new Ubuntu convert and may help them see and select software easier but, not for me.

Those are the issues I've found so far - other than that all seems better than Jaunty. Sound is so much better and I had no problems with my media after I set up Medibuntu and all the restricted media elements. No issues with hardware drivers at all. Samba network fileshare seems to work somewhat - It never successfully networks with the computer names but, if you know the network IP of the computer then all is well. However this may be a peculiarity of my local network. I enabled my Compiz Desktop effects at first try and that's the first time I have ever successfully done that on any Ubuntu/Ubuntu-Studio release. Having done all this it was time to update to Ubuntu-Studio Karmic. Ubuntu-Studio is my preferred version of the Ubuntu distro. It ran smoothly from the Synaptic MAnager and was perfect in every way - for me - best of all it restored the old 'Add and Remove' software feature and removed the Software center.
All in all I'm very happy. Its a really nice OS - More bounce to the ounce for Canonical, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio and the Ubuntu Studio team.
3 days later: This is without a doubt the best operating system I have ever used. Its simply beyond amazing. I'm speechless with delight. Bloody Well Done to The Ubuntu/UbuntuStudio Teams!!!.

Monitoring Object state change with ChangeWatcher.watch

2009-10-08T12:45:00.000+01:00

On occasion watching for the change of state in an object can be tricky. A whole series of variables come into play when doing this. One very slick way to monitor and get updates about the change in state of an object is to use the Changewatcher class. By definition "* The ChangeWatcher class defines utility methods that you can use with bindable Flex properties. These methods let you define an event handler that is executed whenever a bindable property is updated."(Adobe Actionscript 3.0 documentation). The method in question is the watch() method, it watches for changes in a [Bindable] variable or method and fires an event when there is a change. This is of great use when the change is random and the time of change indeterminate. To use it you

1. import mx.binding.utils and set a [Bindable property]
import mx.binding.utils

[Bindable]
public var __getcurrentstate:String;

2. set up the ChangeWatcher.watch method
ChangeWatcher.watch(this, '__getcurrentstate', watchcurrentstate);

3 set up the event listener method, in this case the watchcurrentstate method
public function watchcurrentstate(e:Event):void
{
Logger.info('Watched::::::::::::: ', __getcurrentstate);
}

Now if the __getcurrentstate value gets changed. you will be notified by watchcurrentstate.

Matthew Kaufman on RTMFP, P2P and Flash player 10.1

2009-10-07T10:06:00.000+01:00

Mark Shuttleworld announces Lucid Lynx - Ubuntu 10.04

2009-09-26T16:12:00.001+01:00

AS3 Metadata tags again

2009-09-21T21:55:00.001+01:00

A small primer of some of the metadata tags of AS3 and their uses

Customising your SWF - using the metatags in the following manner will allow you set various parameters for the compiled swf
[SWF(backgroundColor="#FFFFFF", frameRate="31", width="550", height="400")]

Embedding image assets
[Embed(source="assets/images/background.jpg")]
protected var Background:Class;

[Embed(source="assets/images/background1.jpg")]
public var Background:Class;

Embedding Events for the Flex Framework for MXML compatibility
[Event(name="introStateLoaded", type="net.designstreet.DesignStreetEvent")]

DesignView, a flex layout option for alternative Flex IDE's

2009-09-08T21:27:00.001+01:00

The one thing alternative Flex Builder Linux and other Flex IDE alternatives (AXDT, FDT...) have been missing is a design view for flex component layouts. Well it seems the problem has been solved with the AIR application DesignView. DesignView is a "GUI tool for Flex applications layout composition", providing the basic functionality of the Flex Builder Design View. This is the work of Max and Mike McMullin and I for one really commend them for their work. I must confess that there is some way to go to bring it up to the level of functionality of the Flex/FlashBuilder design view but, it does the job and is a perfect design view option for FlexBuilder Linux, AXDT and FDT. AXDT has integrated it into their Eclipse plugin. This addition really elevates the posibilities of AXDT as a serious swf building alternative IDE to FlexBuilder. Please note that you may need to set up the Adobe player security settings within the Eclipse AXDT plugin folder or you will be sandboxed. The location path will be something like this "/home/ayo/gallileo/plugins/org.axdt.mxml_0.0.7.0/designview.index.html". The designview project is hosted at sourceforge. You can do your MXML layout using the online version tool that will generate the code you need from your layout. The AIR option is preferable in my view because you can load your existing MXML files into it.

An introduction to the Open Source Media Framework - OSMF

2009-09-01T12:34:00.001+01:00

The Adobe Open Source Media Framework is a rich media scaffolding designed to create a unified platform for the deployment of rich media on the web. It is based on the Open Video Player codebase an earlier code-base developed and designed to extend the Adobe rich-media codebase and improve the tools available to the rich media developer. The OSFM brings a unique point of view to rich media development in that it encapsulates the media deployment elements (video, audio and images) into one interface that can be accessed and changed at runtime depending on the asset to be deployed. It is delightful to work with, however in its current iteration, version 0.4 there are lots of features lacking or not working properly. Developers are well adviced not to look to this release as a product development framework but, as a work in progress that will definitely change. Having said that, its unique development viewpoint makes it a future winner in the development of rich media players and such other rich media development vehicles.

Although technical and deployment information is sketchy at best there is a reasonable swathe of it online if you Google OSFM to give you some background of the framework. This blog- post will focus on explaining the technical virtues of the framework, showing the current pitfalls of the framwork (from the blog writers point of view) and looking at code to build a video player that utilises HTTP and RTMP as the deployment protocol.

The OSMF looks at 3 separate elements in order to compose the visual experience. These elements are namely the, Media elements, Media composition and the Media configuration.

Media elements are the actual media types - videos(flv, f4v ...), audio (mp3, mp4 ...) and images(jpg, png)
Media compositions are the media elements as in the video, audio and image deployment classes and their spacial and compositional relationships
Media configurations consist of their spatial regions, their behaviours (called Traits), and how you configure and arrange them (overlays and such).

In order to pull off this saparation of responsibilities, the OSMF has 3 main classes, the MediaElement, the interface IMediaTrait and the CompositionElement

The MediaElement is the rich media deployment vehicle. Thic class is based on the Open VideoPlayer codebase. In the OSFM classes its code can be found in the package com.adobe.strobe.players. The class is MediaPlayerWrapper.as. This is the Flex version (I have not tried the Flash CS4 version - though I'm sure its a facsimile of sorts). The MediaElement may be a simple video delpoyment or a collection of media experiences e.g pre-roll video, main video and post-roll video. The MediaElement has subclasses like the VideoElement and the AudioElement that allow you to programme to an interface rather than a concrete implementation.
The IMediaTrait holds the various behaviours for the target media being deployed. Traits are of different types. The behaviours for the IViewable trait for instance are for media that is visual like video and images. For the IPlayable interface its for media that is playable like videos and audio files. In effect an audio element would have IPlayable, IAudible and ITemporal (time based) traits. In the case of non visible or audible traits there are the ILoadable traits - dealing with NetConnections and NetStreams and their accoutrement.
The CompositeElement is the mixer allowing you to compose your media. Two main calsses that stand out here are the SerialElement and the ParallelElement that allow you to choreograph the deployment of your media.

This is a basic overview of the framework. Now lets look at a basic video player deployment. I have put in no controls playbutton and so on. This player will just auto play but it gives you the general jist of the matter. The application is coded in AXDT with the Gumbo SDK. The OS is Ubuntu 9.04 and the IDE is Eclipse Galileo.

Please Note: In order to stream from Flash Media Server, you need to put the Application.xml file inside the streaming application folder look for the < StreamManager > tag and add
<VirtualDirectory><Streams>/C:\lalalalala </Streams> </VirtualDirectory>. If you do not do this it will not stream. In the alternative stream from the VOD application
In addition the useInstance boolean for the FMSURL does not work so you cannot stream with the default instance based URI. Your URI must have the full path e.g application/streams/instancefolder/stream where application is the application folder in the FMS applications folder

ActionScript 3.0

/**
* @author ayo
* @description: Understanding the Adobe Open Source Media Framework
*
*/

package net.designstreet.media
{

import com.adobe.strobe.players.MediaPlayerWrapper;
import flash.events.Event;
import mx.containers.Canvas;
import mx.core.UIComponent;
import org.openvideoplayer.display.MediaPlayerSprite;
import org.openvideoplayer.display.ScaleMode;
import org.openvideoplayer.events.*;
import org.openvideoplayer.image.ImageElement;
import org.openvideoplayer.image.ImageLoader;
import org.openvideoplayer.media.MediaElement;
import org.openvideoplayer.media.MediaPlayer;
import org.openvideoplayer.media.MediaPlayerState;
import org.openvideoplayer.media.URLResource;
import org.openvideoplayer.net.NetLoader;
import org.openvideoplayer.traits.*;
import org.openvideoplayer.traits.ILoadable;
import org.openvideoplayer.traits.LoadState;
import org.openvideoplayer.traits.MediaTraitType;
import org.openvideoplayer.utils.FMSURL;
import org.openvideoplayer.utils.URL;
import org.openvideoplayer.version.Version;
import org.openvideoplayer.video.*;
import org.openvideoplayer.video.VideoElement;

public class DSt_OSMF_Player extends Canvas
{

//private static const REMOTE_IMAGE0:String = "http://www.adobe.com/ubi/globalnav/include/adobe-lq.png";
private static const REMOTE_STREAM:String = "rtmp://myserver/clearwater/darkwater/wolverine";
//private static const REMOTE_IMAGE1:String = "http://www.adobe.com/ubi/globalnav/include/adobe-lq.png";

private var _strobeplayer:MediaPlayerWrapper;

