One of the reasons I have used Flash for my main site for the last few revisions was the ease of updating via the XML files. This allowed to to easily and quickly update my portfolio. What used to happen was I'd create my portfolio, and by the time I motivated to update everything, I'd essentially have to rebuild the site from scratch. This version uses PHP to read the same XML file that powers the Flash version, although for the sake of load time and preventing interminable scrolling, I only load projects that have been flagged as new.

Why?

Last week, a Creative Director here at Organic made a comment that while he doesn't always appreciate the aesthetic of single-page portfolios, he loves being able to check out a link on his iPhone and browse it easily. In the age of smartphones, it's a good point.

As far as why PHP, it's simply to move the processing off of the user's browser. JQuery is much easier when it comes to processing HTML, however it relies on the browser's Javascript engine to read the file and create usable HTML. On a mobile device such as the iPhone, that will hurt performance, whereas my server can handle the load without blinking, even with many simultaneous requests. Also, JQuery doesn't create 'actual' HTML, so search engines would not index it properly. I'd imagine that other mobile browsers such as Opera Mini, or browsers on the Blackberry or Windows Mobile platforms (and lower-power processors than the iPhone) Javascript performance is poor.

So, the site is up. It's accessible as a direct link which you can find here, or as a link if the Flash detection fails on the main page.

Also, I used this excellent PHP5 tutorial to help me figure out the backend code (since I'm not a PHP expert by any means).

Gears of War - Emergence Day

Someone who isn't me was paid a large sum of money to make this site. They'll even get a little fame by winning an FWA. But, the site does several things very wrong that we as designer really need to stop.

1. A Splash Screen

Just stop it, ok? There's no clear idea of what to do - and that by clicking on the image you'll get immediately popped to a full-screen takeover.

2. Full-screen takeovers

Why does the site force itself to full screen? It doesn't take any advantage of the opportunity to show a large video, or create an immersive experience... it's just an animation loop of smoke billowing. Nothing within the site itself has any reason to be shown full screen. There's really no content to speak of, and the interface stays pretty tightly bound within the standards of video-game-website-interface - brushed metal, blocky type... flipping screens, rust, smoke, fire. Whatever.

3. A &lsqou;Show Content&rsqou; Button

If you have to have a big button that says show the content, YOU HAVE FAILED. Sure, you can click the chainsaw/gun/thing in the top-left corner, but there's no hint it's interactive in any way shape or form. It's not like there's an overwhelming amount of content that we would need to hide - some unlabled videos and some still images.

It's a bigger sign

I would guess that this is a sign that we still don't know what the next 'big' thing is on the internet, so we're playing with cheap tricks to convince users that we're giving them some groundbreaking, new, experience. It's a shot at the FWA as well - they are not promoting good design... just whoever is making a Flash-y cookie-cutter site.

And Survival Horror games are frustrating as hell.

Penny Arcade has a great line about how EA's Dead Space is ignoring many of the restrictions of Survival Horror and becoming an Action game that is significantly more fun to play, freed of idiotic restrictions. To quote, "They could have made it Survival Horror very easily, or slid the toggle closer to our conceptions of it, by placing dolorous restrictions on saving, ammunition, and every other resource. It would appeal to our strong sense of ascetic virtue - but this is an action movie. It's not Alien. It's Aliens."

That really made me think - are our preconceptions of survival horror actually making the genre worse? Aliens was a damn good movie. Different from Alien but still good. Alien could make a great game - but I don't think game designers have figured out how to make a game with an enemy that can kill you in a one-on-one confrontation. Shadow of the Colossus takes this track somewhat, but the player still has strong advantages in both speed and agility.

I don't know how to design games, but I think this would be an interesting challenge. Write a design doc for Alien with the following preconditions:
You do not have traditional weapons. Only what can be improvised with hardware and tools.
The Alien is faster, stronger and more agile than you.
You are smarter than the Alien. The Alien is intelligent, similar to other primates.
The Alien is relentless. It wants to kill you. If you do not kill it, it will keep coming.
The Alien can be stunned and injured.
The Alien will retreat if it cannot win.
The Alien will not attack in plain daylight unless it can totally overwhelm you.

