funciton communications

How to install: flvtool2, flvtool++ and yamdi under Centos

2009-10-04T15:38:49Z

Last week we had the need to test out flvtool2, flvtool++ and yamdi to see which one suited best for us. Today i thought it would be cool to show you a step by step on how to install them under Centos (the OS we use and recommend for servers).

We always install centos without any packages. We download the first centos cd installer and uncheck all the packages on the graphical installer.

Now onto the important part, all commands are run by root user.

flvtool2

yum install wget gcc make ruby
cd /usr/local/src
wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/17497/flvtool2-1.0.6.tgz
tar zxf flvtool2-1.0.6.tgz
cd flvtool2-1.0.6
ruby setup.rb config
ruby setup.rb install
flvtool2 --help

flvtool++

yum install wget boost-devel gcc gcc-c++
rpm -ivh ftp://194.199.20.114/linux/sourceforge/s/sc/scons/scons-1.2.0-1.noarch.rpm
mkdir flvtool++
cd flvtool++
wget http://mirror.facebook.net/facebook/flvtool++/flvtool++-1.2.1.tar.gz
tar zxf flvtool++-1.2.1.tar.gz
scons
mv flvtool++ /usr/bin/
flvtool++

yamdi

yum install wget
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/yamdi/yamdi/1.4/yamdi-1.4.tar.gz?use_mirror=ufpr
tar zxf yamdi-1.4.tar.gz
cd yamdi-1.4
gcc yamdi.c -o yamdi -O2 -Wall
mv yamdi /usr/bin/
yamdi -h

From our tests we find out yamdi was the best option for what we needed. What is the best option for you?

--fernando

Timer with a pause and resume

2009-09-18T12:31:51Z

I needed the ability to pause the Timer class we have in ActionScript3 so i created my own TimerAdv class which extends it. I tested it on the environment i needed so i'm posting it here for everyone to test it out. Hopefully if i get the chance to properly test it out it will be part of the inca framework.

UPDATE I found via a comment on this post that theres a solution for this same thing done with a very similar logic and older than mine. You can find it here . I didn't base my logic on that post but what a coincidence. I guess great minds think alike, huh?

package tv.agenciaperu.utils {

import flash.utils.Timer;
import flash.events.TimerEvent;

public class TimerAdv extends Timer {

private var $__initDelay:Number = 0;
private var $__pauseTime:Number = 0;
private var $__acumulado:Number = 0;
private var $__startingTime:Number = NaN;
private var $__paused:Boolean = false;

public function TimerAdv(delay:Number, repeatCount:uint = 0){
$__initDelay = delay;
super(delay, repeatCount);
}

public function get paused():Boolean{ return $__paused; }

override public function start():void{
$__startingTime = new Date().getTime();
super.start();
}

override public function reset():void{
delay = $__initDelay;
$__acumulado = 0;
$__pauseTime = 0;
super.reset();
}

public function pause():void{
super.stop();
$__paused = true;
$__pauseTime = new Date().getTime();
if(isNaN($__startingTime)) $__startingTime = $__pauseTime;
}

public function resume():void{
$__paused = false;
delay = Math.max(0, ($__initDelay - (($__pauseTime - $__startingTime) + $__acumulado)));
$__acumulado += ($__pauseTime - $__startingTime);
addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, restoreInitDelay, false, 0, true);
start();
}

private function restoreInitDelay(e:TimerEvent):void{
removeEventListener(e.type, arguments.callee);
delay = $__initDelay;
$__acumulado = 0;
$__pauseTime = 0;
}

}

}

Let me know if you find a bug plz so i can update the post.

--fernando

Update 1: Fixed a bug in the delay value for future repetitions

Updated: Get current week of the year

2009-09-09T00:22:14Z

I'm a nerd and so i like to play with code on my free time. Two days ago i went thru this post where there is a discussion on how to calculate the current week of the year. Here is my try:

The thing i don't like about the function posted on that site is that it is huge!

I haven't tested mine a lot but i trust on my visitors (you) to test it out and let me know if you find a bug or smth.

function wy(fecha:Date = null):uint {
var wms:uint=1000*60*60*24*7;
var d:Date = (!fecha) ? (new Date()): fecha;
var fd:Date=new Date(d.getFullYear(),0,1);
d.setDate(d.getDate() + (fd.getDay() - d.getDay()));
return ((d.getTime() - fd.getTime()) / wms) + 1;
}

trace (wy());

Coding is a lot of fun! :)

--fernando

Update 1: Thanks for testing it out, just fixed a bug on it :) Cheers!

