Loved ones, always the harshest critics

So, where was I.   Oh yes…

3) Adobe Flash CS5 and Adobe AIR

Flash.  Aha!  Saviour of the internet!

I love Flash, although I seem to be in an ever reducing minority, which no longer includes Adobe for some reason.  I think I know why – Flash in webpages on mobile devices isn’t as responsive as it feels like it could be.  There are resizing issues and supposedly it causes crashes, although I’ve never experienced a browser crash because of Flash.

Apple have blamed Flash for being too RAM intensive to be safely included on their iPhones and iPod Touches.  This decision had the happy coincidence of closing off thousands of free Flash games just as Apple were launching their App Store full of paid games.

As a development platform, Flash is second to none.  I said previously that only Apple understands about wrapping up everything you need.  Well I have to include Adobe as well in that exclusive club.  Flash combines graphics, animations and coding very easily and with the downloadable Adobe AIR for Android plugin folds in app making too.

Flash CS5 also comes with the ability to make Apple iOS apps.  Unfortunately, due to restrictions imposed by Apple, (you need a certificate which can only be create on a Mac, you can only upload to the App Store from a Mac) .

Using Adobe AIR to make apps is simplicity itself.  You open a new file, using the AIR for Android template.  From here, you build your Flash file as usual.

At this point, I need to point out that out of the box, you don’t get AIR for Android as a template (at least not in CS5).  I seem to remember being alerted to its existence by a popup on this screen.   I do remember adding it via Adobe’s Extension Manager and unfortunately, the Developer Site doesn’t make it clear how to get it either.  Maybe it’s just bundled in.

Note from this screen you can also make iPhone OS apps and standard AIR programs to run in Windows.  All three are pretty identical and just differ in their publishing settings.

When you open the AIR for Android template the stage is automatically set to 480 x 800 which is the most common screen resolution for the Android platform.  Of course, you can alter this easily.

There are four templates included with Flash, one is plain, but the other three contain code examples showing how to use a mobile device’s accelerometer, its menu button and a swipe gallery.  Between this, my own knowledge of ActionScript 2.0 and the internet, I was able to build a number of apps, such as the Question Dice.

ActionScript

The programming language for Adobe AIR is ActionScript 3.   This is really unfortunate for me, because I learned the previous language ActionScript 2.   AS2 is a much simpler language to learn, its grammar is less precise and how it functions is fairly straightforward.

AS3 is much more complex, designed with professional teams in mind, not individual programmers.  To this end, it is incredibly intimidating and the general advice on internet forums tends to be irrationally anti-AS2 style.  I’ve seen a number of posts from novice users, asking perfectly reasonable questions only to be shouted down with cries of “you shouldn’t be doing it like that at all”.

Years ago, I was similarly shot down for asking a question about linking one scene to another.  The response was “you should be using scenes”.  Now, I have the confidence to question that.  If you’re not supposed to use scenes, why does Flash include them?  Personally, I very rarely use scenes now, but if I needed to I still would.  The moral of this story is ignore all negative comments on the internet.  The trolls are never right.

The Truth (read it quick before I’m silenced)

Well, I’m finally learning AS3 and firstly, everything you’ve read about team programming and OOP and the “right way” to do things is rubbish!

AS3 is almost as forgiving as AS2.  Public functions, private variables and separate .as files are only needed IF you are writing complex games AND you use a separate .as file.   It came as a bit of shock to me.  The so-called right way is simply one way.

You can happily code in AS3 on the timeline.   If you do use code from a tutorial and run into compiler warnings about public functions, just remove the public bit.

public function startgame() {

}

becomes:

function startgame() {

}

if you’re placing code on the timeline.

Oh and regular functions, not connected to mouse clicks can just be written as AS2 functions. Rely on the Code Snippets box too, it really useful to get started.

Where to go from here

The book I’m using is an update of the book I learnt AS2 from.   It’s called Actionscript 3.0 Game Programming University.

ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University

The author, Gary Rosenzweig has an excellent, easy-going style.  He provides the full code for each game, but breaks it down ito what each section does.  Something I liked from his original book is that each game only takes you so far, but it’s always easy to see how to develop each game to make them better.

Next time

My wife was right.  This post has become its own mini-series.

In part 3, I’m going to show just how easy it is to produce an app and publish it on your VLE and the Android Market

1) Using Google’s SDK and Eclipse software to write apps directly

This is where I started.   Although started is a bit of a misnomer (started and stopped being closer to the truth).  It’s easy enough to sign up for the free SDK and links in the developer area point you in the right direction for downloading the Eclipse platform.  But that’s where it gets confusing.  Eclipse being a third-party, open-source product has a number of different versions and figuring out the right one to download either involves blindly guessing or reading through a pages of text.  tl:dr I’m afraid.

Through more luck than judgement, I downloaded and installed a version of Eclipse (Gallileo seemed right at the time) that worked with the SDK and through a bit more luck, managed to get it hooked up to my phone.

Eclipse - but you're not there yet - still have to run the Android SDK

Struggling to get set up is something that only Apple seems to understand is an issue.  Open-source and SDKs are great, but you need an underlying knowledge of how and what to install before you can even get started.  Recently, we tried to get the Xbox Kinect SDKs to work with Windows 7.  This could have been so easy, providing a single file which would have installed all the drivers we need.  Instead, we were taken to a page with 4 different installation programs.  Three of which installed fine, the fourth was just impossible.

A big chunk of Apple’s success comes from wrapping everything up together.  Take iTunes for example.  MP3 players had existed for at least 5 years before the iPod.  Apple were the only ones to provide a standard way to get music onto a player that was easy to use.   Now, they have launched their iBooks and (reportedly) their iBook creator makes it easy to create content.   eBook programs have existed for years for Windows, but Apple makes it easy by declaring “this is what you need, nothing more”.   As a long time PC and Android lover, I have to take my hat off to Apple for this.  But I digress.  Back to Android.

Hello World

I made this! (By following instructions precisely)

2) Using Adobe Flex (and/or Flash Builder)

There seems to be a quickly growing community around using these Adobe products to build apps for all platforms.

I can’t quite figure out how you use Flex and there is a cost involved with Flash Builder so I’ve never fully investigated it.  At school, we have the full Adobe Production Premium suite which includes Flash CS5, which I’ll talk about in Part 2.

Those stats were brought home to me recently after reading this Cracked article all about the worst times to be online.  Christmas being on of them because no one updates their websites on Christmas Day.  So this year I’ve resolved to be different and present something new for you.

This tip doesn’t really fit into the 20 tips, but it is an idea for you.  It’s actually quite simple, but extraordinarily effective.

Take a projector, attach it to the ceiling and point it down.

Told you it was simple, but the results are spectacular.  I suggested this idea at school just before the summer break and we fitted it in time for September.

The projector is a “special” projector which doesn’t have any circuit boards behind (now above) the bulb.  This means they don’t melt when the bulb gets hot.  The ‘special’ projector doesn’t cost much more than a regular one, but because of the low ceiling height we fitted a fish-eye lens to increase the size of the screen.  This was cheaper than buying a short-throw projector.

A VGA cable runs through trunking to a nearby PC with dual-head graphics card.  The socket is visible, so teachers can swap in their laptop instead.  The computer has a wireless gyromouse allowing a user to control the computer from the floor.

Running a program like Google Earth takes on a whole new dimension.  There’s something very immersive about standing on a screen and looking down.

We’ve also fitted a webcam into the ceiling tiles and using the free Po-Motion software you can appear to walk over water as it ripples a picture.   I’m hoping we can start building our own Flash interactives.

