You fair readers of my blog may remember a post from waaaaaay back in the day entitled Playstation 3. In it, I talk about being excited to run Flex Apps on my PS3
Naturally, I went and did what the PS3 was meant to do: Play a game! In this case, it was my very own Tic-Tac-Toe game. Check it out!
In my last post, I explained my logic/thinking behind 2 of the 3 files that make up Tic-Tac-Toe V1: Main.mxml and GamePiece.mxml. Click here to play the game (right click to view/download the source). In this post, I’ll breakdown the remaining piece.
GameBoard.mxml
This piece is the real workhorse of the game. It houses not only the board where the pieces are laid out, but also the game logic itself.
Was that the best decision?
Probably not. If I wanted to swap out the game rules but keep the same pieces, I couldn’t do that. It’s not so common with Tic-Tac-Toe, but think of a card game. One deck of 52 cards can play an almost infinite number of games. Would it make much sense to put the Solitaire logic right inside the CardDeck class file? Nope, it surely wouldn’t. I was in a hurry though so I did. Read the rest of this entry »
Part of my goals with these posts is teaching Flex for those just getting started. What better way to learn Flex than by building a game of Tic-Tac-Toe. Code is code and lessons can be learned/shared despite the final output. You’ll (hopefully) learn tricks and methodologies for helping you code non-game projects via the code that I share and explain in this series.
There are 3 files that make up the complete game (right click to view/download the source) :
I’ll go over the 3 files, explaining logic on why/what from both the Flex and gaming perspective. Read the rest of this entry »
Getting Started
Note, while this isn’t anything like PlayCrafter, it is my small step into the huge world that is game making. To get into gaming, I figured it would be best to start with the language I use day in and out: Adobe Flex. To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I coded just for fun with Flex. Most non-Workday Flex code I’ve built on my own time has been for 360Conferences, for some technical training/presentation or for my articles on Adobe’s sites. I forgot just how fun programming can be.
I set out late Friday night/early Saturday morning with one goal: Exit the weekend with a working version of a game. I didn’t want to put much game theory in. I didn’t want to OOP the heck out of the code. I just wanted to build something that I could play and post on the net to share. Read the rest of this entry »
Being an OG – Original Gamer
For as long as I can remember, I’ve gamed (specifically the video kind). Before I got married, I spent almost every birthday I can remember at Chuck E. Cheese’s (even my 21st!) To me, birthday equated to gaming. In addition to those special days, I have a lot of memories in life associated with gaming:
I just wanted to do a quick post to mention that I’m hosting a very special CS4 meeting on Wednesday, September 24th. The meeting will be at Adobe’s Headquarters in San Jose.
We’ll be talking about the new Creative Suite 4 that was just announced. We’ll have representation from the Illustrator team there to talk about what’s new in CS4. If we’re lucky, we may also get a rep to show us some of the crazy new features of the CS4 Production Suite.
More details can be found at the Silvafug site. See you tomorrow!
The phrase “Resource Utilization” has so many meanings in my life currently, that I have no idea where to start.
At Workday, I (relatively) recently got a new manager, Charlie Boyle. One of his strengths is definitely resource utlization. Every manager has their own style and no style is right or wrong. However, Charlie has brought some great plans to the team. He’s brought on some processes and tools that make our lives as developers more productive. I don’t think we as a team work any less harder, but we’re definitely working a lot smarter due to the resource management.
My Silicon Valley Flex User Group (silvafug) is sorting being revamped as I write this. At our most recent meeting, several of us got together to discuss how to better the user group in a variety of ways. After Wednesday’s meeting, we’ll likely be officially announcing the launch of Silvafug South (and by default, Silvafug North). There are a lot of great people in the user group with great ideas on how to make it better for everyone. I look forward to working with them. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 33 years old.
Ever since I can remember, September has been a time of contemplation for me. Around Labor Day, I take advantage of the three day weekend to sorta turn inward. I take inventory of my life in its totality. I see what I have or have not done, where I can do better and if I need to make a shift in any area of my life. Some big decisions that have been made during this time include the following:
John posed a question to me the other day: What’s important to you? I’ll leave out the obvious answers: wife, two kids, and church. He was asking more in relation to business and in particular, our business: 360|Conferences. So I was noodling on an answer for him.
