My blog, my life, my world

Hi guys, I would like to apologize in advance if sometimes you don't agree with the things I write here in this section. This is my blog and in my blog I don't only write things about actionscript or music, but also I write things about life and the things that I think are true/fair and vice versa. Unfortunately not all the things I write are always like a note of USD$100 which it's always welcome every time we read them in our hands.

Please feel free to comment on the things you feel up to (comments available since Oct-10). I'm really interested in what you think, I know that sometimes I could be wrong and the worst of all this is to be wrong and keep doing things like when we're right. Please just let me know what you think.

One day I was doing nothing and my brain wasn't working for coding, so I've decided to take a pen and paper and I drew something... this is me, lol!
Yo Ambulante image representation



Here is the list of entries sorted by date (the most recent on top)

Frankenstein programming

date: 04 Sep, 2011 18:45:00, comments: 24

A programmer feels like an inventor, programmers are kind of architects, we love being self directors and get motivated by results rather than the process itself. Every time we are coding any piece of program, algorithm, procedure, function, this contains part of ourselves; we are kind of leaving our soul on it, our spirit on it, regardless how good/bad it was done. Later on when we look at all these things we did, we feel like that belongs to us even when we don't feel proud of them. more...

Leaving the comfort zone

date: 12 Aug, 2011 00:00:00, comments: 19

Hello guys, first of all I would like to apologize, I know it has been a while since the last time I've published something, I got completely forgotten my website, I've badly answered some questions people made me during the last months. I'm sorry; this is not being a easy moment, many things happening at the same time. more...

Let's nuke the planet and fix some problems

date: 25 Mar, 2011 02:00:00, comments: 56

Well, it is all about Flash and using some resources only available on Flash player 10 like its drawing API; copyPixels, drawTriangles, blending modes, etc. It is a bit interesting, this app didn't take me long, I did the whole thing from scratch in just few days. It took me exactly 9 days working at nights, it definitely looks more complicated of what it actually is. I think it could be a good practice for the people who are interested to know how it was made. This is a very simple program, it is pure actionscript without using extra libraries or extra resources (I am not using any 3D Engine), it is just actionscript with some good magic bits of bitmap data manipulation (the performance of the app when rollover the countries on a 3d projections was a good challenge). more...

Having pee on the plant

date: 23 Jan, 2011 00:00:00, comments: 25

A friend of mine came for visiting us in the UK from Brazil and in one of these days we went to central London for having some drinks but unfortunately it was a bit late by the time we realized we have to go back home. So, we went to Victoria station and took a train at 3AM. What's funny is that there were never sober people at Victoria station after 2AM. more...

MetaLiquid (first step)

date: 30 Dec, 2010 00:00:00, comments: 21

Hello guys! Today a very old friend just sends me an email to say Merry Christmas delayed and also for asking me, if by chance I have done something related with liquid in flash, additionally he sent to me some examples about what he wants to achieve, unfortunately all of them were done in C++. I took a look out there to see what people are doing and a found some very, very interesting things using different approaches. The ones that took my attention are those using metaball concepts; it is really crazy because of the metaball algorithms (the well done ones) have to draw the shapes pixel by pixel, which is something very expensive in terms of CPU time. The more balls the heavier in terms of performance but it gives us a good look and feel. more...

One more cocaine story

date: 18 Dec, 2010 23:05:55, comments: 32

:( today I am feeling a bit sad, it normally happens by these days, when it is getting closer to Christmas eve and boxing day. I don't know why, some people say that I have an elephant memory, I have very strong memories about christmas time when I was young, from my childhood, in my neighbourhood, with my brothers, my parents, friends. I think it is all about Christmas, stay close to the people who you love and love you, and try to not complain about anything, don't say your spending too much money, don't make tough questions till January, enjoy every second with those people. more...

