Category: Flashcom

Didn’t get an email yet, but it seems I’ve recently been made co-moderator of the Flashcom forum on <a href=”http://www.were-here.com”>were-here.com</a>. Sweet!

<a href=”http://www.were-here.com/forum/tm.asp?m=1254197&p=1&tmode=1&smode=1″>Welcome Message</a>

“Welcome JesterXL – NEW MODERATOR

By the time most people read this JesterXL will have been embedded into the Flashcom forum as my co-moderator. I first became aware of JesterXL on the Flashcoders and Flashcom mailing lists so if he seems familiar maybe that is why. Anyway, this is just the welcome thread and has nothing to do with Flashcom server so we’ll just delete it after a little while, but this is where to say hi I guess, the welcome thread is traditional …..

Greg.”

Finally finished 80% of my chapters. Finished my Director & Flashcom chapter Saturday night in time to see an ex-coworker (programmer who taught me OOP) play in his blues band in the ghetto of Atlanta outside an art studio. Man, can they jam some Credence! Finished my Building Flashcom Components chapter last night. Writing’s been keeping me pretty sober, so I’m definately looking forward to getting slizzy next weekend and after that. Whilst in the moutains in the middle of nowhere, this time without the DVD playing laptop, I’ll suddenly find myself surrounded by wanna be alchemist friends, finding some inoxios liquid in which to whet my pallete. Whatever, bring it. After that, it’s club time. I haven’t been able to get my groove on in awhile. This book has taken every weekend for the past month. Time to dance, yo.

So, before collapsing, I ended my night in a chatroom in Singapore. I won’t go into specifics about the chatroom because I was specifically told not to, but let’s just say I got to hang with Melvyn Song Kian Guan, John Robinson, and Sameul Wan talking all things Flashcom. The audio being broadcasted from Singapore was insanely good quality, and I heard mine was good too, though I never actually heard it, so I’m assuming Melvyn and John were just being nice. … I can’t believe I could still type last night; I felt like I’ve written War and Peace twice over. Regardless, it was just great to connect with people from all over the world, specially in a chatroom in another country.

Ok, how in the heck would I go about this? I thought about it pretty hard last night. Basically, I have another app I want to make for Central. However, it would require Flashcom. I thought of 2 ideas:
– either I have a demo server I purchase from <a href=”http://www.mediatemple.net”>Media Temple</a> which supports about 50 connections. This allows an average of 5 instances of the app to be live since I’ll allocate 5 connections max per app. That means 5 people can demo the application for a month. I’d either have to sell 1 app per month for $70 to recoup my investment. I don’t think the market is that big.
– setup a monthly fee, factoring in the Flashcom account into the price. I’d charge a $30 setup fee, and then $15 a month (which pays for the Flashcom account). I wouldn’t have to sell any to recoupe my investment.

The problem with the above is that Ultima Online, Everquest, and a few other games cost $10 a month while mine is simply a prog to allow you to play a game with 1 to 5 other people. Most people wouldn’t play more than 4 times a month, and then only for one long day or night.

I don’t see how this could work. Unless there is cheaper Flashcom hosting out there, it seems my only option is XMLSocket, but I have no clue how much hosting for that is, and I’d lose a lot of the features I want in my app.

*sigh*

I feel like I’m aiming for a niche market. I don’t know if that’s bad or what. I mean, my goal isn’t to make money, but enable people to play D&D with people on the internet. I’ve seen a few products out there, and need to research more, but it just doesn’t seem cost effective. Hrm… business stuff is hard.

Alright, fighting a little frustration here. My weekend is devoted to 2 chapters of this book as well as another article for <a href=”http://www.communitymx.com”>CMX</a>. However, the point of this post is that I’m trying to fight disillusionment here. I’ve found some tech books either rehash the documentation with tutorials in a pretty cover, simply rehash the docs and make corrections, or ignore them altogether (for good or ill). Well, I don’t know how my editor feels, but this is some bs. I am NOT going to rehash the documentation. If people buy this book, I want them to learn something they couldn’t read in the documentation. I think the book is supposed to be all inclusive, but to me, why? I’ll find out Monday, I’m sure, but in the meantime, I’m just going to rehash the docs only where I think something needs to be included. Everything else, you can read in the docs. I refuse to add content strictly for the sake of adding content. I don’t think that’s fair to my readers.

…am I wrong? Is this what your supposed to do in a technical book? Rehash the docs? If so, I’m deviating from the norm, period.