As with each semester, once I know my marks I get my blog ready for the next semester. So over the next few days I’ll be performing maintenance so if things don’t work properly, they will once I’m finished.. I promise!
In case you’ve been living under a rock without twitter I got a 3.8 gpa this semester 
To view my Semester 1, 2, or 3 work select the course from the drop down menu above.
Since a couple blogs have posted updates since Semester 3 ended I think I should do the same.
There are really only two projects that I can post here, the other I most likely won’t get back but I don’t mind..
First up the one I am most proud of and put the most effort into. My DMA355 Oakley Sunglasses website for Advanced Flash!
For this project we had to take 4 pairs of mens and womens glasses from the lifestyle and sport section. Use what we did in class to make a website showcasing the 8 different sunglasses. Most people did theirs strictly in flash, which is what Andrew wanted, but since I started early I wanted to do a different approach, one that I could turn into a portfolio item. So of course I made it into a website. All valid xhtml too, I checked every page@! But by far the coolest feature I made is grabbing all the information for the sunglasses from a database using MySQL and PHP. I took it a step further by adding in a simple admin area where you can edit the information for each. I think the hardest part was getting the 3D video of the sunglasses to work, that took a couple hours to figure out. So yea, take a look the link is http://flash.artXed.com.
Second is my final 3D project, I will say I could have done something more complex, but I spent most of my time on flash 
Not much to say about the video, it pretty much speaks for itself.. One thing to be aware of though, it has a clip of Dethklok (a band) in it. You’ve been warned. It really adds that needed effect to the video!
The screening yesterday was awesome, I was really surprised with some of the first year videos. I had seen some of the second year videos *cough* angry asians *cough* and Brown & Browner. I wouldn’t have seen them if we didn’t run into problems and had to pull the second all nighter for me in one week. But overall the second year videos were good too.
I know most people are going to put their videos on youtube and then their production blogs, but what happens if it’s over the 2gb limit? You can try converting it with formatfactory which for me was an hour I wish I had back. Then I googled and found a way that would cost $30 to purchase quick time pro. I figured I’d see what I could do with the regular quick time and under file select save as and choose what format you’d like to use.. Not sure if this works on windows but it is converting now on this mac.
Here’s our final video:
I was going to post last night before going to bed but it was 3am and I was dead tired.. So here we go.. For my groups project we had a 3D rockstar can modeled by Josh that after falling into toxic waste goes on a killing rampage taking out Graeme and then myself. Fun project, and we finished just in time too..
It only took about 305 minutes to upload the 1.3gb final video, with killa outtakes. Here it is:
Back to working on my Oakley flash project
Wanting to get something easy out-of-the-way yesterday I figured I’d take the 10 minutes needed and add the things due this Monday for Crisps class. After adding the links I went to add a custom header as I have done on many other websites including this one.. I remember Crisp said in class that the zenit techs didn’t compile php with jpg or jpeg support, so it was no surprise to me when it failed. Before everyone goes emailing Crisp or tweeting me I figured I should make this handy-dandy work around.
Let’s begin!
Step 1: Find an image you want to use for the custom header. It can be anything (within reason).
Step 2: Open Photoshop, MS Paint or whatever application you have available and resize the image. It should be around 720 pixels wide by 180 pixels in height (720×180). Otherwise your header image will be huge and make your blog look weird and possibly n00bish.
Step 3: This step isn’t required but highly recommended. With Photoshop still open make a smaller version of the header image maybe 200 pixels in width and the corresponding height. Save it with the same name as the image made in Step 2 but add “-thumb” before the file extension. This is so you can see the image on the Header page.
Step 4: Open FileZilla or your preferred FTP application. Log on to the zenit server and go to this path: public_html/wordpress/wp-content/themes/tarski3/headers. Let me break this path down. public_html is where files go that you want visitors to see. wordpress is the directory name I’m assuming you used, it may vary.. wp-content is the WordPress directory where all your content goes. Examples: themes, plugins, uploads, images, videos, etc.. themes is where your themes are located and edited. tarksi3 is the theme we installed in class, again this folder name may vary, mines tarski. headers is the folder where all the header images are stored.
Step 5: Navigate in the left area of FileZilla and locate the image(s) that you resized for your header in Step 2. Drag over or double-click to upload the image(s) to the “headers” folder.
Step 6: Login to your WordPress admin area. An example link is: http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/~dma322_111a19/wordpress/wp-admin .
Step 7: Locate the “Appearance” tab on the left and then click on “Header”. If everything went well you should see your header thumbnail. Or a broken image if you didn’t make the thumbnail.
Step 8: Click on the radio button to the left of the image thumbnail and click “Save Changes”.
Step 9: If you click the link on the top left of your blog it will bring you to the main page where you can see your stylish new custom header image!
Step 10: Pass the link to this post onto others who need help: http://wp.ly/jC.
On a side note, I find it interesting how hardly anybody has posted on their blogs this semester..
Our latest assignment given to us this past Tuesday was to make a digital clock that looks similar to:
I had everything except the 12 or 24 hour clock figured out as of 2:45am this morning. But at that point I wasn’t thinking straight, and was messing things up so I stopped. Got some rest and while trying to fall asleep it dawned on me. Since I can’t run a function inside of a function (tried it) why not have a selection at frame 1 of either 12 or 24 hours. When someone clicks on the “12hrs” button it takes them to frame 5 where it shows the correct day, time and hours -12 if applicable. If you click “24hrs” it takes you to frame 10 and shows the same clock without subtracting 12 hrs, and the ampm value equals nothing. Whether the visitor clicks on “12hrs” or “24hrs” show the same two buttons at the bottom so they can switch between both clocks. Changed that this afternoon, after talking with fellow classmates at my b-day party last night I figured out how to fix things… The regular 12hr clock is the default, the 24hr clock is on frame 5 and yea, a simple gotoAndStop(5); and viola!
Spent about 20 or 30 minutes adding and troubleshooting that, got it. Then I was finished! But being picky as I am I distributed stuff to different layers and cleaned up the code. Of course I left in my quirky and sometimes angry comments in 
. Made the background smaller and added a slight fade to it on the sides. Had lunch and watched the latest Bones episode. After seeing that smart sniper episode I created the correct html file to go along with the clock and uploaded it. Tested it on four different computers one of those being my MacBook and then finally posted it on basecamp and twitter at pretty much the same time. Not to be an ass kisser but I am first 
Here’s the final product:
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.
Link: http://artXed.com/dma355/digitalClock
EDIT: Still a little surprised that only Andres and I have posted our clocks, granted his doesn’t work exactly as it should but it works..