/**
*
*
*
*/
public function DSt_OSMF_Player()
{
assemble();
}

/**
* Play media
*/
public function playStrobe():void
{
var melement:MediaElement = null;
melement = new VideoElement(new NetLoader(), new URLResource(new FMSURL(REMOTE_STREAM, true)));
_strobeplayer.element = melement;
//
}

/*
* Assemble the player bits
*/
private function assemble():void
{
_strobeplayer = new MediaPlayerWrapper() ;
_strobeplayer.width = 640;
_strobeplayer.height = 360;
addChild(_strobeplayer);
_strobeplayer.scaleMode = ScaleMode.LETTERBOX;
_strobeplayer.autoPlay = true;
playStrobe()
}
}

}

MXML

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"? >
< mx:Application
xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
xmlns:dst="net.designstreet.media.*"
layout="vertical"
>
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[

]]>
</mx:Script>
<dst:DSt_OSMF__Player id="dstplayer"
top ="10"
left ="0"
bottom ="0"
right ="0" />

</mx:Application>

Main Application

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application
xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
xmlns:dst="net.designstreet.media.*"
layout="vertical"
>
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[

]]>
</mx:Script>
<dst:DSt_OSMF__Player id="dstplayer"
top ="10"
left ="0"
bottom ="0"
right ="0" />

</mx:Application>

Thats it!

Swapping Depths in AS3

2009-08-20T18:25:00.001+01:00

Swapping depths in Actionscript 2 style was easy, you simply typed

this.swapDepths(this._parent.getNextHighestDepth())

and you were up and running. Not so with AS3, the getNextHighestDepth() is gone. The alternative is the 'setChildIndex' which is applied to the container Sprite/MovieClip/UIContainer or whatever container you may be using. IN this case I had a UIComponent names 'thumbs'. It held a number of UIComponents named "thumbs" + x.
In order to swap depths I used this

var box:UIComponent = getChildByName('thumbs');
box['setChildIndex'] (box.getChildByName('thumbs0'), box['numChildren'] - 1);

Alternatives to FlexBuilder for Linux

2009-08-12T14:01:00.001+01:00

It's getting a bit irritating to find that when a goodish bit of industry standard software is released, Linux builds always gets released last or not at all. As an Actionscript developer it was nice to know for a while that Adobe had my back and was actually putting some effort into the development of FlexBuilder for Linux. I've used the IDE for over a year and inspite of its obvious shortfalls compared to the Windows version its been great. Now that's coming to an end since it seems that Adobe feels its no longer worth the time and effort to continue that development program. So once again its time to jump into the wild and see what is out there re, Linux - Actionscript / Flex development.
I've been trialing quite a few and in all honesty none come close to FlexBuilder for Linux (of the ones I have tried). However there are a few promising options out there and my hope is that as more attention comes to bear on these tools theire development teams get all the support they need (financial and otherwise) to make these tools true contenders.
My recommendations for the moment are:

1. IntelliJIDEA: Of all the IDEs out there this seems to be the most complete and competitive. Actually it does seem to have quite a few features that are an improvement on the FlexBuilder/Eclipse format. It has all the debugging features. It also provides and import from Eclipse feature - though I must comfess I was not very successfull using that feature and got a whole gang of errors - from a project that compiled prefectkly in Eclipse. Installiation is a bit ropey in Ubuntu - and I've found myself constantly having to reset the IDEA_JDK=$JDK_HOME in order to activate the IDE. On occasion I've also found the typing to be a tad slow. However when its settled its a very good IDE. I'm not sure if its because I'm not conversant with it but, its customisation features seem to be quite limited. I'm sure this will improve when the user base expands.

2. AXDT: This is a plug into Eclipse and I found it quite comfortable after installation. Installation though was an absolute pain in the neck. The documentaion is scant and if you try to install unto any version of Eclipse before 3.5 you will really find yourself up against it. I lost 2 Eclipse setups on account of my initial efforts. However on Eclipse Gallileo it installed like a breeze. It is worthwhile to read the installation instructions. Once installed its quite nice and can be somewhat FlexBuilderesque - no doubt because of my familiarity with the Eclipse interface. However it is obviously a work in progress and the first thing you will notice is the lack of a debug feature. In addition it seems impossible to get AXDT to allow you view the compile project in the external browser no matter how many times you set it to do so - though that may be my fault. There's stil a lot of work to be done here but when completed it will be a joy to work with. Its customisation features are none-existent and as I said before, there is virtually no documentation.

3: FDT: Probably better than AXDT - In fact I'm sure it is but its very expensive and so I did not try it

4: Spket: A work in progress no doubt but, may actually turn out to be the best of the lot. Its wierd my saying so because it does not compile Actionscript or MXML at the moment - which I guess should be the core functionality of any Flash building IDE. Its built on Eclipse os its interface is very familiar and it has a lovey drag and drop feature for moving compinents from the library unto the MXML editor - not visual - still it is very nice. However until it can actually run and debug Actionscript it remains just a nice concept

Preventing MouseClicks on Objects below AS3 vs AS2

2009-07-15T19:49:00.001+01:00

The Actionscript 3 DisplayObject behaves in such a manner that if it is in front of another object mouse enabled behaviours on the lower object will not me mouse accessible. This is quite useful and on occasion I have used a simple technique of creating a transparent Movieclip or Sprite and toggled the visible property or just removed it from the display stack.
I remember this because I had to dig deep to temember a time when the way to do this was to create a MovieClip and within it have an invisible button where you set the useHandCursor to false. The good ole days of Actionscript 2.0

Windows XP runs better in VIrtualBox virtualization on Ubuntu Jaunty

2009-07-12T10:30:00.001+01:00

I have blogged about this before but, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This weekend I have been doing some processor hungry development on Windows - no choice in the matter really. I started first on a desktop which is an extremely fast machine with WIndows XP installed. It had more memory and resources allocated than my virtualised XP set up. To my irritation compiling got slower as I worked. The compiled swf started to flicker and changes between Flash Develop and Flash CS3 got harder with each iteration. Every so often to get back to useful work rates I had to restart the machine.

After the first night of this i decided to migrate my work to my virtualized environment in Ubuntu. It has 1.5 G of ram allocated to XP there. To my amazement it seems this performs much better. No flickering images and a fast compile. Weird and definitely wonderful.

Getting address variables into an Actionscript 3.0 flash file

2009-07-06T14:44:00.001+01:00

In order to get your html address variables into Flash these are the steps you need to take. This solution assumes that you are embeding your flash file with SWFObject 1.5. Please note this is for SWFObject 1.5. SWFObject 2.0 uses and entirely different set of methods to embed and pass variables to the swf.
Step 1:
Embed your swf in the HTML doc
< script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject/swfobject.js" ></ script >

< script type="text/javascript" >
// <![CDATA[
var so = new SWFObject('testload.swf', 's-moderate', '100%', '100%', '10', '#222222');
so.addVariable('shirt', getQueryParamValue("shirt"));
so.useExpressInstall('swfobject/expressinstall.swf');
so.addParam('menu', 'false');
so.write('content');
// ]]>
< /script >

Step 2
Inside your AS3 document retrieve your variables like so

var myshirt:String = this.loaderInfo.parameters.shirt

That's it

Update Notification Icon does not show in Jaunty

2009-06-24T17:48:00.001+01:00

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope doesn't show the update icon in the system tray when there are updates available. This is because the update system was changed in Ubuntu Jaunty:

Ubuntu 9.04 introduces a change to the handling of package updates, launching update-manager directly instead of displaying a notification icon in the GNOME panel. Users will still be notified of security updates on a daily basis, but for updates that are not security-related, users will only be prompted once a week.

If you want to use the old update manager behaviour, open a terminal and paste this:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

Updating the Version of Adobe AIR for Linux Used by Flex Builder Linux

2009-06-17T18:07:00.001+01:00

This was culled from the Adobe labs site. Purely selfish reasons as a personal reminder for moi.

Follow these simple steps to upgrade the SDK used by Flex Builder Linux on your machine:

    * Download the Adobe AIR SDK from www.adobe.com/go/airlinux.
    * Go to the sdks/3.0.0/ folder (in the Flex Builder installation directory).
    * Delete the "runtimes" folder.
    * Extract the latest Adobe AIR SDK and copy its contents into sdks/3.0.0/, overwriting existing files.
    * Go to sdks/3.0.0/bin/ and rename adl and adt as adl_lin and adt_lin (if adl_lin and adt_lin already exist there, remove them).
    * Go to sdks/3.0.0/runtimes/air/ and create a symlink "Linux" pointing to the "linux" folder in the same directory.

N.B A symlink: In computing, a symbolic link (also symlink or soft link) is a special type of file that contains a reference to another file or directory in the form of an absolute or relative path and that affects pathname resolution. (Wikipedia)

Acrobat Reader 9+ crashes seconds after opening a PDF in Ubuntu

2009-06-12T17:46:00.001+01:00

For some strange reason, Acrobat 9 + seems to crash seconds after opening a PDF document in Ubuntu Jaunty. Doubtless other Linux users may experience this in their different distros. It happens both as a standalone PDF and in the Firefox plug in. There does not seem to be a workaround or fix for the moment. My solution was to uninstall Acrobat reader 9 and install Acrobat Reader 8. That works fine. I'll put AR9 back on when Adobe sorts out the problem

Bing - finally a real option to Google

2009-06-11T22:35:00.001+01:00

Microsoft have just released the beta of their new search engine Bing. Its very pretty to look at - and its user experience is really spot on. It does not seem to have the deep penetration Google has with regards to search data but I believe it will get there over time as it gathers momentum. I like the video search feature a lot. Searched videos are displayed as thumbnails that play the first few seconds of the video when you mouse over them. When you clickon the video it plays at the top of the page with an option to go to thesource site of the video. A really neat search feature is the persistence of the playing video when you move from page to page. It just keeps playing until you select another video thumbnail- it's really cool - there is also a nice fade in as the page changes - nice small touches that make it a really pleasant tool to use. I did not like the fact that in true Microsoft style, I could not find any blogspot (google hosted) blogs even when I typed in the blog urls directly. Its a search engine please let it search without bias (anti competition filters are silly). Having said that its definitely worth using and a decent alternative to Google.

Brasero Normalisation plugin is buggy

2009-06-04T07:44:00.001+01:00

Brasero's normalisation plugin is buggy. If you have more than one audio track in a burn list it loops endlessly at the beginning of the burn process, preventing the burn process from completing. The workaround is to go to Edit>Plugins and disable the Normalisation plugin. The downside of this of course is No-Normalisation of your audio tracks. Other than this I do like Brasero - the Audio split tool is really useful.

My work from long ago

2009-05-30T19:49:00.001+01:00

Olokun rising
My exodus from Nigeria to England has resulted in lots of changes in my life - a major shift was my professional shift from painter to web application developer. In truth a lot of that was due to circumstance and I do miss painting. I was really estatic to find the Omooba Shyllon Art foundation website. Omooba Shyllon was a collector of my work and I was really chuffed to see my old work featured in his collection. More that that it was lovely to see my paintings again.

At the beauty salon

Extracting rtmp streams with FLVStreamer

2009-05-27T12:28:00.001+01:00

To use the FLVStreamer tool to extract an RTMP stream you need to know the rtmp address of the target stream. Once you have that change directory to the install directory of the FLVStreamer and write the following commands:

$ ./flvstreamer-1.7_ubuntu_jackalope -r 'rtmp://[IP address or host name]: [port]/river/alpha/sample1.f4v' -o testdump.f4v

It was delightful to see that the utility could also retrieve *.f4v files. I guess this means that any H264 encoded file is extractable
. The same commands work for the rtmpdump tool.

Actionscript 3.0 algorithm for generating combinations from n numbers in a list

2009-05-27T11:28:00.001+01:00

I recently had to create an application that would take a list of words in an xml document and generate a unique combination of each of those words. The spread for the set of combinations was 1 to 4. Thus for a list 1,2,3,4 the generated list had to be:

1
1,2
1,2,3
1,2,3,4
2
2,1
2,1,3
and so on...
It was one of those days when I truly wished I had stuck to my Maths. Anyroad it was back to the grindstone to find a solution for this little pickle. This is the general idea of the solution.
You begin by extraction the data from the XML and having it in an array. Next you nest 4 'for (var i:int = )' loops, for each subsequent loop the initial count parameter is set to a +1 increment of the previous loop initial count. In the first loop you add the first item in the array to the end of the array.

var c:int = 0
for (var i:int = c; i < _list.length-3; i++)
{
_displaylist.push( _list[i] )
var b:int = i +1;

The idea being that as you loop through you set up the array so that
each item in the array has a chance at being the first item in the
loop. Having set up the loop you set up a counter which increments every time the combination algorithm is run till you get to the end of the initial array. This counter sets up a recursion of the algorithm till the end of the intial list is reached. This counter sets the value for 'c'.

This is the conplete combination function:

public function combinate(c:int = 0):void
{

for (var i:int = c; i < _list.length-3; i++)
{
_displaylist.push( _list[i] )
var b:int = i +1;
for (var j:int = b; j < _list.length-2; j++)
{
_displaylist.push(_list[i] +' + '+_list[j] );
var c:int = j +1;
for (var k:int = c; k < _list.length-1; k++)
{
_displaylist.push(_list[i] +' + '+_list[j] +' + '+_list[k] );
var d:int = k +1;
for (var l:int = d; l < _list.length; l++)
{
//trace (_list[i],_list[j],_list[k],_list[l])
_displaylist.push(_list[i] +' + '+_list[j] +' + '+_list[k] +' + '+_list[l]);
}
}
}
}

if (_count < 16)
{
//trace ('count',_count, _list.length)
_list.push(_list[_count])
_count++
combinate(_count)
}else{
var m:int = Math.floor(_displaylist.length/1000);

var mlist:Array = []
for (var n:int = 0; n < m; n++)
{
mlist.push({label: (n * 1000) + ' - ' +( ((n +1)* 1000) -1), data: n * 1000});
}
_droplist = new ArrayCollection(mlist);
drop.dataProvider = _droplist;

//print()
}
}

The prototype of the application can be seen here. Ignore the 'Upload XML' that is for the final version. you will not be able to upload anything. I hope you find it useful.

Rtmpdump causes discomfort for Adobe

2009-05-26T16:42:00.001+01:00

In January "Adobe announced plans to publish the Real-Time Messaging Protocol specification, which is designed for high-performance transmission of audio, video, and data between Adobe Flash Platform technologies. This move that has followed the opening of the AMF spec has been received with varying degrees of enthusiasm from the RIA community." Unfortunately for Adobe this proclaimation has come round to bite them rather painfully in the wotsits.

The problem is a tool called rtmpdump. Adobe has had to issue a DMCA removal request for rtmpdump on Sourceforge. This utility is apparently at the heart of the IPlayer desktop I was praising so fervently a few posts ago - I must confess I have not authenticated that bit of information so it may be completely incorrect - quote me not. Rtmpdump acts by presenting itself to the rtmp streaming server as the client *.swf. As a result it is able to poach rtmp stream data from the server and make it accessible for download. In itself this was not that much of a problem however, rtmpdump it seems can also extract RTMPE protected files. This is the source for Adobe's concern and mine actually (I hate setting up the framework for RTMPS and RTMPE was an easier more accessible fix - obviously no longer).
I have been told by one of this blog's readers lkcl that rtmpdump implements the SWFverification schema. My warmest thanks.

Fabio Sonnati explains it thus:
"rtmpdump acted mainly as a Flash Player emulator as it mimics the rtmp(e) protocol from handshaking to encrypted streaming.
Acting as the specific SWF (thanks to SWFverification hack), Rtmpdump was able to substitute the original SWF, connect to FMS and grab the protected RTMP(E) stream."

It does seem then that Adobe feels that rtmpdump "can be used to download copyrighted works". Apparently certain Channel4 content that was supposedly rtmpe protected has already been poached by the usage of this utility.

Sourceforge has taken down rtmpdump from its site. The furore has exposed a whole gang of rtmp ripping tools. For starters there is a non-rtmpe version now renamed flvstreamer. It will do all that rtmpdump does without the support for rtmpe ripping. Then there is the get_iPlayer tool a utility providing access to the BBC IPlayer content. I do not see how that helps much though as the BBC IPlayer desktop provided the same functionality. So except stolen fruit tastes sweeter there's really no point in that. In addition the source code of rtmpdump v1.6, with the get_iplayer application removed is available here.

DVRCast and FLVPlayback update for FlashCS4 and Flex3 / Flex4

2009-05-23T00:54:00.001+01:00

Adobe has just released an update for the new FLVPlayback component. The component is a more stable offering providing support for Dynamic Streaming (multibitrate) and DVR. Adobe has also released the new DVRCast application that makes it easy to add DVR-enabled live streams to your website using Flash Media Server 3.5. Both tools can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/go/fms_tools/. I will be putting up my experiments with the new FLVPlayback soon.

Multi-user Video chat: Flash Media Server, Papervision3D and MagicMVC

2009-05-21T13:51:00.001+01:00

Over the last few years I have been developing and streamlining an MVC scaffold for use in my projects for MagicLantern. One of the goals of this scaffold was to provide support in the Model so I could immediately use it for Flash Media Server development without going through all the set up motions. It also had to be flexible enough to allow for easy modification by sub-classes of the Model. Highest on the list of goals though was that it had to be accessible to any developer with an understanding of MVC - no trying to learn about plugin interfaces and facades, just setup and use. I think I have arrived there with MagicMVC. It is the scaffold on which this prototype of a multiuser video chat application in Papervision3D is built.

It works nicely so far, the Model can be extended by a subclass to facillitate developer specific classes, but all that is generally needed is for the Wrapper class to send the FMIS URI to the model / subclassed model when the model is instantiated and the rest is up to the developer to do as they please. This prototype is a bit buggy as it is still in development, but it works well. Please use headphones and a microphone and PLEASE make sure you have a camera.

Using the FLVcheck utility to authenticate the validity of your videos

2009-05-20T14:51:00.001+01:00

As a Flash Media Server developer I come across the occasional file that refuses to stream or playback. This usually leads to guess work, a bit of trial and error and then the formulation of various hypothesis as to why the file failed. Sometimes that explanation is not enough for the client or video producer who will swear that their video production tool is top notch and that the developer is the clueless one.
Thanks to Adobe and a nifty little command line utility, that bridge has now been crossed. "The FLVCheck tool can be used to analyze FLV files before they are deployed on Flash Media Server. In addition, the tool can also add or update metadata to reflect file duration correctly. The tool verifies that metadata is readable, specifies an accurate duration, and checks that the FLV file is seekable by Flash Media Server. The tool supports unicode filenames".
(FMIS Admin Guide)

The use case I am describing here is for Linux specifically Ubuntu/Studio 9,04 Jaunty however I believe the same procedure applied to Windows.

