blog.onepixeloff

ECOBOT is released!

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:25:00 -0400

We have just released a public beta of a new personal carbon tracking application called ECOBOT. ECOBOT is an open source Adobe Air application, developed by TAXI Canada and One Pixel Off. To find out more about it, and to get a copy visit: ecobot.taxi.ca

Eclipse 3.4.1 Ganymede, MXUnit, Flexbuilder 3 on MacOSX

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:36:00 -0400

After a few minutes of thrashing with a incompatibility issue that was giving me trouble installing MXUnit in Eclipse 3.4.1 I found a work around I thought other people might benefit from. First the back story. I had Eclipse 3.3 running happily on my Mac with Flex Builder, CFEclipse, SVEclipse, etc... Then I tried to install MXUnit, and I kept running into a incompatibility issue. Oh well I thought, I guess it's an excuse to upgrade to a newer version of Eclipse. So I downloaded Eclipse 3.4.1 Ganymede and proceed to install all my usual plugins including Flexbuilder (I kept a copy of by 3.3 install just in case though). When I tried to install MXUnit though it again complained about an incompatibility. It looked something like this: Cannot complete the request. See the details. Cannot find a solution where both Match[requiredCapability: org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu/org.eclipse.equinox.preferences/[3.2.201.R34x_v20080709,3.2.201.R34x_v20080709]] and Match[requiredCapability: org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu/org.eclipse.equinox.preferences/[3.2.200.v20080421-2006,3.2.200.v20080421-2006]] can be satisfied. I did find something on Google similar to this: http://forum.springframework.org/showthread.php?t=63187 But the solution in that thread was to manually install a pre-release version of equinox which I didn't really feel like messing with. I looked at the incompatibility message a little closer (I didn't include the whole thing above because it was sooooo loooong) and saw it mentioned Flex Builder which I had already installed successfully. It seemed to suggest that Flex Builder was causing the incompatibility issue. Just for laughs I decided to try uninstalling Flex Builder and then install MXUnit. SUCCESS! What's more after MXUnit was installed I had no problem installing Flex Builder. I never would have guessed it, well I suppose I did stumble upon it but I didn't really thing it was going to work. Flex builder must be a little more flexible (ha) in regrards to which version of the equinox plugin is installed. I wonder if the same workaround would have worked with 3.3, probably. No time to check now though gotta get back to work using shiny new eclipse 3.4.

Moving a Linux (Debian) virtual machine from VMWare Fusion (on MacOSX) to VMWare Server (Linux)

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:14:00 -0400

I've tripped over this a couple of times, and only figured out what to do about it after googling around a while and mashing together a couple of the results. After having to re-research the same thing twice I decided to write it down. Hopefully someone else will find it useful. When I migrate I create a new virtual machine definition on the new machine, and link up the disk image. When you link up the disk image on VMWare server it probably won't work. So what you will need to do is edit the main "vmdk" file. You should see a line that reads:


ddb.virtualHWVersion = "7"

Just change the 7 to 4 so it reads like:


ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"

Why the newest version of VMWare server doesn't support a disk defined with a virtualHWVersion of "7", and this can overcome by simply changing it to "4" without actually doing anything to the disk is beyond me :) Once this is done you should be able to use the disk image. The virtual machine should be able to boot, but networking probably won't work. When you created a new virtual machine definition a new virtual MAC address will have been created for the VM's NIC. Debian will have responded to this new MAC by assigning it a new ethernet device (just in case the old one comes back). For example if you had set up networking on eth0 for the VM on your mac you will find there is a new unconfigured eth1 device and eth0 is present but inactive. So how do you fix this? Edit the following file: /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules There should be two entries at the end of the file that look something like this:


# PCI device 0x1022:0x2000 (pcnet32)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:0c:29:54:ac:4f", NAME="eth0"

# PCI device 0x1022:0x2000 (pcnet32)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:0c:29:54:ac:8d", NAME="eth1"

Comment out the first one, and change the name of the second to "eth0". It'll look something like this:


# PCI device 0x1022:0x2000 (pcnet32)
#SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:0c:29:54:ac:4f", NAME="eth0"

# PCI device 0x1022:0x2000 (pcnet32)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:0c:29:54:ac:8d", NAME="eth0"

Restart your virtual machine and the networking configuration you had working in Fusion will be working on Server. Alternatively you could set the MAC address of the VM on VMWare Server to be the same the MAC it was using in VMWare Fusion, but you would run into trouble if you ever ran both the original and copy on the same network at the same time. So letting it keep the new MAC address is probably safer.

