Hey guys, whats going up?

Hopefully you all have had a less boring Saturday than I have... I decided to write a post to try to eliminate some boredom.

So guys... Today, I was messing around in Flash, and I made a new 9-Slice graphics engine.

This has been added to the collection of classes/engines I've built for ShadeStorm Productions(the multimedia group founded by Jaxh and myself)

This brings the current total up to 6, I write them in my spare time and in anticipation of using them in some kind of project eventually.

Perhaps when ShadeStorm is a bit more defined as a multimedia group and more people know about us, I'll consider releasing some kind of extension-SDK/API which will allow all of these classes to be borrowed and used in a plug-and-play fashion in Flash submissions.

Here's the current list and some descriptions, not really much to say:

SS9Slice: 9-Slice Graphics engine which can return either a Sprite or BitmapData and automatically stretches to fit the size of its content Display Object.

SSKeyboard: A class meant to interpret key presses and genreal keyboard interaction in Flash, made to be easier than the AS3 "stock" method of key handling.

SSKeyEvent: Some events for the SSKeyboard Class, basic stuff like KeyUp, KeyDown, KeyPress, etc.

SSMath: An extension to regular Math. It provides some functions like rounding to a specific multiple of ten (ie, the ones place, tens place, hundreds place, etc), which also works with decimals, some functions that convert Strings of numbers to actual Numbers, a Radian/Degree converter, and a whole bunch of geometric formulas such as distance, midpoint, and the area/perimeter of various shapes.

SSURLLoader: A URLLoader which can pull data from websites, basically we intend to use it with out homepage since Google sites isn't properly formatted for a cross-domain XML Policy file.

SSXMLLoader: Same thing, but for XML.

Ok, enough of that, heres a video of me messing around with the 9-Slice Engine:

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Also, that little message bubble is part of a little project I have in the works, but more on that later.

So, Pico Day. April 30th, approaching pretty fast.

Jaxh and I have laid the plans for a wicked Pico Day game, and I'm hoping with every fiber of my being that we can pull it off in time for the celebrations.

Here is a little teaser which somewhat resembles the game title screen, for your prying eyes.

The two of us will probably be giving periodic updates as Pico Day approaches, and you'll probably see a front-paged news post when the game launches on the 30th.

Now then, back to those chat-style bubbles.

I'm making a daring attempt to program my first ever Android app. Ever since having gotten the Droid X back in August of last year, I've loved it, but, I have one issue with Android. I absolutely hate the idea of having the cluttered buttons on the bottom of the phone to interact with the screen content. This is mainly because some buttons, better yet, a majority of them, are touch, yet, there are four pesky little buttons down at the bottom for Menu, Home, Back, and Search. Also, most apps on Android are minimalist when it comes to bars for buttons. Sure, this is great when screen space is limited, but I have a fairly large screen, so I don't mind giving up some space to UI elements.

This is why I will begin by making a texting app. It will have the back button within the conversation, rather than using the physical back button. Also, the Attach button will be right alongside the message textbox rather than having to press menu to insert a picture.

Here is a little preview I tossed together quickly, though I'm sure the quality will be despicable, so here's a link to a dump of the file: