The Nordhagen

As some of you might know, I’m in layoff from my job as a flash developer at Allegro Interaktiv. I’ve been thinking hard and well about what I want to spend this period of four months doing. I will be freelancing a little if I can (in agreement with my employer of course), spend time with my family, and also catch up on a few forsaken hobbies.

But this sudden abundance of free time obviously creates a pefect climate for getting up to speed on new Flash libraries and dig deeper into the ones I already know. Like the AS3 core classes. That’s why I’ve given my self a perhaps rediculous challenge; to read the complete ActionScript Language Reference back to back over the next four months. This is clearly perversely nerd-like and all that, but here’s why.

The case for reading it all

Actually I’ve been thinking about it for a few years. You see every time I look up a class or a method in the dictionary, I usually read one or two paragraphs more than I need. Often I learn something new that’s been sitting just below the surface of what I already know. At times the AS3 language reference is not even that badly written and the examples are usually useful. So instead of googling for tutorials about particle engines, Papervision and what not, I decided that before trying to gain something completely new I’d be better off getting to know the old annoying aunt intimately. Well not in that sense… sorry, you know what I mean.

You should too!

I’m not saying you really should join me in this preposterous endeavour, but I am serious in that many tend to overlook what a great resource the AS3 Language Reference really is. So the essence is really that you can learn a lot from what you already have at a single keyboard command (shift-F1 in Flash that is). Look up some random class name that you’ve never used an find out what it’s for. You might be glad you did.

In the mean time, you can follow my progress here at the blog, and if you follow me on Twitter.

After fridays last minute upload of version 1.2.0 of AILogger, some things went fruity and I apologize. Thanks to aYo who brought it to my attention. While I had to make corrections, I decided it was time to set up a Google Code project to make it easier to commit and recieve updates down the line. It also provides a better way for others to contribute and report any issues. So if you find any, please let me know.

As before, you can choose to download AILogger from here and the source files can also be downloaded from the Google Project Home as the same ZIP archive in addition to SVN repository access.

My co-worker Jacob called me up right before 2 pm today to tip me off about a moose swimming in Sandefjord bay. I rushed out with camera in hand and just then it passed me. I was at work and our offices are located right next to the water, and so I snapped this shot.

Now, I didn’t even know these animals could swim, so I was quite surprised. As soon as I got back to my desk I Twittered the incident and uploaded the picture to TwitPic. My Tweet was Re-Tweeted I don’t know how many times, but the picture was viewed by 140 people within the first 15 minutes. And then the Norwegian TV station TV2 called and wanted to interview me and use the picture. The article can be found here.

So I made the news today. Me and a moose.