CFQRCode

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:29:00 -0400

Here is a simple proof of concept QRCode generating cfc that I glued together a while ago. You should be able to just unzip it and then drop the "cf_qrcode" folder in your web root and have it just work. I've only run it of CF 7 and up, but I wouldn't be surprised if it works on CF 6.1 too. Click here to download it. The real credit for it goes to the code/libraries it relies on:

Y.Swetake QRCode java library. http://www.swetake.com/qr/index-e.html This is what does the process to create a QRCode. The pages for the QRCode libraries are in Japanese but Google can help anglo-only folks our there (like me). The how to create QRCode section is very informative as well.

Mark Mandel's brilliant "JavaLoader" for Coldfusion http://www.compoundtheory.com/?action=javaloader.index For loading all the necessary Java stuff without the hassle of restarting CF.

acme.jar from ACME Laboratories http://www.acme.com/ This is just for gif encoding of the qrcode graphic. The QRCodeEndcoder.cfc could re-written to use CFImage in CF8 instead.

Change you default spell check dictionary in MacOSX

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:22:00 -0400

It's a silly little thing, but it's taken me years to figure it out. That is: How do you set the default dictionary for spell check in Mac OSX? Most people won't ever need to do this, but it's always sort of annoyed me that spell check in Mac OSX mail and every other program would try to force the American spelling of words on me. It was a very slight slight against my national pride, and being Canadian I just lived with it. The Canadian dictionary is somewhere between American and British dictionaries. Sometimes we use the Britsh spelling and sometimes the Americans use the Canadian spelling. I knew Mac OSX had a Canadian Dictionary but wasn't sure how to set it as the default? It turned out to incredibly simple. I had been rooting around in system preferences which turned out to be the wrong place. Instead just control click (or right click) in a text editor that uses the system spell check (like Mac OSX) mail. Select "Spelling and Grammar" from the contextual menu and then "Show Spelling and Grammar" in the sub menu. This will open a tool panel window in which there should be a select box that will let you change the dictionary. Once changed it continue to use the selected dictionary in any program that uses the system spell check. Now everything I write and every email I send will contain a subtle hint of understated ambiguous patriotism, that anyone not in the know will misidentify as a typo or poor spelling. A very Canadian way to wave a flag I think. Oh yeah, if you use Firefox (which doesn't use the system spell check) you can get the Canadian dictionary for it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3

Freedom Fry vs. Nothing

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:03:00 -0400

Microsoft may have Jerry Seinfeld, but GNU has Stephen Fry. In my mind GNU wins in terms of quality, substance and (let's face it) coherence. It wouldn't really be fair to compare GNU's message to Microsoft's. Microsoft would have to actually have a message in order to do that. Unfortunately GNU doesn't have $300 Million dollars to spend to make sure people see it. If they did I'm sure they'd spend it one something more useful. Perhaps a very small country, a pack of sharks with lasers mounted on them, or a new Star Trek series.

A listing XML Socket Servers for Flash

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:02:00 -0400

This is a list I compiled recently of commercial and opensource XML socket server's for flash. Along with some code examples of how to get started writing one from scratch.

COMMERCIAL/NON-OPENSOURCE

Electro Server 3
java based
commercial
- $299.00 for 50 users
- $599.00 for 100 users
- $899.00 for 200 users
- $1599.00 for 1000 users
- $2999.00 for unlimited
http://www.electrotank.com/ElectroServer/

colin moock's unity
java based
commercial
- $99.99 - express up to 100 connections
- $699.00 - enterprise unlimited
http://moock.org/unity/buy/

NowCentral
java based?
commercial
- $95.00 - up to 64 users
- $495 - unlimited
http://www.nowcentral.com/

eClever
windows binary
comercial - price ranging from free for up to five users to $547.00 for 500+ users
http://multiuser.web-cd.net/en/default.aspx

Bricole XML Session Server
java based
free - but not opensource really
http://www.bricole.se/xss/copyright.html

Fortress Server by Xadra
discontinued

OPENSOURCE/FREE

red5 - built in xmlsocket + flash audio/video streaming
java based
opensource
http://osflash.org/red5

Palabre
Python based
opensource
http://swik.net/palabre-flash-xml-socket-server

Swocket
python based
opensource
http://swocket.sourceforge.net/

Multiserver
java based
opensource
http://www.shovemedia.com/multiserver/

Chatter
perl based
opensource
http://www.pushby.com/chatter/

Power Flasher SOS
java based - PHP client sample code
opensource
http://sos.powerflasher.de/english/english.html

Flash Unity
PHP based - alpha
opensource - GPL
replacement of the CyberSS (http://projects.cyberlot.net/trac/cyberss) php xml socket server
http://www.flashunity.com/wiki/Faq
http://pear.cyberlot.net/index.php
sample
http://chat.cyberlot.net/

Jabber.org Server
Java based
Flash has to use XMPP to communicate with the server.
XIFF is a opensource XMPP toolkit for Flash (AVM2/Flash Player 9/FLEX2 port available)
http://www.jivesoftware.org/xiff/
opensouce
http://www.jabber.org

