alien109.com is the Portfolio site for Matthew Sweet, a User Experience Engineer, Front End Developer and Designer. Projects can be searched by category (Web Applications, Software Applications, Web Design, etc.), or by technical keyword (XHTML, Javascript, PHP, CSS, XSL, Flash, etc.)
It is quite interesting to see how technology moves in circles. With canvas being the new fun toy to play with for creating browser-based games we have to find solutions to fake a 3D environment to be really fast (sure there is Canvas 3D but it is overkill for most games). The trick is to [...]
We have been long term fans of Román and the fantastic demos and samples that he puts together, usually involving CSS goodness. We messed up the other week though when we linked to his work on a scrolling coke can. I do these postings as a labor of love, and since Ajaxian isn't my day [...]
Mozilla Labs has released the magical 1.0 version of Weave and the doors are now open for developers. When I was a part of Mozilla Labs day to day, I always loved the vision and team behind Weave. I kept wanting the implementation to match the vision, but it is a tough problem and it takes [...]
Anthony Calzadilla has a fun Friday example for us. He has a tutorial on how he animated an AT AT using CSS. He goes over the different areas and how he uses animation and transforms. For example, the head of the beast: PLAIN TEXT CSS: @-webkit-keyframes rotate-head{ 0% {-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg) translate(0px,0px);} 40% {-webkit-transform:rotate(10deg) translate(15px,5px);} 80% {-webkit-transform:rotate(-5deg) translate(8px,5px);} 100% {-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg) translate(0px,0px);} } #atat #head [...]
Fan of Eiffel or the design by contract pattern that it espouses? Řyvind Kinsey is, and he just created jsContract an alpha library to give you some pre and post condition abilities. Here is an example: PLAIN TEXT JAVASCRIPT: function _internalMethod(a, b){ Contract.expectNumber(a); Contract.expectNumber(b); Contract.expectWhen(config.mode === "divide", b> 0, "Divisor cannot be 0"); Contract.expectWhen(config.mode === "multiply", [...]
Aaron Boodman created Greasemonkey back in the day. He also worked on Gears. And most recently he created Chrome Extensions. I have a funny feeling that folks were pinging him daily "hey, when ya gunna give me Greasemonkey on Chrome" and he just delivered: One thing that got lost in the commotion of the extensions launch [...]
A Googler and a Facebooker were in a pub discussing the complexities of building out a rich modern Web application. There are a ton of dependencies, and you need to be proficient in multiple languages and tools (JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SQL/NoSQL, backend languages, build tools, etc). Well, they may not have been in a pub.... but [...]
SVG-Edit is a nifty open source editing web app that uses SVG and doesn't need a server-side: The SVG-Edit team recently announced SVG-Edit 2.4, code named Arbelos. New features include: - Raster Images - Group/Ungroup - Zoom - Layers - Curved Paths - UI Localization - Wireframe Mode - Change Background - Draggable Dialogs - Resizable UI (SVG icons) - Convert Shapes to Path Try out the demo [...]
The following post is a reprint from my personal blog. It is editorial in nature and even delves into random politics. I apologise. You can deal with it though :) Steve Jobs didn't hold back when talking about Google and Adobe. That is great. Life is so much more fun when people speak their mind. I [...]
What can you do if you want to enable a fullscreen experience on the Web? You can't. Or, use Flash. Some claim that you shouldn't offer this ability as it is a security liability. Someone can put a fullscreen view that tricks the user into giving it information. However, as much as I think user security [...]
As part of an upcoming article on geo location I am putting together a few Geo Toys for myself and here is the first one. Addmap.js is a JavaScript that analyses an elements text content, finds geographical locations and links them to Google Maps. It also adds a map preview and a list of the [...]
The Freeciv.net crew has benchmarked a path in their canvas game. It is one data point, and tests more than just Canvas itself because a lot of code is running in the game. Thus, it ends up testing the union of a particular JavaScript path and the rendering of the canvas. Here are the results: With Bespin [...]
Román Cortés is having a lot of fun with CSS tricks these days. He just built an example rolling CSS coke can that uses background-attachment, background-position, and a few other tricks to get the effect. No fancy CSS3 needed here! The key pieces used: PLAIN TEXT CSS: p { background-image: url(coke-label.jpg); background-attachment: fixed; [...]
I love programmers like Alex Miltsev. He won the Jetpack 0.5 content by prototyping access to the GPU from JavaScript! Alex?s work is an alpha-prototype that shows the feasibility of the project and it requires a custom build of Firefox to use ? it?s not easy to demo. However, the code sample below shows how the [...]
Appcelerator has published an interesting study on the Apple Tablet. You know, the iPhone OS based one that we will Steve will show us on Wednesday. The study asks some interesting questions revolving around the development side of the tablet. Are developers going to develop for it? What are they looking for? What are they excited [...]
Sometimes you need to compromise, but at others you need to lead and take a stance. Our politicians do far too much via polls, and I often find myself wishing for more leadership. I could start talking about Obama and the healthcare issue in the US..... but this is a technical blog so I won't [...]
This is a Friday post that happens to show up on Monday ;) 2010 will have a lot of Web based OS products, including the much anticipated Chrome OS. Why wait for that when you can use Windows 3.11: Browser Edition? Or, check out webOS on mobile, Jollicloud on Netbook, and many others.
At Google I/O the team showed a demo of YouTube running video right in the browser, instead of in the rectangle of Flash. Now, that URL takes you to the beta, which you can opt-in too. I am torn on what to write on this showcase though.... so, especially since it is Friday, here are two [...]