Saturday morning, I finally caught up on a thread on an internal Flex list. The list was about a fairly common problem we have in the Flex world. There seems to be a nefarious void that people learning Flex tend to fall into. One where they’re beyond “This is a file. This a tag, made up of brackets and text in between them.” and below “I just rewrote the AdvancedDataGrid component to run 50% faster.” I have feelings in regards to how to help folks cross that void, so I started noodling a response to the thread.
Then it dawned on me, my two noodles were of the same type: helping folks grow and learn. Read the rest of this entry »
I was chatting with Brendan the other day. He asked what kind of person am I to attempt to carry a full time job, put on conferences on the side, manage a successful user group, write articles for the Edge and Adobe Development Center, be a good husband, be a good father of two, and be a good cub scout den leader.
This got me to thinking. Most people only know the Northern California Tom Ortega. Prior to my move to the Silicon Valley, my list of activities were quite different. In Southern California, my plate consisted of holding a full time job, being a good hubbie, being a dad of one and a whole lot of commuting. I didn’t blog, didn’t really participate in any tech community and flitted from one business idea to the next with none taking shape or form. Read the rest of this entry »
I can’t help but think how archaic the internet still is. Case in point, URLs. Is this the bane of internetters or what?
Let’s start with the prefix:
http://
Seriously, do we really need to have that crap anymore? How many folks are trying to FTP, Telnet or friggin Gopher these days from their browser?
I can already hear the conversation that I’ll have with my kids someday. “Hey, Dad. What was the letters and slash stuff?” “H-T-T-P-colon-slash-slash.” “See, told you. Crazy stuff back in the day.” Read the rest of this entry »
360|Flex Atlanta is almost upon us. This will be the third installment of our little conference. John and I have been crazy busy, working to get things done. John has actually been carrying my slack this time around! (Thanks, partner, I owe you!)
One of the things that’s very exciting to us though is that we have an API Contest this time. eBay, Ribbit and Degrafa have all joined our API contest. Make a widget and win yourself a Wii, PlayStation 3 or XBox 360. This is in addition to the wonderful prizes that they will also be giving away in their own contests! Make 1 Flex app and win 2 possible prizes. If I wasn’t running the show, I’d be making an entry for all 3! 
Sunday, February 24th, will see the kickoff of the conference. We will have an all day Flex 101 session to get new comers up to speed on Flex before the show begins. The guys from Digital Primates are teaching the class AND buying you lunch. If you do go, be sure to offer them a huge thank you for their generosity.
Monday, February 25th, will be the kickoff of the Conference. Matt Chotin will be delivering our keynote, talking about the soap opera, err, I mean development of Flex 3. I’m looking forward to this, though I will likely miss it as I’ll still be welcoming attendees. Sorry, Matt, customers first!
I’d go over every session of the show, but it’s easier if you just check it out for yourself.
In case you’re wondering what’s in store for the conference, let me give you a quick rundown:
Hundreds of attendees
30+ Sessions/Speakers
4 Days of conference
3 Contest prizes to win
3 Parties
2 Keynotes
2 Caring hosts
1-gig Thumb drive
1 Free Hands-on Preconfernce Training
1 kickin’ conference
Plus, you’ll get some conference goodies, grub, drinks and even a few articles of clothing.
And you get all that for a mere $480. If you’re serious about Flex, then you need to come. See you there!
Business is changing. We’ve been hearing this for quite sometime now. As a whole though, business really hasn’t changed much. You still have massive companies, with many different layers. Even Small Businesses tend not to be very “small”. I think I’d like to coin a new term, if I may be so bold: the Tiny Business.
By tiny, I’m referring to employee count vs company reach. My business partner John Wilker and I put on tech shows for 300 to 400 attendees under the tiny company known as 360Conferences. We’ve done two so far and two more are in the works. Running a tiny business is hard, very hard. I’m sure all tinies have it hard, but what adds pressure to ours are two things: Part-time and Industy Transformation.
First, I’ll talk about the Part Time aspect. John and I have full time jobs as developers. I work at Workday and really enjoy my job. Last week was an incredibly busy time for the UI team. It was so busy that not much time went to 360Conferences. As the dust settled on the Workday front, the work for the 360|Flex Atlanta show picked up steam. I mentioned to John, “I never realize how much we do for 360Conferences while we do it. When we’re in tune with work and family, things get done at an amazing pace. However, jumping back in after a week off, it seems overwhelming.”
