Location/path of hosts file in windows 7
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on October 17th, 2012
Where is the hosts file in windows 7?
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
Find a file by name in Linux and don't show permission denied
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on October 10th, 2012
Looks for a file named "game" starting at the root directory (searching all directories including mounted filesystems). The `-name' option makes the search case sensitive. You can use the `-iname' option to find something regardless of case.
find / -...
Example: change a user's password in Linux
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on October 9th, 2012
A simple example of changing a user's password
#Change a user's password
user@localhost the_directory> passwd username
#Change your own
user@localhost the_directory> passwd
It is too bad that Google favors long content. I just wanted a simple exampl...
Review of "The History of Video Games"
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on February 4th, 2012
Book Review: The Ultimate History of Video Games
I'll keep this simple. This is an enjoyable book to read, click here to check it out on Amazon.com
The "Ultimate History of Video Games" is a must for any industry professional in the game industry....
UI design for tweens, 8-13 year olds
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on February 2nd, 2012
Here is what I learned working on a virtual world for kids.
I had the pleasure of working on a virtual world for 8-13 year olds called green.com we tracked the user behavior of tens of thousands of tomorrows users and learned the most effective UI me...
How to get today's date in ActionScript 3 (AS3)
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on February 2nd, 2012
The Date() constructor takes up to seven parameters (year, month, ..., millisecond) to specify a date and time to the millisecond.
The date that the newly constructed Date object contains depends on the number, and data type, of arguments passed.
If...
AS3 design pattern | Organize packages for a multi SWF project
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on February 2nd, 2012
Design Pattern - How to organize packages for decoupling externally loaded SWFs.Here is a design pattern that will show you how the hierarchy should work when building a complicated program that loads in multiple external SWFs. There is a root to the p...
Decouple Externally Loaded SWFs in AS3
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on February 2nd, 2012
How to decouple externally loaded movieClips from their loader in Actionscript 3 (AS3) Here is a common problem: TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert com.yourUrl.mainClass.SomeClass@48cb821 to com.yourUrl.mainClass.SomeClass at ...
How to Parse (File, Package, Function Name) from a Stack Trace in ActionScript (AS3)
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on February 2nd, 2012
So stack traces can look different depending on the flash player in which it is running. For example in the Flash IDE standalone player a constructor will look like this ConstructorFunctionName$iinit() but in the player running in a web page it will ju...
Example of get | Read only accessor | ActionScript 3 AS3
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on January 5th, 2012
##"get" example in AS3##
Please post any other examples you may have in the comments.
public function get toolTip():String{
return _toolTip;
}
Get is used to create read only properties on a class. It is used in combination ...
Fl.controls not found, how do I import the fl package in ActionScript 3 AS3
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on January 5th, 2012
Flash components are fantastic as long as you don't start customizing them. I never used them in AS2 because they would often access the root of my movie and add things that messed with my code. Now with ActionScript3 (AS3) Security settings, I can loa...
How to exit a function in the middle and continue on with the code
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on January 5th, 2012
I saw a lot of searches for this so I decided to write an article about it. So you can jump out of a function at anytime using the "return;" command. Here is an example
function test(isContinue):void{
var i:String = "bal bla ablababallaa...
How to use variables in your XML declarations
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on January 5th, 2012
How to use variables for parts of your XML instead of static XML declarations.
You can easily create XML through string manipulation like the following:
var myXML = new XML("this is the link");
but this is slow and requires that the XML be...
Tree menu with ActionScript AS3
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on January 5th, 2012
##An Example of How to Customize a Tree Component##
I came across some open source code developed by Yahoo! called the Yahoo Atra components. VERY HARD TO CUSTOMIZE! I found the documentation to be particularly inadequate for the degree that I wanted t...
Code for a resizable window in AS3
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on January 5th, 2012
Flex handles window resizing really well so there is little need anymore to program your own custom window code. But for those of you who want a manually resizable window without loading some massive amount of flex code just to get resizable window cod...
How To Use The ...Rest Operator With Recursion in ActionScript | AS 3
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on January 2nd, 2012
How to pass an undefined number of parameters or multiple parameters into a function recursively.The rest operator means that multiple parameters or an undefined number of parameters can be passed into a function. The rest operator is denoted by three ...
Porting _global in ActionScript from AS2 to AS3
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on February 2nd, 2011
Global variables
The _global variable has been removed in ActionScript 3.0, it is suggested that you use specific objects that are created in the global scope to store your data instead of globing unrelated bits and pieces under one global object. Howe...
Style guide & best practices for ActionScript 3 (AS3)
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on January 24th, 2011
Adobe Flash Best Practices and ActionScript 3 Style Guide.
“Code that only you can understand does not make you an advanced coder." - Some Smart Guy
Goals
When you look at a variable, class or function name, the way that the code is written should ...
Customizing Flash Paper 2 with Actionscript 2.0 (AS2)
Published by Nicholas Dunbar on January 2nd, 2010
I set out to customize Flash Paper using ActionScript 2. There is a lot of info on the web, the best pages being: http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flashpaper/2/flashpaper_api/But they don''t include very many examples of how to use the A...