A quick blog on Flash optimization, dynamic image smoothing and funny fuzzy critters…

Flash applications and interactive tools can become very file size heavy, unless you know how to optimize properly. Many of the animations and tools we create with Flash incorporate lots of data such as images, text, and video. One option is to pack all this data into the Flash file until everything starts popping out its sides like a gorged Aye-Aye on a grub feeding frenzy.

Or, you can dynamically load the data when it is needed.

Working recently on a couple projects with such dynamically loaded content, I came across an issue in trying to smooth images which were animated and scaled. This can result in aliasing, distortion of the image which looks jagged and ugly. Flash has an odd issue where dynamically loaded images cannot be smoothed on the fly. To solve this, code is added to actually redraw the image in flash once it is loaded and then apply the smoothing. Presto! The image is smoothed and animates with beautiful anti-aliasing applied.

This makes for a much happier Aye-aye who can swing nimbly from tree to tree and grab a grub whenever he needs a quick nibble.

The sign on the front lawn of the nearby Church on the corner of Churchville and Street Rd. reads Can’t Sleep, Try Counting Your Blessings!

Americans don’t realize how much we all have to be grateful for.

I am a history major, not marketing nor advertising nor computer science. We live in a great country, have freedoms unequaled in history with material riches, relative peace and a voice in our future both individually and nationally. We have enough food (actually too much), good shelter, laws that are fair and enforced, pretty good schools, and an abundance of employment and career opportunity.

Every member of DDA is here because it is his or her chosen career. The video production staff chose to work in video, the programmers want to code, the photographers, artists and writers are creative types expressing themselves, the IT staff like to figure stuff out. There are no limits, no caste system, no forced inherited career paths, no gender or racial prejudice, no glass ceilings or naysayers saying you can’t do that.

What is so great is not that DDA is so special, although it is. What is so great is that the same situation exists in millions of companies and for hundreds of millions of Americans across the USA…and that is, historically speaking, quite a miracle.

So where did I stop yesterday? Favorite word–# five. Here are six through ten. 

6. Attitude. It would be very hard to work at Dynamic Digital Advertising if you are touchy, entitled, a show off, needy. Creative work is fraught with ands, ifs and buts. Everyone, from graphic designers to programmers to videographers to our professional writers have to depend on one another for their expertise on any given project. Our collective job is to produce the best product possible for a client, whether it is a logo exercise, or a new website or a shopping cart addition to a database, we have to mesh our talents. No pride of ownership necessary. Individual talent, like cream has a way of rising to the top. DDA has an open door policy. No clicks allowed.  I am very proud of how we communicate and collaborate while we work. 

7. Team Work. See number #6. 

8. Positive. Stroll through our facility. There is a quiet upbeat vibe everywhere. Granted, the content developers appreciate the quiet while they develop marketing or optimized copy, our programmers do not need distractions, and even when there are frustrations and irritations over “whatever” we are a pretty positive group. 

9. Efficient. One of my favorite words. We are after all a business. Efficiency is required if we are to compete in a global arena. Global, you say. Yes. We are bombarded by requests from India, China, the Philippines, even New Zealand to consider sending a lot of our work off shore. All the emails make the same argument: think of all the money you will save. No thank you. We are a totally American company, working worldwide and competing on the strength of our work. So to all DDA departments, watch out for creep. 

10. Focused. See numbers #1 through #9. Another way to describe the DDA culture would be to quote Benjamin Franklin, who said, “Energy and persistence conquers all things.”  Read my ten favorite DDA words again, and to all, have a great weekend.