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The Value of Feeling Appreciated as an Employee in... Whether you’re a new employee or the vice president of the company, everyone wants to feel valued, even appreciated, in the workplace. Not only does it improve morale and make the workplace a more pleasant...

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The difference between classic and motion tweens in... Here it is: If you're used to doing things "the cs3 way" then you can continue to do so with the classic tween tool. It works the same way as you remember, using key frames as normal, but you cannot...

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PHP: If (equal to AND not equal) - eliminate form spam... Just learned a great function of PHP thats already made my forms a lot better. A while back I wrote an article about eliminating form spam without captchas by using css to hide a text input box for bots...

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Drop Downs, Fly Outs, and Accordion Site Navigation: This last week I was in a meeting discussing a client site. It was a typical business meeting that was going into overtime on a Friday afternoon, and then things turned for the worst... someone suggested...

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Needed: Companies Looking For Design Interns

Category : Around The Office, Teaching

Tunxis Community College is currently looking for internship positions at local/regional firms doing work in web and/or graphic design, marketing, e-business, and related fields. All interns are handpicked to ensure they excel in their placement at your firm. If you have special requirements please feel free to discuss these with me so we can make the best recommendation. Contunue Reading

How to export a Flash Swf as Mov without skipping or losing frames

Category : Flash, My Tutorials

Recently I was hired by a design firm to teach flash to their Art Directors and help them troubleshoot some production problems they were encountering. They had a project that needed to be exported as a .mov file, but when they used the Export tool in Flash their tweens seemed to skip a few frames here and there producing a cringe on everyone who saw it.

First thing to consider: Why use a .mov file at all? The .swf file played FINE. It was in sync and the frame rate was smooth (30fps). Why would someone convert from a perfectly usable file type to a format that has KNOWN conversion issues?

Sadly, the answer was that the client requested it be a .mov and even they didn’t know why. Aside from obscure handhelds there really isn’t any good reason I can think of why you want to convert to a mov file from swf. All you have to do is install a flash player. New toys need new tools. If the client had been educated about the advantages of the swf file they would have made an informed decision. You have to be assertive if you know a better solution exists.

Supposing that you don’t have the above option and you “just have to get it done” then here is what you do to avoid the problem of skipping frames or clipping transitions in mov files created with Flash CS5. This may work for previous versions of flash, but not before CS3, as that’s when the Export to mov feature was added. I should say that there are a host of other problems with this as well which Ill look at in other tutorials, but for now lets move on to the clipping thing which is actually really easy to fix.

When you’re exporting the file, after selecting the file name you have the option to click the QuickTime Settings… button in the bottom left. Doing that will open the Movie Settings Box and you can click on the Setting button to open the Compression Settings.

In the Compression Setting change the Key Frames to All. That’s it. That’s the fix. For best play back you should also set the Frame Rate to Current and it will just use what you’re using on the main timeline. I use 30 because it’s pretty smooth and the math pretty easy.

What this is doing: When you’re saving movies, not every frame contains the whole image. This is done to save space as movies are very very big. So there are Key Frames which work kind of like in flash in that they tell the other frames the complete picture. The frames you see getting clipped in your movies are the frames that are not being saved as a result of the missing frames. Saving every frame as a keyframe makes the file size a bit bigger (in some cases a lot bigger), but that’s not a problem for you because you’re decided you’re making a mov file, which are huge files by any measure. If you want to play it on the web… do it as a flv or swf a mov file is too big.

Thankfully the client here is looking to play it in tradeshows and so forth with people who may or may not have the technical ability to figure out installing flash in the event their laptop is the 3% of people without some sort of flash already installed on their system, but they do have quicktime so thats what they wanted. If you’re looking this up and still with me – you’re clients are probably much the same. Good luck.

Let me hear how this works for you.

Firefox 3: 8 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do

Category : Cool Web Programs, General Web Info

The name says it all. Pay Special attention to the HUGE security problem detailed in number 8. If you read only one… read that one. The fact that it’s number 8 I find comical, as if to suggest almost a reward to those who read the whole thing.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2331278,00.asp

Make an Android App in 7 minutes

Category : Uncategorized

If you have an Android you can go to market and get a program called PeaPurr made in this tutorial by Lee Brimelow in less than 7 minutes. He gets you from opening Flash (assuming you have the SDK and CS5) to playing uploading to market and then down to the phone lickadiesplit.

http://www.gotoandlearn.com/play.php?id=131

If you dont have CS5 you can download a 30 day demo from Adobe.

