Saleh Blog

I have been working on some projects lately for my classes and others for money. One of the project I was doing is a web based program for senior students project on Petruleom Engineering department. The goal of the program is to find how long the oil will last in Kuwait. In addition, the program should find the maximum production and the year of maximum production.

So far it seems easy, but the hard part is coming.. drawing the chart!. Okay, that sounds easy for me at the begining, but after thinking for awhile I realize that will consume time. I start by looking for an open source of a chart program. Searching for over 12hours for charting program on JAVA or ActionScript. All I can find are the ones you have to pay ALOT of money just to make one. Therefore, I decided to make the charting program from scratch.

Adobe Flash’s Actionscript 2 was the language I decided to use for the program. The reason is because I’m going to make the program a web based program which loads on a webpage and works there. Java was my second option because first I’m more experienced on ActionScript than Java, and second because I didn’t have much time to waste on a language I’m less experienced in since final exam was close.

The first kind of graph/chart needed is “scattered xy” with a linear regression line. Arrghh, looking for linear regression equation really exhausted me because I was using the wrong term when searching for it for many hours. I’ll take about it in details in coming posts.

The second kind of the chart is scattered xy with nonlinear regression curve. But I won’t figure out this curve’s equation, I’ll just use the given data to draw the curve. Its almost the same as the first graph idea in coding, just needed to include few more stuffs.

I highly recommend computer geeks and new developers to watch this.

Today I recieved a newsletter from Erain announcing their new program Harmony which should be available on market this summer. Harmony transforms SWF files into XAML-markup which is used in Microsoft WPF and in the new up coming SilverLight.

I decided to go back to Final Fantasy XI Online after quitting the game for 6 month. I miss the game and I feel very happy that I’m going to play it again. I know I am very busy with my college and other important things I’m doing, but I’m only going to play it on my free time.

I start playing FFXI after the US release of the game on PC at the end of 2003. That was the year when I was senior on high school, and I still wonder how on earth I got good grades while playing this game everyday. Its an online game or to be more precise its a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game [MMORPG]. I stop playing FFXI at the end of 2006 and I’m going to start playing it today. Here are some pictures which are 2 years old and my name on the game is Squalleye:

I failed to capture this monster

I’m wearing black armor behinde those kids

Its me

Fighting a monster with others 20 players for an armor

We call this monster a God, he drop a good armor after beating it

A Summon fight

Me and my friend

Fighting a tough montster with my group

That’s my house on the game

I was surfering the web as normally I do, checking updates on technology and computer related news and blogs and I come across a title “Microsoft to battle Adobe Flash with ‘Silverlight’” .. and I was like ‘what the heck!’. I went to google and searched for Silverlight to gain some informations about it.

It seems that Microsoft is now going for Rich Internet Application and compete with Adobe Flash. That’s a big step for microsoft towards the greed of controling the computer world which is natural since its a corporation and wants more money. I think that’s what will make Adobe and Microsoft compete on developing better Flash and better Silverlight application.

won before
 use Tel:
 easy

I have written this article before like 4 years ago in arabic and I won 2nd place on a compitition of best articles on the forum of http://www.ce4arab.com . the article was about making a phone call using flash on your pocket pc.

The idea was simple, you can make a phone call through internet explorer using Tel: NUMBER. For example, you want to call 33344422, simply you type on the internet explorer of your pocket pc “Tel: 33344422” and it will make the call. Well, I don’t know the command which will hang up the phone, but you can just press cancel when you placing a call. Anyone good enough in ActionScript will be able to do that without any trouble.

 To implement that on flash, first you have to make 10 buttons for number. Each time you click a button you add that number as a string to your variable, lets call that variable callNumber. For example when you click button five you add the character value 5 to your variable callNumber.

on (release) {
   _root.callNumber = callNumber + “5”;
}

You do that to all the number buttons. However, be sure to deal with the variable as string not as number which will do addition operation. We cannot use callNumber without defining the variable “callNumber”, we want to make it a timeline variable. To make it a timeline variable, go to the current frame and declare a variable with type String:

var callNumber:String = “”;

We gave it the initial value empty.

On the call button you add the string “Tel: ” and callNumber to your getURL command. Therefore, the call button actionscript will be as the following:

on (release)
{
   getURL(“Tel: ” + callNumber);
{

Simple isn’t it? I guess it is, or atleast so far.
We can add a digital LCD to the flash movie, so you can see what you are dialing like real pocket pc phone program. We add a dynamic text field to the stage and give it the var name “callNumber”. Its so simple and easy even for flash newbies.

The way to do it is simple and easy, but the idea that “Tel: number” on PPC internet explorer was unknown by most of you I’m guess. I can’t remember where I learned about the “Tel” command of the internet explorer.

SWX is a project developed by Aran Balkan one of the best flashers on the web. SWX concept is similiar to AMFPHP concept which is retriving data in real time by Remote Precedure Calling (RPC) to be able to make real time web application like AJAX but in flash. But the difference, in SWX you retrive information from an SWF file rather than PHP file, and the information retrived from the SWF is a variable and we deal with it as an Object Class (AS way of defining a movie clip). In flash you manipulate with the variable recieved to suite our implementation. Just imagine the coolnest of those idea and what you can do with flash!

Flash Magazine made a good review of the new Adobe Flash CS3. Take a look at it and feeeel it!