web developer, usability, analytics

For one reason or another I had trouble getting this to work so I thought I would post my code snippet that I used here.

<?php
<?php
ini_set('display_errors', E_ALL);
 
class PostWithOutAForm {
 
	var $_returned_message;
	var $data = array();
 
	public function __construct() {	}
 
	public function callPong($msg) {
		$data['message'] = $msg;
 
		$post_str = '';
		foreach($data as $key=>$val) {
			$post_str .= $key.'='.urlencode($val).'&';
		}
		$post_str = substr($post_str, 0, -1);
 
		// Initialize cURL
		$ch = curl_init('http://localhost:8888/TargetOfPost.php');
		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST,				count($data));
		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, 		$post_str);
		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 	TRUE);
 
		// Execute...
		$output = curl_exec($ch);
 
		 if (!$output) {
			$output = curl_error($ch);
		}
		curl_close($ch);
 
		// Display the result
		return $output;
	}
}
?>

1. Create a bookmark in your browser with the code snippet below:

javascript:var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-#######-1"); pageTracker._setVar('remove-me');alert('Set.')

2. Replace ####### with your Google Analytics code.
3. Create a filter in GA to exclude the cookie (remove-me) from tracking.
4. When you visit your site, hit this bookmark.

You could also create a page to set the cookie…

I recently have been getting into Drupal at work and one of the things we were needing to do was get information out of our Drupal cms install to use in Flash. One method for doing this is to use the NetConnection class in Flash for which I have the code available to download below. In order to do this, setup your Drupal install with the proper modules and permissions.

1. Download and enable a few modules in Drupal.
* AmfPHP
* Services (enable views service)
2. Create a view with the info you want to show in flash
3. Set the proper permissions on your views. (Described in the modules’ documentation)
4. Download my code below, putting in the path to your amfphp install as well as the name of the view you created in step 2.

Note: I had to downgrade to php 5.2.13 in my MAMP install because I was getting the “Function ereg() is deprecated” error but this can be fixed as described in the post if you want to use PHP 5.3+

I am hoping that someone will make a zendamf module since amfphp is not being actively improved.

  NetConnection.zip (24.4 KiB, 124 hits)

I did have my own set of classes that I use for loading files(images/xml etc) but since I use Greensock for tweening I figured I should use it for loading my assets as well.

//import the classes, u dont need easing for this but you should be using it
import com.greensock.*;
import com.greensock.easing.*;
import com.greensock.events.LoaderEvent;
import com.greensock.loading.*;
 
//above your class constructor function
private var _loaderMax:LoaderMax;
private var _xml:XML;	
 
//in your code where you want to use it
private function loadXML():void {
_loaderMax = new LoaderMax({name:"mainQueue", onComplete:completeHandler, onError:errorHandler});
_loaderMax.append( new XMLLoader("yourFile.xml", {name:"xmlDoc"}) );
_loaderMax.load();
}
 
private function completeHandler(event:LoaderEvent):void {
_xml = LoaderMax.getContent("xmlDoc");
}
 
private function errorHandler(event:LoaderEvent):void {
	trace("error occured with " + event.target + ": " + event.text);
}

For a project I was on awhile ago, I needed to decorate a character with different items of clothing. When the user was done ‘dressing’ their character, they would press a button and the whole character would shrink down so it would fit as an ornament on a tree. In order to not confuse the issue, I am going to only show the code that enables you to take a movieclip and create a png from it. In order to do this, you will need to include the Flex SDK as a part of your flash build (for the Base64Encoder class) and you need to download as3corelib. To include the Flex SDK, in your Flash preferences add this line: (Mac OSX)

//VERSION will prob be 3.5, 4 etc...
/Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4/sdks/flex_sdk_VERSION/frameworks/projects/framework/src

Code after the jump…

  CreatePNG (44.4 KiB, 173 hits)

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