Dear Apple

2009-08-25T12:38:59Z

Dear Apple, i'm your sincere fan. I own a couple of ipods, some laptops, spend sometimes too much on your app store on both of my iphones (1st gen and 2nd gen), scroll fast to the next story when i read someone blaiming your app store app approval process and recommend your products to the people i care most (family, friends and clients).

I'm writing you this post, cause i'm really sorry that one of your new partners are making me desire to go back in time and buy that nice black blackberry they offered me instead of your newly 3g white 16GB iphone.

Your local partner (América Moviles aka Claro) visited me eight months ago offering me two options: a blackberry and a brand new iphone 3g. I accept i was curious at first with the blackberry phone but since i already had your first iphone gen and a wonderful experience with it and your other products i bet for you one more time and bought it.

"Can i keep my current phone plan and still get an iphone?" i asked, "Absolutely" they respond.

So after two weeks my iphone arrived to the office. I proceed to place the chip into the phone and everything worked as expected.

A week went by and i received a voicemail. I was surprised that the voicemail functionality i was getting was nothing closed to what i saw on your website so i went to my phone provider and asked what was happening. They told me it was because i didn't have an iphone plan.

It's ok, i still have an awesome phone with unlimited internet and my entire music collection on it.

One day i noticed the mute button was missing. I bought a phone case since day one so i blamed it. It's my fault!

A month later the volume button was missing! Luckily that button is bigger and i was able to put it back in place. It fall a couple of more times but i could put it back in place everytime (i didn't open the phone, don't even thought on doing so!).

One night i discovered that i was not alone, that some other iphone users where having the same problem so two weeks ago when i was in Florida i scheduled a meeting with one of your geniuses.

He, after looking and playing with my phone for 10 minutes, concluded that my phone had to be replaced. So he took it to his computer but came back saying that the phone was sold overseas (Perú) and that i should take back with me a certificate and that Claro, your partners and my phone provider, should replace it without a hitch. He also mentioned that they are all well trained and that there is an exchange policy with you. That i should not worry.

Happy with the service offered i went to Claro's support center as soon as i got back to Lima. The technician said that the button was actually there but it was dirty. My intelligence and your genious' intelligence was insulted. After a brief fight with him argumenting that your representative accepted the button was not there and that i had a certificate, he said he was sorry but they have an iphone "patent" and that your certificate nor your representative was of any help there.

I went back to Claro's support center one week later. The girl who helped me out was very kind and polite and said that they can't accept your certificate and that i should try my luck with you again.

After calling Apple Care two times you insisted me to solve my problem with Claro.

So here i am, with an expensive broken phone that no one wants to take care of. What can i tell my family, friends and clients when they ask me why i still have my broken phone after tweeting about my case and what your genious told me?

Someone suggest me to go to the local authorities (Indecopi) and present my case but we are still friends, right? I don't want this friendship to stop because you made a mistake partnering with a wrong dude, right?

What should i do? Should i go back and check out that blackberry phone? Should i start to no trust your warranties because your partners will never help me out?

--fernando

Update: I have also emailed an apple care employee about this issue, let's see what happens.

Update 2: Just received an email from an Apple employee mentioning that my case has been escalated internally and that will keep me posted. Thanks everyone who spread the word!

Online Interview with Dominic Sagolla

2009-08-21T13:44:05Z

Dom helped create Twitter and the Obama '08 iPhone App. He is also founder of DollarApp, co-founder of iPhoneDevCamp, and author of 140 Characters in San Francisco.
Follow us @fernandoflorez and @dom. Send you questions with the #domfunciton hashtag. --fernando

Postbox email client

2009-07-29T12:38:56Z

I've been looking for the perfect email client for me since ever! One of the email clients that i have tried is Postbox .

Postbox was created by former Mozilla employees (engineering and product management) with previous experience in Thunderbird so you may find some similarities between postbox and thunderbird 3 beta.

Tab email browsing

Great feature! I've used it a couple of times to compare side by side two inbox folders. I couldn't find a way to have the compose email in a tab though.

Conversation views

Postbox will join together emails that seem to be related. It seems that it uses the subject title so it is not that precise. When i tried it , it grouped together two non-related emails because they had the same subject. It should compare not only the subject but it's headers. This is smth that Zimbra and thunderbird lacks too though.

Search

Search is intuitive, very good results and with lots of options. To test, i tried the same search params across different email clients and postbox returned the most accurate results.