Taking an Adobe ACE Exam

date: 16 Dec, 2010 10:30:00, comments: 22

Today I have learned a big lesson and sadly I'm just here to share this feeling and speak a little bit about my experience with the Macromedia and Adobe exams. You may learn from my mistakes. I still remember the first time I was facing a Flash exam, It was in 2001, I was somewhere in Costa Rica on front of a VUE terminal doing the "301 Macromedia Flash 5 Developer" exam, sweating and panicking, don't know why. I think that it is really important to have a "very clear" reason to take any exam in order to avoid feeling disappointed afterwards, no matter what the result was. Some people think that because of they are ACE (Adobe certified experts) then... more...

My hometown Cali, Colombia.

date: 18 Oct, 2010 11:11:11, comments: 20

well, this time I am not writing anything about actionscript nor the things I do as a programmer, this is about my hometown and my last visit (I made a video, hihihi). Cali is so close to the pacific ocean in the Colombian territory, less than 2 hours driving, and because of where it is in the globe, near to the equator line the temperature is almost the same during the whole year (30 degrees Celsius average) we don't have that concept of winter, spring, summer and autumn. We are in a continuous summer with some rains occasionally but the best thing is that the city has constantly a refreshing breeze all the time, there are coconut palms everywhere, people are normally so friendly... but unfortunately not everything about my hometown is wonderful. more...

Flash on the Beach 2010 - FOTB 2010

date: 30 Sep, 2010 23:10:30, comments: 26

This is probably the most important flash event (conference) in the UK, it happens in Brighton every year once the summer has gone. This is about people (developers, designers, and some companies) showing what they have done, where is the market going to and also Adobe takes advantage of it for showing new features of Flash and announce new releases of products which is most of the times quite interesting. more...

Maria Rita in London (at KoKo)

date: 18 May, 2010 20:42:18, comments: 33

Well, there are lots of things to say when speaking about Brazilian music, especially when our subject is based on musicians with strong roots and long professional trajectory. I got the chance of living in Brazil for a while (for about 3 years), during this time I met, felt and appreciated the simplicity of music being made with highly charm levels. I personally used to like the Caribbean music the most, as you may know I'm Colombian and in my hometown what we hear is salsa, merengue and vallenato, which have a big influence from Puerto Rico and Cuba, a part of vallenato that is quite young and has a different history. more...

The eighth wonder (Oitava maravilha)

date: 04 Apr, 2010 19:55:49, comments: 26

Well, I have to confess that this weekend (easter bank holiday 2010) was boring after we took a look on the BBC forecast and it said that it will be raining all days and with temperatures lower than 10 degrees, it destroyed completely the weekend, we'd better to be at home eating and watching TV. We did nothing especial at all BUT there was something really interesting, my wife and I been making music, lol! We have recorded a song called "Oitava maravilha" in Brazilian Portuguese, it translates in English "The eighth wonder". more...

Math.sin vs OurSin

date: 31 Jan, 2010 21:15:22, comments: 23

Nowadays in most of our scenarios the Flash Math.sin function is quite useful and acceptable in terms of performance but I have to confess that I always try to avoid it, I'm not fun of it at all, these functions are quite heavy and take a lot of our CPU time when we use them a lot in blocks of code. It seems to me that I'm not alone having problems with it, there are people out there unsatisfied with it and I can understand why. more...

What are they for?

date: 29 Nov, 2009 02:11:02, comments: 16

Last year in Flash on the Beach 2009 I was attending a session of a good developer who writes some books and articles about flash and actionscript, his name is Keith Peters. This guy just said something that made me think about my career and binary files related with it, files that we built and only we know about them. He said: What's the purpose of saving these files on your hard disk? If most of them will become obsolete and you could even forget that they exist. What are you earning or losing with all these files just there, in a folder on your hard disk? Why you just throw them away to the cyberspace? more...

Protected panoramas

date: 15 Aug, 2009 22:03:15, comments: 25

At this moment there are many companies offering 360 panoramic online tours, some of them using quicktime player, others using java, other using flash and (papervision, away3d, etc)... Which one is the best? It depends on what you're trying to achieve and how quick you want to develop it. I believe that all these people who are working with panoramas are doing their photography job really well (which is perhaps the most important part of a panorama tour) but many of them are forgetting one really important thing "PROTECT THEIR PICTURES " more...