Hi everybody. After flying for ages I landed safely Los Angeles. Passing the customs and immigration took me only 1.5h. :-/ After leaving the airport, I took a shared Taxi to my shared flat in Venice. I live in a small house with a beautiful garden next to a golf course and a playground. The location is good. I can walk to the beach (25min) and to my office (15min). The house is charming and clean and my flatmates are very kind and gave me a warm welcome. Currently there are five pets around. Three cats and two dogs. The dogs scared me a bit in the beginning but they seems to be very well behaved.
In case anybody of you wants to get in contact with me here is my home address:
Michael Fretz
1042 Rose Ave
Venice 90291
Today I had a brief look at the area I live in. I took the unicycle because its the only transport I have at the moment. I thought, Venice Beach, an arty place in the USA will be used to unicycles but its not. Every time I overtook or passed anybody they started talking to me. It was funny especially the strange people at the beach who tried to sell everything to me. There was even another guy at the beach with an unicycle but he tried to make money with being there with a one wheel bike. Maybe I should do that too.. :-) Anyway, I enjoyed my ride along bodybuilder, skateboarder, musicians, dancers, tattoo freaks, rockers, tourists,artists , runners, swimmers and salesman’s. Of course I went for a swim in the sea but the water was actually quite cold. My ride ended in Santa Monica Pier where I turned back to Venice Beach.
At the moment I sit in the beautiful garden from our flat, write this post and will start coding afterwards. Tomorrow I will start my internship at Almer / Blank.
A wile ago I had a problem with external XML files loaded in to my Actionscript project. Some browser always used an older version of my XML and didn’t reload it every time I reloaded the page. An easy way to avoid this is the following solution:
As you can see I added to the string of the path a question mark and a random number. Every time the page is reloaded it generates a new path to the XML file. The only changes are behind the question mark and will not affect the XML file
I did it! A long dream will come true. I can do an internship in the USA. On August 29th I will fly to Los Angeles. I will start my internship at Almer/Blank in Venice CA as a Actionscript and Flex developer. After overcoming all the VISA stuff and booking a flight I can finally go. A big “thank you” to everybody who supported me and believed in me. A special “thank you” to Markus Almer from Almer/Blank who provides the intern position, Martha and Naomi form AIPT (Supporting Company for the J1-VISA) and Dominik Brumm who helped me with the plane ticket and of course my parents who always believe in my dreams.
The only concern I have now, I NEED A ROOM!!! If anybody knows somebody who can help me, please contact me! I need a clean room near my office!
I’m also happy with just a couch for the first few days so I can sort out things locally..
Thanks for your help
While I stay in Venice, there is Adobe MAX in Los Angeles. A colleague from the Swiss Flash User Group (SFUG) could help me to find a Technical Assistant position. I look forward to help at following BYOL labs:
- Advanced Interaction Design and Designing for Data in Flash Catalyst
- Learning AS3 lab
I looking forward for this well known event.
Of course I will also blog during my time in Venice… Therefore make sure you follow me on twitter or RSS!
One of the main reason I use Actionscript 3.0 is to create data visualization. Most times the data is saved in a XML or database. Therefore I would like to show you some parts of of a recently developed program.
Here is an example of the final result.
It is quite a common problem: You are a graphic designer and would like to present your portfolio online. You know the basic skills of designing a InDesign CS4 document but your not having any idea how to present your document online.
For this problem, I would like to explain in a small tutorial how to present an InDesign Document as a Flash file. Afterwards you only have to upload it to your webserver and your job is done.
Example of a flash book made with InDesign CS4 Read more »
Im vierten Semester habe ich den Abendkurs Animation und plastisches Gestalten an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste zum zweiten mal besucht. Zusammen mit meiner Freundin Daniela Spühler haben wir diverse Stop-Motion Kurzfilme erstellt. Ich möchte mich hier herzlich bei Tobi Hobi bedanken der uns immer unterstützt hat. Hoffen wir das dein Kurs noch viele Jahre stattfinden wird.
Im Animationskurs der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste bei Tobias Hobi haben wir den 10 Sekundenfilm: “Life is short, try to be pretty” erstellt. Die Aufgabe war es aus Plastilin innerhalb eines Abends eine kleine Geschichte zu erzählen zum Thema: Von Innen nach Aussen.
Im vierten Semester besuchten wir das Modul “Design Studio II Interaction in virtual environments” bei Max Moswitzer. Es galt ein Interaktives Objekt in Second Life zu erstellen. Zusammen mit Jonas Kaufmann und Gabriel Süss haben wir ein kleines Spiel in Second Life programmiert. Unsere Anwendung Superball, ist ein kleines Game in Second Life welches ähnlich wie ein Fussballspiel funktioniert. Im Gegensatz zu einem normalen Fussballspiel ist unser Spielfeld rund und hat leicht abgerundetete Wände. Auch der Ball fliegt nicht immer so wie man dies eigenltich erwartet.
