Andy Jacobs blog

As part of a school project about AS3 api’s i developed a small actionscript api that uses Itzchak Rehberg php classes to parse cache the imdb pages and extract the information from it(with a very cool caching mechanism). i just tweaked it a bit so it parses xml instead of html. there is a working draft copy here if you want to test it just type in a movie title and it will parse an xml wich gives you the all the associated imdb-id’s for it.

the as3 api now only concludes searching and fetching movie information.

its as easy as just to

var imdbSearch:SearchIMDB = new SearchIMDB(”scrubs”,20);
imdbSearch.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,serviceLoaded);
imdbSearch.load();

and for fetching a movie you can just do

movie = new Movie(<enter movie id here>);
movie.addEventListener(MovieEvent.LOADED,movieComplete);
movie.load();

Try not to put in a loop of fetching 500 movies at the same time because it will overload your internet connection. I did a couple of tests (try it out here) (srcview) i also did test to fetch movie information 1 at the time but it goes like 50% (avg) faster if you just request all at the same time ( just respect a golden rule .. “don’t overdo it” )

you can download the source files here

you can download the php source files here

note that if you want to use the code that my server is only there for testing purpose and if you do want to setup you own project just copy the files to you php server and change the link. I can only keep my server online as long as it can handle traffic

It’s been a while, but i finally found some time to post my second post on my blog.

Reviewing my trip to Brighton (fotb) ..
Had a lot of fun, it was a couple of very fun days but for a student like me, England is pretty expensive.
But it was worth every pound! Saw a lot of cool session, although i got to say that the inspirational sessions where a little more interesting than the technical, not because i don’t like the technical session, i think i did 70% technical sessions .. but the inspirational sessions were just “Bad Ass”.

especially Jared’s session, “Algorithms to fill space” .. it blew my mind… the way he talks .. presents .. the passion for his own work .. just wonderful. I also enjoyed Natzke alot, but he didn’t presented his finest work in my opinion, good session but my love for Jared is just that little more.
Joshua Davis, Robert Hodgin, Mario Klingemann and Andre Michelle are also highlights of my 3 days on FOTB. Looking back now here at my home, i wish FITC Amsterdam was 1 week away

12 November there was a nice AUG meeting in brasschaat, where Mike Chambers and Lee Brimelow did a 1 hour session each about the upcoming products of adobe (Thermo, Astro) and Lee did a very nice session covering some of the basics of Adobe Air, loved his examples! Although i saw both of them on fotb the sessions were worthy for seeing twice. After the sessions there was a nice reception where i met the guys from Boulevart, and i am definitely applying for my internship next year in march with them!

And today i got to do my presentation about MySpace, Facebook and Netlog, although i only got 20minutes and i almost hit the 40 minutes. But i got a couple of nice comments from the audience .. so i am pretty happy about it. If somebody wants i can post them in pdf format on my blog.

so i will try to make a little more time in the future to update my blog.
back to work now!

(here is the link to my presentation)

05.00 am Saturday morning, just got 1 hour of sleep.
But pretty eager to rush to the airport to get the 8.15 flight to Stansted.
Train got us pretty quick to brighton ( although in my opinion ).

First time in brighton and definitely not the last, people are friendly, stores are open day and night, and the food is .. yeah “ok” let just say it’s healthy enough.  what else can be the first meal in brighton than a good old fish and chips .. fish and chips it was.

early to bed to catch some extra sleep for the fotb workshop day on Saturday.

Michelle Yaiser have teached us the basics in AS3 which was a little to basic for me (but if you have the chance to see here please make some free time because she is a wonderful and very warm speaker!) but the afternoon session by Joey Lott was a lot more inspiring.. although it started with a little delay because not everybody in the room had Flex Builder and the cairngorm framework. when that was cleared up (with the help of a couple usb sticks because the Internet was on a coffee break) we had a little introduction in to cairngorm which got me fired up to experiment with it!

So for the first day.. it was a good warm-up.. but i’m looking more forward to the sessions the next 3 days.
The 0.5l bear in the old ship hotel got me in good atmosphere to get a good night of sleep.

for those who care.

good night !

(ps: my picture is op on the fotb backnetwork taken by my friend dimitri)