RGBlog

The online community has been overly saturated with ChatRoulette.com & all of the competitors that have popped up. In the end, all of these communities have their problems filtering out the pervs & increasing the quality of connections for their users. One competitor, STIRCHAT.com, has take it upon itself to offer a video chat widget that users can bring to their own website.

STIRCHAT has allowed the viral nature of random video chat to take another step forward in its evolution. To create a community that is truly diverse and unique, you must expand beyond the barriers of your own domain and allow other domains to bring in the new users who will take the community to a whole other level.

You can checkout the widgetized version of STIRCHAT.com at the following link:

http://stirchat.com/myWidget.html

I look forward to the success this new widget brings to STIRCHAT.com and I hope they can do more to keep the pervs out of the community. May STIRCHAT.com be a productive tool of future collaboration, entertainment and inspiration.

In recent days, some of us have become aware of a communication tool called Chatroulette. If you have been on ChatRoulette, you will agree with me that the communication is often strange and not easy to describe. You could spend an hour on ChatRoulette and easily bounce through 50 or more people from all over the world. Some people are normal & willing to chat, some are looking for attention re-enacting the latest YouTube craziness & the other 40 people are perverts (seriously…).

To keep up with the recent need to randomly chat with the rest of the world, Stir.com has introduced their version of worldly random chat, called STIRChat. STIRChat is conveniently available at STIRChat.com. STIR takes all the random fun & lightheartedness of ChatRoulette and brings in a level of interactive responsibility. STIR doesn’t just tell people to keep it mature, it gives the community the ability to remove the perverts through a BLOCK button that shuts down users who have received too many complaints. You have to appreciate the people at STIR giving another means to keeping finding someone fresh & new, but also having the integrity to stand up for decency and maturity.

To all you party animals out there, I say keep your experiences new and unique, but also respect your fellow man enough to block your local perv the next time you’re on STIRChat.com. Be free, be unique & be safe.

In the world of nightlife & partyin’, you always have the challenge of finding the right place to be seen. A hangout must have your type of crew, your type of music & most of all YOUR TYPE OF VIBE. You spend too much time preppin’ yourself to the 9s & you aren’t going to waste it on yesterday’s hot spot. This is where Stir.com can assist you in your quest for the best nightlife.

Stir.com is a community that focuses on you, your interests, your hangouts & your parties. They accept your interests when you create a profile & use those interests to suggest people, places & parties that fit your style.

Who better to create events on Stir than yourself? This is exactly what Stir.com decided when they recently opened up their event database & started allowing all users to create their own events. Now every user has the power to create the next great party. Don’t worry about people creating “parties in their pants”. They are well aware of every event that is created & will validate the integrity of each one.

In the end, having a nightlife like a celebrity is not easy, but with Stir.com you have one more tool to help confirm that you will be partying like you want, when you want.

Have you ever needed to generate a unique ID for users? I’m sure you have. But, have you ever had to create a unique ID for users without referencing the other user IDs (checking for duplicates)? I ran into this issue and discovered globally unique identifier (GUID for short). This is something constantly used in the programming world, but not something I needed in the actionscript world, until now. Being a Flash developer who comes from a design background, I am constantly catching up with the tips and tricks of the hard core programming community.

To give you a little background on a GUID, it is a reference number that is randomly generated. The beauty of a GUID is that the total number of unique keys (2¹²⁸ or 3.4×10³⁸) is so large that the probability of the same number being generated twice is infinitesimally small.

Since this instantly became something I could use in future projects, I decided to create an actionscript 3 class. I used the AS2 class created by Meychi.com (which is no longer up for some reason) as a base for the GUID equation.

To make sure my fellow Flash developers have the tools they need to create GUIDs, I have uploaded this file for download.

You can use this class by calling the “GUID.create()” function.