SIMPLE XML SOCKET SERVER CODE EXAMPLES

Alan Nouri's Blog | dubi.org
simple socket server in python
http://www.dubi.org/python-socket-server-for-flash

Ted Patrick's Blog | Ted On Flex | http://www.onflex.org
simple socket server in python
http://www.onflex.org/ted/2003/10/non-xml-over-xmlsocket-for-f5-f7.php

HeliantTM Whitepaper: XMLSocket Simplified by Shengdar Tsai
simple socket server in perl
http://www.heliant.net/~stsai/code/

ZEND Developers Zone
writing socket servers in PHP with ZEND
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1086

Java meets Flash - by Tom J. McClure
writing socket servers in Java.
http://www.dagblastit.com/java/sockets.html

Other resources

The Flash XML FAQ - has info about xml socket servers
http://www.huikuri.com/flash/xml/

Temporal Displacement Map In Flash

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 00:07:00 -0400

It's a time based fun house mirror.

Another quick hack, this time of a temporal displacement map applied to video. Here is the source such as it is: temporalcamera.zip.

Slit Scan Camera Experiment In Flash

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 22:19:00 -0400

A very simple slit scan camera set up in flash. Most people are familiar the visual effect of a slit scan camera from photocopiers, and scanners. It works because the image is only captured from a single column or row that moves across the picture plane over time. The result is visual distortion of anything that moves while the scan line is crossing the picture plane, sort of a temporal fun house mirror.

I can't think of any practical applications of this for flash developers, but it is fun toy to play with. Here is the source: slitscancamera.zip

Finally migrated to my new server.

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:23:00 -0400

I have finally migrated my blog to my new server. Part of the fun was tweaking Ray Camden's BlogCFC to be PostgreSQL compatible. It really wasn't that hard because BlogCFC already had Oracle support, and PostgreSQL's and Oracle's SQL commands are pretty similar. I guess we will see if I introduced any bugs in my tweak shortly. I should probably tweak the skin as well.

goodbye bluebee, hello onepixeloff

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 20:07:00 -0400

After nearly 10 years I have given up bluebee.com and have switched over to onepixeloff.com. On one hand I'm sad to see it go, but on the other it will be good to have a fresh start with a new domain name/online identity. I guess a redesign is order.

Flash Remoting with ModelGlue2

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:39:00 -0400

I was wondering if anyone has figured out a better way to expose a cfc for Flash Remoting or as a webservice when using MG:2 than the way I have been doing it. I know it's possible to to just target a cfc directly but I want to have Coldspring configure of the cfc I'm targeting as have the ability to use Reactor within it. Coldspring actully has a very cool ability to create a facade of a bean for use for flash remoting. The tricky part was getting this to work with Coldspring and Reactor as part of MG:2. Here is the way I did it: The Coldspring documentation describes how you can create a remoting facade for a bean configured in Coldsrping, so in my Coldspring.xml file I use something like this:

<bean id="myRemoting" class="mg2test.model.remoting.myRemoting" autowire="byName"></bean>

<bean id="myRemoting_Facade" class="coldspring.aop.framework.RemoteFactoryBean">

	<property name="target">
	
		<ref bean="myRemoting" />

	</property>

	<property name="serviceName">

		<value>myRemotingService</value>

	</property>

	<property name="relativePath">

		<value>mg2test/remotefacades/</value>

	</property>

	<property name="remoteMethodNames">

		<value>get*</value>

	</property>

</bean>

Then I can just (but not quite) target mg2test.remotefacades.myRemotingService with my remoting calls. There are a couple of additional things I had to set up before this would work though. 1. You have to call getBean on the bean factory for myRemoting_Facade before Coldspring will create the mg2test.remotefacades.myRemotingService cfc for you. I do this by having a setmyRemoting_Facade method in on of my model-glue controllers, and because of autowiring it is created automatically. Also it makes the the facade available in my MG controller. 2. The cfc generated by Coldspring "myRemotingService" won't be able to find a reference to the coldspring bean factory unless it is an a scope that it can access. By default it looks for it at application["coldspring.beanfactory.root"]. I got arround this by adding the following to the end of my project's index.cfm:

<cfif StructKeyExists(_modelglue, "beanFactory")>

	<cflock name="setUpForRemoting" type="exclusive" timeout="10" throwOnTimeout="true">

		<cfset application["coldspring.beanfactory.root"] = 

			application[ModelGlue_APP_KEY].framework.GetBeanFactory()>

		<cfset application.reactor = 

			application[ModelGlue_APP_KEY].framework.GETORMSERVICE()>

	</cflock>

</cfif>

I also put a reference to reactor in the application scope for easy access from within myRemoting.cfc. Both application scope references should be reset if model-glue is forced to reload (the mg2test/remotefacades/myRemotingService.cfc should be recreated too for that matter). 3. With steps 1 and 2 you won't be able to make a request directly to mg2test.remotefacades.myRemotingService until at least one regular MG request has been made. This set up seems to work pretty well and I haven't found anything on the interweb yet describing another way of doing this with MG:2. I wonder though, is there anyway this could be improved or simplified? Or is there a completely different way that this could be done that is far simpler?