Thunderbird plugin compatibility

This is awesome! You can use any thunderbird plugin in postbox. Even lightbox for your calendaring!

Interface/Layout

I found the layout to be similar to thunderbird but nicer and more stylished.

Thunderbird/Outlook import

First time i launched postbox it asked me to import from outlook/thunderbird which i did. My surprise was that it not only imported my account details correctly but it also imported my html signature and other preferences. Neat!

Imap IDLE

I'm a computer nerd and want to be notified of new email as soon as it arrives to my server so Imap IDLE is a must. Postbox supports it and it's connection pool is handled very well.

Cost

This is the only downside in Postbox. If you buy the "beta" pre-release version it will cost you $usd 30 and you elegible for an upgrade to the final version. A 33% discount.

Go to Postbox-inc.com and download a trial version and leave a comment here with your thoughts.

--fernando

Tiny UID Algorithm generation

2009-07-24T10:27:06Z

There are lots of web services that offer link shortening. The tiny uid they create is what fascinates me. A google search didn't throw any good info so here it is an algorithm for you to use.

There are lots of url shortening websites but my very favorite is ir.pe
It's interface is clean and it's url is very short (5 chars if you count the dot).

I've been using the ir.pe service since it was created so i pretty much figured out how the uid where conceived. Here is the logic:

You start with a list of characters that you want to use. For example:

"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789_-"

uids will be:

1 - a
2 - b
3 - c
...
39 - aa
40 - ab
41 - ac
...
78 - ba
79 - bb
80 - bc

And so on. Noticed the pattern?

Ok, if you are a developer take 10 minutes and try to create an algorithm that will generate those uids :)

-- Solution below, don't cheat! --

This algorithm needs to be fast!

I always add a new layer of complexity to this kind of exercise, the code needs to be not only fast but short. Fun Fun! (I'm a nerd, i know. You don't need to shout! :p

function generateCode(i:uint):String{
var s:String = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789_-";
return (i<s.length) ? s.charAt(i): arguments.callee((i/s.length)-1)+s.charAt(i%s.length);
}

It's ActionScript code if you wonder but the logic could be easily translated to a mysql/postresql/sql function (i recommend using a database function rather than a backend method creation).

In flash it takes 5871 ms to create 1 million uids and less than a ms to create 1.

Attention conditional playback

2009-07-22T17:56:53Z

It always happens to me that while i'm watching a movie on netflix i get distracted by something else on my screen. I thought it would be cool if the movie only played back if i had my attention on it. Here is a quick test of how this could be implemented.

This happens too with page ads. I don't like having a video banner always looping in my screen. it would be cool if it could react to my attention.

Yesterday i thought on the idea that the movie could detect our face (our eyes could be better but that will be part 2 of this experiment) and playback accordingly or pause if it doesn't detect it.

I prepared a quick experiment using face detection and flv playback. The video is from a web campaign we are working on currently.

Note: If you are on a slow connection please visit the link wait for it to load (it will not work properly first time) and then reload the page so the video will be cached. Video is 27 MB.

http://blog.funciton.com/blogfiles/lab/faceAd/

Be sure you are under good light and also to have a webcam. It will try to detect your face so if the video doesn't playback please try changing your face angle.

Thoughts?

--fernando

Is cloud hosting for me?

2009-07-19T22:44:12Z

Is cloud hosting for me? This is the question i have been asking myself lately. Should I recommend my clients cloud hosting?

My thoughts on it after the break.

We host some of our clients on vps servers and dedicated servers rather than shared servers simply because:

1) We do a lot of python development which is not very common on shared servers
2) We like to tune the server in order to get better redundancy and speed (memcached, nginx, etc.)
3) We have had very horrible experiences with shared hosting providers

* Don't get me wrong, there are good shared hosting providers out there but their price is comparable to a small vps so we go for the second.

The benefit of cloud hosting is that your site can "scale" on it's features dinamically.

For example, if your blog gets digged it will significally consume more bandwidth, ram, etc. than if your site is only visited by you and your grandma, so with cloud hosting you don't need to worry about it. It will automatically scale and handle the loud. With a vps or dedicated server you will need to contact your provider and pay for that extra juice needed to handle the load.

This normally takes 2-3 hours to be setup and normally requires you to pay for the entire month of it's use even if your site needed it for a week or an hour.

With cloud hosting you pay for what you use and only for the time you need it and everything is setup by you through your provider's control panel so no more 2-3 hours wait.

