R3DMM

Anthony Edmonds presents his thoughts on Video, Web and Media production.

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Wearing Glasses - Can I See? (by R3DMM)

Part one of my series on wearing glasses.

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After a lot of deliberation about the site, purpose, linking, business look, etc, I have developed a new R3DMM Index that bridges the gap between my personal and business work!

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PHP, XML & YouTube - Namespaces Within Namespaces

A familiar sight to many people; programmers and commoners alike...

As the title suggests, I have been updating my PHP XML feed from my YouTube Channel to R3DMM. Pretty standard stuff. I originally wrote the brief sections of code required to parse my channel back in 2009. At the time, I only wanted a few bits of data; enough to link to a video and get the thumbnail. With the new R3DMM layout I'm working on (seriously, I've dropped the beta link enough times now) I wanted to take it deeper, bring in view count, likes, duration, stuff like that.

Mistake.

Let me preface this with a short explanation of XML, for those people who don't know what it is.

In a nutshell, XML is a simple way for data to be communicated in a plain, easy to interperate format. You get tags such as <name> which, as logic would suggest, contains a name (be it of a person, a fruit, or whatever). You can then take that tag and... use it.

So, what's the big hubub about? Why the rageface at the head of the post? Namespaces. Let's assume you have an XML feed which contains two pieces of data:

<name>Bob Holness</name> <host>Blockbusters</host>

<name>Teal'c</name> <host>Jaffa</host>

Now, I wouldn't be the first to suggest it, but there is no connection between Bob Holness and Teal'c. One is a gameshow host and the other is an alien (I'll leave that to your discretion). When you have two pieces of data in the same XML feed which have no connection, but share the same tag names, you need to seperate them - with namespaces.

<gs:name>Bob Holness</name> <gs:host>Blockbusters</host>

<sg:name>Teal'c</name> <sg:host>Jaffa</host>

There. Bob now has the namespace 'gs' (gameshow) and Teal'c the namespace 'sg' (Stargate). The two can now be told apart with ease as they have different namespaces. So, with this clear system in place, why do you think anyone would do this:

<media:group>       <media:title type='plain'>Blockbusters Game - How To Play</media:title>       <yt:duration seconds='614'/> </media:group> <yt:recorded>2012-01-13</yt:recorded>

Who the diddly put a namespace within another, unrelated, namespace?! I'm looking at you, YouTube. Someone decided that it would be just dandy to put the 'yt' namespace within the 'media' namespace, despite the fact that 'yt' also appears as its own entity!

//Load Media RSS $media = $entry->children($namespaces['media']);       echo "title: ".$media->group->title."<br/>";       echo "dur: ".$media->group->children($namespaces['yt'])->duration->attributes()->seconds; //Load YT RSS $yt = $entry->children($namespaces['yt']);       echo "Views: ".$yt->statistics->attributes()->viewCount."<br/>";

Why the rage? Well, as you can see, it means that I have to put a children($namespace) definition within another definition. Rather than having my 'media' namespaces in one area and my 'yt' namespaces in their own, I have one, ugly, sticky-out line of code that uncomfortably rests between the two. Seriously. If you're going to use a schema to seperate different types of data, don't mix them back up again!

Furthermore, don't get me started on the extremely poor documentation that surrounds the simplexml element. Just don't.

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If I'm building a new site or game, it'll appear on here!

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A lot of work for three minutes...

Ghostly apparitions aside, the robe is actually quite... liberating.

That is a whole lot of work for three minutes! The first part of the Dungeons & Dragons Gamers Christmas Carol is up, and boy has it been a hectic few days! Spending the last weekend scripting and planning, Sunday and Monday filming, and now Tuesday editing just one part, I am glad to finally have at least one episode out.

Following my inability to rig the tiny Star Wars Advent Calendar models for my usual stop-motion affair, I decided to finally do something with the 'A Christmas Carol' idea I've had floating about up there for a while. I'll admit, the first draft was actually focused on me and events in my life; it was then that I realised it was quite self absorbed and dull (even if slightly theraputic).

Better then, was my idea to do something around the D&D Gamers. I don't like the Diplomat, frankly. I thought he would make a nice counterpart to the RPer, but he just... is a pain to dress into, and doesn't do much except talk. A redemption story for the Warrior, seemed like a good idea.

Enjoy this six-part tale!

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Copy Coding Clueless Cats

It's the closest thing I have to a cat; clueless or otherwise.

Copy Coding strikes me as a bit like playing with a nuclear reactor, without knowing the first thing about how to operate one. Sure you play around with the levers, read their labels, experiment, but before you know it you're standing knee deep in toxic slime, which is usually bad (awesome mutant super-power side effects aside).

What am I blathering about? Copy Coding is a bit like ripping paragraphs from the internet to complete an essay. You get the job done but learn little in the process. At university, we were actively encouraged to copy code; rather than being provided with functions and their purpose, we were just given lines of code to copy, paste, and then marvel in wonder at the result.

Shouldn't we be encouraging and teaching people how to code properly, from scratch? "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day..." and all that? Thankfully, I've avoided the Copy Code trap completely, I had a basic understanding of programming principles before I even hit university, but what about my peers? I spent plenty of time helping them fix their programs, trying to teach them along the way. Some understood the basics, others simply didn't get it at all.

For now, just try to remember. Programming is simple when you remember:

who.how(value); variable.function(property); myText.replace("this", "that");

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Quite often, the only way out is the same way you came in.

Anthony Edmonds

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What is Media? Baby don't hurt me, no more.

'Who is this devilishly handsome man?', you might ask (or might not). He is me. As in 'I'. The opposite of you, and not we or us. He is I, and I alone. What?

On the off-chance that you actually did ask the question, then I shall answer. I am me... sorry, I won't do that again. Perhaps. I am one of those lost souls. You know, the ones that myth and legend speak of. The ones involving long chained demons, eyes darkly staring into the dimly glowing light of a rectangle, the eternal tapping of keys the only sound to be heard. Occasionally it emerges, scowling into the sunlight, grabbing the nearest snack and receeding once again into darkness.

Dramatic? Me? Never.

I know a lot about videos, editing, web scripting and flash. I learn a lot of things from reading blog posts and tutorials that people have made over the years, but you know what? Sometimes, there just isn't any help to be found, or the post is unhelpful. We don't all know about the 10 different types of people, you know (that just went way over some heads).

I live in hope that any tidbits I throw on here, can help someone, somewhere, sometime, to overcome a hurdle and several facepalms that would otherwise result in a bruised forehead.

I am me. Me, I am. I am R3DMM.

I did say perhaps.