Software, Fitness, and Gaming – Jesse Warden

Blog

  • Flex Chronicles #13: One Way to Skin a Button

    I haven’t figured out how to get this dyanamic yet, meaning, loading an image externally that isn’t compiled in. I know it can be done, but alpha bits are tough. Best excuse I have, sorry.

    There some new styles that correspond to skins. I’m still reading and learning, and have seen a CSS example Dirk posted somewhere, but the setStyle way is nice since I’m familiar with the syntax, and if it’s a style, it can be set in CSS, and bound to, etc.

    Here’s an example that uses a PNG, a GIF, and a JPG.

    The key is the style names, as shown here. skin_pb is the name of the Button, img is the pointer to one of the embeded images, and the the rest are the skin style names.

    skin_pb.setStyle("upSkin", img);
skin_pb.setStyle("selectedUpSkin", img);
skin_pb.setStyle("selectedOverSkin", img);
skin_pb.setStyle("selectedDownSkin", img);
skin_pb.setStyle("selectedDisabledSkin", img);
skin_pb.setStyle("overSkin", img);
skin_pb.setStyle("downSkin", img);
skin_pb.setStyle("disabledSkin", img);

    Flex 2 Button Skin – Source ZIP

  • Pimp My Nutcracker

    You know what I’m gonna say…

    PIMP!… my nutcracker

    Via Scoutj.

  • 2 Years of Port 25 Goodness

    BellSouth replies with a, “Bah Humbug!”.

    At 10:00am this morning, I couldn’t send emails, nor see my website. Then, internet dies. Turns out the blond hottie had disconnected my modem. I plugged it back in, and suddenly I got email, internet, and instant messenging back, but still couldn’t send emails.

    By 12:30 pm, I had sent emails piling up in my Outbox in Outlook Express. Couldn’t log into my Mediatemple account to request support. A “forgotten password” later, I fired a support request off reporting my email problems.

    Received a response by 5:00pm saying that sometimes internet service provides, such as BellSouth, will suddenly block port 25 without telling their customers. Any more technical support would have to be taken up with BellSouth. Apparently the ball was in BellSouth’s court.

    Chatted with a bot, and a polite one I might add, about my problems. They had me use this trick on using BellSouth as the outgoing SMTP server. Their only response for why, suddenly after 2 years my email stopped working with my existing settings was, “…some problem with the server I was using.”

    According to Mediatemple, apparently not. Who’s right?

    Called BellSouth because I wasn’t getting anywhere with the bot after suggesting he/she/it would look good in tight leather. Nice gent with a cool accent on the other line had me run through the same setup. I explained 3 times, saying the same thing 3 different ways to prevent sounding repetitive since that is an effective communication tool, that my email had worked without using BellSouth’s outgoing email server. He laughed, but didn’t outwardly agree, when I suggested I was just lucky for the past 2 years. After being pointed to the 2nd result in Google (which I had already read, twice), I thanked him for his time, and resigned myself to having to use BellSouth’s outgoing email server.

    I guess it’s not a big deal. After doing a report on internet terrorism for my speech class, I certainly understand why they don’t support email routing. I guess I am just exteremely curious how after 2 years, 2 apartments, 1 house, and 2 routers later… it just magically stops working when my dog tackles her brother against the window, disconnecting me. My curiousity will apparently not be satiated. I really need to go to school for networking.

    Still love my dog, though.

  • Firefox 1.5 Works Great with Flex 2 Alpha

    Installed Firefox 1.5 late in the week, and found that external links (like when you click on a link in email) default to opening in a new tab, whereas before they would open in the most recent window or tab. Usually, I’d have to use precognition techniques to know this was going to happen. Thus, I’d either open a new blank window, or tab, and THEN click on the external link.

    When compiling in Flex Builder 2, she opens up the most recent HTML & SWF in your most recent Firefox tab or browser window, same as external links. With 1.5, however, it opens in a new tab. A really subtle addition to the new Firefox that really helps when developing in Flex Builder 2.

    Now, I can actually keep the documentation open in one Firefox tab while I play in Flex Builder 2.