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By scott
It was a long time coming, but it is definitely worth it. The all new rolex.com site is finally live. This is the last project that I worked on at Critical Mass for close to a year. I was one of the tech leads (flash side). It wasn’t a year of programming, there was a lot of planning that went into this site. Unfortunately I left with a month and a half remaining in the schedule and had to hand the reigns over to Scott Ingalls who led one of the best teams I have ever worked with to completion. On the tech side I worked with Geoff Sowrey, Jim McFadyen, Scott Ingalls, Craig Banfill, Tim Uruski, Natalia Schmiemann, Jeff Laforce, Fraser Crosbie, Jesse Knowles, David Chambers, Jeremy Foster, Martin L’Hereaux, Lying Liu, Troy Gullage, Nick Simonsen, and David Gluzman.
This site was a true testament to team work, from the designers, to the project managers, to the executives, to the clients, to the qa team, and to the developers, I have never worked with such chemistry. Sure there were speed bumps along the way but everyone worked together to build an amazing site.
Some of the features of this project, I can’t list them all, but some key ones are, fully search engine optimized, even the flash side. Back button works in Flash. Deep linking and bookmarking works in flash, dynamic repositioning based on the size of the users browser/resolution, and the biggest challenge, or accomplishment (however you look at it) is the entire site is managed with the Red Dot content management system. Red Dot was never developed to manage a site of this size and complexity. And definitely was never developed to manage a Flash site. With a whole lot of great minds it was accomplished.
I learned a lot from this project, and not only on the programming side. I learned a great team makes a great project and that everyone contributes no matter what their role. Heck, I even provided some design ideas at one time.
Great work guys, you really should be proud of yourselves, now go get some rest and look me up next time you’re in California. I am drinking Rolling Rock right now as a tribute. The bottle is Rolex green 
By scott
When I think back and reflect on the last 10 years of my life, a lot has changed, or has it? I have been involved with the internet in some way or another since the early to mid 90′s, essentially the beginning of when it began to take off for the general public. My first question is, has the Internet changed in the last 10 years. Of course it has! But wait, the Internet itself hasn’t changed. It is the same setup, however, how we use it and the technology to access it has changed (thank god). I remember my first time connecting to something outside of my computer, a network, sort of. It was a BBS, and I connected to it via my 900 baud modem connected to my Commodore 64 computer. On the BBS I could download games, leave messages for other users, ask questions, request games or software. Sound familiar? This was in the 80s!! File sharing as we know it today wasn’t even a twinkle in Shawn Fanning’s eye. I also thought by looking up a company in the phone book, I could dial their regular phone line and hack into their systems. I called banks, I called car companies, even my school, sorry to all those receptionists who had to listen to the soothing sounds of connections attempts. Ok, enough reminiscing. What’s my point.
The Internet came out of nowhere, and literally changed the world as we knew it. Sure it took a little while to take off, but what new medium doesn’t. When TV was invented in the 50′s, not everyone had a television set, there were only a few shows. It probably wasn’t until the 70s when most families had TVs in their living rooms. In 15 years (or so), the public facing Internet has gone from a couple sites to more than a billion users online everyday. There is a generation growing up right now who will never know what it is like without email or SMS messaging. What it was like to write a letter and wait weeks for a response.
OK, enough history, what are you getting at Scott? Good question, but in my incoherent rambling I do have a point. The Internet has changed society, no question about it. If you think otherwise shake that thing above your shoulders. It was only 8 or so years ago when you actually had to go into a bank to do your banking. If you were single and looking for a partner, you actually had to get off your ass and meet someone at a club or on a party line phone service. It was only 10-12 years ago if you wanted to research a car before you bought it you had to go into a dealership, grab some brochures, and low and behold, talk to a sales person in a bad sports jacket. What else could we possibly do with this ancient (I use the term loosely) technology? A better question, what can’t we do?
