Los Angeles Technologist, Entrepreneur, Educator and Community Leader

I am back in the sunshine of Topanga, having returned from FITC Amsterdam, and it was, as usual, a really great time.

While in Amsterdam, I debuted Synthia, the first publicly usable musical instrument to emerge from Project Ludi at Almer/Blank Labs.

Synthia on the web, is a Flash 10 application that translates pictures into music — infinite classical canons — using a small set of rules that establish key, restricted notes within the key, tempo, instrumentation and the score.

I actually developed Synthia as a demonstration app to accompany my talk, ‘Hearing Pictures’ (which went really well at FITC Amsterdam, and which you can see at FITC Toronto in April), but the results were so fun to play with, that we decided to make it a publicly usable web-application, where anyone can upload any picture, have Synthia turn it into music, and then share it with your friends and embed it in any web page.

We will be posting a lot more about Synthia in the coming weeks, and updating her rules and features over the coming months. But, for now, I’d encourage all of you to play around with the Synthia Composer (just upload an image and listen), or just browse the gallery to hear what other pictures sound like.

And, if while playing with Synthia, you have some ideas on how we might commercialize her, share your thoughts and ideas for a chance to win an iPad.

Share and enjoy!

-r

For those who’ve been reading this blog for a few months, you might recall my mentioning a few times about my side work on translating pictures into music — and specifically, the Synesthesizer, a musical instrument that works by translating pictures into music, utilizing metaphors inspired by synesthesia.

Well, I’ve done a bit better than that — way better than we could get the Synesthesizer to work. In fact, we at Almer/Blank Labs, have just completed the finishing touches on a new software-based musical instrument that we are debuting at FITC Amsterdam.

Her name is Synthia. And I wish I could tell you more about her right now. But that will have to wait another 133 hours. Because Synthia will debut on February 22nd, at 5PM CET (Amsterdam Time) / 9AM PST (California Time).

She will debut as soon as I complete my talk, Hearing Pictures, I will be able to tell you more about her. In addition to the release of Synthia, the talk itself will be *really* good. I’ve given a lot of talks, and this is going to be, by far, the best and most exciting.

If you’re planning to be at FITC Amsterdam, then you will most definitely not want to miss this talk @ 4PM in Shaffyyzaal on Day 1, Monday, February 22nd.

Share and enjoy!

-r

As part of their promotion surrounding their new site and new courses, the Rich Media Institute is giving away FREE enrollment in ‘Comprehensive ActionScript 3‘, which is a compilation of five of the online training courses I have published for the RMI.

Enrollment lasts for 90 days, and this course is free to enroll only through February 15th, and only through this link.

‘Comprehensive ActionScript 3′ includes over 9 hours of training, from the following courses:

– Practical ActionScript 3
– Understanding and Working with Events in ActionScript 3
– Understanding and Working with Event Broadcasters in ActionScript 3
– ActionScript 3 for Flash Video
– The Webcam, CuePoints and Captions in Flash Video with ActionScript 3

So, go ahead and do yourself a favor, and enroll.

Share and enjoy!

-r

While I’ve been away from the blog in the past several weeks, it seems that there have been two iterations of the Open Source Media Framework — the last course I wrote was in OSMF7 and now we’re at 9.

And, of course, between these two versions, the sample code in my courses posted at Adobe has become unusable.

After getting a few email requests from developers, I decided tonight to sit down and update the files for the first course — the course in building a progressive video player in OSMF.

So, if you would like, you can get that update here.

The primary difference is that basically EVERY EVENT has changed names and types. So I had to hunt them down through the documentation, one at a time — which I did. And also, they changed the name of the media player instance — again — this time, to ‘media’ (nee ‘player’, nee ‘element’).

Please note that I didn’t really update the comments to reflect the changes to the event names and locations.

And if you’re all very, very, very nice, I might consider updating the files for the Dynamic Multibitrate Streaming Player also

Share and enjoy!

-r

I know it’s been really light (basically non-existent) blogging this year. And I promise there’s a good reason for it.

Aside from my standard work load, I’ve been consumed with two projects. One is the Ludi Machine, which I’m getting into shape for FITC Amsterdam at the end of February (there are still seats available for my workshop on Events in AS3 on February 21st in Amsterdam).

The other item that’s been consuming my time has been the revamp of the Rich Media Institute website — the first real overhaul to the public website since 2006. Among the new features we’ve recently launched:

• Totally overhauled catalog
  Making it much easier for you to browse the courses
• New shopping cart
  You can buy as many courses as you like at once, and you don’t need to use paypal
• New European video server
  So our customers in Europe and Asia can view our training as well as our American ones
• Public forums
  So you can ask questions and follow news of the RMI without having to enroll in a course
• Brand new products
  We’re constantly adding new courses to the site, including the FDT training and new combo courses, including Comprehensive ActionScript 3, which has over 9 hours of training content

So, the changes to the RMI are pretty exciting. And, following the launch of the new site, I’m teaching some new workshops that I wanted to let you all know about:

New Compilation Online Training
Comprehensive ActionScript 3 (over 9 hours of training)
Comprehensive Flash Video (5 and a half hours)

New Live Workshops
Practical ActionScript 3 on May 1st
Mastering ActionScript 3 Events on May 8th
Purchase both together and save $75

And, because of the new system, we are offering the option to enroll in the online training and live workshops at the same time — so you can start accessing the online training immediately, and then get your face-to-face training when the workshop day comes.

