I need to use Flash for a couple of upcoming projects, so last night I messed around a bit with it and my tablet taking a stab at my own cartoon icon of myself. Obviously what comes to mind when most web developers hear "Flash" is probably closer to "punch the monkey" than to fine art. However, I was surprisingly pleased with the experience before even getting to any animation or movement.

What impressed me most was the set of line straightening tools for drawing. When using the tablet and pen in most tools, I don't even bother trying to draw. I end up with shaky wobbly lines. Flash allows you to set a straightening level as you draw as well as completely smooth out (into more oval or rectangle-like shapes) portions after the fact. And, since everything is just a shape, it can be distorted or resized. It made putting that drawing together MUCH easier, especially given my anemic artistic ability. Without it, I assure you, I wouldn't have posted the result.

Given the way it works, you can actually draw stuff like this with a mouse.

I am wondering, however, if there's a tool out there that does this type of drawing assistance without the animation features and high price tag. I can justify the cost of Flash for client projects, but would really like to be able to recommend a tool for drawing that doesn't cost 2 times as much as Shelly's new laptop did.

A few days ago, I put up an experimental script that grabs a bunch of photos that Flickr marks as "interesting" for posting on sites. "Interestingness" is sort of Flickr's "PageRank" for a photo. They say that it's calculated based on how many times a photo is viewed, who views it, etc. However, it's clear to me now after a few days that this algorithm needs to be adjusted. It suffers from a problem that is at the core of any such algorithm: what to do with the hormonal influence of porn or porn-like images.

If you, for instance, search with my script for "nature", you get 22 photos that are exactly the kind of thing you'd expect: trees, fields, ducks, leaves, spider webs, etc.. Then, there are 3 of a woman in a bikini (same in all 3). Since she's standing near a shrub of some sort, I understand why the photographer tagged it as such. I'm not debating that. However, if you compare what Flickr themselves show as the most recent photos for "nature", you'll see that the other 22 are in line with what the tag generally means and these 3 are not.
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Photo: Brett Taylor

The Performancing folks released a new Firefox extension Tuesday that makes it easy to post to your Wordpress site (or many other services). However, as always, if you just wanted that announcement, you could go to any one of the hundreds of other sites that made that the extent of their posting. I figured I'd take this opportunity to show you how you can modify a Firefox extension in place before installing it. You can download the .xpi file, dig through it, make changes and the file will be modified for you to then install. I use this on occasion to remove irritating features and that's what I used it for this time too.

The tool works nicely for an early release. Just hit F8 and you get an editing pane at the bottom of the screen to create a post. It stores the list of sites in an XML file, making it easy to transport (important for me and my roving working life). However, it also adds some functionality to the right-click menu and puts it's link right at the top.

I'm not alone in being irritated by this, but I figured I'd just inject the necessary change into the extension and reinstall it. Now, my installation is actually missing the entry entirely, but I'll show you how to just let it fall into the bottom/middle of the list.
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First, as my skin and rotund (although shrinking) midsection can attest, I have an affinity for the harvest of the cacao pod. I like chocolate. But, I don't want just chocolate flavored stuff. I want the real stuff. Complex, dark flavors, etc. and I want it in a candy bar. I don't have the cravings for cake or pudding or anything other than chocolate as an end unto itself rather than a flavoring. A while back I bought some great stuff and they pinged me again this morning, making my mouth water.

I got an email from Lake Champlain Chocolates this morning noting that you can still get their chocolate delivered by Christmas if you order today or tomorrow morning.

I first heard about Lake Champlain when I listened to the Ear Candy episode of the OpenSource podcast a while back. First, if you haven't listened to that podcast yet, I highly recommend it, just not when your next meal is a while away. In the midst of that discussion, the guest gives Christopher Lydon a bit of candy that leaves the guy speechless: a 5 star caramel bar

Being the lover of food that I am, particularly food that makes your eyes roll back, I had to try some. They're NOT cheap. At $4 a piece, you can gobble down $30 pretty easily (minimum order of 6). However, they are absolutely fantastic. This isn't the kind of thing you eat daily or weekly, etc. (Which is why it doesn't throw my diet off to eat one of these every once in a while). They would make a great gift for someone who really likes food or chocolate or, say, your favorite geeky writer?

Serenity is out today as a DVD new release. I've been waiting for this since I left the theater. Unfortunately, this brings into play a longstanding Christmas policy at my house. Basically, anything you've stated as really wanting or put on a wish list has a moratorium on purchasing from Thanksgiving to Christmas. That puts this little DVD into a limbo and me into gambling territory. See, if I believe that those around me bought it for me for Christmas, then going out and getting it today results in me basically ruining their gift. However, if they believed I wanted it so bad that I'm likely to go and get it myself today, and no one got it for me, and I don't go get it, then I have to wait until Monday to get it and battle the crowds returning crap.

So, the question is whether it is more probable that there's already a copy of Serenity sitting under a tree somewhere or that there isn't. I really don't know which way this goes.

And, if you don't know what in the blue blazes Serenity is about, you might want to get yourself a copy of the Firefly TV series on DVD and settle down for a weekend and get to know the gang.

Also, in a quest to get a few new t-shirts for the weekends (I've gotten paint on nearly all of my existing ones), I gave the Spreadshirt site a whirl. They are sort of like Cafepress, except they also do vector art on shirts of different colors. I know Cafepress recently added black, but I actually hate black t-shirts. Given the fact that most shirts that carry messages I'd like to wear are in black, Spreadshirt is a pretty cool deal. It's relevant to this posting, because I made up a brown shirt with orange type that says "Big Damn Hero", which you'll get if you're a Serenity fan and will just be stupid if you're not. In other words, a typical t-shirt. My shop is at this link and is set up with no profits.