The actionscript Tween Class is a wonderful tool that adds a little something special when you want something to move. In Actionscript 2, I used it all the time to both keep the application working smooth and keep the user engaged in what’s going on. With Actionscript 3, I started avoiding the Tween Class due to the tweens being very unpredictable and stalling out on me. When you need something to fade or move, going half way doesn’t cut it.

So, I finally decided that actionscript 3 was a far superior product to actionscript 2 (where the Tween Class worked great) and there must be something wrong with my code. God forbid!

I was right, but it took a while to find out what the issue was.It seems that actionscript 3 cleans up “garbage” in functions before the Tweens finish. This is not a problem if the Tween is declared outside of the function, but is a HUGE problem if the Tween is declared in the function.

In AS2, I along with many other people use this quick line of code to create a Tween:
——————————————-
var myTween:Tween = new Tween(MovieClip, “_x”, Regular.easeOut, MovieClip.x, 250, 1, true);
——————————————-

This is a problem when it is inside of a function. The Tween needs to be declared outside of the function and everything will be right in the world again.

To help my fellow actionscript developer, I decided to post my findings below:
——————————————-
var myTween:Tween;

function TweenMyMC(){
myTween = new Tween(MovieClip, “_x”, Regular.easeOut, MovieClip.x, 250, 1, true);
}
——————————————-

I hope this information reaches all you guys before you waste the time I did trying to rewire the Tween class.
Keep kicking tail in the Flash world and having fun!

Who doesn’t want a good cookie? Flash cookie that is… Flash cookies can be great for saving data that users need on their computer. It’s also a great tool to put something on someone’s computer that YOU want on there. In a recent project, I discussed how we would keep users from voting multiple times in a contest. The voting interface was already going to be Flash, so I offered up a Flash Cookie (SharedObject) as an option. The nice thing about Flash Cookies is that you can’t just clear your cookies and they’ll go away. Flash cookies are persistent little buggers and they reside on the computer, instead of the browser. Once users voted, every browser would recognize they already voted and move past the voting process.

Now that I have sold you on a few of the positives of Flash Cookies, I’ll throw you some basic code to try things out on your own. Below are some basic pieces for a SharedObject:

———————————————–
//import the SharedObject library
import flash.net.SharedObject;

//make Local Shared Object named myLocalSO(in as) called “myflashcookie” on disk
var myLocalSO:SharedObject = SharedObject.getLocal(“myflashcookie”);

//function to set the variable in the SharedObject
function setVal(key:String, val:String) {
myLocalSO.data[key] = val;
trace(key +” set to “+val);
//flush the SO, write the SO to disk
myLocalSO.flush();
}

//function to get a variable value from the SharedObject
function getVal(key:String) {
return myLocalSO.data[key];
trace(myLocalSO.data[key] +” received from “+key);
}

//example of setting a variable
setVal(‘voted’,'yes’);

//example of getting the value of a variable
flashCookie = getVal(‘voted’);

———————————————–

Flash cookies are a great little tool and with the right implementation, they can keep your Flash informed and secure. As always, I hope this information gets to you before you need it.

PlentyOfFish.com has given up on its free dating service.

PlentyOfFish.com is headed up by Markus Frind, a garage start-up who constantly blurts out whatever will get him press. He also writes on this blog http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/ . It looks like the project was started back in 2003.

It looks like PlentyofFish.com realizes they are losing marketshare fast and FREE sites (like PlentyOfFish) don’t really have a future.

Looks like 2009 will be the end of the FREE business model, PlentyofFish.com…. I wonder if PlentyOfFish.com will now totally change course again to save what little face they have as a voice in the online dating industry.

—————————–

Before anyone gets all bent out of shape. Yes, this article is a “remix” of the article Markus Frind, Founder of PlentyOfFish, wrote:

http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/its-official-matchcom-abandons-paid-dating/

I just find it absolutely hysterical that he can write an article about FREE vs PAID and just two short months later decide he’s going to join the PAID community.

Don’t worry Markus, DownToEarth.com will take good care of all the FREE users you will alienate. DownToEarth.com would have most likely taken them sooner or later. No matter what you do, POF’s days are numbered.

