Recently in General Category
I usually try to keep digitalflipbook focused on programming and design and use my other blog to keep people updated on my family and personal life, but I had so much fun doing this that I had to post it for all to check out.
My old band, Quadiliacha, was asked to play a reunion show a few months back and the big day finally came October 18th. I flew back to our hometown Atlanta and everything immediately felt like 1996 all over again.
The show was more fun than I could've ever imagined and I have to thank everyone that was able to come out.
Here are some great pics from that night.
And here is a video of some of the show.
... and in case you're wondering, I'm the one in red.
If you like what you see and you happen to live near Gainesville, FL, we're playing one more show, so get you're ass out there!
It might not look like much of a difference, but digitalflipbook has been rebuilt from the ground up.
Movable Type 4 came out last month and I finally got around to updating my site.
MT always allows for an easy upgrade process, but this latest version is quite a departure from their previous versions. To fully take advantage of all of the new capabilities and features, you can't do a simple update. Instead, I had to backup my original and then build my site again from scratch using the new features.
Its been quite a headache, but I am finally much happier with what's behind-the-scenes.
Before, the css was all over the place, but now I've made a digitalflipbook theme. What this means is that all of the specific site styles and images are in a completely separate directory and if I want, I can now completely change the look of the site with the press of a button, but maintain the structure.
Another reason for the upgrade was that I was getting inundated with spam comments and needed a better way of managing them. MT4 is now built in with CAPTCHA support and allows for additional CAPTCHA plugins. I decided to go with reCAPTCHA, which so far seems great.
I did quite a bit of testing before replacing the previous site, but issues can always arise. If you notice anything, please let me know and use that updated comment system down there. :)
FYI ...
As of yesterday, November 1st, I now work for Schematic in the New York office. Its exciting to be working with so many extremely talented people under not only one, but multiple roofs. Made it right under the 30 mark too... I officially get old on Sunday ;)
Alright I've officially transferred over my site to a new host ... NetworkRedux ... and so far so good. Let me know if you run into any dead links or notice the site loading slower, etc. I'm still within the 30 day trial, but like I said I'm liking them so far, very affordable prices, good response time, and great features ... I'm now updated to PHP5!
Since Keith Peters posted the cool tools that he uses, I thought I'd throw mine out there too. A few are on Keith's list, but many aren't.
I also decided to point out the Firefox extensions that I have installed that have come in quite handy.
Software:
A.F.5 Rename - easily rename multiple files
Atomic Clock Sync - sync computer time to atomic time
Charles - view all of the HTTP traffic between your machine and the internet and test sites on slower connections
FlashDevelop - my new favorite ActionScript editor
Flash Plugin Switcher - name says it all
FLVPlayer - nice free flv player
PrimalScript - fantastic script editor
TaskSwitchXP - Alt+Tab replacement
TortoiseSVN - windows shell for subversion
TransTypePro - best tool for converting mac fonts to pc (mac software not windows)
Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools - includes tail for windows xp ... check out my link on how to use it
Firefox extensions:
Charles Autoconfiguration
ColorZilla
Google Toolbar for Firefox
IE Tab
Live HTTP Headers
View Rendered Source Chart
Web Developer
My wife just got a promotion with her company a couple of weeks ago (congrats debber!) and, since I turned in my 2 week notice to my company on Friday, I can now blog about it ... we're moving to New York City! Well, to be completely accurate we're actually moving to Jersey City, but we both have jobs in New York City!
Everything's moving so fast, but I'm so excited! Its going to be completely different then Atlanta ... I'm not going to need a car!
I'd love to meet up with some fellow New York flashers once I'm up there, so drop me an email or comment and let's get together.
Alright ... back to the boxes, where did I leave that packing tape.
Since I've updated the site, I've also decided to update the way to download my existing and future scripts, components, etc. I'm going to make a post for each one and if you come to the site later looking for the downloads you'll be able to find them in a new section called ... interestingly enough ... downloads.
One more thing ... my current hosting company doesn't support certain extensions, mzp, swc, etc, so each download will be repackaged in zip format.
I know I'm a little slow here, but I finally got around to installing the Web Developer extension for Firefox and am completely blown away! I can't believe how much time this could have saved me. The feature that completely got me is the edit CSS tool. You can edit the CSS of any site that you are viewing directly on the screen. Change text-decoration from none to underline and it immediately updates the site on the fly. And that's just one of the MANY options available to you. Among some of the others are being able to resize the browser to custom sizes (800x600) with the click of a button, outline tables, cells, frames, etc on the site, validate the html, css, etc, view a speed report of the site, and more. This extension is going to keep me entertained for quite a while and ease web design infinitely.
You can download the latest version directly from Chris Pederick (he developed the extension).
Well, I've been meaning to update this website for a LONG time, and I thought, what better way to KEEP it updated then with a blog. So digitalflipbook officially launches.
I've had this url sitting here for quite a while ... and only mainly used it to upload files to share with the 3dsmax and Flash communities. I'm hoping to keep up the community support, but with the blog, provide tutorials and other information as I can.
A quick introduction: My name is Mark Walters. I live in Atlanta and am currently working as a Multimedia Developer for a medical education agency providing 3D animations and Flash CDROM and web applications for many of the large pharmaceutical companies around.
Alright, enough of that. If you've managed to swing by my site, thanks for taking the time. Drop me a comment if you get a chance ... and I'll talk with you soon!