Sunday, December 18, 2011

My Kindle Fire

I acquired the Kindle Fire last month, and I am enjoying this new Amazon Android device! There is much to like, including its price. Access to music is important to me, and I can get to my library through the cloud.

I'm not a heavy reader, but the color graphics and video display beautifully on the Fire. Though the Gallery app is fine, I would like to be able to view my image library on the cloud. Apps for accessing online photo services are available.

Instant access to Amazon Video library via WiFi was surprisingly fast and easy. Accessing the same videos on my WiFi-connected TV is amazing as well, a plus for our family viewing.

There are a few glitches in the user interfaces of a number of Fire apps. A hard reset was needed after the tablet became unresposive, but it's an easy fix. I can understand that in a first launch device. I do expect improvements in a software update soon.

Overall I am pleased with the Kindle Fire, and would recommend this for many of you who are casual consumers of music, video, and like shopping at Amazon.com. I am enjoying the Fire!

Aloha, Joe


Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Google+ Beta

Exploring the Beta version of Google+, using the Android app, adding new photos, and cleaning out old Picasa pics.

I like the overall experience and interfaces so far. The photo viewing features could use a bit more work.

Right now I need to expand my circles, but I believe this shiny new social networking tool shows great promise!

Aloha, Joe

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Android Blogger App

Installed the Google Blogger app, seems simple and straight forward. Maybe it'll get me to post more interesting articles. Or just post stuff.

Aloha, Joe

Thursday, June 10, 2010

HTC Evo 4G a Joy!

The HTC Evo 4G has been out less than a week and it has sold out. Luckily, I managed to buy one a day after the phone went on sale. My first touch-screen phone, I'm really pleased with the Evo. Photos, videos, Web and several apps have made this device a joy to work with. I'm posting from the Evo. Joy!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Nakamura Sushi & Korean Cuisine

Great sushi and Korean dishes at Nakamura's in San Angelo! Check it out here: http://gonakamura.com.



Aloha, Joe

Friday, September 4, 2009

Flash ComboBox Style

For a recent project, I needed to change how a Flash ComboBox looked. How do you change the font style for the ComboBox text and its dropdown list? Can you make the text one font size and the dropdown another? Yes, but I found it wasn't as easy as I thought it should be. Basically, I embedded a new font and created a CellRenderer to style the dropdown.




ComboBox Designed with Embedded Font

The ComboBox above was created in Flash CS3, and the text styles were modified using ActionScript 3.0. By extending the ComboBox class, I created a custom DesignComboBox class, then added the CBDesignRenderer class to style the dropdown fields.

The ComboBox component needs to exist in the library before you can create it with AS3. The DesignComboBox class and CBDesignRenderer class are listed below.

You can DM me on Twitter @jazzairtech if you want me to send you the FLA and AS files.


/* DesignComboBox.as */

package com.jazzairtech.ComboBoxDesign
{
import flash.text.TextFormat;
import fl.controls.ComboBox;
import fl.controls.List;

/**
* DesignComboBox class
* Apply embedded font to ComboBox List items
*/
public class DesignComboBox extends ComboBox {
private var cdDesignFmt:TextFormat;

public function DesignComboBox() {
super();

var cbFmt:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
var myArial:Arial = new Arial();
cbFmt.font = myArial.fontName;
cbFmt.size = 20;

textField.setStyle("embedFonts", true);
textField.setStyle("textFormat", cbFmt);

// Apply CBDesignRenderer to set dropdown format
dropdown.setStyle("cellRenderer", CBDesignRenderer);
}

override protected function drawLayout():void {
super.drawLayout();
textField.y = 0;
}
}
}




/* CBDesignRenderer.as */

package com.jazzairtech.ComboBoxDesign
{
import flash.text.TextFormat;
import fl.controls.listClasses.CellRenderer;

/**
* CBDesignRenderer class
* Adds an embedded font (Arial) to ComboBox List items
*/
public class CBDesignRenderer extends CellRenderer {

public function CBDesignRenderer() {
super();

var cbFmt:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
var myArial:Arial = new Arial();
cbFmt.font = myArial.fontName;
cbFmt.size = 16;

this.setStyle("embedFonts", true);
this.setStyle("textFormat", cbFmt);
}
}
}

Styling the ComboBox with AS3 takes a little extra coding, but I think it's worth the effort to improve how it looks.


Aloha, Joe

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Regular Expressions in AS3

Lately, I've been using more Regular Expressions in JavaScript and ActionScript 3.0. projects. In AS3, RegExp can be useful for validating user entries or searching for matches. I found that you can test your the RegExp patterns using DreamWeaver's Find and Replace dialog by checking the "Use regular expression" option.

Tonight I built a RegExp Tester in Flash that kind of does the same thing. I'm sure it needs more tweaking to get better results and display the results more cleanly. You can test RegExp here:

http://www.jazzairwaves.com/Flash/RegExp/

The Regular Expressions Cookbook by Jan Goyvaerts and Steven Levithan, published by O'Reilly, offers great details on the subject.

I'm sure that becoming proficient at regex will improve my coding for text search and validation. Does it also increase my geek score? Yeah.

Aloha, Joe