I have been in this industry long enough to experience some extreme ups and some very painful downs. And right now, we are in a very lucrative up. However, it’s different this time. The industry is smarter. The crash at the turn of the millennium, the dot bomb if you will, was partly because everyone was jumping on the Internet bandwagon. Only problem was they didn’t understand what they were jumping on. They were building web sites because it was the cool thing to do, because the second you had a web site you were global and you were going to be instantly rich. Some people did become instantly rich. And they went instantly bankrupt just as fast.
This time around it’s not only about global reach. It’s not about having a web site because you need to, unfortunately there are still a lot of companies that have web sites because they feel they have to. This time around it is about us, the users, it’s about community. It’s about sharing, about user contribution. It’s about access to information, wherever, and whenever you want. We used to access the internet from our big clunky beige computers. Some still do. But now we are accessing it from cell phones, from refrigerators, from cars, from air planes, everywhere. Take a look around, user contribution is driving the internet. You don’t have to be a geek in the basement anymore to have online presence. In the past 10 years, the internet has done a complete 360. Ok, I know what you’re thinking. No shit Sherlock!
I’m a developer, we all know that; if you don’t you do now. More importantly, I am a Rich Internet Application Developer. And my point is? My point is this. The internet started out with text, a few graphics, and form fields. HTML hasn’t changed that much, sure there is CSS now, JavaScript, server side options out the wazoo, but the basic ingredients are still, text, graphics, and forms. What I am getting at, is we all want the next big idea, the next billion dollar idea.
I am not going to tell you how to come up with the next billion dollar idea, if I could, I wouldn’t be writing this. But what I do want to share, and it may piss some people off, but that’s ok. The way we use the internet has changed; user contribution is as popular as olives in a martini bar. However, the interfaces users are presented with have not changed all that much from the early days of the Internet (of course there are a ton of exceptions to this statement). This is not a Flash Developer bashing HTML, and saying every site should be Flash. Anyone who thinks every site should be Flash should turn off their computer now, find the busiest street in your area and see if you are as tall as those dashed lines in between the lanes.
Ok, so how I see it, we are part of the A.D.D. Generation, as sad as it is. In order to get users to contribute to our billion dollar idea site, we need to keep them interested and engaged. Not always an easy task. Sure with great design, a standard text/graphic/form site could do the trick. And lots do. But I think things have to be kicked up a notch. Great design is only part of a user experience equation. And unfortunately, a lot of times great design takes away from the experience because it takes forever to load the page. I am not sure of the actual numbers but I have read you have 4 seconds before you will lose your user. 4 seconds! That is an awfully short amount of time. How many forms have you submitted where nothing happens and you sit there waiting, watching your browser load animation play, wondering if anything is going to happen? Then you click the submit button again thinking that something must of went wrong. Before you know it you see 4 postings from you in your favorite blog. Oops. Now with a true rich internet application, the second the user clicks the submit button, you could present the user with a status, a load bar, a bird pecking at a slab of slate Flintstone style. Something, anything to indicate to the user what is going on.
I hate the whole Web 2.0 term, but I am going to use it right now to get my point across. We are in the so called Web 2.0 era, so why the hell are we still using web 1.0 interfaces?? It feels like technology is moving full steam ahead, ideas are grand, bandwidth is spreading and speeding up, however, we are afraid to try anything new. The whole purpose of the internet is changing, so it is about time we change how we design and develop for it. We have to start thinking more about user experience, about how the application is going to be used. You can’t use the same application on a cell phone and a pc with a 24 inch monitor. We have the ability to determine what the user is on, so we should be enhancing the user experience for these devices. Making our presentation layers truly scalable to whatever method the user is using to access your application. Devices can share logic, they can share data, but please don’t allow them to share presentation.
It’s a very exciting time to be a developer, especially a RIA developer. There is a definite shortage out there, which for us developers isn’t a bad thing, economics 101, Supply and Demand. Lack of developers == higher wages and better opportunities for us all. With any labor shortage comes below standard hiring and this is what could ruin it for the rest of us. Hopefully this rambling will mean something to someone. I guess this is what drinking a few beers does to my already scattered mind.