Something brilliant about the floor is that we didn’t come up with any teaching tools for it, we left to our teachers to come up with uses.  It’s in a breakout area accessible to four classrooms and a huge number of teachers have made use of it already.  The diversity of uses they have come up with is really cool, here’s just some of them:

• Maths have used it to measure scale and to explain perimeter.*
• English have been stepping through pages of books and getting students to stand on grammatical errors.
• PE came over from the Sports Centre to demonstrate to their netball students the relative positions of the players.  The students just hadn’t been grasping it when it was on a whiteboard.
• Geography have been able to ‘visit’ different landscapes.

We’ve already taken the concept to a portable platform, mounting an old projector on a camera tripod and wheeling it over to a table to create an interactive table.  Cost ~£250.  I really like the portable version because it can be used anywhere there’s a plug socket and it reuses old kit.

The biggest benefit of both systems however is that the expensive stuff is out of reach.  Especially with the floor.  We all know kids can get over excited and stamp, stomp and jump.  That can be a problem with most interactive surfaces, but with a projected floor, all they are doing is stamping on a regular floor.

I like technology like this because it gets out of the way of the teacher and just works.   When you think about it, there’s nothing particularly new here, so all the tech used is standard.  Another word for that is reliable.

If you’re lucky enough to visit BETT this year or another technology tradeshow, no doubt you’ll see lots of these surfaces.  Before you whip out the school chequebook, just take a moment to appreciate what actually being sold.   We were once quoted £6000 for an interactive floor.  We spent a tenth of that.

If you visited this blog around the holiday season, then Merry Christmas.   If you’re reading it at some other time, then remember to keep Christmas in your heart throughout the year.   Goodnight to all and to all a good night.  I have watched too many Christmas movies.

* You can read more about how Maths are using the floor (and plenty of other tips and ideas) at Keep it Moving Maths’ blog

Terry Freedman from ICT in Education.org asked me to write an article for their  Computers in Classrooms newsletter.  It’s a special 3D edition.

Here’s a direct link to my article although the rest of the magazine is worth viewing too.

In the article, I talk about the Panasonic T750 Camcorder:

The camcorder comes with a 3D lens attachment, so you can use it as a regular 2D camera as well.  Surprisingly, Five’s Gadget Show didn’t think much of this model (preferring the Sony camcorder) on TV at least.  The online review seems a little more accomodating.  Which I think overlooked some key points:

• As a 2D video camera, the quality is excellent.  It has 3 CMOS sensors and can record in 1080p which makes chromakeying (i.e. greenscreen) very easy.  I’ve always been a fan of Panasonic cameras, they seem to understand what’s actually important.  It’s a slight shame the camera doesn’t have a SD mode.   As a school, we have no need of HD quality, where filesize is as important as quality.  Don’t get me wrong, we don’t sacrifice quality, it’s just that I’m not in the business of delivering broadcast-quality content.
• Panasonic (unlike Sony) use an open-source recording codec.   This allows editing in Adobe Premiere Pro without having to convert the video beforehand.  This is a huge time- and quality-saver.

We picked up the camcorder for around £500 + VAT (you have to shop around and we have an excellent finance department who do just that).   For that price, we got two cameras in one.

The recordings are side-by-side, which makes incorporating the video into my existing Cinema4D’s workflow really straightforward.  What is most suprising is just how effective the depth of the video is.  We mounted the camera on the front of a boat which passed under the Tyne’s Milennium footbridge.

It’s not a view most people get to see and it really impressed our staff and students.

If you have the free time and the budget, you can buy 3D software like Cinema4D and start making animations for yourself.  And of course, there are now dozens of S3D-content suppliers (if their content works with your system) and if you have the free time and the budget, you can wade through these resources to find the occasional gems.  But if you buy a 3D camcorder, you can immediately start creating content for yourself.   (Or hand the camera over to your students to see what they can do.)

And of course, self-created content is free!

So much has happened since I wrote that blog entry.  First off, we didn’t go with either iPod Touch or Archos.  Like I summed up at the time, the iPod had too many restrictions and the single-touch Archos made it too frustrating to use.

Pick a device already!

At that point, our ICT Coordinator stumbled across the Samsung Galaxy Tab.  I say stumbled upon, because Apple pretty much had the high street sewn up.  All credit to them (and it’s changing now admittedly), but if you want to buy a tablet on the high street, everyone wants to sell you an iPad.  And why not, they’re great devices (personally I find them a little large and a bit heavy) but there’s no denying Apple created another product the world didn’t know it needed.

Samsung (who incidently make the iPad for Apple) have their own range of tablets, a 7″ wifi, a 7″ 3G and similar in the 10″ range.  They’ve also started on their gen 2 tablets which are even more sleak, though not widely available yet.

We evaluated and then chose the Wi-Fi only, 7″, P1010 model.  It runs Android Froyo, has 16Gb internal memory, front and rear cameras.  It comes preloaded with ThinkFree Office (which allows creating and edit MS documents) along with a host of other apps (some good, some not worth it).

Size does matter

The main difference between the 7″ tablet and the smaller handheld we were looking at before is the size (obviously).  When you’re using the tablet, it feels like it is for work.  You can achieve a lot of the same stuff on the smaller devices, but they lack a feeling of productivity.  With the Samsung, you feel like you’re using a work tool.

We did look again at the iPad and iPod Touch, but the cost of the iPad is too prohibitive to seriously consider (those schools that have gone down the iPad route must have sacrificed something else from their budget).  Ultimately we found iOS too restrictive/problematic in terms of file uploads, Flash (yes I know Adobe have pulled development) and for building our own apps as well as paying for other apps.

Niggles

There are a couple of niggles.  The battery gives you a day if you’re using it.  Given the size of the device, I was surprised, but I suppose powering the much larger screen is the big difference.  The native keyboard makes some truly irritating errors, but Steven Lin has kindly ported the Gingerbread keyboard.  Neither of these are big issues, at least not compared to:

WTF!

The tablet cannot charge from a computer’s USB while turned on!   Wait…what?  That’s like… the point of USB.  We’ve got round this issue by buying these special cables.  It took a couple of hours searching the internet to even find out what the problem was.  It turns out to be a voltage issue.  These cables contain a switch and resistor which gets round that. 

Still, these are all niggles and while many would point out that you shouldn’t have to deal with niggles, life always proves otherwise.  

Order ready

We ordered the tablets about a month ago (with parental contributions) and they are due to arrive within the next two weeks.  All the preparations have been done (fingers crossed).  We have a comprehensive mobile version of our VLE, a really cool instruction booklet to be given out with the devices and we’ve put together a number of school-specific apps:

I do hope that we’ll make some of these available on the Android Market.  They are all built in Adobe AIR, which has made the creation of Apps so much simpler.  I think we will eventually move away from AIR, but for right now, it just works.

In conclusion

Have we chosen the right device?  I think so.  The size is right.  The functionality is right.   The price is right ~£300 (including insurance).  I’ll admit my heart sank a little when Amazon annouced the $199 Kindle Fire – but it’s not out in the UK yet.  And not in the quantities we need.  And can we even run our own apps on it? Maybe next year, if this year is successful. 

The battle may have been won, but something tells me the war has just begun.

It costs $29.

FileMonkey does two things and does them very well.  It renames batches of files for you. 

Frequently, I’ll have a huge number of files that need for one reason or another to be renamed.   Say, for instance, we have a bunch of student made mp3 files that we want to play through a flash player.   Ideally, they’d all be uniformly named so I don’t have to program in each individual student name and Flash doesn’t like spaces in filenames either.   Before I found FileMonkey, I would have to sit and rename each file.  The opposite is true with FileMonkey, instead I just go into the file rename option, set up the parameters and press OK.   Job done.

