pixel blog » Site Maintenance

fontburner

subpixel — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:08:23 +0000

sIFR fonts delivered by www.fontburner.com

What is this about?.. A neat little service allowing you to use any of over 1000 freely available fonts for the heading elements on your website by means of including a line of “code” in the section of your page. Sweet beans. :o)

It works by using Javascript to replace each heading element (

,

and so on) by a little box of Flash. If Javascript or Flash is unavailable, the original text/font is displayed. Win-win!

-spxl

spxl.tv

subpixel — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:40:24 +0000

For some reason, just recently I decided to see if spxl.com was available to register, and to my surprise found that the existing registration had recently expired. What luck! Only… I wasn’t able to register it immediately, as the registrar was holding it in some unusable state (assumedly to allow time to milk some extra higher fees from the existing registrant) and I was told to try bidding for it on some other domain auction site. I don’t know what the details were for using that site – a minimum bid of something like $60, but what exactly would that get me? Maybe the domain… I don’t know. What I do know is that since then some (apparently) Chinese domain squatting company has nabbed it, and seeing prices bandied about in the $100k range for similar domains I wasn’t inclined to make further inquiries. I did notice that spxl.tv was available, though, and the temptation took me… some credit card details and so on later and it was mine. Who needs vowels anyway?

New site coming soon: spxl.tv

-spxl

Gallery back online

subpixel — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:27:05 +0000

For some number of months (the numer itself unknown) my galley has been offline. I was rather concerned that the days (weeks?) worth of tinkering with it, loading gallerys, editing meta-data, etc, had been lost in some abysmal database screwup.

Today I used my web host’s autoinstaller to create a fresh gallery to make some comparisons, to see what’s what.

I enabled a debug setting and was looking at another page for a while and discovered a response indicating that connection to the database had failed. I don’t know the eact cause of this – the database did exist on a server, and I was able to view/administer it through the control panel, but maybe it wasn’t accessible via the “local” php script(s) forming the gallery.

I took a backup of the existing database, created a brand new database, imported the backup, updated the gallery configuration settings with the details of the new database and, hey presto!… my gallery is back! Joy!

I suppose now I should do something about it not containing any new photos since September. :o)

So, what made me come to be tinkering with this now? Well, it is snowing here in London now, as of yesterday – a few inches at least I reckon – and I wanted to share a few photos.

Stay tuned.

Link: subpixel’s gallery

-spxl

Esfera mod by spxl 6

subpixel — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:16:12 +0000

Esfera_mod_by_spxl_6
based on Esfera.pde by David Pena

Source code:
Esfera_mod_by_spxl_6.pde
Hair.pde
Oscillator.pde

On Thursday 18 December there was another VJlondon.org meeting at Cafe 1001, and again there was a triple-head setup with three projectors onto the back wall of the main room. Nice!

I’d decided that this time I’d work on this Processing sketch to have some 4:1 content for the massive screen. Up until this point, the tentacled object in space had been stationary and not especially interesting-looking. On Thursday morning I started tweaking the program with a view to actually being able to VJ with it, adding a bunch of new features like being able to move it around, make it bigger (“zoom”) or smaller, and more easily change some of the parameters. The tentacle shape changed a bit, as well as the appearance with some new oscillators to change the red, green and blue of the colour, and some mystery 1′s and 0′s on the surfaces. I’m no expert on lighting yet, but at least I managed to do something about it being so dark (as appears in Esfera mod by spxl 5).

I was perhaps a little too engrossed in what I was doing, and at some point realised I was already running late for the gathering!.. and rushed off to Brick Lane with my still warm code. The setup at Cafe 1001 was improved on last time, with a large table for laptops, etc bhind a raised bench with the projectors on it.

The tentacled space thingo was quite well received by the crew, though at that stage it was a bit of a beast to deal with effectively. Having pointer and keyboard inputs, I plugged in my Wacom and handed it to Rob to move it around while tapping at some controls myself on the keyboard. Even at 1920×480 it seemed to run pretty fast (and so it damnwell should!), and with the ultra-widescreen had a nice spacious and spacey feel about it.

I also tried running the radial gradient array sketch at that resolution, but, being a 2D pixel-based affair, my machine just wasn’t fast enough (or rather the program is too intensive) to get above a crawl instead of scintillating flashing colours.

Nevertheless, both sketches have been updated since then, and the Game of Life sketch created, and I’m starting to get a bit mental with trying to put nice comments and such on everything as well as make improvements and add new features. I think the commenting is taking as much time as anything else!.. and of course generally tidying things up, rearranging files on the webserver, updating all the past blog entries with Processing sketches to have a consistent look, and so on. I think I should really investigate creating a plugin or filter or something for WordPress – maybe a little database to keep track of the sketches and format them all nicely. I’m already running in to versioning issues, and changing the structure of the files is bad news for old blog posts!

Yesterday I did some work on creating a better timewarp effect – rather than change the speed of all of the oscillators, instead manipulate the “number of milliseconds” that have passed (this value is used in calculations by the oscillators) and also modify things like how far the object moves or rotates for the frame. Since the program was using simple easing logic, I’ve fudged it by multiplying the easing factor by the square of the (less then 1.0) timewarp factor, or leaving it alone if the timewarp factor is 1 or more (making the movement “faster than the mouse”, as it were, seemed like a bad idea).

