Flash CS4 FLVplayback component not showing up
Just a quick note for when you are using Flash CS4 and your flvplayback component does not show on stage:
Be sure the constructor function of you as3 class does not have a return.
So instead of
class MyClass extends MovieClip {
public functionMyClass():void{
// stuff
return
}
}
you should use:
public class MyClass extends MovieClip{
public function MyClass(){
//stuff
}
}
Flash AS3 TextField Alpha
A though one to figure out: Setting the Alpha (transparancy) value for a textfield:
import flash.display.BlendMode;
[…]
textfield.text = 'Some text';
textfield.blendMode = BlendMode.LAYER;
textfield.alpha = 0.5;
You can also add textFormatting if you like…
Google spreadsheets: Random numbers and decimals
Google spreadsheets has 2 build-in random-number functions. Rand() and Randbetween().
Most of the time, I use randbetween(), because it offers a quick and easy way to insert some random numbers. However, this function only insert rounded numbers.
If you want to insert random numbers with decimals, you can use Rand(). I will explain both functions here.
AS3: Loading external SWF and calling its functions
I’ve had some trouble with loading an external SWF file and then calling the functions of that SWF file. It works like so:
Main swf code:
Sub swf code:
Combining 2 tables with Google Docs Spreadsheets VLOOKUP
Let’s say we have 2 tables that we want to combine:
In both tables, we have Personal nr. and we want to add the data from the second table to the data from the first table.
For this we will use VLOOKUP.
Taking back the market
In my previous post, I describe how we lost 1 dealer and with that dealer 25% of our domestic market. I also talk a bit about how we are taking back that market.
This whole situations just prooves how lazy we have been, really. In 3 weeks time we already have over 100 customers ordering directly from us. A lot of them telling us how they love our products and how they love our new price even more.
All these customers would buy from dealers throughout the country and pay 2 or 3 times the price.
By doing the marketing to these customers ourselves, we realize how little the dealers have been doing to sell our products. Understandable, since these dealers sell lots and lots of different brands, they have only so much money for marketing.
We are expierencing how easy it is to pusuade the customers to use our brand. A free sample, a nice phone call, good price. That’s all it takes. And that is what hasn’t been done for too long.
I expect that we will take back the entire market in 6 months. We are already hearing from customers who where not contacted by us directly, but who heard about us through other customers. With a bit of planning and good dessicion making, we might even reach a tipping point and take the country by strom…
Recession, competition and loosing customers
To earn money for all the projects I’m involved in, I do some middle-management for an international sales organization.
Two weeks ago, we lost just 1 customer to the competition. That 1 customer accounted for 25% of our domestic market. That’s a pretty bad loose, especially in times like this. Our company is very much dependant on the carindustry and we all know that it is this carindustry that is taking a huge beating in this recession.
This customer is a big dealer that supplies a large part of the country with our products. We figure we’d have about 2 weeks before all shelfs would be cleared of our product, so we needed to act quick. Once a customer cannot get to your product, you loose him. Obviously.
In 1 evening we drew our battle plan. We were going to cut out the middle man (two of them, actually…) and just offer the goods to the end-user for the price we normally charge our dealers. We were going all-out on this one: Free shipping / handling, free samples, next-day-delivery, payment after 30 days of receiving the goods. There was just no way to say no to this offer.
The past two weeks, we have been calling every end-user in the country. We have no idea who the end-users are that use our product. We did everything through that dealer. So we decided to contact all of them. We send them letters with samples. And we just started making phone calls. Everybody who works for our company and is able to pick up the phone is making these calls. And it’s awesome. The response is so positive… our warehouse is running empty! We had to call the factory in Japan to produce more…
It’s too soon to tell what the end result will be for us. Right now, even though we are making a lot of sales, we are losing money on this. All these man hours, all this other projects getting a bit neglected. It’s painful. But we are just not going to sit back while some other company takes our customers…
Install English language for Joomla after deleting it
Just a quick tip for those that use the award winning Joomla CMS:
If one of your clients deletes the English language pack by mistake (my mistake for giving him admin-rights), simply upload the en-EN from the original zip file and you’re done!
Finding this post on Google might save you half an hour of searching the Joomla forums.
Google spreadsheets, SUMIF and $
A little explanation on the SUMIF function in google spreadsheets. Understanding this function will help you understand many other spreadsheet functions.
Building a planning tool with Google docs Part 1
Progress bar
In these posts, I’ll show you how to build a really basic planning tool in Google Docs.
This tutorial is meant to get you started with using more advanced features of Google spreadsheets. Though it will not touch any of the real complicated stuff.
Let’s get started. Read more
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