The second thing it does is rewrite file contents.   I know, scary.   But you can limit its parameters to just search out web pages, (it automatically filters out some file types).  It’s proven really handy lately.   In about 20 minutes it added a small security code to close to 100,000 web pages.  I just did a find and replace on the </head> tag to be </head><plus some stuff> and job done.

It might not be the prettiest bit of software ever, but it gets the done job and saves me a huge amount of time.

Just some of the many thoughts that went through my head on Friday when in the middle of a workshop, I went to show someone a picture I’d taken on my phone.   Suddenly the gallery crashed and an alert popped up saying “SD Card Readonly” or something equally terror inducing.

Adding to the panic, all my Apps disappeared, just leaving their names on the desktop with the generic Android logo.  It was like a graveyard.

Trying to calm down the panic, I turned the phone off.  Then turned it on again.   The alert came straight back.  I imagined the chortles of iPhone fans taunting “this doesn’t happen with Apple products”.

Removing the battery and starting up still didn’t fix the problem. 

That’s when I turned to the internet.  And as always, it solved my problem.  Eventually. 

How your parents see you when you're fixing their computer

What really hapens

Plenty of others have experienced this same panic and the default suggestion is… well let’s not say pig-stupid, let’s use the term over-reaction.    You see in some IT support circles the next stage after “turn it off and turn it back on again” is “format the storage”.  It’s sort of like demolishing a railway line and building a new one next to it just because there were leaves on the track.

All I needed to do was:

• Plug my phone into my PC and open My Computer.  
• Right-clicking on the SD drive icon and choosing Tools. 
• Then click the Check Now button in the error-checking section.
• Windows will then scan the drive and correct the errors.

It’s the same process that happens when you plug in a memory stick that was ejected incorrectly.

Phew, panic over.

Sounds familiar.

The very first tutorial by Kevin P. McAuliffe, introduced me to What the font! – a web service which can identify the font used in a digital graphic.  This is hugely useful if you’re trying to recreate the look of something like a movie poster.  In the past its been a case of wading through your font files trying to get the look right.

Kevin’s tutorial shows how you take a image which contains a font and then just upload it to the website.  You manually verify each letter and then the service does its thing.  I will say when I tried it, it wasn’t as smooth as in the tutorial, my font came back with 10 or so matches as opposed to a single perfect match.   Even so, going to 10 fonts is still A LOT quicker than going through several hundred.

These are cute and very easy to do.  Simply paste the following code into the <head></head> section of your page.  Ideally it should be in the <head> bit, though it doesn’t have to be (if using Frog for example) :

 <link rel=”apple-touch-icon” href=”full path to your image” />

 There’s some debate on the internet as to whether you need the full path or if the local path will do, but I’ve used the full path and been happy with the results.

Your image should be the official 57×57 pixels, but again, there’s plenty of debate on the best size.  It should be  saved as a png.

And don’t worry Android users, the code may say apple-touch-icon, but works just the same. 

*(is that the right term???)

They’ve also changed their education pricing policy quite a bit.  For the longest time, (since MS Office 2003 to be exact) for a school of our size, it would have cost nearly £30,000 to upgrade outright to MS 2007 or 2010 (yes, there are payment schemes but they added up to more once you took everything into account). 

Anyway, now Microsoft have change their educational pricing.  I think slashed may be a better term.  I don’t know the precise figures, but its roughly 10% of what it used to be.  So we’re upgrading.   There are some really nice new features about 2010, but there are also some huge layout changes.

I like exploring, tinkering and generally nosing around new software, but the changes have left me totally confused.   That’s when I turned to the internet.  And found this great resource – Interactive Guide to menu and toolbar commands – It’s a series of Flash (sorry Silverlight) reproductions of Office 2003 products.  

For instance, if you want to find where Headers and footers have gone, you navigate in 2003 guide to Headers and footers, the screen changes to where the button is in 2010.  

Nice, simple and quite clever.   Every so often big companies have really sensible ideas.