Download the tool from HERE

Unpack it to a folder of your choice.

Open Terminal (or command prompt), and change directory to the folder you unpacked the tool. On my computer that was the command:

cd '/media/disk/INTERACtIVE/UTILITIES/FLVChecklinux'

To do a basic check of the video, the following is the format. Please note the command may vary in Windows:

./flvcheck [-option] <file ...>

In my case it was:

./flvcheck -f '/media/disk/MEDIA/VIDEO/Adding_a_Launchpad_PPA_s_key_to_Ubuntu.flv''

This was my feedback:

09-05-20 14:29:25 /media/disk/MEDIA/VIDEO/Adding_a_Launchpad_PPA_s_key_to_Ubuntu.flv passed

Adobe provides a list of FLVCheck errors, please take a look at the documentation to identify your unique error

Flex Builder becomes Flash Builder with Gumbo

2009-05-20T12:12:00.001+01:00

Adobe has decided that with the release of Gumbo (Flex 4) the Flex Builder IDE will bear the new name of Flash Builder. I personally think its a good idea - Its always been a but funny calling myself a Flash developer when I hardly ever open Flash nowadays. It will also clear up all the confusion on the Flex/Flash argument, God knows how tired I get trying to explain to people that Flash and FlexBuilder create the same thing, a SWF. Some folks seem to think that somehow or other a Flex SWF is somehow different or more grown up. Anyroad its a brilliant idea and long overdue.

IPlayer Desktop: The BBC leads the way with AIR

2009-05-19T20:42:00.001+01:00

I remember the first time I was assigned the role of Interactive tech lead on a BBC project. I was gripped with fear - I had heard all the things no developer likes to hear - they were stuck in 19th century development practices - the project would have to be done in Actionscript 2 (I had 3 years of AS3 development at that time) and so on. What a load of rubbish!!! Perhaps I've been lucky to be on projects that are cutting edge but so far I have found the BBC very eager to embrace and deploy new technology, some times when even I as the developer have had my misgivings. They are simply amazing. My jaw dropped with the introduction of the IPlayer - which has left all the competition drowning in their wake. Then they blew me away when one day I went to BBC.co.uk and discovered that the news was on 24 hours live via Flash Media Server (no more use for a teevee in the house). I could listen to the radio and teevee online, simply fabulous. Now they have done it again.
The BBC have now implemented an Adobe Runtime desktop player through which you can now download the videos you wish to watch on thte IPlayer and watch them at your own convenience offline. I'm never offline so I guess in my case I watch them as local videos. It will save them a huge load of cheddar to be sure as they will have no need to pay for the streaming bandwidth used up when episodes are watched repeatedly. Its a masterstroke. Best of all they did make sure there was support for Linux Ubuntu 8.10 being the officialy supported distro. How cool is that. I sincerely hope they continue to go down this route. Long live the BBC!!!

Updating the AIR framework in Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04

2009-05-13T13:37:00.001+01:00

I got these wonderful instructions on updating the Adobe AIR framework for FlexBuilderLinux from Alexis Tejada's blog. They worked for me.

First of all, backup your sdks/3.x.x folder of your flex builder installation.
Download the Adobe Air SDK Framework from here.
Go to the sdks/3.0.0/ folder (in the Flex Builder installation directory).
Delete the “runtimes” folder.
Extract the latest Adobe AIR SDK and copy its contents into sdks/3.0.0/, overwriting existing files.
Go to sdks/3.0.0/bin/ and rename adl and adt as adl_lin and adt_lin (if adl_lin and adt_lin already exist there, remove them).
Go to sdks/3.0.0/runtimes/air/ and create a symlink “Linux”
pointing to the “linux” folder in the same directory, go to your
sdks/3.0.0/runtimes/air/ in the console and type: ln -s linux/ Linux
Create a new air project
Project -> Properties -> Build Path -> Library Path -> remove airglobal.swc from under Flex
Project -> Properties -> Build Path -> Library Path ->
Add SWC -> add airglobal.swc from previous version (found under
framework/libs/air in you sdks/3.x.x backup)
Run

Go and watch the new Star Trek, 'Live long and prosper'!!

Unfortunately there are still problems with this fix and its a hit and miss. We just need to hope Adobe builds the proper support for AIR into the new SDK

Samba sees network computers but, does not share

2009-05-13T09:25:00.001+01:00

I've had a few problems connecting to other Windows computers on my network since I installed Ubuntu / UbuntuStudio 9.04. This solution worked for me.

gksu gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Find the [global] section, and insert this line:

Code:

client lanman auth = yes

You need to reboot after saving the samb.conf

When you log back in use the LAN IP address smb://192.162.x.x to find the computers you want to share files with. Make sure file sharing is enabled.

N.B: This works nicely for Ubuntu < -- > Windows filesharing. Its not that straight forward for Ubuntu < -- > Ubuntu filesharing. In my experience Samba only works properly between Ubuntu machines whan they are the same version (Intrepid to Intrepid or Hardy to Hardy)

dcopserver not running - my fix

2009-05-13T09:18:00.001+01:00

I tried to use KStreamripper in Ubuntu Jaunty and came up with an alert which stated 'dcopserver not running'. I tried a number of Google results none of which worked for me. However looking at all the results it seemed the problem was permissions based so I opened my 'User settings' panel, opened my 'Group Settings', selected my account < username > and ticked the root and username boxes. When I opened Kstreamripper again it was fine. It may be neccessary to reboot but, that worked for me.
Good Luck!

Getting back your Camera3D.hover in Papervision3D

2009-05-07T12:31:00.001+01:00

I love Papervision - no secret about that and my love for Pixels and Pixel3D. One thing I did miss in the newer builds was the Camera3d hover method. Useful as it is I felt the Camera3D orbit did not do the job with much the same finesse as the hover method did. A little refactoring of the existing Camera3D class was all that was neccessary to get back a hover method.
The refactored Camera3D class is HERE

Get Amarok 1.4 back in Ubuntu Jaunty

2009-05-06T17:01:00.001+01:00

The dreadful nature of Amarok 2 in Ubuntu 9.04 pushed me to trying out Exaile. Still there are things that Amarok is peerless at. Its Shoutcast station list is extensive so I started to find a way to get Amarok 1.4 back. I found this blog entry that just does the job, http://nomad.ca/blog/2009/apr/3/amarok-14-jaunty-ubuntu-904/ . If you want Amarok 1.4 back go there.

These are the steps:

Add the PPA to your sources by creating a new file for the Amarok PPA:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/amarok.list

Then in that new file add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/amarok14/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/amarok14/ubuntu jaunty main

Add the key for the PPA:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \
0x1d7e9dd033e89ba781e32a24b9f1c432ae74ae63

Now update your sources, remove Amarok2 and install Amarok1.4:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove amarok
sudo apt-get install amarok14

Enjoy!!

Pixel3d and Flare Transitioners

2009-04-27T00:08:00.001+01:00

My favourite form of expression within the Papervision3D API is the Pixel3D class. I never tire of trying to create different things with it. My latest set of experiments involve the use of the Flare visualization API. The Flare API has been my choice of animation API the last couple of years. Its Transitioner class allows you to set animation behaviours for huge number of elements. In this spike, 1500 Pixel3D particles were animated to a Lorenz attractor algorithm.
To tun the code download the Flare API and add its package to the class path of the sample code . Enjoy!!

Exaile will not play MP3 files with certain characters

2009-04-25T10:07:00.001+01:00

N.B: Exaile Media Player will not play files or files nested in folders with certain characters in their name. In my own case the containing folder had the # character in the folder name. It may be different for you. If you rename the file or folder it should be fine.

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty is released and its all good :)

2009-04-24T22:04:00.001+01:00

Boy did they take their time! I waited till about 3.30 pm on Thursday 23rd and posted a complaint to the Ubuntu forums while I was waiting but, finally I looked in Synaptic and it was there - the new distribution upgrade to Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty. I had given a 64 bit ISO of Jaunty a run a couple of hours earlier and I liked the experience though brief, so I was eager but, the thought of setting up my computer from scratch reminded me of the prudence of waiting a few hours for the upgrade. Anyway with a thumping heart "I bit the bullet" and installed. I kept hearing the voice in my head say "You had the perfect set-up, now you've invited trouble. You'll be sorry you did this. Prepare to reinstall and reformat and.....". 90 minutes later it was all done, the alert came up asking for a restart, I obeyed and, all was fine.

I'm very pleased with Jaunty, its much faster than Intrepid and God knows Intrepid was fast. The boot up times are quicker too. The fontmatrix has been vastly improved resulting in sharper looking fonts. The quality of the sound also seems to have been improved and the system sounds all work with no complaint at all. Listening to music seems a completely different experience. Eclipse/FlexBuilder woukd merrily as before. I had no reason to touch my Flash Media Server installation - it worked perfectly. Ok that was the good part. The screensaver engine has been improved - it seems to use so much less of the system memory. Screensavers which I never used because of their high memory consumption, rocket away at very low CPU load and display their graphics fast with no stuttering at all. Its difficult to believe its the same hardware.

