Was hoping someone could beat mine from last night… I won’t even describe the scene as our upstairs toilet overflowed with the –ahem– “contents” of the bowl spilling over, well, yea- not good. And the water valves were rusted permanently in the on position. Oh and did I mention I was wearing flip flops? The funny thing is, as bad as it sounds, it’s still a distant second to a Mexico experience I had a few years ago. I’ll refrain from posting that one out of decency (and fear of creating the internet-wide version of the “ultimate barf-o-rama” in Stand By Me). Can anyone beat this one though? What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever had to do?
Feb 16
I try to enhance my posts with audio or video whenever possible and I just realized that the simple media component I threw together to do this might be useful for other people using BlogCFC or BlogFusion so I figured I’d bubble it back up into the community. I did separate files for audio and video but with a little more thought the media type could be abstracted and you could just use one file. Here’s how I do it:
- create a separate directory for video and audio, encode the clips in .flv and .mp3 format and place them in their respective directories
- put the .swf for each type of media in its respective directory. The audio player is an example of calling inline and therefore only uses the swf, the video player is a separate external .cfm file that demonstrates playback in a new window. This just shows two ways of doing it and either component could be switched to inline or external.
- use the following code in your post to call the media files:
<!— inline Audio Player Code —>
<object classid=“clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000” codebase=“
http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/
shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0“ width=“330” height=“230” id=“playback” align=“middle”>
<param name=“allowScriptAccess” value=“sameDomain” />
<param name=“movie” value=“/downloads/audio/inlineAudioplayer.swf” />
<param name=“quality” value=“high” />
<param name=“bgcolor” value=“#ffffff” />
<embed xsrc=“/downloads/audio/inlineAudioplayer.swf
?audioFile=http://www.Your_Domain_Goes_Here.com/audio/test.mp3“ quality=“high” bgcolor=“#ffffff” width=“330” height=“230” name=“playback” align=“middle” allowScriptAccess=“sameDomain” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=“http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer“ />
</object><!— calling the external video player —>
<a xhref=“
/video/VideoPlayer.cfm?theFile=test.flv“>
Launch Video</a>
<object classid=“clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000” codebase=“
http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/
shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0“ width=“330” height=“230” id=“playback” align=“middle”>
<param name=“allowScriptAccess” value=“sameDomain” />
<param name=“movie” value=“/downloads/audio/inlineAudioplayer.swf” />
<param name=“quality” value=“high” />
<param name=“bgcolor” value=“#ffffff” />
<embed xsrc=“/downloads/audio/inlineAudioplayer.swf
?audioFile=http://www.Your_Domain_Goes_Here.com/audio/test.mp3“ quality=“high” bgcolor=“#ffffff” width=“330” height=“230” name=“playback” align=“middle” allowScriptAccess=“sameDomain” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=“http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer“ />
</object><!— calling the external video player —>
<a xhref=“
/video/VideoPlayer.cfm?theFile=test.flv“>
Launch Video</a>
I’ve zipped up the test files and put them here. I also included the .fla files so you can see how the .swf’s were built and re-skin them if you like. The real key to this technique is a small bit of actionscript in the swf that treats the file name as a variable so you can pass it in dynamically. Until we find a service that does protected podcasts, we’re using this audio component in conjunction with my iTalk within the Grid7 pilot right now internally to capture the audio from our meetings and make it available via streaming flash audio. It’s useful for anyone who missed, any participants that were there but need clarification (or inspiration) and most importantly, so future members can hear the conversations that have taken place before they arrived and so they can come up to speed quickly and get an idea of the culture of Grid7 before their first participation. Hit me here with any questions if you need help on setting it up. I use Quicktime to export as .flv for the video (I know Sorenesen Squeeze is supposed to be good too). I know someone in our CFUG had been working on a server-side way of encoding the .flv’s so you could just upload the .avi and not worry about that piece. Would be slick to see a total solution integrated with BlogCFC. Hopefully this trick reduces the friction for people adding media to posts and more people start doing it.
On an entirely different topic, we had a bit of a snafu with the Grid7 domain on our first day out of the gate and have chose to change domains and rebrand while we’re still a newborn. If you’re interested, this is the detail of what happened. The new domain is Grid7Labs.com– anyone who subscribed to the RSS feeds since Tuesday will need to update their feeds to reflect the new URL.
sean
© 2005 Lights Out Production – All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Feb 14
It’s a bright morning in AZ- I am happy to announce that the Grid7 site is live! This project has been a labor of love for the past few months and I imagine this is about how a parent must feel when watching a child graduate and enter a new phase of life. Visualize for a second this scenario: you’re working with brilliant people who contribute their skills to help you execute an idea you have for a side project – one that has been on a backburner and you wouldn’t have done on your own otherwise, but given the “perfect storm of contributors,” it’s something that ends up coming together painlessly and now runs in the background generating passive monthly income. In exchange for the help you receive, you contribute your unique skills to bring their ideas to life and all the while using free hosting, specialized collaborative tools and access to a pool of contacts to make things happen at 5x normal speed. The osmosis effect alone of surrounding yourself with all these experts in their respective complimentary fields is that you absorb huge amounts of knowledge of relevant, peripheral skills which you can then apply towards your day job. But your day job gradually loses whatever appeal it might have had because you’re now waking up in the middle of the night with eureka-type moments centered around these project ideas…
Well we’re one week into the pilot program for Grid7 with a team of project assasins hand-picked to be our charter members and so far this comment from Matt (one of the pilot members) sums it up best -> “this FAWKING rawks.”
