By Armand Niculescu on March 28, 2010
I don’t like tag clouds. Not in the way they’re usually implemented anyway. They are dull and ugly, really nothing more than a list of words of varying sizes. And yet, properly designed, they can be great infographics – beautiful and informative at the same time.
I discovered Wordle a few weeks ago and I found it fun for doing a little literary analysis, or comparing the spin on the news from different news sites (say Fox vs. CNN.) Still, I was unhappy with its lack of flexibility and options – not to mention that’s not a real, interactive tag cloud. Then I heard about Tagul.
Posted in Flash, News | Tagged actionscript, cloud, component, flash, free, java, service, sliverlight, tagging, wordpress
By Armand Niculescu on November 20, 2009
A truly humbling moment: Google has selected my flashCHESS III flash chess game to be included with their Chrome OS. Here are some screenshots – apparently the guys at TechRadar like the game as well considering the number of screenshots of the chess app
Posted in Flash, News | Tagged chess, chrome, flash, google
By Armand Niculescu on October 6, 2009
Flash Professional CS5 will enable you to build applications for iPhone and iPod touch using ActionScript 3. These applications can be delivered to iPhone and iPod touch users through the Apple App Store.
Posted in Flash, News | Tagged adobe, apple, flash, iphone
By Armand Niculescu on March 24, 2009
Flash Developers get a new shiny and powerful tool for their toolbox: static analysis (and a free decompiler) from HP.
Posted in Flash, News, Reviews | Tagged actionscript, flash, free, static analysis, tool, vulnerabilities
By Armand Niculescu on November 27, 2008
Working on a CPU-intensive app in flash is a challenging experience. It can be wonderful or frustrating, depending on your mindset. Based on my experience with flashCHESS and other intensive applications, I’ll give some tips and ideas on how to get the most out of your flash project.
Posted in Flash | Tagged actionscript, chess, flash, performance, tutorial
By Armand Niculescu on September 26, 2008
With all the excitement about CS4 and the major features it brings (3D, the new timeline and so on), some less ‘shiny’ improvements tend to be overlooked. Such is the case with conditional compilation. Developers familiar with “real” compilers will instantly know its power.
Posted in Flash | Tagged actionscript, flash
By Armand Niculescu on June 30, 2008
The reaction to flashCHESSIII has been overwhelmingly positive, especially on forums, even though the blog entry received just a reply. Advanced chess players were expecting a tougher engine though (some players have estimated an Elo rating of of 1500-1800 for the engine). The first time I compiled and run the engine, after weeks of just [...]
Posted in Flash | Tagged actionscript, chess, flash, performance
By Armand Niculescu on June 24, 2008
After too many sleepless nights, I’m now confident enough to show it to the world: flashCHESS3, a complete chess engine written in AS3. Our old actionscript chess engine was written when AS1 was still in beta, and had many shortcomings, but was very popular nevertheless. The new game is written completely from scratch and uses [...]
Posted in Flash | Tagged actionscript, chess, flash
By Armand Niculescu on May 5, 2008
The code is AS3 and the tutorial assumes some general knowledge of flash and actionscript 1 and 2.
Posted in Flash | Tagged actionscript, code, download, flash, free, tutorial
By Armand Niculescu on January 7, 2008
This post is not about Actionscript. In fact, it’s an embarrassingly simple tip for Flash artists. Just before Christmas, I’ve asked our main graphic artist to make a simple Holiday greetings card. After two days of work (he kept complaining that he’d need a real model to pose for him), he presented me with the [...]
Posted in Flash | Tagged design, flash