Combo Live and Online Workshops
Practical ActionScript 3 online and live on May 1st
Mastering ActionScript 3 Events online and live on May 8th
Comprehensive AS3 9 hours of online training and both live workshops on May 1st and 8th

We’re using these to gauge customer interest in these sorts of new and unique training opportunities. So please spread the word.

The Comprehensive AS3 – Live and Online is particularly great value. For $425 you get 9 hours of online training and 12 classroom hours, with me teaching you AS3 — I’ve worked on these courses for years now, and it really is the best AS3 training available.

All of our online training, and all of my live workshops, are on sale through all of February, and you can save an additional 10% with the code ‘rblank9‘.

Share and enjoy!

-r

My new online video course on Dynamic Multi-bitrate Streaming with Adobe Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) has just gone live on Adobe Developer Connection.

It’s 35 minutes across five lessons and takes you through the process of converting the progressive OSMF video player (which we create in the first installment of this course on Building Progressive Video Players with Adobe OSMF, into a dynamic multi-bitrate streaming player. Multi-bitrate streaming occurs when you program your Flash to deliver the highest quality video a viewer can see (dependent on their bandwidth). *Dynamic* multi-bitrate streaming is similar, with the additional feature of having your player constantly meters the bandwidth throughout viewing, to adjust the playback between multiple videos seamlessly, as the viewer’s bandwidth may fluctuate.
[...]

As I’ve been posting about more frequently (including just today about my Synesthesizer), I’m intrigued by the concept of automated music generation.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this cool little web app (I forget where I found it), called ‘Let Them Sing it For You‘.

It’s a Flash app that will try to form music from words. You type in words — any set of words you might like — and then click ‘play’. LTSIFU will then process through its database, cross-referencing the words you’ve typed with the songs in which those words appear.

It appears that LTSIFU searches word-by-word — that is, it does not search for whole phrases, but instead occurrences of the individual word. And, if you type in a word that doesn’t exist in the database yet, it will try to break that word down into smaller words or sounds that might exist. And, if that doesn’t work, it’ll insert a ‘beep’ into your track. If you know of an occurrence of a missing word, then you can send that information to the creators for inclusion.

The result? It’s a lot of fun to play with, but, well, let’s just say that what they sing from you is something far short of music.
[...]

As I’ve mentioned or alluded to in a few of my posts in the past couple of months, I’ve recently been working on a new talk for 2010. The talk is entitled ‘Hearing Pictures’ and is based around my work on a side hobby called ‘Project Ludi’.

It’s a little difficult to explain the long-term mission of Project Ludi in a short blog post, but in the first series of experiments on which I’ve honed in, I am seeking to create a system that can translate pictures into music. This is what I call the Synesthesizer — a musical synthesizer that relies on synesthesia-inspired translation metaphors.

I’m only a few short months into what is a very long-term endeavor, and I’ve had precious few hours to spend on the project in that time, but I always set the benchmark definition of version 1.0 of the synesthesizer as ‘a system that produces something approximating music’, and even though I haven’t invested nearly the amount of time as I’d like, I believe that the current Synesthesizer meets this definition. And thus, I feel I have Synesthesizer 1.0.

[...]

Two new ActionScript 3 workshop dates have been announced. I’ll be teaching ‘ActionScript 3 Events’ in Amsterdam on February 21st, 2010 (the day before FITC Amsterdam) and ‘Practical ActionScript 3′ in Toronto on April 24, 2010 (the day before FITC Toronto).

I’ve written about both workshops before (and the descriptions are on the linked urls), but briefly…
[...]

The Rich Media Institute has just released a series of three courses in FDT (a.k.a, the Flash Development Tool), which is the most powerful IDE for Actionscript 2, 3 and MXML — the only editor built from the ground-up to support the needs of ActionScript developers.
[...]

This coming Wednesday, December 2nd, I’ll be giving my new talk, Hearing Pictures at the LA Flash End-Of-Year Party. This will be only the second time I’ve given this talk — I first gave it at the FITC Unconference at MAX 2009. Since I was speaking at an unconference (a less formal environment, with very different criteria for acceptability than the normal conference tracks), I used the opportunity to create a brand new talk on a sort of crazy idea that’s been nagging me for a few years — the idea of translating anything into anything.

But, that’s not what this post is about.