Here is the cliff notes version of this rant. The direction of the Internet is changing. Technology is changing daily. However, I don’t see a huge shift in user experience design on the internet. The internet of yesterday is not the same as the internet of tomorrow. The internet is available everywhere and user experience design and development should be accommodating for this or else you are going to get left in the dust if you haven’t already. Sorry if this doesn’t make any sense, it sure does in my head and that’s all that matters right now
By scott
I want to thank Geoff Sowrey for his kind words he left for me on his blog. Geoff was the Tech Director I worked under for most of my tenure at Critical Mass. He is a great guy, and a pleasure to work with. I learned a lot from him. However, in my next life I hope I come back as his air miles card!
By scott
Headline reads, Canadian hockey fan is leaving the great white north. That’s right, for those who know me, know I am a Team Canada superfan. I even live in the city where they train. But I recently received an opportunity to work at Yahoo! in California. A southern state where hockey is almost non-existent some would think, myself included. No more Don Cherry, no more Kelly Hrudey, no more Ron Mclean, and no more Bob Cole, well unless you have Satellite TV, which I plan to have. And the other thing is Yahoo is right outside of San Jose, home of the Sharks, one of the best teams in the league. Anyway, back to the move. In a week I start at Yahoo as a Senior Flash Engineer and I am leaving my post at Critical Mass as their Flash Development Manager. Critical Mass has been great, and always will be great. I learned a lot in my short year and a half tenure. They are an amazing group of creative people who pump out amazing work. I was amazed almost every day in some of the stuff I saw coming out of there. There is a reason they were named Foresters Interactive Agency of the Year the past two years running. If Critical Mass is so great why am I leaving you ask? I wasn’t looking, it just happened. The opportunity landed in my lap, or inbox, however you want to look at it. I was headhunted. And it is not an opportunity that you can let slide by. It’s Yahoo!
So starting December 11 I will be an official Yahoo employee, working in a new city, and in a new country. I am not 100% sure what I will be working on yet but I am sure it will be extremely cool and forward leaning. Yahoo has so many properties that would make great Flash applications. Heck, they even own that small photo site, you may have heard of them, Flickr.
So wish me luck. I will be sure to post how things are going when I get there. And thank you Critical Mass for everything. You have and always will have something special. It’s an amazing company, with an amazing atmosphere. Good luck in your future endeavours 
By scott
Here I sit in cold Winnipeg Manitoba, my hometown. I am here for the FITC conference, wearing my Jets jersey (of course). Why Winnipeg you ask? I was asking the same question myself until I got here. There are approximately 175 people here, doesn’t sound like a lot, but for Winnipeg it is. And a lot of the people seem to be very passionate about new media here. There are a few small shops, a couple larger ones, and a bunch of students who seem to be very interested in new media. Critical Mass, the company I work for, is the gold sponsor here and we are also presenting. Being a gold sponsor means we get a big booth, we stand there, and we answer the same questions over and over again all day. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. I like talking to other developers or other people interested in new media. I have met a couple very interesting people, and who knows, maybe I will work with them one day. Afterall, the flash community is pretty small even with it’s astronomical growth in the past while.
Anyway, I am going to sign out now, almost lunch time here in the ‘peg. If you’re here, stop by and say hi. If not, go stand with your freezer door open and you will soon feel like you are here.
By scott
Looks like a couple sites I worked on this past year won some bling this year at the annual Web Marketing Associaltion’s WebAwards. The Dell XPS site I worked on and the Rolex Ashes and Snow site both took home some hardware. I wasn’t the only developer on either of these projects. An entire team of designers, developers, IA’s, PM’s, writers, and AM’s make these things come together. I was just one cog in the machine.
I was the lead developer on both of these projects and I worked on both of them while working at Critical Mass. I would like to thank my mother and father for bringing me into this world….lol. I am not one to usually toot my own horn about awards but so far it has been a pretty good year. Earlier this year Derrick and I got props at the webbies for a Real Estate RIA we did with AKQA for RealLiving.