Sounds very cool, but will i move?

Short answer: Not right now.

Complete answer: I have yet convinced myself that cloud hosting is secure enough for my data. With the test accounts i have played, my final bill has always been higher than what i expected, always with hidden costs. Also I don't know of any cloud hosting company with a clear uptime warranty and have read stories about them going down.

Also I personally prefer to know my server limitations and control/manage it as i please. I also prefer flat fees rather than variable.

But thats just me, right? What do you think? Will you do the switch?

--fernando

Twitter retweet thoughts

2009-06-30T12:05:41Z

I think i have been using twitter for over two years now so i think i pretty much know it well.

But lately i have been bugged up with retweets. Here is a small "thinking out loud" about it. Please contribute!

A twitter retweet is the action of resending or sharing a message that appears on your personal timeline to your followers.

It's unsupported officially by twitter but it is pretty much used by everyone.

Retweets (aka RT) should (IMO) be officially supported by twitter and provide somekind of "conversation thread" view.

The other day a very well known public person here in Perú sent an open thought via his twitter account. His followers started RT'ing it but since twitter limits messages to 140 characters the message didn't come complete.

He then received a lot of criticism about his message and he was then forced to write a public explanation of how his message was truncated and therefore expresed his thought incorrectly.

See? This is the problem with RT's. If you don't follow the RT'ed person you won't be 100% sure the message you are reading is his ~~true~~ collaboration.

RT's should include a link to the current message being shared and twitter clients should use that link to create a "conversation thread" where users could see the real tweet.

This is dangerous!

For example, someone could send a RT saying that i'm currently drunk at the office. Twitter users could confirm this by visiting my twitter account but what if my account is restricted? Also, how many users will actually confirm it?

Also, if you send a reply to a user you are aware that it will be seen by the intendent user and also by the users who follow both the sender and the receiver.

Is correct to RT that? IMO it is not. When you retweet you make that specific message appear on the public twitter timeline. It's like shouting out loud what someone just said to you and your group of friends in common.

When is ok to RT a message? For me it is ok to retweet a message when it is not a direct message or a @reply message and that the user doesn't have his timeline restricted. A lot of work just to retweet a message, right? This is why i think this should be supported and resolved by twitter.

And to finish this post... come on! Use the RT form and not "ReTweet" or "via" forms.

"Retweet" is just too long and the "via" it's confusing since it's at the end of the message. It may confuse some users.

Thoughts?

--fernando

BTW, follow me @fernandoflorez i tweet in both spanish and english ;)

What do i think about html5?

2009-06-17T22:21:50Z

I got an email from a client today asking me what i think about html5 and it's video tag. I thought it would be better to respond to him online so i can, maybe, start a debate here.

I don't want to dive too much into technical stuff to keep this post easy to understand.

What is html5 and whats up with it?

html5 is a new standard that the w3c is proposing. W3C is like a turtle when it comes to define new standards and it's understandable why. Tough work!

Mozilla, Opera, Safari and Google are implementing their interpretations of this draft into their browsers. Microsoft is also going to implement it.

Here is where the problem begins. Every interpretation may differ between companies, they may even only implement a subset of the standard, etc.

Microsoft always likes to implement their own truth when it comes to standards.

The most beautiful thing about html5 that seems to have everyone excited about is the "video" html tag.

The video tag will make it possible to inject video into html webpages and have it playback across different browsers that implements html5. Cool, huh?

Here is were the problem begins...

When we talk about video we are talking about codecs. There are a huge amount of codecs out there and everyone thinks theirs is the best.

Google with it's Chrome browser is using an ffmpeg backend and will include a built-in h264 decoder (are they paying for the h264 license?). H264 is an awesome codec!

Mozilla with Firefox is using Theora which is a really cool codec too.

Microsoft with IE will try to use WMV ofcourse which is not as nice as the other ones.

Notice where the problem is?

I can remember the days of Netscape where webpages used to have a footprint that said smth like "best viewed under Windows 95 and IE 5.5". hehe

If the browser doesn't support the video codec you are trying to reproduce it will try to use an external player (like browsers do now with .mov files for example).

So, if you want to reproduce an h264 encoded video injected on the webpage with the video tag you will need:

1) an html5 enabled browser
2) an h264 enabled browser or an extra plugin for playback
3) admin privileges to install software on your computer, which is less and less common on burocratic enterprises

I have worked with runtime browser plugins for years (Flash, Silverlight, etc.) and i know how difficult is to plan your developments across different plugin versions and how much i have fighted with enterprises running a 5 year old plugin without the permission to update.