My own little corner of BofA (they hate that, by the way) is banner ads. It's not all banners, but I'm the new guy, so I have to handle alot of them. Whatever. You do it, and you make them good. Anyway, I finally saw one of my banners live. It made me giggle.

It took 8 months of working in fits and starts, but I've finally converted the code behind danielboyle.net to Actionscript 3, from a mix of Actionscript 1 and 2. Why? As of Flash CS3, Actionscript 3 became available. It's essentially a complete rewrite of AS1 and 2 as a strictly object-oriented language. Practically speaking, as newer versions of the Flash player become universal, and Flash itself is upgraded, the older styles of Actionscript will fall away, and if you don't know AS3, you'll be in trouble. This particular project was probably the easiest way to learn. I had no real deadline, my math worked, my assets already existed, the logic was already there, and I had a working target to shoot for. For help, I turned to Google, Kirupa.com, and Actionscript.org. I also used Colin Moock's excellent Essential Actionscipt 3.0.

This is NOT a tutorial. This is a port-mortem of my thought process, lessons learned, and results of the re-engineering of my site.

The design is exactly the same as the previous version except for a few animation tweaks. In fact, I was, and continue to be, happy with the existing design, but the inevitable march of progress has kicked me in the ass and forced me to learn AS3.

What is AS3? Actionscript 3.0 (Flash's internal scripting language) received a massive overhaul in version 3 (which was released as part of the Flash CS3 package. Essentially, it's a rewrite from the ground up of Actionscript as an object-oriented language. What does object-oriented mean? What are the differences between AS1/2 and AS3? Is one better than the other? How did I do this, and is there an easier way to do it?

There will be a longer blog post in the next day or two detailing going over these answer, but for now, let's leave it at, it wasn't hard, but some things could have been much, much easier. Also, over the next few days, I'll be taking some time to tweak animations and fix any bugs that have popped up, as well as generally cleaning up and commenting my code.

Part of the problem with the original run of B5 was that it started out on The WB network, and was shifted to TNT, neither network known for quality original programming, or a large audience. You also had budget problems (small, unknown series with lots of makeup, sets, and special effects on smaller networks), scheduling problems (constant schedule changes, including a jump from broadcast to cable), and an always uncertain future (the season finale for season 4 was filmed separately, and the series final filmed at the end of season 4 because B5 was not renewed until partway through its season 4 run. There were casting problem (poor actors). But the biggest problem was that there had never been a similar series on American TV before, and no one knew what to do with it.

B5 was an experiment, essentially: A sci-fi series, with a planned 5 year run. Set beginning, middle and end points. Allowances made for cast changes. Extensive use of CGI. A real relationship with Earth, politics, homelessness, religion, poverty and crime. Truly alien aliens and environments. Unforunately, early on, Warner Brothers wanted a Star Trek like 'alien of the week' series, and it shows.

And if the whole series was re-made today, starting from scratch, every single problem would be solved.

Planned Series

Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and others. All planned. Well, Lost WAS planned - but they were extended by an extra 2-3 seasons, and it shows. But, generally speaking, networks (and viewers) know how to deal with that now.

No Sci-fi Stigma

Sure, BSG isn't considered strictly sci-fi, but it's made it 'cool.' The last run of superhero movies haven't hurt to dimished the nerd stigma around sci-fi either. Just as importantly, sci-fi has also expanded past Star Wars and Star Trek. It'd be easier to attract quality actors and staff, and have some sway with the networks.

CGI

The occasionally hilariously bad CGI can be traced to both its pioneering use, and the low budgets. Better CGI is available now, for lower cost.

Of course, I'm not a TV executive, producer, director or writer. But it's nice to dream. It could be done. Of course, B5 has already been made once. There's no real need to do it again (for 20 years or so - look at BSG.