CFUG Quarterly Meeting

Thu, 04 May 2006 20:06:00 -0400

The training wheels were off, and we were rolling on our own with two presentations from locals. Both presentations were similar in that both featured tools to simplify how data is managed by Coldfusion web applications but that was where the similarity ended. Kristian Ward and David Mayerlen from UpstartX and the Pointt, gave a presentation on their product the Pointt. At first I thought it was a RAD tool or some sort of ORM tool, but now I realize it's more of a datamining/manipulation tool. I think their analogy was the best; it's like File Maker Pro for the web. Just like how with filemaker you can create "table" and "columns", and make interfaces for working with that data all without writing code. Great for clients who have need to be able to constantly update the schema of their "tables" while on a production. It suprising that there aren't more webapplications or webapp frameworks out there that provide this sort of flexibility. Byron Bignell and Nolan Dubeau gave a presentation on cfcPowertools. CFCPowertools is a very ambitious project and is a RAD/ORM code generation tool. It's basically a webapplication that can operate a plugin for the coldfusion administrator application that can generate cfc Data Access Objects to take care of your Create Read Update Delete operations automatically from a database table. There are other tools that provide this sort of functionality like ARF, Reactor, or even CFHibernate. Where cfcPowertools distiguishes itself from the other ORM tools for colfusion is that it can create or alter the schema of a database table based on a DAO cfcs. So it can be used for code generation, or it can be used for database generation. It's compatible with most of the popular coldfusion frameworks like MachII, fusebox, and CFMVC. It doesn't limit self to just the behind the scenes code though, and this is a great demo feature, it can autogenerate the cfml code for forms, lists, and display views. It's expected that you will likely have to modify or extend any code it generates to add the business logic specific to your application but it certainly gives you a big head start.

Flash in the Can

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 20:05:00 -0400

I only made it to the first two days of the conference because I had to take a day off becasue of bad cold, but my brain was full by then anyway. The biggest relevantion of the conference for me was that FLEX 2 will be free except for "Flex builder" application/eclipse plugin and the enterprise level versions of flash dataservice (neither of which have announced prices). The details of AS3 were pretty exciting, finally one event model for all components! Finding out that Flash player 9 (formerly 8.5) is going to work with a seperate virtual machine for executing the new byte code generated from AS3 code was pretty neat too. In the key note it a graph was shown that projected that adoption of flash player 8 has probably broken 90% by now (I'm not sure if it's up on the Adobe site yet). Finally I can start push Flash 8 for mainstream websites. Hopefully with the new upgrade/install feature of Flash 8 it won't take this long for Flash Player 9 to hit 90% and I can leave all of the legacy actionscript weirdness behind. I skipped most of the high profile designer presentations like Erik Natzeke's and Josh Davis's. Those guys have had presentations pretty much every year I've gone, plus there were presentations on open source flash projects at the same time. Aral Balkan gave a nice overview of all projects at osflash.org, and John Grden and Chris Allen showed off Red5. I expect we will be hearing a lot more about Red5 as time goes on. I did manage to go to Geoff McFetridge's presentation though, and although he only mentioned flash once, and only in passing, I thought it was a great counter point to all of the technical and business work presented. A lot of flash designers get tend caught up in the technical execution of things, which isn't necessarily a bad thing by any means you are a flash designer. McFetridge isn't a flash designer though, he's a designer who has done a flash site or two. So it was nice to have a perspective on general design issues, which are of course relevant to but not exclusive to flash design. The bigger picture outside of the monitor if you will. Particularly from a designer like McFetridge who persues what you might call a sort of corny (in a good way of course) simplicity or innocence in his owrk. It was a great contrast to the standard slick futuristic "impossible architecture" type stuff most flash designers like to show off.

The FITO/CFUG Cross over meeting

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 20:03:00 -0400

For our first real CFUG meeting, we got the help of the very popular Flash Users Group (Flash in T.O.) and had joint meeting at their usual place the reactor gallery. I took the liberty of giving a presentation on the work I've done on the TAXI.ca website. Kristian Ward and David Mayerlen from UpstartX gave a presentation on their experience making a photo album for the Dove campaign for real beauty website. Nolan Dubeau and Theirry Load gave a presentation on their work for johnst.com and mijo.ca. Pat Keenan and Alan Smith of The Movement gave precentation on theundecided.ca (they used PHP for the backend but their presenation was still pretty cool :) All in all a pretty sucessfull evening.