About a month ago, I picked up a copy of Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, which describes, in a series of clearly written chapters, how to go about assembling synthesizers from inexpensive, easily available hardware.

[...]

As I’ve now announced, this December’s LA Flash meeting will be my last as manager of the group I founded almost seven years ago. As this feels like a particularly significant move, both for the group as well as for me, personally, I wanted to take a few moments to explain why I feel that the time has come to move on from my post in active leadership of our community.[...]

After having an account for some time now, I’ve *finally* added my first post to the FITC Blog. Entitled, The Creative Chip, I talk about the work of Stanford Professor Kwabena Boahen’s work on the Neurogrid, a new computer chip based on neural computing rather than traditional models of digital computing.

Share and enjoy!

-r

I’ve started work on the next installment of my training on the Adobe Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) (following my course on building a progressive video player with OSMF, published last month). And in the roughly 6 weeks since I built the code for the last course (using OSMF 0.5), we’ve seen two revs of the OSMF codebase.

The framework is definitely more solid now, but, since it’s still ‘beta’, they continue to shift things under the hood.[...]

Earlier this week, I caught this post from Matthew Yglesias, and it triggered me to think a bit more about this idea of the relationship of growth and innovation.

Considering the economic value of the printing press as being measurable solely through the economic activity of the publishing industry is obviously an overly narrow interpretation of economic impact — and I’m not sure why he chooses to do that. You could make that argument with certain other types of innovations (such as a new book binding glue), the impact of which might be argued to be limited to the book publishing industry, but the printing press powered information sharing, documentation, communication, learning — and, of course, commerce. It’s like arguing the economic value of the internet can be measured solely through the economic activity of bloggers.

Externalities, such as in this printing press example, are not reflected in, or susceptible to audit through, objective economic indicators like GDP (on a macro level) or a firm’s balance sheet (on a micro level). The inability of our economic system to track and account for externalities is, perhaps, the single largest flaw in our conception of economies.[...]

My fiancee and I were watching ‘TV’ last night. (I say ‘TV’ in quotes because, since getting FiOS, we don’t actually watch TV anymore — opting instead to consume most of our media through Hulu, Netflix — and, of course, South Park Studios).

But last night, she had a hankering for Medium or Ghost Whisperer, and searching Hulu we discovered that Hulu links to CBS.com to watch these shows.

We *also* discovered that we dislike the CBS video player a great deal. One of the key UX issues, from my perspective, is how the ads take over the page — not just the player — in effect totally obscuring the player. But, that’s just a small annoyance. What was much worse was a full-screen bug we discovered.[...]

A little while ago, I updated and reposted my notes on my favorite Mac freeware, including a bunch of neat little doo-dads and betcha-didn’t-knows. But, even with the wide variety of freeware available for Mac, sometimes you just gotta pay for the feature, functionality or performance that you are looking for. And, fortunately, most of the time, these tools are priced pretty reasonably. So, take a look through this list and see if maybe there aren’t a few tools you should consider investing in. Oh, and I’m not including tools of the trade — big-name items like Adobe CS — since I’m assuming you know which tools of your trade you need. In all cases, see the linked URL for current and accurate features and pricing.

So, without further ado, and in no particular order[...]

I’ve *finally* completed and posted a version of my Unlocking ActionScript 3 Fluency: Events and the Broadcaster workshop to the Rich Media Institute Online.

I gave this name to the course because I believe (and argue in the course) that events really are the glue that bind everything together, and understanding events is vital to achieving fluency in ActionScript 3. Understanding how to reduce the potential for errors in your code makes you a better coder; understanding how to work with and around events makes you a fluent coder.

Fortunately, events in AS3 are not that hard to work with — in fact, they are incredibly consistent and pretty darn easy. They do have some pretty key limitations, but there are several ways around them, and my course teaches a CustomEvent and a CustomEvent Broadcaster as two such solutions.

But before we get that far, there is one very most important aspect of working with events in ActionScript 3, a concept that many users of Flash do not understand when walking into my course. This concept of Display List Event Flow can be stated in two simple bullets.

Events in Flash:

• are objects
• that can travel

[...]

A few nights ago, as I was at my folks house in New Jersey, and had a touch of the jet lag. So, checking Facebook, and one of my friends, Bram, had posted a challenge to his wall. He was looking for a Flash guy to create a Flash app to:

• load any Flash video from your hard-drive
• select the frame/location
• drag-resize/reposition a marquee selection
• save a JPG of the selected area to your hard-drive

I realized that this was possible in Flash Player 10 (no AIR required) because of the changes to the FileReference API[...]

I don’t normally pimp for my local radio station (even though I am privileged to live within the broadcast territory of the best music station in the world), but right now — just this very second — I’m going to encourage all of you to subscribe to KCRW’s ‘Today’s Top Tune’ podcast. It’s really outstanding content — all free, of course, and hand-picked by, I assume, Jason Bentley and his cohorts.[...]