https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=2942275

cam = Camera.getCamera();
cam.setMode(320, 240, 20, false);
cam.setQuality(0, 100);
cameraVideo.attachCamera(cam);
cameraVideo.width = cam.width;
cameraVideo.height = cam.height;

//Actual Result:

cameraVideo's dimension are 320x240 when on IPhone emulator
cameraVideo's dimension are 192x144 when on IPhone

//Expected Result:
cameraVideo's dimension are 320x240 when on IPhone emulator
cameraVideo's dimension are 320x240 when on IPhone

This was Adobe’s response

When you call Setmode with some requested width and height, its not necessary that you will get the requested width and height.
The returned width and height depend on a number of factors –
1. Obviously, the values you passed in as width and height.
2. If you passed favorArea=true/false in the setmode API
3. And most importantly, the camera hardware – what are the possible resolutions (and fps) the hardware of camera on you device supports.

Since “3″ can be different for different devices you can get different values on different devices (values can vary on WIN Desktop as well with different webcams)

In this case, iOS devices again support different set of possoble resolutions –
ios Camera Presets AVCaptureSessionPresetLow AVCaptureSessionPresetMedium AVCaptureSessionPreset640x40 AVCaptureSessionPreset1280x720 AVCaptureSessionPresetHigh
3G 400×304 400×304 NA NA 400×304
3GS 192×144 480×360 640×480 NA 640×480
4 front 192×144 480×360 640×480 NA 640×480
4 back 192×144 480×360 640×480 1280×720 1280×720

The logic to compute the width and height is somewhat like this (and happens in core, same for all platforms) –

1. core asks platform to provide a list of supported resolutions. (In ios we provide the list as mentioned above , and in the spec)
2. core selects one of these resolutions, the one closest to user’s requirement (basically comparing area using percentatges but is more involved to describe in words).
3. Say user asks for 320 x 240
4. core has now to select the native supported mode closest to this. SO it can either choose 192×144 or 480×360. Seems in this case core decides to use 192×144.
5. core also changes the resolution based on the aspect ratio of the requested resolution (doing any required cropping).
6. So, you will be getting 192 x 144.

Similarly when you choose 384 x 288, core selects 480 x 360 to be the closest native resolution. Camera captures at 480 x 360 and then a cropped part of it (384 x 288) is provided to you.

Also, on Android, you get the desired values because 320 x 240 is one of the supported values by most Android cameras, thus the requested and supported better match in case of Android.
Also as I have genrally observed, Android cameras have a large number of supported resolutions compared to just 4 on iOS. Thus Android camera has a better chance to match the requested resolution. But if you ask for weird numbers like 700 x 400, you will not get that on Android too (but something else based on the above described logic)

Also the same information is mentioned in implementation spec (and comments on the spec) – https://zerowing.corp.adobe.com/display/airlinux/Mobile+Camera+Implementation+spec

See my suggestion here:

https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=2953037

Might shed some light on why your video from webcam is so bad. Try increase the setMode values and get the highest quality camera quality returned. Be mindful that the resolution may be different!

The birthday paradox is a cool mathematical phenomenon. If you take a group of people, the chances that there are two people that share the same birthday is much higher than one would expect. Here’s the Wikipedia article explaining the birthday paradox.

For example, in a group of 23 people, the chances that there are two people that share the same birthday is 50.7%. Pretty crazy? When you hear the problem you start thinking, “1/365″ – but this question isn’t asking how many people will share the same birthday as you, it’s asking ANY two people will share the same birthday as each other. In a group of 30 people, the chances rise to 70%.

Now that you know this cool math trick, here’s what I was thinking in regards to work and conflicts.

I think the same paradox can be applied when you take a small business. I think in every workplace there is an incredible high chance that two people won’t get along. In fact, the chances that there is decent cohesion is incredibly small.

Imagine if you will, the nicest person you know. This person gets along with nearly everyone he or she meets. In fact, let’s say that person gets along with 99% of people they meet… Actually let’s be even more specific and say 99.7%.

Let’s say you are an employer and employee 30 people who are this nice. The chances that there will be a conflict is still 70%.

Obviously, people aren’t numbers – but consider people are in the workplace 8 hours a day… “Getting along” and being able to work together is imperative. Sports teams have the same issues with players. In a small group of players there is still a relatively high chance there will be a conflict between two.

So how can companies minimize this risk? Well instead of picking at random, I think recruiters and companies should incorporate chemistry as an atttribute in the job hiring. Instead of employing the person who can do the job, find the person who will be the right fit in your company.

I have always said that Apple doesn’t want to risk buggy system and battery life (valid reasons. and I think Apple has a right to refuse Flash until Adobe fixes problems and proves Flash Lite can work on mobile phones). But to call themselves “open” because of support for HTML5 is silly.

His last “sixth” reason is where I really disagree. Not allowing third party applications (like Adobe CS 5) to make IPhone applications because of fear of the quality is bullshit.

I ONLY use third party apps to make Flash content. Many people ONLY use third party apps to develop windows/java/android apps.

If I want to make a Flash app I can use Mac OR Windows and a bunch of programs. If I want to make an IPhone app Apple now requires me to buy a Mac and develop with their own Mac software.

Nice job encouraging competition Steve.

Here’s the code:
SELECT *
FROM ptg_users
JOIN (

SELECT ROUND( (
MAX( ptg_users.id ) – MIN( ptg_users.id ) ) * RAND( )
) + MIN( ptg_users.id ) AS rid
FROM ptg_users
) AS x ON ptg_users.id >= x.rid
LIMIT 1

Replace ptg_users with the name of your table.