If you dont have the SDK, you can get it for free as well. I recommend watching this video for a description as to what you’re actually doing with it.

http://www.gotoandlearn.com/play.php?id=123

Use Light and Shadow to Add EyeCandy to a Design

Category : Great Tutorials, Teaching

This is a great article from Smashing Magazine about bringing life to what could be an otherwise boring page. I referenced this site in my TCC lecture on November 17th. With a few simple manipulations you can add plenty of eye candy to just about anything: buttons, backgrounds, headers, logos… so I guess thats anything really.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/20/5-simple-tricks-to-bring-light-and-shadow-into-your-designs/

Open Studio Group Show Opens Tonight in the Gallery of ArtSpace.

Category : Around West Hartford, Art Event, Social

This is the first event of Open Studio Hartford. Over 160 artists are showing their work in the next two weeks and most of them will be at this event tonight. Get your first glimpse at each artist’s work and style. This is sure to be a smashing event.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=152717564761248

Hartford Open Studio Weekend Nov 13th and 14th

Category : Around The Office, Around West Hartford, Social

Hattersworkshop is pleased and honored to be a part of the 21st annual Hartford Open Studio exhibit. Please stop by the studio on the fourth floor of ArtSpace at 555 Asylum st in downtown Hartford. Guests will not be allowed to park in the back lot, but parking is available at a discounted rate across the street.

Click here to download the full Event Brochure for location and event details as well as more some visual information about each artist.

Every year I have come to OpenStudio I have had a great time. The art is amazing; the people are incredible and interesting. Being a part of OpenStudio this year is already thrilling and I look forward to meeting new people and seeing some familiar faces.
Contunue Reading

“So What!” Opening a great success!

Category : Around West Hartford, Art Event, Social

Thank you to all the people who came out to the “So What!” art show at Hartford ArtSpace on October 23ed. I should also like to say thank you to Dan Small and Arturo Rosa for bringing me into the show and letting me have a section of wall to display my art. Nothing like impending deadlines to spur the creation of new art!

Prints of the work will be available for purchase during Open Studio.

The after party was also a great success and to all those who came: Im glad you had a good time. Music provided by Torrential , MisEyesis, and Dj Slav. I’d also like to thank my bartenders for keeping some semblance of law and order, or what passes for law and order in these parts anyway. Last, but not least, big ups to Andre and the other writers who created some awesome backgrounds for us to use in the gallery of some bonafied street art.

The next show is Open Studio and I hope to see you all there as well. I should have at least one new piece on display by then.

Hattersworkshop is proud to announce the release of http://www.BundlesAndInk.com/

Category : Web Launches

Hattersworkshop is proud to announce the release of another website, http://www.BundlesAndInk.com/. We worked with BobCopy to create a minimalistic design experience where the emphasis was on the art and not the website. Using a combination of jQuery libraries and smooth css the images are always close at hand and appear in dramatic fashion.

The Value of Feeling Appreciated as an Employee in Regards to being a Business Owner

Category : Around The Office, Featured

Whether you’re a new employee or the vice president of the company, everyone wants to feel valued, even appreciated, in the workplace. Not only does it improve morale and make the workplace a more pleasant to be, but it also raises productivity in a number of different ways.

Employees who feel appreciated are more likely to:

  • Show up on time or work late (for the good of the company)
  • Put in extra time outside of work (research & self improvement)
  • Be less stressed and thereby healthier missing fewer days due to illness
  • Make the best decisions possible in the company’s best interest
  • Overall improvement to productivity as employees will waste less time doing remedial tasks

Conversely, the inverse is almost always true: an employee that is talked down to, unappreciated, and used as parking for the company bus will almost always count the minutes on a clock until their freedom and do the absolute minimum to avoid getting fired.

Employers should remember to say “Thank You” and say it often. It’s so simple, and free, and yet so few employers understand the value of feeling valued.

Being a business owner and teacher I am constantly thanking my employees and students, for their work (which I didn’t have to do) and for trying their best. I am thankful and happy with the return on my investment.