Wildlife Near You

Published on January 13, 2010 in api, mashup, photography, wildlife and wildlifenearyou. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

Where’s the nearest Rainbow Trout to London? How about the nearest cow to Malaysia? or Everything near Brighton? www.wildlifenearyou.com is a site that allows you to track where you’ve seen wildlife all over the planet, allowing correct classification of the animals, and indexing the locations where they were found. It’s a great example of building a useful service on top of several APIs (inlcuding Flickr and Google Maps) and utilising social tagging to glue the data together.

Simon tells me there will be an API for WLNY soon, so you can write an app to find out, for instance, where the nearest Komodo Dragon to Basingstoke is, or perhaps you just want to go somewhere interesting at the weekend and find out what you can see and where. I could definitely see myself using the site for that.

Check out my profile – several of my favourite photos are linked from there. For now, here’s a photo of a European Robin from Pulborough Brooks:

Robin

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Replacing a blown IC

Published on January 11, 2010 in electronics, farnell, logitech, repairs and z5500. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

This is an update to my previous post on my beloved Z5500 surround sound suddenly dying.

I really wish I’d taken the time to challenge Insight UK and /or Logitech over the sale of goods act, but the fact that the replacement part was only £8.90 from Farnell won me over. After it arrived, a Google for PCB repairs in Sussex found R and G Technology in Worthing. A quick email and a phone call later, and I went round the same day to have the part replaced. I gave the board and the replacement IC to David, and waited for 10 minutes while he removed the blown IC and put the new one in, all for £25. I’d definitely recommend them if you’re in a similar situation.

After taking it home and connecting the control pod it works perfectly. That cost me £35 compared to buying a new surround sound system. Yey for taking things apart! :D

This is not an entirely happy story though, as literally as soon as my 5.1 system started working again, my big TV died. But that’s another rant..

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Logitech Z5500 suddenly dying – blown IC

Published on December 25, 2009 in 5.1, blown, cirrus logic, insight, logitech, problem, sale of goods act, surround sound and z5500. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

A few years ago, Rachel bought me a fantastic Christmas present; a Logitech Z5500 5.1 surround sound system from Insight UK. It was great for gaming, films, and music. Earlier this year it suddenly died on me – everything seemed to be functioning correctly on the display, except there was no sound.

Fast-forward several months, and I opened up the control pod to take a look inside, and the cause of the malfunction was immediately obvious; the Cirrus Logic CS42526-CQZ had blown – DOH!

Logitech Z5500 Dead - CS42526 - CQZ

A quick search on Google shows I’m not the only person with the Z5500 suddenly dying (for various reasons), and here’s  someone with exactly the same problem as me.

I wonder if Logitech is aware of this problem? Additionally, perhaps it might be possible to get it repaired under the Sale of Goods Act: “the key time span is six years. That’s how long goods may be covered by the Sale of Goods Act.”

I’ll contact both Logitech and Insight to see what they say, and report back here.

Finally, the IC itself costs less than £10, so of the above fails, perhaps I can find a friend with the tools and skill necessary to replace surface-mount components.

[Update: It's fixed!]

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Snow in Sussex

Published on December 19, 2009 in arctic, photography, snow, south downs and sussex. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

Sussex is currently lying under a blanket of snow, with the councils thoughtfully neglecting to grit the footpaths, which have now become dangerous sheets of ice. Brilliant.

As I’ve recently moved closer to the South Downs, this snowfall was a great opportunity to wander over the downs with a thermos flask of freshly ground Monmouth Coffee beans from Coffee@33, and to take some photos of this rather picturesque area.