Adobe's Flash Player plugin weights around 2 MB and a browser weights around 15 MB. It will be even more difficult to keep my users updated. Browsers are starting to have hardware dependencies so that may make the process a little harder.

Will it kill Flash or Silverlight? Could be, but not under this form i think.

We as a company will always offer our clients the best solution for their needs; regardless our likes or dislikes.

I'll try to post a second part to this post soon since there are a lot of details missing.

Thoughts?

--fernando

Get Google PageRank from Flash

2009-06-12T11:39:24Z

I just added a PageRank ActionScript class to the inca library. You now can get a website's pagerank via flash.

import inca.api.PageRank;
import inca.utils.PendingCall;
import flash.events.Event;

var pc:PendingCall = PageRank.query("blog.funciton.com");
pc.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, handleResult, false, 0, true);

function handleResult(e:Event):void{
trace ("PageRank is:", (e.target as PendingCall).data);
}

I'll work on updating the YFinance class. Didn't know the query format was documented.

Hope you guys like this class.

--fernando

Comparison between Wordpress and MovableType

2009-06-08T16:30:20Z

I have been running this blog under movabletype since ever. I ran other blogs under wordpress. After a while working with both blog engines here is a comparison between both. Comments are welcome!

Price

You can download/install wordpress and movabletype for free. Different kind of "opensource" licenses though.

Support

Wordpress community is a lot bigger so it's easier to get help for free.
Premium paid support available for both engines.

Installation

Wordpress is easier to install than movabletype (php vs cgi) on a common environment.
Wordpress now comes "pre-installed" in most shared server environments, just click and everything gets installed automatically.

Wordpress is designed to work by default under Apache but if your server has a different option (nginx, lighttpd, etc.) the configuration is not that simple anymore.
MovableType can't run under nginx since it doesn't support cgi right away.
Since movabletype creates static blog files they theorically can be run under any webserver.

Dynamic vs Static

Wordpress is by default dynamic (makes database request every visit/page refresh) while Movabletype is static.

For blogs that don't receive much comments and/or trackbacks movabletype is better/faster.

Wordpress (and it's dynamic kind) consumes more server resources so if your blog recevies a lot of traffic you may need to switch to a VPS or dedicated server.
Movabletype consumes less server resources except when it needs to rebuild it's pages.

Templates

Movabletype templates are better. HTML tags alike are designer friendly. Wordpress has php code on the template so it's easier to screw something by mistake.
Movabletype's templates are easy to extend for a designer.

Plugins

Wordpress has a huge lots of plugins that can be installed via it's admin panel. Movabletype has a very good amount of plugins but not as much as wordpress and they are more difficult to install.

Upgrades

Wordpress upgrades are a piece of cake. Movabletype will require file replacements.

How it is coded

Movabletype is coded in cgi so it's not that easy to modify/extend. Wordpress is coded in php so it's more common/cheap to modify/extend but everyone knows how bad wordpress is coded. It's a pain in the butt to understand how everything works, even for an experienced developer.

Movabletype's database is easy to read and understand. Wordpress' database design is horrible!

I know some of you will say that you can install the wordpress super cache and have static files or that you can actually have movabletype use memcached servers and make it's rebuild process faster but that will require extra steps and i want to compare default installations.

If you are a non-tech person i would recommend wordpress. If you know how to install cgi scripts and your blog doesn't receive much user interaction i would recommend movabletype.

For my needs movabletype is perfect.

What do you think? Which one do you like the best? why?

--fernando

YFinance ActionScript class

2009-06-07T22:39:39Z

We have been playing a lot with financial api's at the office so i thought it was a good idea to create a YFinance consumer class for the inca library

You may find the class under inca.api.YFinance.

Unfortunately there is no documentation on how to use at the moment but it's self explanatory if you check-out the source.

Now with flash builder i promise i will include asdocs on future stuff.

--fernando

Zimbra Mail ActionScript Library

2009-05-15T04:43:05Z

Well... after a couple of weeks thinking if i should release the Zimbra ActionScript library i wrote without really testing i decided to test the mail part of it tonight and just release that part over at github.

Click here to go to the github.com project page.

Unfortunately i haven't had the chance to write any documentation for it but i'm pretty sure you guys could break it apart in just a couple of minutes. :)

Please let me know if you find any bugs on it!

Suggestion are welcome too and if you like the project be sure to donate to it!

--fernando