There were a couple of irritations though - first I could not get Compiz to work - googling, I discovered that somehow or other my Dell graphics card had made it to the Compiz - blacklist and I had to look to the Ubuntu Forums to fix it. Fortunately it was not big deal to fix and I soon had that running as before. Next was the new Amarok 2. I had really looked forward to it but, in using it I felt very short changed. The Ubuntu offering is a horribly stripped down version - apparently its much better in KDE (I would not know, I hardly go there). You cannnot customize the colours, you cannot set the audio drivers to your choice version (ALSA being mine).No equalizer. It kept defaulting to Pulse and sometimes hijacking my system sound, and ab-initio it would not play MP3's and was stuttering the Shoutcast streams. Frightful!! Apparently you have to install phonon xine and check that the kubuntu restricted extras were installed. Having done that all seemed well.

sudo aptitude install libxine1-ffmpeg kubuntu-restricted-extras phonon-backend-xine

However I was not happy with Amarok 2 and started to search for a way to get back my ole Amarok 1.4. A number of ways were suggested none of which worked for me and then in all that trawing the name Exaile popped up at me. I installed it and Ama-who?? This is the player for me and it really looks good - still needs extra customization tools but, its brilliant. I cannot still get my Bluetooth to work but thats another story as I could not get it to work in Intrepid either. Still all in all the best offering yet from Ubuntu/Canonical - WELL DONE!!! Try Jaunty it ROCKS

Flash Media Server Quirks: What works, what doesn't and work arounds

2009-03-16T11:44:00.001Z

In spite of years of Flash Media Server development, there are still quirks of the system that cause a great deal of head-scratching. Primarily for my own benefit, I have decided to list the oddities of FMIS development, what works, what doesn't and workarounds if they exist. If you have come across any yourself feel free to send them in so the list can be updated.

Streaming: What works

To get the end of a streamed file when using the VideoDisplay control(Flex) or the FLVPlayback component (Flash) use the VideoEvent.COMPLETE. vid.addEventListener(VideoEvent.COMPLETE, videoEventHandler)

Server Administrator

AllowDebug: Setting the < allowDebug > in your Application.xml or in your main/< application name >.asc, does not guarantee your ability to view Shared Object data in the admin panel. It is very temperamental and more prone to refuse view than allow. Debugging streams works a lot better.

Wisdom, Knowledge and a Tomato

2009-03-03T15:56:00.001Z

'Knowledge is knowing a Tomato is a fruit,
Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.'

some wise Rugby player

Flash Media Server VOD example and Flash Player security

2009-03-03T15:09:00.001Z

Every so often there are problems with video playback from the VOD example player after setting up Flash Media Server. It seems the Flash player security settings do not provide the correct access permissions to enable playback by default. All that is required to correct this is to set the Player securities Settings manager to allow playback from the host folder. Thats it.

FlexBean and NetBeans 6.5 - another way to develop

2009-01-21T18:58:00.000Z

Searching for tools on the internet always has an interesting way of throwing up a whole gang of new interesting tools and never used before utilities. I was on the lookout for a UML tool and arrived at a Wikipedia page that listed a whole gang of UML tools. Having poked around a bit I found the java IDE NetBeans on the list. 'Weeel,'I said to myself, 'NetBeans as a UML tool is interesting. Anyroad you cannot go too wrong with Sun'. My experience with Sun systems (especially with a Linux rig)have been very pleasant so I went ahead, installed NetBeans and also installed the UML plugin (simply called UML in the plugin list). I'm very happy with the tool's output so far. It gives quite reasonable satisfaction. So that went well.
I was however quite taken by the interface and layout of NetBeans that I immediately wondered ' if this would work with the Flex SDK?'. A little more time wasting online and there it was, FlexBeans, a NetBeans plugin for Flex development. I set it up and quickly created a test project. It felt quite nice. Compiling felt good too, it has more of a FlashDevelop feel to it than Eclipse/FlexBuilder. However, it is in no way as sophisticated as FlexBuilder or Flashdevelop in its project development options. For the moment it only seems to offer the ability to develop a Flex application or a Flex compoment. NO pure actionscript project which is a shame. I hope that such an option will be added soon. It also does not seem to have an html or standalone preview option- except I missed something. Still I must confess I like the feel of it and now feel I have another option for MXML/Actionscript development in Ubuntu. Try it for yourself, you might like it.

A unique London Underground experience: Tribute to a very brave woman

2009-01-16T11:06:00.000Z

I had this rather unpleasant experience a little over a year ago. Why I never blogged about it till now is a good question. Nonetheless I am doing it now to pay tribute and salute a very brave woman, who came to my rescue on the train.

It began at Faringdon station unroute to Kings Cross station or maybe from Kings Cross to Camden, my memory is a bit foggy now. I was one of a number of people trying to get unto the train from the platform. As I entered the train I was suddenly made aware of the fact that someone was shouting at me. I turned round to stare into the face of a small tattooed fellow who was shouting all kinds of racist expletives at me and accusing me of pushing him. I was so aghast that I actually looked behind me to see if I was the object of his attentions. He was obviously not very pleased with me and was loosening his clothing in a threatening manner in preparation for a fight. In my mind I thought "Jeez, not again, I'm going to have to fight now".

All of a sudden, a quiet voice cut through the air and firmly declared "Stop that, you've had too much to drink, He did not push you, just sit down". It was a large elderly Caucasian lady (probably English) about 50ish in dark clothes. She pushed me along and I shuffled along dazed and stood at the other end of the train watching the fellow who had now taken a seat and was mumbling and continuing to insult me. The carriage was silent and as usual when there is trouble in a London train all the news papers went up. The old see no evil, hear no evil business. The insults continued, till the woman had heard enough and she told him to shut up. The fellow then quipped "Why are you standing up for that Wop?". The event that followed shocked be beyond belief. The lady (bless her brave soul), put her book on her seat, stood up, walked to the fellow, waggled her finger at him and gave him a resounding slap with her left hand. I have never been so stunned in my life. She then calmly walked back to her seat and continues reading. The fellow looked as stunned as I was and just rubbed his face mumbling "You hit me..", to which she replied, "If you do not stop I will again.." and calmly continued reading. I got off at the next station after mumbling my thanks to this angel of mercy.

The moral of this story is that there are good people and bad people, cowardly and brave irrespective of race or creed. I salute that angel, she saved me that day. God bless her, and may people stand up for her as she did for a complete African stranger

RTMFP:Developing peer to peer applications with Flash Media Interactive Server

2009-01-14T20:59:00.000Z

Adobe always manages to excite me with the introduction of new features into the Flash Media Interactive Server. I must confess though that none has excited me in recent times as much as the introduction of the peer to peer protocol RTMFP which has now has public viewing in the Adobe Stratus Cloud server. True RTMP has managed to carry us this far but, the inherent problems of a TPD hub server to distribute content was becoming all too obvious to see. In truth the client to server to client model was just no longer efficient enough to cope with the expectation of a user base that now expects all video to be desktop application quality. True a myriad of deployment techniques and the geo-location of server clusters helped to solve this problem somewhat but, at a price too costly for the average user. Problem now solved with the real Time Messaging Flow Protocol, a UDP protocol that allows Flash Player 10 to communicate client to client. Security is maintained by the server which acts a a mediator to authenticate and exchange data keys between consenting users. The result is startling. A video chat application I built with a camera encoded value of 960 x 720 x 10 streamed with virtually no lag in motion or audio. My test partner was my long time friendand tag team partner Prof Bill Sanders and we talked for at least 90 minutes with no change in quality whatsoever. The screen shot above was at full screen.

Development techniques are however not the same as defacto FMIS development as you have access to only the main classes Stream/NetStream, Application and Client (I may have missed some out). Notably you do not have access to Remote Shared Object interaction (for the moment). This makes for some interesting jiggery-pokery to distribute data to multi-users. In this, I have found the Application.broadcastMsg,NetStream.send methods as well as data binding techniques invaluable. Without a shadow of a doubt other creative ways of routing the data will show up as people get more comfortable. In addition you have the same old echo problems so a headset is still absolutely necessary. You also cannot access the raw data of the streams audio and video (for the time being, I hope). Visit http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Stratus for more information. You can procure a Developer key there and start to try out the protocol for yourself

I will put up the code for this video chat application once I've cleaned up the mess I created in developing it as well as a demo application you can try out.

SWF metadata tags

2009-01-13T17:00:00.000Z

This is really a reminder for myself, I always drive my self crazy going through the documentation trying to find the wretched things.

[SWF width="#"
height="#"
widthPercent="#"
heightPercent="#"
scriptRecursionLimit="#"
scriptTimeLimit="#"
frameRate="#"
backgroundColor="#"
pageTitle=""]

My thanks to Stephen Gilson from the Flex Documentation Team. Other MetaData tags can be found in the Flex doxumentation

Programming to an interface with the Event class

2008-12-05T19:18:00.000Z

One of the principles of Object Oriented Programming and Design Pattern Architecture is the idea of programming to interfaces rather than concrete implementations. The word interface here does not necessarily imply the interface programming structure rather, the idea of programming to a super class or to an interface. The idea is simple - if class A is the super class of class B, class C and class D, then a variable a:A can contain A, B, C or D.

var a:A = new A;
a = new B();
a = new C();
a = new D();

This is actually in its very basic form, the main scaffolding of a Finite State Engine.

Recently I had to deal with creating accessible structures for an application. I was faced with the option of creating separate listener methods for MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, and FocusEvent.FOCUS_IN in spite of the fact that they did the same thing. The solution was to 'Program to an interface'. In this case, the Event class is the interface or superclass of all the events. Therefore rather than have the listener method parameter datatyped to the concrete type, it was datatyped to the super class. The result is that you can set all the subscriber objects to listen to the same listener method.

a.addEventListener(FocusEvent.FOCUS_IN, interfaceHandler);
a.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, interfaceHandler);

public function interfaceHandler(e:Event):void{
Dowhatneedstobedone();
}

Bugbears, the Finite State Engine and MagicMVC

2008-12-02T14:24:00.000Z

Bugbears is finally live. The application developed for CBBC provides children with a platform to air their views on a number of topics anonymously. They are provided a voice recording studio where they can select a creature to which their recorded voices would provide the voice track. An animated creature is then created and posted to the site. Visitors to the site can play back these 'bugbears' and tag then with 'hugs', 'respect' or 'feel the same'. A few more features on the site provide the visitor with the ability to leave advice or feedback on the various subjects.