John-David Dalton has released Fusebox, a library that allows you to sandbox natives: Extending JavaScript natives gives you the power to customize the language to fit your needs. You can add convenience methods like "hello world".capitalize() or implement missing functionality like [1,2,3].indexOf(2) in JScript. The problem is that frameworks / libraries / third-party scripts may overwrite [...]
There have been a few HTML builder APIs out there, but Ed Spencer (new lead of Ext JS) has put together something that looks and feels similar to Haml from the Ruby side. Jaml lets you write HTML like this: PLAIN TEXT JAVASCRIPT: div( h1("Some title"), p("Some exciting paragraph text"), br(), ul( li("First item"), li("Second item"), [...]
Content courtesy of: ajaxian
Oh man. I was super excited to see that there’s a Tron 2 in the works. I was a huge fan of the original movie. I hope they don’t disappoint. Official Site trailers: http://www.flynnlives.com/media/video/0xendgame.aspx
Facebook recently decided that it was going to start using your photos in select advertisements. You can opt out, but by default – you are opted in. This is what Facebook has to say: “Facebook occasionally pairs advertisements with relevant social actions from a user’s friends to create Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads make advertisements more interesting [...]
So I just got this shiny new MacBook Pro. Absolutely love the thing. I’ve been away from the Macintosh platform for far too long… Anyway – I’m sitting in my office listening to music and realized that the speakers, while okay for what they are, suck by most standards. So I pop over to my PC [...]
Most browsers these days (with the exception of Safari, I think?) will accept gzip encoded content. This means you can drastically reduce the size of all those bloated javascript libraries you might be using on your web site. So how do you serve gzipped js files? There a few methods out there. I chose the one [...]
After working on a small AJAX library, I decided to test it in IE. Everything worked great, except when requesting XML. The responseXML property of the XHR was null. I’ve had this issue in the past where the server isn’t returning the appropriate Content-Type (text/xml). But that wasn’t the issue this time. I checked my [...]
Here’s an example of the force directed node interface that I’ve been talking about. It’s not complete. It’s just a working prototype. You still cannot load project details, but I’m waiting to add that if I decide I want to take this any further. Since the dimensions of the interface have been reduced to fit in [...]
I’ve been working on the experimental Flash front-end I spoke about in the last post. The idea is to use a force directed or force based system for displaying categories, keywords, projects and their relationships. I was curious about what kind of user experience that would create. Here’s a video of the force directed layout interface [...]
I’ve decided to play around with an experimental front end for viewing projects in Flash. Since I OOPified (yes, that’s a technical term) the site and modeled the data, all of my objects can be easily serialized into JSON strings and passed back to the front end. Then using the as3corelib’s JSON classes, I can [...]
XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity > Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (Reserved XML Name at > line 3, column 38) in [...] > > Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in [...] Yesterday it was called to my attention that the RSS parser that was pulling the feed from my blog [...]
Aviary has recently released another web-based application. Raven, which is still in beta (all of their applications are. that’s so web 2.0!), is a web-based vector editor. Their product suite consists of four applications at the moment: Peacock – a visual laboratory Raven – vector editor Phoenix – image editor Toucan – colors watches Peacock is kinda cool. Image generation [...]
Content courtesy of: /dev/null
resume
I am a seasoned Front-end Developer and Web Designer with over ten years of experience. I have a proven track record of delivering small to large scale projects on time. I have a broad set of skills encompassing both the technical and the creative sides of development. I am dedicated, detail oriented, self motivated and a great team player.
Languages/Technologies: (X)HTML, XML, XSL, CSS, JavaScript, JavaScript Frameworks (JQuery, MooTools, Prototype), DOM scripting, Ajax, PHP, JSP, ASP, Velocity, Flash ActionScript 1-3, Object oriented programming; working knowledge of .NET, C#, Apache, Linux, Java, Spring MVC, and MySQL
Software: Adobe's Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Premiere, After Effects, Image Ready and Director; Microsoft's Office Suite and Visual Studio 2005; Eclipse and IntelliJ
iovation, Inc.
User Experience Engineer
Designed and developed front-end for customer facing admin application. Developed advanced data visualization tools in Flash to help identify fraud. Established standards and processes for UI development to increase quality and reduce development time of new features. Guided and managed front-end development by offshore team.
Centennial Software
Webmaster
Maintained Corporate web site and web servers. Developed and launched new customer portal site which provided improved support and increased sales opportunities. Produced linear Flash presentations for product demos. Integrated sales and support efforts on company web portals.
Transim Technology Corporation
Designer/Developer
Designed and developed small-large scale web applications. Ported existing Java based applications to Flash, resulting in increased features, reduced debugging time and better user experiences. Increased brand awareness through redesign of existing web site and marketing materials.
Freelance
Designer/Developer
Designed and developed e-commerce and marketing web sites. Developed basic templating and navigation engine as well as administration tools for client web sites, resulting in reduced delivery time, easier maintenance and reduced effort for minor content updates.
EyeVelocity, Inc.
Sr. Graphic Designer
Responsible for product interface design/development and usability testing. Developed corporate identity and designed/produced marketing materials including videos, linear presentations and interactive demos. Developed in house applications for product support resulting in quicker turn around and increased customer satisfaction.
MediaMania, Inc.
Graphic Designer
Designed interfaces and content for CD-ROM, desktop applications and web sites.
B.F.A. Advertising/Graphic Design
Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design
Awards:
Presidents Award For Creativity
Gold Medal for Multimedia/Animation
David W. Bozeman Memorial Scholarship
Deans List