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Mac OS X - Show / Hide Hidden Files in Finder
March 23rd, 2007
I always forget how to do this because I toggle this rather sporadically so I’m adding it to the public record.
To show hidden files in Finder pop open your terminal and type the text shown in the screen grab below.
To go back to hiding files we obviously just flip the AppleShowAllFiles flag to FALSE.
Brooks |
OSX |
1 comment
Flvtool2 - Flash Video (flv) Metadata / Cue Point Injector and Cutting Tool
March 18th, 2007
I’m a couple of years late to this party, but there’s a neat Ruby based tool, Flvtool2, which allows you to stamp metadata in flv files, insert cue points–both navigation and event, and allows you to slice and dice an flv file based on defined in and out points (kudos to Norman Timmler for writing this app and making it available to the community).
Unfortunately, the documentation for this tool is almost non-existent - SPAM apparently took down the wiki. Another problem, I encountered at least, is that the builds available from RubyForge contain bugs. Fortunately, you can download the source from svn where the bugs appear to be fixed.
Since the documentation is so sparse I thought I’d post some example usage where the search bots might possibly find it.
If you wish to insert onCuePoint events into your flv, Flvtool2 accepts an xml / yaml file that declares the cue point data. The screen shot below illustrates how you can insert both “event” and “navigation” cue points. Navigation cue points should theoretically corresponds to a keyframe stamp so that an flv seek action can be assured of starting from the given timestamp.
You can view a list of of the possible commands by typing the following in your commandline shell.
flvtool2 -h
To simply print out all of the metadata for a given flv simply use the following command.
flvtool2 -P some.flv
To insert cue points declared in the tags.xml file use the -A command with the -t switch. In the example below I’ll actually chain a few commands together (Add, Print, Update). The -P prints the metadata from the given file to stdout and the -U updates the flv with an onMetaTag event.
flvtool2 -APUt tags.xml src.flv output.flv
Here’s what running the proceeding code might look like.
The next example illustrates how to carve a new flv that’s four seconds long from the source flv based on in / out timestamps in milliseconds. To do this use the -C command along with the -i / -o switches.
flvtool2 -Cio 1000 5000 src.flv splice.flv
If you are interested in using flvtool2 as part of an automated ant build script you’ll need to invoke Ruby via the exec task, pass in flvtool as the ruby application to run and then pass in the desired commands, switches and arguments. The screenshot below is an example of this in action.
So there are just a ton of applications for a tool like this for both client and server-side applications which should be obvious to just about everyone likely to read this post. If you’re bored, it’s also extremely interesting to to take a peek at the metadata injected by various commercial encoders or video sharing sites (gootube et al). Enjoy!
Brooks |
Flash, OSFlash |
2 comments
Coherence–Parallels blurs lines between host and virtual os
December 4th, 2006
As many of you no doubt are aware, Parallels has released a new beta build with a wicked cool feature known as coherence. Coherence allows the virtual desktop to interact with the native desktop in a fairly seamless manner. This short screencast (30 seconds) gives a small taste of the “coherent” feel Parallels brings to running Windows on Mac OS X.
Brooks |
OSX |
3 comments
Setting Eclipse and Java application JVM heap size on Mac OS X
November 23rd, 2006
The other day I kept on getting annoying “out of heap space” errors in Eclipse while running a memory intensive Java application I had written and it took a bit of searching to find the answer, so I thought I’d make a quick screencast that demonstrates how to increase the heap size of the JVM that Eclipse uses as well as how to increase the heap size allocated to your Java applications by Eclipse.
This screencast is also available in podcast format for video iPods.
Brooks |
Eclipse, OSX, Java |
3 comments
Camtasia Studio 4 - Static JPG PIP Hack
November 7th, 2006
Sometimes you don’t want / need a flv PIP over the top of your table of contents. Instead what you’d like is a simple, small image file to sit above your TOC adding a nice finishing touch to your Camtasia Studio 4 Flash output. This screencast walks you through the xml edits currently needed to make this happen.
Screencasts are available for the video iPod as well
Brooks |
Screencasting |
3 comments
Camtasia Studio 4 - Custom Flash Preloaders
November 7th, 2006
The .fla files and .as files for the new Camtasia Studio 4 preloaders are now part of the software installation. This allows owners of Flash 8 to easily customize their screencast preloader experience. In this screencast you’ll get a step by step walk through on how to quickly update one of the preloaders with a branded logo.
If you want to write a preloader from scratch this screencast also briefly discusses the preloader event object that is dispatched by the controller swf.
Screencasts are available for the video iPod as well
Brooks |
Screencasting |
1 comment
Camtasia Studio 4 - Flash Closed Captioning
November 7th, 2006
This screencast takes a look at how, with a few simple xml edits, you can customize Camtasia Studio 4 Flash closed captioning.
Screencasts are available for the video iPod as well
Brooks |
Screencasting |
4 comments
Camtasia Studio 4 - Flash Quizzing
November 7th, 2006
With Camtasia Studio 4 we completely revamped the Flash output’s quiz and survey capabilities and for the first time, IMHO, have quizzing which is aesthetically palatable and functionally robust.
This screencast highlights some of the new features, including:
1) Flow layout
2) Multiline questions and answers
3) Global, question and answer level feedback capabilities
4) Virtually unlimited number of questions and answers
4) SCORM 2004 and SCORM 1.2 conformant quizzes
Screencasts are available for the video iPod as well
Brooks |
Screencasting |
1 comment
Camtasia Studio 4 - Misc Flash Output Features
November 7th, 2006
Camtasia Studio 4 was released a few weeks back and I’ve finally had the opportunity to make a few screencasts highlighting some of the new Flash related features as well as some backdoor hacks that allow you customize and configures many items that aren’t exposed in the UI. So, the next few posts will be devoted to Camtasia Studio’s Flash output.
This first screencast gives a high level overview of some of the Flash UI elements that we’ve introduced in the Camtasia Studio 4:
1) Flash Preview - Camtasia Studio actual embeds an Active X control in the C++ GUI in order to allow you to pick your Flash output theme (skin) and preview how your output will look in the Flash skin you’ve chosen as you resize elements (scale the content, size the toc, etc.). The Flash theme selector also has buttons which open MFC option dialogs and the like.
2) Target a Specific version of Flash Player - Camtasia Studio allows you to target Flash Player 6 - 8. If you choose to output to swf your content and controller swf’s will both reflect the version you select. If you choose to encode your content as as an flv your controller swf will reflect the version you’ve chosen and the flv will be encoded to the codec you select (both vp6 and h.263 are supported).
3) Optional Preloaders - Camtasia Studio 4 now includes a variety of preloaders and progress bars which come in branded and unbranded varieties.
Screencasts are available for the video iPod as well
Brooks |
Screencasting |
5 comments
Apollo Scoops
October 24th, 2006
Scoops:
1) Apollo will use the WebKit browser engine (Safari also uses WebKit).
2) Apollo uses an xml manifest to indicate the application entry point. The content value appears just be the mime type (text/html, shockwave-flash, etc). This means there is no binary / specialized bytecode generated for Apollo apps. You write straight up ActionScript / MXML/ HTML /ECMAScript using the the Apollo API’s for any "desktop" functionality you need.
Brooks |
Flash |
No comments
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