This CBBC project has taken half of the year in development and required nay demanded my complete attention over the time. For the most part it as been 1 long 6month week with lots of 48 hour development sessions generously sprinkled with lots of hair pulling and head scratching and very hairy moments. Lots of lessons have been learned during the process from development and project management perspectives. All I can say is that I now know what it must be like to be a shirt in a washing machine in a hot wash. Nonetheless it has been a wonderful experience and seeing the project develop from use-case diagrams to release version has made all the work well worth it. My colleague and co developer Valentyne Derkach has been a boon and a dream to work with and I often wonder what it would have been with out him on board. Valentyne you rock!!

On a personal note this project allowed me to test the efficacy of MagicMVC (an mvc based scaffolding I developed for Magic Lantern Productions) and explore the possibilities offered by a Finite State Engine and the State design pattern. Indeed the Bugbears application is a Finite State engine managing a number of states (views) which are pulled in at the users request. It provided scaleability and robustness to the application and allowed us to deal comfortable with team development and the constant stream of changes to the application spec which inevitably come as the application was being developed. The use of an interface for state change rather than the use of concrete classes provided the flexibility to manage the intricate retrieval and removal of various classes required to make the system work.

Magic MVC provided the scafolding for tthe large views and because it provides a Flash Media Server hook in its model it allowed us manage NetConnections and Nestreams very comfortably. There is still a lot to be learned and as we put the in finishing touches, Val and I muse over how much better the site could have been if we had done things differently, if we had more time, if we planned better. I guess this is a good thing as it shows we are still developing and are searching to improve. We hope to release MagicMVC in the near future, as we have both found it very useful.

[Head]conference day 2: 18.27 UK time

2008-10-25T18:26:00.000+01:00

the [Head] conference starts

2008-10-24T16:34:00.000+01:00

the [Head] conference starts

After months of planning, the [Head] conference kicked off today. The opening sessions were at the London Hub and the location, the beautiful quirky location of the Magic Circle in Central London. Internet guru Jeremy Kieth kicked of the proceedings. Gavin Bell was next - well he's actually answering questions at the moment. There are lessons to be learnt about hosting a conference of this size online and more importantly delivering content to hundreds of people online. To add spice to the conference the London hub was streamed life to 2nd Life. That was really lovely to see. I was told my avatar was running about the place fortunately I did not see it. Strangely enough the problems are eerily like those with video conference, lighting - sound (especially distance of mic from mouth). Learning to manage all this has had to happen in situ, still is a great experience and I hope participants have a wonderful experience. Aral Balkan has my love and respect for thinking up this bijou. All participants I hope you have a wonderful experience, Happy Head Hunting :)!! 2 days to go

Using alpha channel fade effects on non-embedded fonts in Flash

2008-09-18T09:07:00.000+01:00

The generally accepted procedure to implement an alpha channel effect on a Flash text is to embed the text manually or at run-time, to convert the text to a vector, before applying any alpha effects to it. Most Actionscript developers have had to contend fade effects working on their MovieClips while the embedded text fields say 'fie!!' to the effect if they are not embedded fonts.

Well no longer. A good friend of mine James Hunt, passed me this gem of knowledge. The theory is simple. Apply a filter to the text field and then apply your alpha to the container movie clip and 'Voila' the unembedded text fades. You can use most filters, James used the colorMatrix filer I used the Glow filter. Its marvellous.

To test this you need to import these

import flash.display.*;
import flash.events.*;
import flash.filters.*;
import flash.text.*;

Set up the methods to create the text field, the filer and a drawrect method to create the graphic.

public function build(o:Object=null):void
{
// Btn
_alert = drawrect(new Sprite(),300, 200, 15, 0xffffff);
_alert.name = 'loginalert'
addChild(_alert)
_alert.x = 10;
_alert.y = 7;
_alert.buttonMode = true;

_alert.useHandCursor = true;
var tf:TextField = new TextField();
var filter:GlowFilter = getGlowFilter();
var myFilters:Array = [filter];
tf.filters = myFilters;
tf.height = 60;
tf.width = 300;
tf.y = 50
tf.multiline = true;
tf.wordWrap = true;
tf.selectable = false;
tf.text = "Hello, please click here";

var format1:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
format1.color = 0xFF0000;
format1.font = "Verdana";
format1.align = 'center'
format1.size = 18;
tf.setTextFormat(format1);
_alert.addChild(tf);
}

private function getGlowFilter():GlowFilter {
var color:Number = 0xFFCC00;
var alpha:Number = 0.8;
var blurX:Number = 8;
var blurY:Number = 8;
var strength:Number = 2;
var inner:Boolean = false;
var knockout:Boolean = false;
var quality:Number = BitmapFilterQuality.HIGH;
return new GlowFilter(color,
alpha,
blurX,
blurY,
strength,
quality,
inner,
knockout);
}

public function drawrect(sprite:Sprite, w:int, h:int, r:int, c:Number = 0x44b5cdf8):Sprite
{
var child:Shape = new Shape();
child.graphics.beginFill(c);
child.graphics.lineStyle(1, c + 1000);
child.graphics.drawRoundRect(0, 0, w, h, r);
child.graphics.endFill();
sprite.addChild(child);
return sprite;
}

Then you can apply your alpha to the graphic _alert. You can just assign a value to the alpha property e.g.

_alert.alpha = 0.5

or you can animate it with Tweener, Kitchensync or Flare. Thats it.

Uninstalling Dropbox from Ubuntu

2008-09-17T15:29:00.000+01:00

This is what is needed to remove Nautilus Dropbox from Ubuntu.

sudo apt-get remove nautilus-dropbox
rm -rf ~/.dropbox
rm -rf ~/.dropbox-dist

PulseAudio patch for Flash in Ubuntu-Studio prevent live Flash Media Interactive Server NetStreams

2008-09-13T23:43:00.000+01:00

Ubuntu and Ubuntu- Studio have the PulseAudio server as the default sound server. The Ubuntu Wiki documentation states

"There may be problems with getting sound from Adobe Flash v. 9 and earlier, Wine and Skype when these applications use the ALSA protocol. The sound is supposed to go through the "pulse" plugin in ALSA, that passes it to PulseAudio, where it get mixed with all other sound, and passed on to a audio interface.
The problems seems to be related to the pulse plugin in ALSA, and the special ways these apps uses ALSA.
Currently there are three patches for "pulse" that probably can solve the problems with Wine combined with ALSA/pulse."

As usual in "itchy finger" mode I could not resist trying out the PulseAudio patch for Flash Player 9+ in the hope that somehow this enhanced sound server would improve the Flash Player sound-scape. I went to Synaptic and installed the libraries to assist Flash Player 9 deploy PulseAudio. Everything seemed to go as sweet as a nut until, I tried to video conference via the myForum2 video conferencing system. I could get no audio from my chat partner irrespective of what we both did to reconfigure sound. Oh she could hear me with no problems at all but I could not hear her at all. I tried out various Flash Media Interactive Server applications I had build with FMS streaming and they worked though, they were all playing back recorded streams. I also tried to chat via Skype and I got errors stating that I had problems with my sound card which, was frankly rubbish. As a last resort I went back to Synaptic and uninstalled the PulseAudio libraries for Flash and yes not I can hear live streams from the Flash Player again. This one is a bit strange though because, I could playback the BBC live news coverage thats is streamed live from Akamai via RTMP - or perhaps its not as live as it should be. I guess that's a discussion for another day. For the moment what is important is the fact that the Flash Player deploys the ALSA algoritthm for sound and the PulseAudio patches for the moment create a new set of problems. My recomendation for the moment 'Do not patch'. The problems I found were in areas I usually work in, who knows what complications you may introduce to your system by patching.

Integrated Camera's do not work with Flash Player on Ubuntu Studio

2008-09-07T11:38:00.000+01:00

I run Ubuntu Studio on a Dell Inspiron 1720. The experience is simply amazing, nuff said! The one flaw peeped through when trying to get the camera feed in Flash Player 9,0 xxxx in Firefox - I went through all the motions - installing and deploying EasyCam2, deploying XawTV nothing worked. Flash player detected the integrated web cam but, it would not capture the visual data. I hooked up an external web cam to the laptop and it worked properly.

As a control I installed Opera and ran Flash player 10 on it - lo and behold it worked - not well I must add - the picture freezes and it just does not seem to have the algorithm quite right but, it does work in Player 10.

The message here for Ubuntu / Linux users who may be scratching their heads wondering why the integrated camera on their lap top does not capture data in Flash in spite of being detected - its not you or you wonderful Ubuntu OS, its Flash player 9, use an external web cam.

X-Rocker the best £50 I've spent in a looooong while

2008-07-11T13:33:00.000+01:00

I love to sit on the carpet and work with my laptop. A joy thats has increased 10fold since I moved over to Ubuntu. It is however an uncomfortable experience to which, I have long sought to solve. Aching back and neck seemed to be the only result of a long session of pottering around with my laptop. The solution is now here, the X-Rocker. I went into PC world hoping to find a Type A to Type A usb cable. I did not find one, irritated I wandered round the shop wondering how to solve my laptop heating problems when a curved leather seat caught my eye. I went over to check it out. It was an X-Rocker gaming chair. It immediately struck be that this might be the solution to my sitting-on-the-floor problems. I tried it out it felt even better. I looked at the price and hated it (the price) immediately. However I thought if PC world sold it at that price there it was bound to be cheaper online. Once I got home online I went and sure enough Argos was selling a discounted one for £54. I Immediately reserved it on line and went to pick it up.