It seems that the FREE online dating communities have been given the opportunity to shine due to the current world economy. It’s true that people are trying to restrict spending and only splurge where they feel it’s a necessity. Some of these FREE sites (namely PlentyofFish.com) have taken this attention and turned it into a fictitious battle against PAID online dating websites (namely Match.com). Really Markus? Do you really think you offer the same quality services of websites like Match.com. Let’s take a look into what PlentyofFish offers for FREE and what Match offers for a price.

With PlentyofFish, a new user will have access to the largest “FREE” online dating community. This is a great accomplishment as a FREE site, but you must consider the motives of users on a FREE dating site. It is a known fact that married people use FREE dating websites to find “hook ups” since they don’t have to worry about explaining a bill for a PAID dating site. This is common enough on PlentyofFish that they actually have married as a relationship status for users. Also, FREE dating websites are much easier for fraudsters to join and cause headaches for the users. When you sign-up to find someone special, the last thing you want is a person (who you talked to the last 2 weeks) telling you they need $5,000 to help them save a family member. Finally, user experience is unknown to the PlentyofFish design. No matter what you click in the site, you have a 50/50 chance of clicking on an advertisement. It is what it is, and it doesn’t seem like any improvements are on the horizon.

On the other hand, Match.com is the largest “PAID” online dating community. At Match.com, all users are screened before they are allowed in the community. This additional screening helps remove the deviants and fraudsters that could pollute the website. Also, Match.com has a HUGE commitment to customer service. Users can get immediate help with their profile content, images, searches, etc… Match.com is also committed to new technologies that improve the matchmaking chances of all users. Dedication to being the most effective online dating community will always come at a price, and their track record proves it’s worth it.

In the end, it’s never nice to complain about anything someone gives you for FREE. But, you should kindly correct your friend when he says a Kia is the same as a Mercedes. Markus, as a friend, I would like to help you through this confusion and redirect your efforts back into the FREE online dating market before other sites, like DownToEarth.com, take away your spotlight.

—-
Since this post, it seems that Markus has recanted his FREE vs. PAID position and is looking to create a PAID site of his own.

http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/looking-to-aquire/

—-

It came to my attention that the comboBox component in actionscript 3 was a whopping 40+K. In most situations, you could absorb this file size based on the need you have and the overall functionality of the application you are building. Unfortunately, this dropdown was being used in a banner that needed to be south of 30K. Needless to say, this was a problem and it needed to be addressed.

Since we only needed basic dropdown functionality, I was able to recreate it at a size of less than 7K (could of been smaller, but we had to include fonts).

To help the rest of the community I have a download link to save you some time. I hope you find this when you need it, and I’m happy to answer any questions.

Download the Source

It always important to have a little piece of code that will generate a unique value when you need it. I came upon a need and spent a good amount of time trying to find the answer. I wanted something that was simple, to the point and not require a class or function to get what I needed.

Below is the code I found:

var now:Date = new Date();
trace(now.getTime());
trace(now.valueOf());
fileName = now.valueOf().toString();

The fileName part was added by me to show how I was using it. I was uploading multiple files to a cache folder and needed to change them to a format that was accepted by the server. Users can put so many wonderful characters in their file names (*,&,$,#). To help these users, who don’t understand “web-friendly” file naming, I changed the name while it was being uploaded.

As always, this is only one way to solve this type of problem. I hope this solution finds developers when he/she needs it.

P.S. – I also found another little AS3 command that helped me with the file name issue. The command is called escape(). This command is awesome at URL encoding the file names and solving this issue like a CHAMP! Below is an example:

var filePath : String = “http://test.com/upload/l_0,0157 e9761d#.jpg”;
var encodedPath : String = escape(filePath);
trace(encodedPath); //This equals “http://test.com/upload/l_0%2C0157%20%20e9761d%23.jpg”

I hope this helps.