When I was working on the polling application for my website which loads variables using a LoadVars call, I was facing this problem of the old file in the cache being always loaded and hence the data was not getting refreshed with the new values. After hours of experimenting I found out this cool way of stopping this caching problem. I am not sure if this is the best way to do it but it worked for me and yes every time the application was loaded I got the new values.
var dDate:Date = new Date();
dSec = dDate.getMilliseconds();
lvPollData.load(oPoll.textFileURL+"?"+dSec);
This is the code, which I used to load the poll data file. This code gets the milliseconds and queries it as a query string along with the load call and it’s random and different most of the time. Thought someone may find this useful.
November 29, 2004
New Poll: Will 8Ball bring down the market of image manipulation softwares?
This was one thing, which we were discussing over the weekend. With the exciting new features which was displayed in the MAX 2004 about 8Ball , it looks like we don’t need to go out of Flash to do basic image manipulations such as blur or shadows and these happen to be the most frequent task for which we guys in the new media industry need a image manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop. I don’t know how many more of such image manipulation functions are included in 8Ball, for me it looks like this will make a real big difference to the image manipulation industry. Lets see what the community thinks about this.
You can participate in the poll on the main page of this site.
For those of you who have not yet got a chance of seeing the video here it is.
November 17, 2004
Bluejacking and Mobile Virus
Recently I bought a new Nokia 6600 along with my friend and we were playing around with it sending messages and pictures using Bluetooth. Today morning he got a message from a unidentified person through Bluetooth and it happened to be a virus named "Cabir". Due to curiosity he installed the received application. After installing itself in the phone it started transmitting the virus to other bluetooth devices automatically, now he is heading to the service center to get his phone formatted!!
F-Secure has a free disinfection tool for this, but the virus occupies all the bluetooth connection and doesn't allow the new application to be installed too.
So , the next time you receive a message with attachment on your Bluetooth enabled device be careful before you install it.
You can find more information about this virus here and here.
November 10, 2004
Tomorrow is Diwali
Tomorrow we celebrate Diwali in India, it's the festival of lights. It is colloquially known as the "festival of lights", for the common practice is to light small oil lamps (called diyas) and place them around the home, in courtyards, verandahs, and gardens, as well as on roof-tops and outer walls. In urban areas, especially, candles are substituted for diyas; and among the nouveau riche, neon lights are made to substitute for candles. The celebration of the festival is invariably accompanied by the exchange of sweets and the explosion of fireworks. As with other Indian festivals, Diwali signifies many different things to people across the country. In north India, Diwali celebrates Rama's homecoming, that is his return to Ayodhya after the defeat of Ravana and his coronation as king; in Gujarat, the festival honors Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth; and in Bengal, it is associated with the goddess Kali. Everywhere, it signifies the renewal of life, and accordingly it is common to wear new clothes on the day of the festival; similarly, it heralds the approach of winter and the beginning of the sowing season.
It still remember those golden days when I was a kid and wait for the day to burn crackers... wish there was a rewind button in life :)
Will post some photos of the festival once Iam back from the holidays.
Read the full story of Diwali here.
November 04, 2004
Site Redesign : Last ActionScript Hero
Found some time to redesign my site and the blog to give the same kindof looks. Have not still got the time to test it on different OS + Browser combinations. If you find any notable differences in the design or incompatibility please leave a comment. I have added a Blog Reader at the opening page so the blog news gets aggregated automatically whenever there is a new post in my blog and also added a section for new applications and experiments. Planning to add more functionality to the blog reader to aggregate more blogs. If you want your blog listed in the upcoming aggregator leave a comment here.
Thanks for the people at Rokey for the great icons that I used in the index page of the site , for the menus. Iam not a very good designer so please excuse :)