Here’s a photo of the area before the snow:
The Adur and South Downs

Here’s one with several inches of snow:
DSC_5943

At the top of the downs there were drifts everywhere, some of which were several feet deep. You can see the surface snow being blown around in this video:

Of course, not all drivers know how to drive in this weather, such as the refuse truck driver who thought it was a great idea to speed along a one-track icy road, almost hitting me and another car. The driver than managed to get the truck stuck, and blocked the road for several hours:
The driver of the refuse truck almost hit me and the car in front of it

Another driver thought it would be a good idea to speed along the road too, and unsurprisingly ended up in the ditch:
Car in ditch

Anyway, nobody was hurt, and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the area. The rest of my photos can be found on Flickr, or have a look at the slideshow here (hit the button in the bottom-right for full-screen):

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Flash game mentioned in Edge Magazine

Published on December 18, 2009 in 2d, actionscript 3, casual gaming, flash and games. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

This is rather nice; a game I worked on earlier this year is favourably mentioned in Edge magazine (yes, Edge): “…while Littleloud Studios’ Minutemen, a Watchmen tie-in, was arguably far smarter and more elegant than the official videogame”

:)

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Introducing UnityBrighton

Published on October 30, 2009 in 3d, brighton, programming, unity, unity3d and unitybrighton. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

I’ve been watching Unity for several years now (thanks to James from Futurlab), but the fact that it was Mac-only was an instant turn-off. Earlier this year they released a PC version, which piqued my interest again, but I was unable to devote enough of my time to the free trial to actually learn anything. However,  as of October 28, 2009, they’ve scrapped the Indie version of Unity and released a free version!

This is great news for anyone who’s been interested in creating content in Unity. Not only is the plugin just over 3MB, but it’s an almost seamless install in all the browsers I’ve tried it in.

What’s so great about Unity? Excellent 3D support, and you can use either JavaScript or C# for development, which makes transition from programming Flash games quite attractive.

Check out the island demo over on lab.iestyn.net

Unity demo

So, this leads me to UnityBrighton.com. Back in March I registered the domain, but did nothing with it. I’m guessing there will be renewed interest in Unity, so I’ve finally got round to setting it up. For now it’s a basic Wordpress blog and a Google groups mailing list. If you’re interested in Unity, please join and say hello!

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Flash Apps for iPhone announced!

Published on October 5, 2009 in actionscript, apps, flash and iphone. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

Amongst other exciting announcements at the Adobe Max conference they’ve just announced Flash Apps for iPhone!

This is absolutely awesome news – ActionScript programmers can create apps for the iPhone. There’s more information here.

A few questions spring to mind:

  • What will performance be like?
  • Can we take advantage of all the hardware, such as accelerometers, GPS, etc?
  • When can I get my hands on it!?

For a while I’d been saying this was the most logical thing for Adobe to do, but I never thought they’d actually do it..

Yey!

[UPDATE]

Funnily enough, all my questions are answered in the Developer FAQ!

Performance:

The iPhone and iPod touch have processors significantly slower than those found on most desktop PCs and Macs. Thus, content may run slower than it does when running on a desktop personal computer. However, the exact differences will depend on the specific content.

In addition, the hardware specifications vary greatly between different versions of the iPhone and iPod touch. Because of this, it is important that you test your content early and often across all devices which you plan to target.

The hardware that’s supported:

  • MultiTouch
  • Screen Orientation
  • Saving images to Photo Library
  • Accelerometer
  • Geo-location
  • Cut / Copy / Paste

Additionally, we can take advantage of OpenGL ES. This could be extremely important for games!

In order to make development of high-performance applications easier, applications built for the iPhone also can take advantage of an augmented rendering pipeline that uses OpenGL ES. This augmented rendering pipeline enhances the Flash rendering model to allow developers to take advantage of the GPU on iPhones. By enabling this rendering path, you have the ability to modify your display objects to put them on a hardware surface

Flash suddenly got a lot more exciting.

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Bad experience with Cancom Brighton

Published on September 18, 2009 in apple, bad, brighton, cancom, experience, mac, mbp, mike and sale of goods act. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Update: I’m pleased to say this situation has been resolved amicably. I’m currently tied up with the Flash on the Beach 2009 conference, and will post more information on this situation when it’s over. The end result is I’m happy with the resolution, and would not hesitate to both recommend and use Cancom in the future.

A quick heads up for any Mac users in Brighton.