I’m going to Disney Land!!
By scott
You can have a lot of useless fun with the BitmapData class. In the example below I recreated a popular rain on water effect over a picture using the BitmapData class, the ConvolutionFilter class, the DisplacementMapFilter class, the ColorTransform class, and a handy dandy little interval which uses the new timer classes in AS 3.0.
Since most of my work is for corporate clients I don’t get a lot of time to experiment with the creative capabilities in Actionscript. I am very tired tonight but stay tuned for the tutorial so you can use this effect on your site. If only I could get a swimming pool client, all the content could sit behind this effect. Wouldn’t that be annoying
In order to see this demo you must have Flash Player 9 installed. If you don’t, go here and install it.
By scott
Now that I think about this, it only makes sense. But it was a bit of a piss off when I first discovered this. Actually a co-worker of mine noticed it.
With Flash 8 you can finally use gradient masks. The only way to pull it off however is to use code. Here is an example:
myClip_mc.cacheAsBitmap = true;
myMask_mc.cacheAsBitmap = true;
myClip_mc.setMask(myMask_mc);
Pretty straight forward. In the example, myMask_mc would be a gradient shape drawn inside a movieclip.
In 32 bit this works great. Anything less you will see no masking, just your drawn mask shape or some other oddities like the mask flickering on and off.
Not 100% confirmed, but I’ve heard it from a few sources. This is only an issue on a PC. Gradient masks work fine on macs at all colour depths.
In order to get around this issue we are going to grab the colour depth with JavaScript (screen.colorDepth) and pass the value into the flash movie. Unfortunatly you can’t detect the colour depth with ActionScript, it is not a property of System.Capabilities. Any who, if the colour depth is lower than 32 bit I will draw/attach a hard edged mask. If the users system is running at 32 bit colour I will draw/attach a soft edged gradient masks.
At the time of writing this I haven’t implement this fix. But if you stay tuned to http://codex.ashesandsnow.org you will see it in action. For now change your colour depth settings and check out how *great* the site looks at 16 bit. Blah.
Added June 9, 2006
After thinking about this a bit more, the same effect could be accomplished by using blend modes and the bitmapData class. You could load an image into a movieclip, clone (draw method of the bitmap data class) the clip or attachBitmap if your image is in your library. Use the layer blendmode on the bitmap data, attach a gradient mask in the same movieclip that is holding the image (obviously on a higher depth) directly over the image and use the alpha blendmode on the attached gradient mask. This will accomplish the same effect and will work on systems lower than 32 bit colour.
import flash.display.BitmapData;
bmp = BitmapData.loadBitmap("imageFile");
this.createEmptyMovieClip('holder_mc', this.getNextHighestDepth());
holder_mc.blendMode = 'layer';
holder_mc.attachBitmap(bmp, holder_mc.getNextHighestDepth());
var mask = holder_mc.attachMovie('maskClip', 'mask_mc', holder_mc.getNextHighestDepth());
mask.blendMode = 'alpha';
This implementation would work on the site I mentioned above, however blend modes are very processor intensive and the gradient masks we are using are very large, therefore we are still going to use the solution I described above.
Happy masking!!
By scott
I am very happy to say that the MyRealLiving RIA has finally been launched. It has been a very busy few months for me, juggling work, home life and this project. This a really great application that I’m proud to put my name on.
RISMEDIA, April 11, 2006–Real Living Inc., the nation’s fourth-largest residential real estate firm, today unveiled a beta version of its new integrative consumer portal, MyRealLiving version 2.0. It is an industry-first, consumer-agent interface, which allows agents and consumers to work together in real time and eliminates the mystery of information available to consumers. The portal replicates an in-person experience online.
I had a great team of people to work with which made the Flash development a lot less stressful. Lots of thanks to Derrick who lead the flash development team, the whole project team at AKQA, and the developers at RealLiving.
Visit these links to learn more.