We will be working closely together over the next few months to implement a handful of the proposed projects in order to prove the cooperative model. Rather than explain the whole Grid7 concept here, I would instead invite you to cruise around the new site and discover for yourself what type of idea could possibly generate enough thought and dialogue to make an 8′ whiteboard look like this.
I’ll be sharing what I learn from our pilot program over the next few months on this dedicated Grid7 feed here . I _can_ say that countless hours of thought have gone into this effort and that at the very core of this whole thing is the noblest of intentions to bring people together to build cool stuff and to ensure that toxic work environments like this one go the way of the dinosaur giving way to ultra-efficient, ad hoc teams of specialists working together cooperatively to realize their dreams. There’s little chance you could have the level of excitement that we in the pilot do right now but if you have something to say about any of this, let us and the rest of the world know. And if this idea we’re proposing resonates with you and you want to be considered for membership to the Grid, fill out an application on the site and help us all… Build Something. BIGGER.
-sean
© 2005 Lights Out Production – All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Feb 04
I know I know, “why would you want to go and do this?” Assuming you have your reasons though, it’s not as straightforward as it might seem. I don’t fully understand the details but the crux of the problem has to do with the fact that linux blows away the master boot record. There are other sites that can explain the details but this one had the winning solution which finally worked. And here is the key set of instructions:
Boot with a DOS floppy that has “debug” on it; run “debug”. At the ‘-‘ prompt, “block-fill” a 512-byte chunk of memory with zeroes:
f 9000:0 200 0
Start assembly mode with the ‘a’ command, and enter the following code:
mov dx,9000
mov es,dx
xor bx,bx
mov cx,0001
mov dx,0080
mov ax,0301
int 13
int 20
mov es,dx
xor bx,bx
mov cx,0001
mov dx,0080
mov ax,0301
int 13
int 20
Press <Enter> to exit assembly mode, take a deep breath – and press “g” to execute, then “q” to quit “debug”. Your HD is now in a virgin state, and ready for partitioning and installation.
Kudos to this person whoever it was for figuring this out. Assembly language is no joke. We found a dos boot disk with debug.exe here. File this under "priceless gems" if you ever need to convert a linux box back to windows someday.
© 2005 Lights Out Production – All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Feb 04
So the challenge is this: given the design constraints of a whiteboard (where the ink can’t be moved but can be erased), what is the best way to show priority of items on a todo list?
The idea of reordering the items isn’t very practical because it involves completely erasing everything when priorities change and rewriting the list every time. Likewise, using numbering doesn’t work well either because let’s say you have:
- Fix plumbing problem on sink
- Buy wedding gift for best friend
- Mow the lawn
- Return DVD rental
…and for whatever reason your friend decides to call it off last minute, you now have either a list that says, "1 3 4" or you have to erase and rewrite all the numbers for each item (not to mention it’s impossible to glance across the room at a long list and see the highest priority items without discerning all the numbers).
The solution is simple: make a dot next to each item of a size that is proportionate to it’s priority (larger meaning higher priority). This way you can enlarge a dot when it grows in importance and shave off a bit if its priority drops. Erase the items as you complete them and add new ones in their place as necessary. I’ve used this method for about a year now and while it may be old hat to some, it could be new hat (?) to others. My friend David just showed me a screenshot of a 37 Signal’s Writeboard that has started using the dot size of items to represent priority so it seems there is some validation to this method and that others are thinking along these same lines too. Try it out for yourself.
(and if you find it useful Digg it!)
© 2005 Lights Out Production – All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Feb 03
Remember that game you played when you were in first grade with the big red rubber ball? Like softball only you boot the ball and the fielders can either try to throw you out at the bases or just wing it at you while you’re running… Well I recently discovered that it’s not just a game for first-graders anymore. My friend Benny talked me into joining his league and I gotta say this sport kicks ass (in fact our team name is the After School Specials so our cheers always involve some derivation of the word “ass”). It’s always cool to discover a whole new subculture that you never knew was there. I had no idea there was a World Association of Kickball Players. And in a weird way it’s strangely comforting to know that at any given time, somewhere in the world there is a group of grown adults playing kickball.
We had our second game last night against the Ball Maulers and so far we’re undefeated. The level of dedication people have to the game is amazing – the lights on the field went out at one point and the teams kept playing in the dark (Point Break style with a few lights from cars in the parking lot). I think kickball might become the new craze in terms of social functions. My team hit up a bar after the game and I got a chance to jump onstage to do a couple sets for an openmic. I had my iPod in my guitarcase and recorded the first one. The audio quality is poor (clearly the iTalk is intended only for talking – even with the sampling rate bumped as high as it will go it doesn’t capture the dynamic range high enough for music to sound good) but the set itself went over pretty well. I’m sure Tom Petty could never imagine that his “Free Fallin” would someday be remixed to the tune of “Now I’m Kiiiick… KickBAALLLin.”
The audio from that show here.
