Nate on Tech

It’s that time of the year again, so let’s be proper and talk about what we’re thankful for. Continue Reading »

If you haven’t heard, there’s a new group that was recently put together to compliment the MN Flash User Group, but targeted towards developers: Minnesota Flash/Flex Programmer Group. I’ve considered joining the MN Flash User Group in the past, but assumed it would be more designer-oriented, and I’ve definitely been on the developer end of Flash for many years.
If you’re a Flash or Flex developer, and you’re in the area this December 5th, you should join us for the kickoff meeting for the new programmer group. Check out their calendar for details (you’ll have to navigate to Dec 5) Unless there’s an Act of God, or someone dies, I’ll be there. Don’t forget to RSVP!

Well it’s official - I’m an open-source developer now! Not that I’ve left my “real” job - far from it. In my spare time, I’ve been digging through the source code for an Axis & Allies clone game - TripleA. TripleA is built in Java 1.5 (or 5.0 for those of you that enjoy marketing hype) and is pretty fun - it even has multiple other variations on the game using the same set of rules. Here are my two patches so far: Continue Reading »

NPR did a short story on a University of Buffalo team that is simulating earthquakes to study the effects on man-made structures. Their first test simulated a roughly magnitude 6 quake centered 4 miles from a 2-story house. They have 3 videos (Real Video format - yuck) on their page. Sounds like their next test is planned for a location in Japan.

Many years ago, I wrote (in concert with Dave) a little gravity simulator in flash. By “gravity simulator”, I mean there were a few graphics representing planets, your mouse was the sun, and things moved about in some interesting patterns. Not exacly a model for our solar system, but fun to play with. The interesting part was that each planet had to calculate it’s gravitational pull against all the other planets. Thus increasing the planet count increased the number of calculations exponentially. Continue Reading »

As I promised, here are some bad photos from the sneak peak session. Continue Reading »

Day 3. Session 5. Roger Gonzalez really digs into optimizing your large Flex applications. Warning: this one is heavy, folks. Continue Reading »

So as Dave mentioned, we got the Mac beta from the Adobe guys, and so here it is!

Day 3. Session 4. Alex Harui talks about the innards of building Flex components, from construction to interaction, and then detachment.

These are the steps that a Flex component undergoes during its lifetime: Continue Reading »

Day 3. Session 3. Ely Greenfield builds a carousel for showing images (kinda like iTunes new view) Continue Reading »