At first, I thought I was being a bit over dramatic. My wife says I’m full of “drama” and she’s probably right. However, I was thinking there was some merit to my feelings and received some validation in Atlanta. Ang’elle, the gal helping us out at the OMNI Hotel, was about 3/4 of the way through our onsite visit before she asked the following: “Now, are you guys a 3rd party planning company? Someone’s hiring your company to do this show, right?” We told her no and explained that we put on 360|Flex for developers. We tell her it’s not an Adobe conference. “They support us, but it’s not an Adobe show per se.” She followed up with, “Well, how big is your company? How many in your department?” John and I laughed, then explained we were the entire company. “The buck stops here…literally.” She ended with, “You’re kidding, right? I was thinking there was a whole army back home helping you do this event. Wow.”
Now, if John and I were just repeating a familiar formula of planning high-priced conferences, things may be simpler for us. We’d be taking a known pattern, adjusting it to fit our topic (Flex) and then be calling it a day. However, John and I also felt the need to throw another challenge into the mix, “Rather than just do a better conference for Flex, what if we changed the way conferences were done as a whole?” This is where the Industry Transformation aspect comes in.
To be a memorable and honest business, you have to be ready to take on an industry and change the playing field. Being a tiny company also helps play a roll in that. With it being only John and I, we can turn on a dime. We can come up with, discuss, hash out, re-argue and refine a point over night. We can then implement that new aspect the very next day as a concerted business effort. The effects of that power cannot be understated.
We’re not the first to enter into this foray of low-cost, developer-centric conferences. We’ve never claimed to be the first, but we would like to think that we’re one of the better ones out there. That’s the thing about trying to be a truly disruptive company vs. one that just talks about being one. You have to listen to your heart/gut as you destroy the business norm, but you still have to make sure the customers are happy. If no one likes what your disruption brings, then your disruption is more to feed your ego than it is to provide a better environment in the particular marketplace you serve.
It’s also incredibly lonely being a market disrupter. The old guard doesn’t like you, rightfully so since you’re killing their business. Being a tiny business doesn’t help either. I have John and my wife to fall back on when I get discouraged; no department, no manager and no Big Boss. John, the poor guy, then has to not only support the workload we share, his full time job, but also my floundering spirits. My wife, the poor gal, then has to deal with not only two growing toddlers, but a husband who then needs a little TLC. Both of them are amazing though and I’m usually back to high spirits soon enough thanks to their efforts. There’s one more source I can go to for support as well, and more often than not, I forget about them because I don’t see them when I get home and they’re not IMing me all day. However, this source plays just as big a role in the grand picture as my wife and my business partner. That third source is my customers.
Yes, MY customers. I work hard for them. I literally give my blood, sweat and tears for them. Sure, you can say every company does that, but let’s face it, the heart, the love, the passion are usually not there. Like I tell John, I wake up with customers on my mind and go to bed with them in my heart. Heck, I even include my customers in my prayers, “Heavenly Father, help me find better ways to serve my customers.”
I am proud of every single one of my customers. Whenever one buys a ticket, Eventbrite sends John and I an email. I see their names long before I see their faces. They maybe faceless for a little while but not for long. John and I greet every one of our customers at our shows. If you can’t welcome your own customers to your show, you shouldn’t be putting on a conference. Sorry. We hand greet all 300 to 400 of our attendees and sponsors. Nothing makes me smile more than when I say, “Hi, <insert customer name>. I’m Tom, welcome to 360|Flex.” and they do a double take. They look back at John then me, saying “THE John and Tom who planned the show?” To which, we answer, “That’s us.” The person gets a smile and you can tell that you have made them feel special. We’re not super stars, but we can make our customers feel like they are the most important thing in the world to us. This is because, quite simply, they are.
We sent out a little note to past customers at 2am on Friday night/Saturday morning. We asked them to share the experience they had at our conference with others as we’re nearing the final 30 days of 360|Atlanta. By Saturday morning, we had a few email responses and blog posts. I have a feeling that we will continue to see the “love” be poured out by them over the next week or so.