You can make your own here. I think it’s a great way to teach someone the basics of computer programming and logic.

Initial Tape: PIG

1,_,1,_,>

1,P,2,_,>

2,I,3,P,>

3,G,4,I,>

4,_,5,G,<

5,I,6,I,<

6,P,2,_,>

6,_,1,_,>

Here’s the description of the game written by Tim Halbert (who wrote the music to the game):

From the creators of the Flash sensation Boomshine comes a devious new game where hand/eye co-ordination and a lightning-quick reaction time spell the difference between success and failure. Hundreds of colorful particles floating in the ether – and it’s your job to put them all together. Click and hold down the mouse button to make a ring around the dots, and watch them all gather in the center. With every ring you create you’ll get closer and closer to your target… but miss the target, even by one, and the nucleus is ruined. How quickly can you complete all fifteen levels without making a single mistake? The challenge is on…

Special thanks: Tim Halbert, Tim van de Vall, Aneece K, Ajani T, Anna M, MochiMedia, and Kongregate.

The new variance (built in) will not ALWAYS select the closest average color picture match of the sliced region. This way the picture won’t have so many repeated pictures on solid color sections.

The variance is 1% multiplied by the number of pictures in the pool. This means that if you select 500 Flickr results that means the program determines the 5 closest pictures to a color slice and chooses a random one. It’s hard to explain, but basically it means that more pictures from the pool of pictures found will be used (at the expense though of possibly losing recognition of the original picture).

Here is a smiley face built with the result for the search “smiley” on Flickr. Even though the middle is solid white, it selects a random choice from the closest 5 white pictures (instead of the whitemost picture) in order to add some variance. You can also see I added a watermark (as I thought it’d be a good idea to get people spreading the application).

Click here to Picterize your own photo.

Remember, you can click “Save” on the bottom right to save it to your hard drive.

Pass it around and send me the photos you guys make with it! And let me know if you find any bugs (I’m sure it isn’t bug free) or have any suggestions.

//adding multiple events at once.
EventManager.addEventListeners( loader.contentLoaderInfo, [
ProgressEvent.PROGRESS,    onSiteLoad_Progress,
Event.OPEN,                onSiteLoad_Open,
Event.COMPLETE,            onSiteLoad_Complete,
IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR,    onSiteLoad_IOError
] );

It’s a great method to save retyping so many lines.

Get the updated class here. Also, if you have, are, or planning to use the class I would love to know how!

Brain Reaction

Lovers of Internet recreation have played all types of games, including first-person shooters, role-playing, pure action, gambling games via online casinos, mysteries, trivia, typing, and the list goes on and on. The gamers of the world are always looking for something a bit different. Enter Boomshine, a browser-based flash game that cleverly blends common sense with a little bit of luck, and the end result is summed up in one word: Entertaining.

Boomshine is a seemingly simplistic game controlled via your browser’s flash player. The object of the game is to click on any one of a number of randomly floating circles. Doing this will cause the clicked circle to expand (boom, in a sense), and the circumference will then envelop surrounding circles close enough to the action. What you’re left with – if done correctly – is a massive chain reaction of circles. Think about the way the Big Bang is taught, and how the universe began with a boom and then a chain reaction.

The game was created by Danny Miller, with the music supplied by Tim Halbert. The mouse-controlled Boomshine is addictive, mostly because it is challenging to complete each new level. Boomshine starts out simple, with users only having to envelop one other circle in the vicinity. But as the game progresses, you’re given tougher tasks – such as setting off a chain reaction of 27 spheres out of 45 floating within the perimeter. And though it may sound easy, a player’s timing and sense of direction must blend perfectly to advance through the more difficult levels.

Since the spheres carom off of the edges, billiards players might have a slight advantage. Anticipating which direction the circles are going is paramount; also knowing one click in the corner can prompt a chain reaction across the entire screen is a useful tidbit of knowledge. Players may spend their time chasing the direction of the circles, when they actually need to be focusing on how to reach all four corner of the square by way of chain reaction.

The game consists of 12 fun levels, with new high scores posted regularly. Once players get a feel for the task, the game moves pretty swiftly. But with the scoring system, barely squeaking by will not suffice; set off the ultimate chain reaction in each level to hold the high score. It’s definitely a challenge.

Google mentions on their in one of their Chrome FAQs that it’s up to the web developer to decide if a new link opens as a seperate process or not.

I found this out first hand by going to W3 School’s html samples page and clicking on one of the links. Instead of opening on the same tab, the link opens on a new tab. So now I had http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_basic open in a tab. I edited the html source code on the left frame and put in a simple infinite loop with Javascript then hit run. As expected, the tab, instead of the entire browser, hung.

However, when I clicked on the W3 School’s html sample tab (which launched the now frozen tab), I noticed it was also frozen. My other tabs, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, etc were fine.

Google answered why: 

New tabs spawned from a web page, however, are usually opened in the same process, so that the original page can access the new tab using JavaScript.

Makes sense. In fact, that is one of the reasons why current web browsers run in a single thread. No big deal. Most of the time I have multiple “sessions” of browsing and I don’t mind if a few tabs share the same process thread.

Anyway, if you don’t have Google Chrome, get it. Finally multi-core machines will see benefits in browsing the web. I can have 10 tabs open without seeing a slowdown.