You see the brighter patch of red on the top-right of the sphere in the screenshot? That’s caused by five point lights just near the sphere arranged around the funnel of text. unfortunately the Java applet doesn’t seem to play on my machine (nor does version 5 of this sketch), and I think the lights (or use of lighting generally) is what causes it to fail. Then again, I don’t actually know, so this is only a guess! If you have the PDE installed you should be able to recreate the sketch from the source files.

-spxl

pb-embedflash tests

subpixel — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:34:55 +0000

This post is for testing the pb-embedflash plugin for WordPress. Expect nothing to work, be surprised if it does. At the moment it seems that IE can display stuff and Firefox can’t… maybe a version problem. I’ve had issues with the Adobe Flash Player install, and there are possibly issues with Firefox 3.

-G.

Test #1 – Locally hosted SWF file

Tag contents: flash http://subpixels.com/flash/pigeon_patrol.swf w=400 h=400preview={http://subpixels.com/flash/pigeon_patrol_screenshot.jpg|400|400}

This should show an interactive flash animation below.

test 1 start

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

test 1 end

Test #2 – YouTube video

Tag contents: flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXBhR2OgzVk

This should display a YouTube video with a turtle in it below.

test 2 start

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

test 2 end

Test #3 - Vimeo video

Tag contents: flash http://www.vimeo.com/1360800

This should display a Vimeo video of a vjlondon.org meetup.

test 2 start

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

test 2 end

Site upgrades, photo galleries and more

subpixel — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:33:53 +0000

[Show slideshow]

There should be an image gallery just above this: some still captures of the visuals I mix. There should also be a couple of random images in the sidebar.

Over the past few days I’ve been tidying up the contents of my webserver. The other day I noticed that the gallery was broken, and it took a little while to sort out whatever the problem was. Changed some directory permissions and server settings, and upgraded to the latest version of the software. I’ve deleted some unused CMS’s and their databases, made some database backups, and upgraded WordPress. I’ve had a play with some WordPress settings, like running a second blog off the same content folder (containing plugins and themes, etc), changing themes, using Widgets, and installing some new plugins, most notably a gallery plugin – something I really needed to get sorted to be able to post photos in some sort of nice manner. I managed to wreck the second blog for a while, and delved into some PHP programming to see what was going wrong. It sorted itself out in the end.

I’ve also revised some tags and categories for existing posts in this blog: the Subpixel category should now take you to all posts that are about me, gig’s I’ve performed at (subcategory Subpixel’s Gigs), or that have creations (subcategory Creations) to show such as photos, graphics, videos, and software (eg Flash, Processing).

There is something wrong with the Flash plugin I’m testing out (pb-embedFlash), which I was rather hoping to use to embed videos and Flash animations. I might try working on a filter to embed (or at least link to) Processin sketches… but one thing at a time – first I need to create some more Processing examples! I’ve come up with a simple solutions for what to do with multiple hosted sketches (applets) to get around the problem I mentioned earlier of there being a heavy download for the OpenGL libraries: just have everything in one directory, with the index.html file from the generated applet folder renamed to have the sketch name. So simple it might just work.

-G.

h4x0r3d

subpixel — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:09:12 +0000

Someone’s been playing games with me, and I’m a little concerned about how far it’s gone. I had to cancel my credit card a month or so ago after noticing a suspicious transaction to an online gaming site – contacting the site operator by phone I discovered that the account associated with my credit card number was under investigation, and was given the recommendation to contact my bank and the police. Oh, joy. It’s amazing how inconvenient things start to become when you don’t have access to things like your credit card – going to Spain later that week was virtually out of the question; I couldn’t even reserve a bed in a hostel on the net or over the phone. Sheesh!

I don’t know how someone managed to get hold of my details – it could have been from using my card in a shop, but I think I booked a bus ticket to Bristol using my credit card from an internet cafe in London, and maybe there was a keylogger installed or some other dodgy happening there, and that seems the most likely place (to me). My bank almost insisted that it was probably an unconnected someone out in the wild trying random credit card numbers… the fact that I was in London and the online gaming company was London based seems like too much of a coincidence to me.

In any case… however it happened, it happened. What I noticed today was something different – an index.html page on my webserver had mysteriously been replaced by a .phtml page, with an identical appearance but also a chunk of PHP script that had references to some dodgy-sounding porn domain. What the bleep is that about? And how did it happen? I immediately reverted the page to a regular .html file and removed the script, and sent a support query to my web host letting them know what I had discovered. I also asked if they could audit my logins and/or suggest an exploit in some installed PHP applications that might have been used. They, of course, recommended that I change my administration and FTP passwords (good idea!), and I while looking for the page to change the password noticed that there is a section in the administration panel that displays the IP addresses of your recent logins. All the recent logins were the same (I’ve been logging in from a hotspot in my hostel) except for one: an IP address belonging to a server in America: 209.67.214.58 (mariolet.servidorlatinoamerica.com). I wrote to servidorlatinoamerica.com and they replied:

thank you for your communication.
the server with hostname mariolet.servidorlatinoamerica.com
is not active, is a hostname that is not within our network server
However, find out the reason for your report

again, thanks for communicating and thank you communicate if you have more information on this subject

Si tienes alguna duda, solo háganoslo saber y responderemos en el mas breve tiempo.