I bought my MBP on the 13th August 2009 from Cancom Brighton, on Queens Road.
I’ve had never-ending problems with it, as people following me on Twitter will be well aware of ;)

Today I had a Genius bar appointment at the Apple store. The guy there was incredibly helpful, and agreed that there was either a problem with bad sectors on the HDD, or possibly the logic board. The manager was consulted, and I was offered a refund. Hooray! When I produced the receipt, and pointed out it was Cancom, they were unable to help.

So off to Cancom I go. The staff there are really nice, and very helpful. They offer to book my machine in for repair, however, I’d really like a MBP that works, and I’d rather not waste any more time waiting around, especially with the Flash on the Beach conference next week. So I ask for a refund or replacement, as I’m entitled to. The person I’m dealing with calls the manager – Mike – out.

I explain to Mike that under the Sale of Goods Act I’m entitled to a refund or replacement, which I’m requesting. He says that’s against company policy, and I’ll need to bring it up with a director of Cancom, Brandon Weightman. He says that Brandon is aware of the Sale of Goods Act. I point out that Apple had offered me refund, but it’s still against company policy.

Again I explain to Mike that I’m entitled to a refund or replacement under the Sale of Goods Act, but he replies that it’s against company policy. Is company policy more important than the Sale of Goods Act? He says that I’ll need to take it up with the Director.

At this point I decide that I’ll book it in for repair anyway, as I might end up punching Mike if I talk to him any longer. I then leave to go and read through the Sale of Goods Act.

So – anyone here know what I should be doing next? The last thing I want to do is end up taking it back for repairs again and again, which may be the case if it’s a logic board fault.

I’d even be happy to have a refund and spend a bit more on a better spec MBP..

Right, whinge over!

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Macs don’t just work

Published on September 17, 2009 in computers, mac, macbook pro, mbp, problems, review and snow leopard. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Just over a month ago I bought my first Mac – a 13″ MacBook Pro. As a long-time user of Microsoft products, and vocal opponent of Mac evangelists, I thought it would be a good idea to approach this with an open mind, and for me to blog my experiences and thoughts.

Over the last few years, a number of minds I respect have moved to OSX, and claim it’s superior to Windows in many ways. Thinking they can’t all be wrong, and wanting to try some iPhone development, I thought it was time to bite the bullet and get a Mac.

At first, everything worked beautifully, and I was rather hooked. However, since installing Snow Leopard, I’ve been plagued with problems; at first the current application would freeze, and clicking on other ones would cause those to freeze too, and I’d be left watching the spinning beachball of busyness. After a minute or so the system would suddenly start working again. Then two days ago, the machine wouldn’t wake up, and I was left staring at either a grey screen, a grey screen with an apple, a grey screen with an apple and frozen spinning thing, or at a blue screen with a cursor. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll be more than aware of these problems.

After trying various suggestions I managed to get it working again by formatting the disk, then installing Snow Leopard. Everything was fine for a day of use, but then this morning it’s decided that Time Machine can’t backup any more, and while it’s failing to do that, all of my open applications stop responding.

It looks like it’s probably a hardware problem, so I’ll take it back to the store tomorrow, and ask for a refund. If I was a less patient man I wouldn’t bother trying again, but I realise that I’ve had a ‘bad apple’ so to speak.

I hope that I’ll be in possession of a working Mac soon, and be able to write down some thoughts without them being sullied by what has been, quite frankly, a complete waste of my time.

I leave you now with a video and a few photos…

Now I have an error.

Install osx failed :(

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MinimalDesigner – Layout tool for Bit101’s MinimalComps

Published on August 12, 2009 in actionscript, as3, flash, flex, minimalcomps and minimaldesigner. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Keith has released a layout tool for the excellent MinimalComps.

MinimalDesigner

I prefer to write pure AS3 inFlashDevelop, using the Flex SDK to compile. I’ve used MinimalComps on occasion, and I’ve been happy with the results. However when it comes to laying out anything particularly complex, I’ve had to fall back to Flex or CS3.

The release of MinimalDesigner should make using MinimalComps even easier now. Thanks Keith!

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