The view from the mountains

Long winter breaks like the one I am still enjoying up here in the Blue Ridge Mountains are such a tease. Unless I go into education (which isn't going to happen even though it runs in the family), this month-long vacation will be the last one I see in a very very long time. Naturally, I am soaking up every last moment before I have to turn my brain back on on Jan. 7. I am savoring these last few days during which I don't feel guilty at all for being lazy. Being up here in an enormous mountain house in Hendersonville, NC with most of my family isn't a shabby way to spend it either. Hope everyone is enjoying this time off and looking forward to the new year as much as I am.

Trial and error with embedded video

As the end of the year begins to rear it's ugly head, my goal is to wrap up a few projects I've been working on, the main one being the Flash site for the Young Mansion that is for sale in my hometown of Hollywood. After a few rounds of proofing with my client, I only have a few minor edits to knock out until it finally becomes live! (Cue the flashing lights and show tunes music!).

Tonight's goal was to add a .FLV video clip of the house being featured on HGTV that the client provided. As any other fairly-web-savvy-novice-Flash designer with limited reference books would do, I turned to my good friend Google. With a simple search of "adding video in Flash," I came across a few helpful tutorials and pages. But to my surprise, the one that helped the most was this article from Adobe's own Developer Center. Over time I've grown accustomed to crappy FAQ sections on software's "help" Web pages, so this was a breath of fresh air.

With a few tries, I was able to embed the video into the "Press" section on it's own layer and keyframe, complete with a standard control skin. I then uploaded the video to the client's server so that it downloads progressively. If you have some time to spare, head to the site and make your way to the Press section to tell me what you think! (Seriously, feedback is appreciated. Did it work in your browser? Which browser do you use? Are you on an Apple or PC? Lemme know!)

My next learning goal: Learning more about streaming video and using Flash Media Server. Stay tuned!

My new toy: a Blackjack PDA

Christmas has practically come out of nowhere this year, but I assume it only continues to fly even worse as I get older. We've still got 2 days left, but "Santa" thought it would be helpful if I helped him pick out my gift in person. So after playing with all the new shiny phones at the AT&T store, I am now testing out the convenience of blogging via my new blackjack pda. I'm still getting used to these tiny buttons (I think my longer girlie fingernails are going to have to go) but I fell in love with the fact that it runs on windows, so everything regarding navigating menus is relatively familiar. Even my own Web site, mallorycolliflower.com looked pretty decent in the browser, to my delight. Just in the time it has taken me to write this post, my finger typing speed has improved. Good thing Web browsing is unlimited! :)

What you don't know you're missing

I have been thinking lately about how my bloglines page has become my dominant portal of information. For people who are still uninformed or completely naive about the wonders of the blogosphere, I came up with my three solid reasons to jump on the blog bandwagon and join in the community fun. Aside from the obvious reasons of being in-the-know about things that interest you and networking with other bloggers, here is what you're missing...

1. Free Stuff (seriously) - Getting my daily dose of good indie music I've never heard is one of the highlights of my day. At HearYa, they know good music and they want you to know it too. I can usually look forward to a free MP3 (or three or four) of songs by an artist who is trying to get stuff heard, and I can go buy more if I really like it. I can't say that I've been disappointed yet. I also signed up for my free subscription to Nylon Magazine (at least a $25 value), an offer being advertised only to readers of the Urban Outfitters blog. I know it sounds like I'm an advertisement, but why not take advantage of stuff people are giving away?

2. Sales You Wouldn't Have Heard About - If you're one of the millions of people who do most of their shopping on the Web and you always wish you had those discount codes that go in the boxes at check-out, start subscribing to some feeds. I've found more codes and sales from subscribing to SheFinds, Shopperism and Savotron (to name a few) than any Saturday newspaper ad insert. It's like signing up for those annoying store e-mail lists, minus the annoyance of a flooded inbox.

3. Better time-wasters - When YouTube gets boring and you've run out of online games to play during slow days at the office, you can count on blogs to save the day. Rolling Stone's blog recently posted the Almost-Impossible Rock & Roll Quiz. Do you know how many songs on The Beatle's Abbey Road album are credited to George Harrison? I didn't think so.

Mapping!

I finally took some time out to play with Wayfaring.com and created a map of places that I've lived while in college in Gainesville. It actually got me thinking and I didn't realize that I'd gotten the chance to live in two different dorm buildings and two different apartments. It didn't feel like I had moved that much but I guess I did. It also made me very nostalgic and sad that I'll be graduating soon with no clue what I'm doing afterwards. I think I'm going to take a lot of time over winter break refining my resume, re-doing my portfolio Web site and really getting my LIFE organized. I know that process alone will get me more motivated to start applying for jobs all over. Of course I'll be taking the GRE soon, but it wouldn't hurt to start networking and what-not. I almost lost track of the purpose of this entry, which is my map!
I tried to add a little bit of data to the waypoints, including the year(s) that I lived there and who my roommates were. I'll have to think of some other cool places to map soon too.