Sin otro particular, quedamos a la espera de vuestra noticias y aprovechamos la ocasión para saludarlos.

Att

Strange. Maybe there’s a hacker inside their network? Maybe someone is able to fake their IP? Maybe the information from the administration panel is wrong?… Whatever the case, it’s bad. Bad I say! Bad in a way that is making me grumpy because it looks like I’m going to have to change ALL my passwords from accounts that I have used recently, and that is more than a little inconvenient.

A note to friends and contacts: if you see some strange, unexpected email, especially with some sort of unusual attachment, bin it. I don’t generally send programs and such – it just doesn’t make sense. Practice good email hygiene!

-G.

Pixel tube

subpixel — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:55:49 +0000

I’ve been poking around the plugins pen and found one that makes it a snap to include a Youtube video in a post: Smart Youtube. Here is a quick test.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAB6_-yC4cw

Filmclip: Ana (hisboyelroy’s smooth dub) | Mar 07 by spxl

Magic link: httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=BAB6_-yC4cw

All that is needed for the embedded video (which should be just above the video title line) was to include the text of the link (nothing fancy!) starting with httpv:// at the start (note the ‘v’) instead of http:// — neat, huh? :o)

One might now expect more videos to appear here.

-G.

Hundreds & thousands

subpixel — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:29:21 +0000

According to the statistics… there are apparently some people (or ‘bots’) out there consuming my site content – mainly the gallery. For example, 1797 pageviews on Wednesday, or 0.2GB of traffic, but only 8 ‘unique’ visitors. Other days range from a few to several hundred pageviews, but not over 8 unique visitors in any day.

I wonder if it is people just casually browsing – maybe even friends who just don’t mention it – or some process mass-downloading images for some other purpose.

Meanwhile, when I came to write something this evening I discovered subpixels.com was offline – it turns out the reason being that the IP address specified in the DNS was ‘incorrect’. It was working a couple of days ago… it seems that my host had changed something and neglected to tell me. It seems to be okay now, though, if a little slower than usual (at least from where I sit).

I’ve decided that I should use my graphics tablet more while I have handy access to it – so far it’s hardly ever been used. Hence the Chinese characters here… an attempt by me to copy a wall hanging that I have in my room using Inkscape. I remember I bought it at one of those joss stick and millions of buddhas places in the city, but I can’t remember what the writing is about. Properity? Health? Happiness? Hopefully someone can enlighten me. Please contact me if you can translate, even if my calligraphy is a bit… well, first-attempt! :o)

In other graphics-related news, I’ve been working on some new visuals, and have a few screenshots to share. I still haven’t got around to connecting my mini-DV camcorder to capture video yet, and still haven’t replaced my digitial ‘still’ camera so can’t take a video of the screen! On that subject, though, I read in the past couple of days that Canon are about to release a new Ixus with a 5x optical zoom. Zoom, zoom! A 10 megapixel sensor as well, which might be a bit ridiculous in a compact camera, but I’m sure I won’t be complaining about it too much if I end up purchasing one. Of course it looks like the target price for the next purchase is about to jump up a couple of hundred bucks… don’t you hate it how they get you that way?

I’ve almost finished reading The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. I think when I’m done I might go back and read Part I again, as that was the most interesting part. I should make some notes this time – I’m sure there’s inspiration for some new graphics in there! I’m also interested in finding out more about holographic film – the kind that requires a laser to ‘view’ the recorded hologram.

I received notification of a new version of MemoriesOnTv today, which serves as a reminder to get cracking on making something of the thousands of images captured while I was in Europe… too many to show to friends without some serious culling! And now I have the disc space as well… no more excuses? Hopefully a shiny new release in the near future! :o)

-G.

Getting it together

subpixel — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:44:00 +0000

The broken links mentioned last post did indeed cause a problem, but with a significant amount of jiggery pokery thinkgs might just be fixed. Ended up creating a script to fix links is 130 directories – yeah, heaps! – by overwriting the bad symbolic links with hard links to the photos in their new location. Magic! :o)

So now my Gallery appears to be working again. Yay!

-G.

pixel blog » Site Maintenance

fontburner

,

and so on) by a little box of Flash. If Javascript or Flash is unavailable, the original text/font is displayed. Win-win! -spxl

spxl.tv

Gallery back online

Esfera mod by spxl 6

pb-embedflash tests

Test #1 – Locally hosted SWF file

Test #2 – YouTube video

Test #3 - Vimeo video

Site upgrades, photo galleries and more

h4x0r3d

Pixel tube

Hundreds & thousands

Getting it together

and so on) by a little box of Flash. If Javascript or Flash is unavailable, the original text/font is displayed. Win-win!

-spxl