Monthly Archives: December 2009

Rage Against The Branding Machine

21st December 2009

So, a grass-roots Facebook campaign sees “Killing in the Name” beat X‑Factor winner to the Christmas number one in the UK.

Earlier this year in June, Starbucks opens an experimental “stealth store” with little visible branding (15th Avenue Coffee and Tea — “inspired by Starbucks”, but actually copied en masse from local stores in the area), sending the advertising agency in a spin. Has the worm finally turned?

via bbc.co.uk and marketingmagazine.co.uk

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation

21st December 2009

Nobody should be surprised that PowerPoint does not measure up to the great speeches of history, such as Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. And it is certainly a shame when a potentially interesting presentation is dumbed down by another formulaic over-application of PowerPoint. But when PowerPoint leads not just to boredom but to bad decisions, it is a tragedy, not just a shame.

via norvig.com

BBC HD quality definition draws criticism from viewers

21st December 2009

The BBC has come under fire for the perceived poor picture quality of its high definition television service.

Danielle Nagler, the Head of BBC HD, has so far failed to placate critics with her responses to comments on the BBC web site. On the BBC programme Points of View she said “Theres no evidence that reducing the bitrate has an impact on picture quality, or that there is an absolute relationship between bitrate and picture quality”.

However, from a recent blog post: “I appreciate that BBC HD offers us the widest range of programming currently in the UK. But even my wife can see a reduction in picture quality and she’s got cataracts.”

via informitv.com

ActionScript 2.0 Best Practices

6th December 2009
  • Use runtime filters sparingly. If you can turn it into a raster graphic with those filters, it will likely be a smoother animation. This will be a delicate balance between file size and performance
  • Use motion tweens instead of shape tweens whenever possible.
  • Don’t have transparent things on top of transparent things. When transparencies overlap, the processor usage multiplies.
  • Keep your frames per second at or below 30. I’ve seen many applications trying to run at 60+ fps. I usually set my applications at around 24.
  • Use easing only where you need it.
  • Learn about cacheAsBitmap. This can speed things up or make them slower, it depends on the context. If you have an animation, keep cacheAsBitmap as false, the cached bitmap will have to be regenerated every time the animation changes, so this isn’t worth it. However, on a vector graphic that doesn’t change within itself, cacheAsBitmap might be a good choice.

via adobe.com