Last week, Aquent created a contest on 99Designs (no link, because they don't deserve one) where anyone could submit a design for their website. The winner would receive $500, and their design would be produced.

Curiously, the AIGA has a very strong stance against spec work (working for free in an attempt to win paying work), and design contests.

Essentially, the AIGA says that spec work and design contests cheapen and devalue our profession. It's true. It sets up the designer to essentially have your work stolen, and to have a company get away with work for free or at an extremely steep discount. This is different (though the AIGA does not make the distinction) from a new business pitch for an agency. In the case of contests, it's essentially irredeemable for a large company like Aquent to actually attempt this. Besides seeming cheap (a website the size of Aquent costs more than $500) it devalues Aquent's position of design as a rare skill, to be cultivated and promoted. Instead, Aquent has said, “Any idiot with Photoshop can do this. Why bother paying for our talent?” It hurts both designers and Aquent.

Certainly spec work & design contests have their place. Non-profits who have no money, and rely on donations for their labor can be excused for soliciting designs. Agencies and studios do spec work all the time in the form of business pitches. But the situations where it's appropriate are few and far between, and it's sad to see Aquent devalue themselves so.

This could have been a win for Aquent though. The contest could have been opened to its members (and prospective members) with the winner receiving a consulting-type placement with the shop that's actually building the site. They get experience, exposure and a paycheck. Aquent gets a good reputation by turning to its own members for design. Better yet, Aquent could have truly opened up to its community, and open sourced the design on its website – finding exactly what members think is broken, and how they'd fix it (and allow the community to work with the production team to prioritize and integration changes).

Oh, I'm still of the opinion that the iPhone is a solid piece of phone hardware, with a pretty good system behind it (No matter what the people at the Free Software Foundation think. Hint: Apple plans to make money off it, so they don't like it). But lately, even commuting back into the city, I don't miss my recently deceased 30GB iPod that much. Sure, it's nice for when I don't feel like reading, but since I walk to work from Penn Station, well, I just don't miss it.

Don't get me wrong, I still want to buy one. But, I have a job. I could, theoretically, get in line at 7:30AM at a store in NYC, but that involves getting on a 6AM train. There are still 2 hour lines at the 5^th Ave. Apple Store and the others don't open until 9AM, so I can't both buy and iPhone and make it to work on time. And no, I don't think this is some crazy conspiracy theory that Apple is holding back on units. You can only manufacture anything so quickly, and judging by the demand, it wouldn't matter how many of the phone Apple has - there'd still be people complaining about a lack of availability.

So, screw it. I'm giving up an iPhone (for now), my wife is skipping buying a GPS unit for her car (for now) and I'm taking our money and buying an XBox 360 & Rock Band.

It's nice to see my preferred approach to animating UI elements (i.e. minimal and fast) validated.

Oh, sure, there's plenty of places it's appropriate or even ideal to use alot of motion, but when it comes to application or portal design, I think it's more important to make sure the user is never left waiting for an animation to finish.

You don't want to end up like Avenue A/Razorfish. Not only did they pretty blatantly borrow a look from Group94, they did it poorly. Continuing the theme of the post, the site feels slow, despite running at a high, smooth frame rate due to the fact that everything needs to animate in and out. It feels slow, rather than snappy. It's a shame. (But it's still an improvement over their old site).]]> http://www.danielboyle.net/blog/2008/07/stop_animating.html http://www.danielboyle.net/blog/2008/07/stop_animating.html Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:36:13 -0500

Once I put in the knee-wall doors (to access the storage space), we are ready for the final inspection.

We're waiting on the inspection to put up the baseboard trim and fix the last 2 or 3 spots of drywall that still need work, just in case something else comes up. Once that's all done, we'll actually be taking a break until Fall. I'd like to get another raised bed into the backyard, and we have some minor painting and stuff on the first floor to take care of.

Also, we're not painting or moving anything up there right away since we still need somewhere to put the extra flooring, etc for the other half of the attic - there's no point in painting if we're just going to end up scuffing the walls later. If the floor gets damaged, though, there will be blood.

The closet interior