I thank my wife and John all the time for their support. To my customers though, I wanted to send out a huge thanks. Not just for your monetary support, but for all the kind words (and constructive criticism) you send our way. I know John feels the same, but he’s just not as mushy as I am. I’m a softy though, and my customers help me feel the love.
If you’ve never had the pleasure of truly serving a customer of your own. You should definitely give it a try. Nothing beats the feeling, especially if you’re lucky enough (and humble enough, I’d say) to learn how to serve them correctly. That’s what business is about: Not money, but people. Sadly though, many businesses fail to remember that.
John and I aren’t perfect. Far from it. One thing you’ll notice at our shows is that we bicker like an old married couple. The reason for that is because while we cannot promise our customers perfection we can promise passion. We will do everything in our power to try to achieve the closest thing to perfection that you can get at a show. It’s not because of your money that we strive for perfection. It’s because you are a real person who deserves the best experience. Your money is merely a vehicle to help us achieve that goal. Too many businesses these days feel like their customers owe them something. I hope those businesses die off and let those who care take over. I have a feeling that the replacement companies will be Tiny Businesses: small in size, but big in reach.
We recently got an HDTV for my PlayStation3. You fair readers may recall that I waited in line all day to get my PS3 on launch day. I wanted to support the Cell architecture and Sony for investing in such cutting edge technology. 1080p TVs were way to costly back then though, so I waited on that. Recently, my wife saved up and bought me the Sony KDL40V3000.
The TV is amazing. Up until I brought this bad boy home and hooked it up to my PS3, I was getting tired of watching movies. After I watched my first Blu-Ray Disc movie though, I’ve been hooked again.
Not to mention playing games. Before my TV, I played a few here and there but it just wasn’t very exciting. Now, with so many great looking games for the PS3 (Ratchet and Clank is my current favorite, followed up quickly with the HD PSN version of Lemmings), gaming is once again very engaging. And these games are only at 720p, mind you!
The reason for my post though has nothing to do with the visuals of the TV or the game/movie feature of the PS3. Instead, I’ve just recently given EyeConnect a spin on my iMac. I have over 40 gigs of music on my machine which sits roughly 15 ft from my PS3 in the living room. Now, I could copy all my music to my PS3 or copy it to an external drive and hook that up, but why? It’s just right there. The iMac has wifi and the PS3 has wifi. They should be able to share, right?
With the magic of DLNA (Digital Living Network Association), I load EyeConnect on the Mac, turn it on, enable sharing via iTunes and iPhoto, and magic! My PS3 now has all my music and my photos. It’s pretty amazing on how simple it is to get it working.
I’ve been working hard since early New Year’s Eve and New Year’s day to meet a deadline at work. I have no computer speakers (they don’t tend to last long when your kids use them as hiding places for things), so I was worried that I’d have no way to hear my music. Hardcore coding without music just isn’t an option and my iMac has horrible quality speakers. (Yes, I could have used headphones, but I hate using headphones at home when I’m alone.) DLNA pulled through for me though.
The biggest surprise though is just how good my music sounds coming through the TV. My previous TV was bought in 2000 granted, so I should have expected some increase in speaker quality. However, the music sounds amazing considering they’re stock TV speakers, the music is MP3 and is being broadcast over wifi. Sometimes, technology just blows me away. Great job Sony on the DLNA support in the PS3 and the excellent speaker technology on the TV.
Now, if I can just find a free moment to learn how to program my multi-core Cell chip via Yellow Dog Linux, I’d be a happy man.
For you MacHead/PS3 fans, here are the total steps I used (courtesy of _Liquidus_ , thanks!):
1. Download Eyeconnect and install it.
2. Go into your SYSTEM PREFERENCES and click on the SHARING folder.
3. Click on the SERVICES tab and select PERSONAL FILE SHARING as on.
4. Click on the FIREWALL tab and select iTUNES MUSIC SHARING on,
iPHOTO SHARING on.
5. While still in the FIREWALL tab click NEW on the right side and
choose PORT NAME: Other and enter 2170 in the TCP PORT NUMBER and type
in EyeConnect in Description, click OK, select the newly added item as
on.
6. Go into iTUNES and go into the PREFERENCES, click the SHARING tab
and check the box beside “Share My Library on my local network”.
7. Turn on your PS3 and run the Media Server search and your Mac
should show up (mine did)