Thank God I drove the X-Rocker box was huge and heavy, it was no joke lugging the damn box to my car. There was a stupid little girl and her mother who did not want to move out of my way as I approached them, sweating and struggling with my package. One 'Gangway coming through' and I swear if they had not moved I would not have been responsible for my actions. Idiots. Having goten over that unpleasantness I got home, unpacked and set up the contraption and proceeded to sit in it and work for 5 hours straight with no discomfort whatever. Best of all it has a wicked subwoofer and speakers each placed beside my head, os I jacked in from my laptop and proceeded to listed to Groove Salad in all its glory. I'm no gamer - I think I'm one of the only people to get a negative score at Halo - but this is one of the best thing to ever come out of the gaming support industry. To the originator of this marvelous idea, I doff my cap.

Papervision3D: GreatWhite swallows Effects - Creating a BitmapEffectLayer

2008-07-05T20:32:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I updated my Papervision3D SVN package and to my shock and dismay the Effects branch disappeared. I was so shocked that I went to bed and refused to take a look at the implications of the merge until this morning. No doubt a lot of improvement has gone into the new build but the loss of the Pixel and Pixel3d classes have hurt me a great deal. With out a shadow of a doubt they have been my favourite of all the Papervision classes and in truth on account of those classes I really wish the branches were never merged or totally merged. I personally have never used the Great White branch and there was so much stuff in the Effects branch that so much will be missed except there is a total integration. I'm still hoping that this will be the case.

Having said that and gotten over my initial shock there is a lot to be said for GreatWhite +. Most of the basic Papervision procedures remain the same but, the first change of note I discovered was with effect rendering. The BitmapEffectsLayer is now a subclass of the ViewportLayer which in turn replaces the RenderLayer.

Previous:
//CREATE THE BITMAP EFFECT LAYER PREVIOUSLY (FX BRANCH)
_bfx = new BitmapEffectLayer(800, 600, true, 0, BitmapClearMode.CLEAR_POST, true, false);
_bfx.addEffect(new BitmapLayerEffect(new BlurFilter(2, 2, 2), false));

_vport.addRenderLayer(_bfx);

Now:
//CREATE THE BITMAP EFFECT LAYER NOW
_bfxl = new BitmapEffectLayer(_vp, 500, 500);
_bfxl.addDisplayObject3D(_scene.getChildByName('part'));
_bfxl.addEffect(new BitmapLayerEffect(new BlurFilter(2, 2, 8)));

_vp.containerSprite.addLayer(_bfxl);

This gives a certain amount of granularity to the use of your various effect as you can add and remove from the BitmapEvectLayer display stack at will.

NaturalDocs: Documenting ActionScript in Linux and Windows

2008-07-04T21:26:00.000+01:00

In my view when it comes to documenting Actionscript, nothing comes close to NaturalDocs. Its a point and shoot procedure and words cannot express the admiration I have for the work Greg Valure has done on this amazing tool. I've tried a few other documentation tools and this one comes tops all the time. The most impressive feature of this documentation tool is the way it sets up the sub and super classes of the target class so you can trace its hierachy should you need to do so. The downside is that it is a command line tool by default and having being brought up on Windows I have never been one to enjoy command line tools. This malady is cured by the tool that a dear friend Richard Leggett had written for poor souls like myself in mind - NaturalGUI. I have not been able to work it in Ubuntu but for Windows its brilliant. Still, the NaturalDocs command line is extremely easy to deploy so I have not felt the pinch.

You can find enough documentation on formating and syntax and all that in the very well documented NaturalDocs help. What in my view was lacking was a how to get started. I hope this little bijou I'm offering here will fill that gap.

Linux: The distro I use is Ubuntu 8.04 so its the process of starting NaturalDOcs in this distro I will be using to explain the Linux procedure. I'm a new emigree to Ubuntu so, for hardened users if I make descriptive errors I beg pardon.

Download the NauralDocs zip archive and unzip to a folder you create called NaturalDocs in the /home/[user name] folder.
Open your terminal and change directory (cd) to /home/[user name]/NaturalDocs
chmod +x NaturalDocs (this is crucial, Ubuntu does not give write permissions by default so if you do not do this it will not work).
Now point NaturalDocs at the folder you want to document. -i means input folder, -o means output, -p means project folder.

ayo@cyclone:~$ ./NaturalDocs -i /media/disk/Mortar/aYo/ -o HTML /media/disk/Mortar/aYo/docs -p /media/disk/Mortar/MLP/aYo/docs

Voila, your documentation appears.

Windows: Windows follows the exact same procedure but, there is an added step in theinitial set up - PERL. You need to install PERL on your computer as NaturalDocs is a Perl script. You also do not need to chmod NaturalDocs in Windows. In the Windows environment, Richard Leggett's GUI comes into play beautifully. Unzip it into the NaturalDocs folder, run it, place the folder paths in the form fields and click the 'Generate' button. That's it, documentation created.

Inspite of all the horror stories, 'The NHS', not bad at all

2008-07-01T13:47:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I was hospitalized with a rather unpleasant facial injury. The deluge of negative news about the state of the NHS has been so inundating that in truth I was almost tempted to suffer in silence rather than go to hospital. I had no choice though the injury was too severe to 'stick my head of the sand' and hope it went away, so off to hospital I went. Off first to A&E at the Royal Free Hospital. I had to wait for 3 hours but, this was inevitable due to the number of other accident victims. When I finally did get seen the Doctors were pleasant, conversational and generally nice peaple. It was also helpful that my doctor was pretty. Having done the X-rays I was refered to the University College London Hoapital where I was admitted. I had surgery 2 days later and well that was that. Here too the people were very very nice. Professional, pleasant and caring in their own different ways. I like d my Doctors and the staff on the ward. The only downside was the fact that I could not get a wireless connection for my computer and what was on offer was well HHHHMMMMMNNN!!!.

All in all I doff my cap to all those in the NHS who have made it what it is. They are doing a sterling job and from my personal experience they should be commended. I however do not think they should pay the doctors any more though - their pay is cool now :). Well Done NHS people, very well done.

Google now indexes Flash content

2008-07-01T13:46:00.000+01:00

Finally finally, its not implemented yet but it seem that *.swf content will now be indexable by Google and Yahoo. These 2 blog entries give the Full Monty

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080701-google-yahoo-spiders-can-now-crawl-through-flash-sites.html

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/improved-flash-indexing.html

SVN: We may not have Tortoise but, we've got Rapid

2008-06-28T09:11:00.000+01:00

I have found SVN indispensable to my development processes. Many a day has it been a boon to just roll back to the last working copy rather than spend 'tear-jerking, head-scratching' hours trying to debug an application. I was also brought up on Windows - so inspite of my crossover to Ubuntu the command like is not my first port of call if I can help it. You can imagine my trepidation then when first I discovered that TortoiseSVN for Linux did not exist - OMG I thought I'm doomed. It seemed that for a long time I could not find any possible replacement of a GUI type - every thing seemed to be command line. A most ghastly experience I assure you. There was of cource subclipse which installed into Eclipse but not every thing I want to access from a repository needed to be set up as a project so that was not really the solution though I must confess it provided temporary reprieve. Then, I came across a site which mentioned RapidSVN as an alternative to Tortoise on Linux. To make matters more interesting it was available for me to install in the Synaptic - I proceeded to install RapidSVN at a speed that would have made Usain Bolt positively pedestrian.

I have not been disappointed at all, in fact I've been pleasantly surprised. It does not carry all the gewgaws that Tortoise does but, it is far more straight forward and I particularly like the way it keeps a reference of the project working copy you have created as a bookmark. It also allows you to add existing working copies to its bookmark list.Thus you can see all your SVN projects at once and decide what or whatnot to commit or update. Its a really cool piece of kit which I wish was also available for Windows. I recommend it- its very good

Streaming AAC/MP3 files with Flash Media Server 3

2008-06-27T10:28:00.000+01:00

I'm pleased to put up this link to an article of mine on the Adobe Developer Center. If you are interested in creating an audio playlist with Flash Media Interactive Server 3 then this is a resource you can use.Streaming AAC/MP3 files with Flash Media Server 3. I will be putting an associated article on converting the playlist to a Papervision 3D modeled version

Euro 2008 Quotes

2008-06-07T18:58:00.000+01:00

"Frings can only get better for the Germans"
Gary Lineker, 25th June 2008.

"Here was one for Yakin but, he was found lacking".
Gary Lineker, 7th June 2008.

Very well said.

