Posts Tagged ‘Designing’

Last night around 3AM I was browsing the web and listening to Dark Side pretty loudly. I suddenly heard a really loud gunshot come from my speakers that literally made my heart skip a beat. I look a bit lower on the page and notice a really annoying Flash movie ad that just starts playing without me doing a thing. That’s when I said enough is enough and decided to do something about it since it’s obvious people who create Flash will continually use sound without user interaction. Flash really needs to remember sound levels across sessions to prevent someone from giving themselves a heart attack. To prevent Flash ads from loading and playing sound as well taking over the top layer of a page I created FlashBang.

FlashBang is a very simple application. Upon installation it adds an icon to your standard toolbar in Internet Explorer. Clicking the icon then toggles Flash on and off. The application accomplishes this by simply adding or removing a registry key. This is pretty much the same thing the new Manage Add-ons does in Internet Explorer with SP2 except it requires that you refresh the page for the changes to take affect. The plus is that it doesn’t require more than two clicks so enabling and disabling Flash is quick and easy. When you disable Flash you’ll see an icon in the lower right hand corner of the window as seen here.

The system requirements are that you are running XP with Service Pack 2 OR Vista and have the .NET Framework 1.1 or later installed and of course that you’re using Internet Explorer. The application is provided on a free of charge and free to distribute basis. I will gladly accept donations of any amount via PayPal.

Download: FlashBang (updated 4/27/2007 12:01AM, please uninstall previous versions first)

If you have any questions or comments feel free.

UPDATE: Renamed from TorchFlash to FlashBang thanks to Dylan Greene.

Also, it looks like there is a minor bug in that if you have IE open while you’re installing FlashBang the icon won’t be activated in IE by default. Please be sure to close all IE windows before installing FlashBang. If you run into this little bug go to View then Toolbars then Customize, scroll the list and Add FlashBang to the toolbar.

If you’ve uninstalled FlashBang you can still Disable and Enable Flash using the Manage Add-ons feature of Internet Explorer found under the Tools menu. You may need to visit a site which normally has Flash to see Flash pop into the list. Really though, this is all the app actually does to block Flash ads. Sadly it means disabling all other Flash and not just the ads. Other options include a nice big hosts file, or also use FireFox which has some other ways of blocking ads through CSS and such.

UPDATE: I’m releasing a minor update to FlashBang which will fix any issues regarding installation on a machine with only the .NET Framework 2.0 installed. At this point if you have 1.1.4322, 2.0.50727.0, or later installed, FlashBang should work without any issues. To check which version of the .NET Framework that you have installed run the following at a command prompt ” reg query hklm\software\microsoft\asp.net “.

UPDATE: Now installing on Windows Vista! I had to update the Visual Studio installer to recognize Windows v6, aka Vista. FlashBang will now install on Vista without any known issues… well, other than the UAC stuff. I do NOT have $125 to get a cert to code sign these free apps since well, I’ve only had $5 donated thus far. Until I can get the app code signed anyone running UAC will be bugged while installing FlashBang, and bugged again when they go to toggle Flash on and off in IE. On the plus side, there is a check box in the Protected Mode prompt in IE to quit prompting about the app in the future. I suggest people check that box till I can get a cert and code sign my apps.

To coincide with the release of the Vista installable FlashBang, I’m also releasing an app to complement it. Even though WPF/E has yet to really take off, I’m sure Silverlight will start gaining some momentum. In advance of that I’m releasing LightSwitch, which oddly enough does the same exact thing FlashBang does for Flash, but for Silverlight content. The system requirements are the same as FlashBang, and they are that you’ll be running XP with Service Pack 2 OR Windows Vista and have the .NET Framework 1.1 or later installed and of course that you’re using Internet Explorer.

The application is provided on a free of charge and free to distribute basis. I will gladly accept donations of any amount via PayPal, and please note I do need the donations as both LightSwitch and FlashBang are both unsigned apps users of Vista will see unwarranted and nasty messages till I can afford a cert and get the apps code signed. So any funds that I receive will go towards the $125/yr that’s required to maintain the cert.

Download: LightSwitch (updated 4/27/2007 12:01AM, please uninstall previous versions first)

If you have any questions or comments feel free.

Note also, it looks like there is a minor bug in that if you have IE open while you’re installing FlashBang or LightSwitch the icon won’t be activated in IE by default. Please be sure to close all IE windows before installing either app. If you run into this little bug go to View then Toolbars then Customize, scroll the list and Add FlashBang / LightSwitch to the toolbar.

If you’ve uninstalled either of the apps you can still Disable and Enable Flash  and Silverlight using the Manage Add-ons feature of Internet Explorer found under the Tools menu. Really though, this is all the app actually does to block the content. Sadly it means disabling all other good content and not just the ads. Other options include a nice big hosts file, or also use FireFox which has some other ways of blocking ads through CSS and such.

I created a nice little task for myself this week and figured I’d start early. I expect some more changes and updates soon but for the time being I’ve switched to a new theme. It’s basically just the Essence theme created by Jelle Druyts for dasBlog. I’ve modified it quite a bit, swapping the text sides, making the body wider, fixing a minor bug with the columns stacking when in windowed mode, and I popped in a header image. Picking an image was quite hard since there’s only 100px in height to work with, etc. I’ll most likely change it out over time. For those that read in a RSS reader it won’t mean any difference. I just had to do it since I got sick of seeing the same thing when I went to manage the blog here. I also added the GeoURL info to the metadata as well. More changes soon.

Sean and I were discussing what’s behind this over lunch a little while back. Today he sent me the URL to the site. At first it didn’t register. Clicked. Wow. They’ve done it. I’m really excited about this one. Simply because of what it could mean for us a little while from now if all goes well and the ideas work.

Without going into any detail, I’ll just provide a hint. IDSA. Check it out, it’ll give you some ideas. Just keep an open mind.

It’s really nice to see some thinking going into doing something inspiring and sexy coming from the Microsoft corner. I just wish the video was in WMV HD for that extra hot factor. This is a perfect example of what the WMP10 WMV HD showcase videos and all future videos from MS should be like when it comes to marketing. The music is just awesome as well. I almost wish I had an entire full length album of it. Then again that might be pushing the geek factor too far.

Yes, that’s right, after years of being online I think I’ve finally got the vision right for my site. So here’s my very first drawing for the new design, yes it’s a total rip off of WindowsMedia.com and WMPlugins.com but it was my first drawing brainstorm. When I was working on my last site design I ended up doing 6 drawings in total and the first and the last looked nothing alike. I usually like to check out all the sites at Cool Home Pages for some general ideas and then go back to the drawing board and see what of mine works and what doesn’t. In any case it’ll probably be a good month before I even get the time to work up all the graphics for the thing and get a template for each section of the site done.

Hopefully once I get going I can get back into the groove with my blog too, I haven’t been a very good writer later when it comes to posting. Looking at January at left I can see only 3 days in bold, compare that to November or December last year. Soon, I promise to getting back to posting every day.