Installing Flash Media Interactive Server 3+ on Ubuntu 8++

2008-06-05T06:16:00.000+01:00

Linux distributions are released at a much shorter intervals than any other operating system. The fallout is thus the fact that it becomes difficult for software to confirm support for definitive distros. This is the case when you try to install Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server on the new Ubuntu Hardy Heron. A regular install will initially fail. What you will get is a Terminal warning telling you that the Hardy Heron distribution is not supported. Jake Hilton very kindly guided me through the process. First get the Ubuntu patch written by Markus Bertheau

sudo apt-get install libnspr4-dev

Next download the FMIS installation files and extract them to a folder of your choice. Change directory (cd) to that folder and

sudo ./installFMS -platformWarnOnly

If you continue installation from that point, it will succeed but, the service/daemon will fail to start - as there seems to be no feature to help FMIS set up its own user group. Continue the installation in the following manner:

wget http://www.bluetwanger.de/~mbertheau/flash-media-server-3-ubuntu.patch

patch -p1

Thats it. Well not quite, Flash Media Server 3.5 and later also come with an embedded Apache 2.2 server. On Ubuntu you wish to install the FMIS Apache server there are a few extra steps that need be followed. Jake Hilton walked me through fixing apache on my FMIS install. He has updated his blog with the information required to do this. The steps to be followed are HERE

Indy's back and he rocks!!

2008-05-26T11:20:00.000+01:00

I was a bit worried when I read some of the Indiana Jones reviews. I have to say I felt a lot more comfortable after visiting RottenTomatoes.com, they seemed to like it. Well shame on anyone who did not like it, I did 'so there!!' Its a classic Indiana Jones joint, villians, strange temples and weird going ons, nothing more or less. It was also nice to see the possible next Jones in Shia LaBeouf. I think as usual he did his part great credit - never too much or too little just right. Go watch it and judge for yourself.

Sharing files between a VirtualBox WinXP and the Ubuntu 8 host

2008-05-21T23:05:00.000+01:00

Its been an Odyssey moving from Windows to Linux, each day a new lesson, a new surprise and a new feature added to my laptop. Well I had successfully installed VirtualBox achieved a successful virtualization, installed Windows XP successfully, all was well. As usual though you always want more, I mean, it really makes no sense if the virtual machine cannot share files with the host machine or networked machines. Thus next task was to try to share the files - a daunting task. I went with what I knew and added the virtual machine to the network. That worked but, while I could see the virtual machine on the network I could not get into the shared folder. Oh Gosh I thought another hurdle. I tried to share the Ubuntu folders but, I kept getting alerts saying I needed permissions. These steps sorted the problem.

I created a new network from the virtual server to the default network on Ubuntu called WORKGROUP. Having done that I started to see the virtual machine on the host and vice versa.
Next I set up a file share on the folders I wanted to share on my Linux box and all was well.

And all was well.... amazing. Now I have a complete machine. Ubuntu rocks!!

Manchester United are Champions of Europe again

2008-05-21T23:02:00.000+01:00

Long Live Sir Alex Ferguson!!!
Nuff Said. :D

Virtualbox: Open source virtualization with OOmmph!!

2008-05-18T22:15:00.000+01:00

The wonders of Ubuntu and its open-source components never cease to amaze me. Once again I've had my mind blown. This time its Virtualbox - a virtualization utility to match the well known consumer versions - VMWare and Parallels to name but, two. I decided yesterday that the aggravation of installing Mono and trying to get software like Flashdevelop and such other Actionscript development tools was too much for me. The solution - run Windows XP as a parallel OS in a virtual machine on Ubuntu. The question was which virtualization package would be ideal for moi. I tried the demo version of VMWare and immediaely ran into trouble. Errors here, there and everywhere. Nah, not for me I said. As someone said '' Google is your friend', so I googled and up came VirtualBox. I must confess I was vastly suspicious until I tried to download it and was redirected to the Sun downloads portal. If Sun was supporting this little bijou, it cannot be half bad, I thought. SO onwards.
VirtualBox comes as a Debian package so downloading and installing it was smooth. Next I set up a new Virtual desktop. I initially ran into some problems with running the virtual machine but, the moment I assigned my user account as a member of the vboxusers group all was fine. I did this with this command in Terminal

sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers ayo

You need to restart the virtual machine though for the settings to take effect. After this it was smooth sailing. I installed Windows XP Home and now I can run all my Windows software on my virtual machine in 'seamless mode'. Its bloody brilliant. I've installed .Net without issues, I'm really looking to running FlashDevelop and the Flex SDK here - see how it compares with the Linux FlexBuilder in performance. You should see the Flash 10 player run here, just amazing, its the fastest I've ever seen Windows run. Believe it or not WinXP runs faster in my vritual machine, than it does on my other laptop where it is the prime OS. Now I can start to work in earnest. On the downside, now I need to start installing antivirus software and all that crap... :(

Configuring Red5 server for manual start in Linux

2008-05-14T07:32:00.000+01:00

The Red5 streaming server installation on Linux is configured by default as a start-up service. This may be fine when you are running Red5 as a production server but, definitely not adequate for a development machine, where you may be deploying more than one open socket server (as I do). In such an environment you need to be able to start the server of your choice manually - when you need it. The method outlined below will reconfigure your Red5 server for manual boot. The Red5 service discussed runs on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

First you need to navigate to the init.d folder
cd /etc/init.d

Stop the Red5 service
sudo ./red5 stop

Remove all the default auto-config settings
sudo update-rc.d -f red5 remove

Finish up by specifying the new config settings (stop always)
sudo update-rc.d -f red5 stop 20 2 3 4 5 .

An untried (untried by me) alternative suggested kindly by Mikko Rantalainen is

"As an alternative, one could specify new config in the second step, for
example:

# start with sequence number 80 at run levels 2, 3, 4 and 5
# stop with sequence number 20 at run levels S, 0, 1 and 6
sudo update-rc.d red5 start 80 2 3 4 5 . stop 20 S 0 1 6 .

I'm not sure about the official run levels for latest debian or ubuntu but, historically runlevel 2 is supposed to be without network connection - so red5 should probably run only at run levels 3, 4 and 5. However, at least default install of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS seems to run at runlevel 2 with active network connection."

My thanks to R.G Manuel and Mikko Rantalainen without whom I would still probably be scratching my head on this one.

Exploring other OS options: Ubuntu is Boss!!

2008-05-09T18:26:00.001+01:00

Yes I'll be the first to admit it, I have caught the Linux bug and a really bad (or maybe good) dose of it. I had previously dipped my toe into Ubuntu - having being harassed by my brother who swears by the OS. My initial incursions were not the very pleasant for 2 main reasons, (1) I ran it from a virtual machine on Windows Media Center, where it felt like I was working on a remote machine via VNC with very low bandwidth, (2) I wanted, nay, expected Ubuntu to be a Linux Windows and got fed up at being clueless at every turn.
Over the last few weeks I have turned to Linux as my choice of operating system for a whole variety of reasons and have been very pleased with my initial choice Linux Mint Daryna. I had installed Linux MInt at work as a dual boot with Windows but a family of gremlins waylayed me en route to deploying dual monitors, as a result LM refused to boot but,in 'Failsafe'. Not much use there.
Grudgingly I took a pals advice and installed Ubuntu 8.04. Boy am I glad I took that advice. The first thing that brought a smile to my face was the blinding speed of response to everthing, Compiz 3D cubes and all. McLaren may want to talk to the Ubuntu boys about injecting some more speed into their cars. In addition all the basic software scafolding was in place, Firefox et al. Ubuntu is an operating system on steroids - believe me when I say that if I can get all the soft ware I need for Actionscript development and graphics on Ubuntu, its bye Windows.
I'm no fan of their default graphics though, its just soooo Sahara desert. Enter another good friend of mine Andy Gallagher. There's an ole Nigerian proverb, "Know your way no be curse", believe me when I say Andy did know his way. He showed me a dozen ways to customise Ubuntu - in short he made my day. The screenshot above is the result of a few hours of adjusting Ubuntu. Transparent tool bars, weather widgets, nice subtle metallic appliation frames, just wonderful.
What can I say Ubuntu Rocks!!!

Stopping, Starting and Restarting Red5 in Linux

2008-05-05T21:02:00.000+01:00

Every so often an adage becomes part of your experience. The one for the day was "a friend in need is a friend indeed". I was truly a friend in need and I had a friend indeed in a guy who strangely enough I have never met in person but, I can count amongst one of my closest pals. Greg Whitehead (thats his name) and I met while I was developing the myForum2 online office/conferencing system (Flash Media Server application). He is the PHP guru who I collaborated with to build that and a couple of other systems. Well he saved my Linux newbie arse again, a true friend indeed.
All those who read this little treatise on starting, stopping and restarting Red5 in Linux, you owe this bit of information to him. Okay enough of the waffle.

To begin my distro is Linux Mint (Daryna), Greg is an Ubuntu man. I installed Red5 using the GDebi package installer. Then the 1st hurdle appeared, apparently Red5 was installed successfully but, "Where the Deuce was the damned thing?". As a windows user I expect to see Icons or a start-up link somewhere when I install a service, not in this case. The absence of an install Icon was painfully obvious. After some desperate Googling I managed to find out how to get at the demos, so I could test for the presence of Red5 http://localhost:5080/demos/port_tester.swf. Then the major hurdle, how do I stop the Red5 service. A lenghty session of Googling only brought frustration and desperation. After 3 hours I was irritated and fed up.
Enter Greg the Saviour, and here is the way:

First locate the service by typing the following in your Terminal
cd /etc/init.d

Next type
ls

This will show you all your services. If Red5 is there, you're in business.

To stop Red5, type:
sudo ./red5 stop

If you are successfull you will get the following print out
Stopping Red5 flash streaming server: red5.

To start Red5, type:
sudo ./red5 start

Success will yield the following print out
Starting Red5 flash streaming server: red5.

To restart Red5 type:
sudo ./red5 restart

Successfull you get:
Restarting Red5 flash streaming server: red5.

Thats it folks, if you're new to Linux like moi get ready for the next headache. By the by does any one out there know how I can get my web cam to work in Linux Mint? Once more, thanks G :)