BackSpaceStudios Blog

Blog spamming - good or bad?

Anybody who runs a blog with high traffic is used to link spamming, faux registered users, garbage posts, and more…Ever wonder why? You can install as many spam blockers and security features as you want, but the truth you will always get spam!

One of many software packages out there exploiting this new trend:

The Software: XRumer Platinum v4.0
Basically Xrumer finds blogs, forums anything else it can post to, then registers an account and sends your link to those forums. It does this all automatically without you needing to do much of anything. It also solves and enters over 750 different kinds of capcha’s. Capcha’s are those annoying things/pictures you have to put in to register an account. It even solves the math ones now! After it registers the account it will post links that you specify in different formats etc. REALLY fast backlinks TThe software literally works with millions of different forums! Xrumer also supports both SOCKS4/5 proxies along with HTTP types.

Read the full review

red5 fridge magnet - very cool!

This is a very cool red5/as3 app! You can also download all the files at http://www.red5world.com.

A must see!

red5 chat revisited

As I continue to dig deeper into red5 I figured I would play around more with the chat demo…considering I need to build a complex communication tool for a client anyway….what better way to learn…

I’ve modified the code a little more by playing around with functionality, adding features like tool tips, user list, user icons, clearing the history, and a bit of skinning. I’m still trying to figure out how to add emo’s, sound, and user colour options.

I won’t go into all the code for the features I added, just the important chat stuff. I found a really great tool tip on google code you can grab it here, also a thank
you to Nick La of ndesign studios for the icons.

You can view the demo here.


We are still using the same connection method to red5

var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.connect("rtmp://localhost/oflaDemo");
var remote_so:SharedObject = SharedObject.getRemote("chat", nc.uri, false);
remote_so.connect(nc);

I have added a welcome screen that asks the user to enter a name. This way I can display a unique user list and easily add the user name to the output display. We create a var called username and datatype it as a string. We will build an array out of this later. The login window is inside an mc called login with the name field and submit button. When the submit buttton is clicked we will pass the name var to the user array and display it in the userlist. We will also add an icon to the name in the display list only.

var username:String;
Login.Name.setFocus();

function login():Void{
	ChatInput.setFocus();
	username = Login.Name.text;
	if (username == ""){username = "anonymous";}
	if (remote_so.data.users == undefined){
		remote_so.data.users = username;
	}else{
		remote_so.data.users += "," + username;
	}
	Login._visible = false;
}
Login.Submit.onRelease = login;

We will wrap all key events and messages into eventListers, it’s easier this way and it condenses the code.

keyListener = new Object();
keyListener.onKeyDown = function (){
if(Key.getAscii() == 13 && Login._visible == false){
sendMessage();
}else if(Key.getAscii() == 13){
login();
}
}

Key.addListener(keyListener);

Enter.onRelease = sendMessage;

function sendMessage(){
if (remote_so.data.chatText == undefined){
remote_so.data.chatText =  "” + username + “: ” + ChatInput.text;
}else{

remote_so.data.chatText = “” + username + “: ” + ChatInput.text;
}
ChatInput.text = “”;
}

For the onSync function we call the list and pass the user names to an array and display them in the userlist. we will also pass the chatText to the output and set the scrollbar positions.

remote_so.onSync = function(list){
	if (remote_so.data.chatText != undefined){
		ChatOutput.text += remote_so.data.chatText;
		ChatOutput.vPosition = ChatOutput.maxVPosition;
	}
	var userArray:Array = remote_so.data.users.split(",");
	Userlist.dataProvider = userArray;
}

That’s all…not bad eh! For the skinning I just used some basic setStyles. I hope this helped.

red5 chat demo

Recently I have started playing around red5. I need to build a complex communication tool for one of my commercial projects. I can’t go into all the details, but this tool will allow people to chat with each other without having to log into or sign up for any service. It functions as a basic way for users to engage each other while they navigate the site. I won’t go into the installation of red5 right now. There are some really good tutorials here that can help walk you through it. It’s a little tricky, but once you get the hang of it’s a lot easier that you think.

In terms of testing red5 locally you can download and run a one click setup that will install a localhost, all the necessary com/org files, and a bunch of other goodies. You can find it here http://osflash.org/red5/070final.

This is one of my first attempts at building a simple red5 chat tool. I started with the sample chat source that comes bundled with red5 and I made a few adjustments to the code. In this sample I have not built any custom java files, I am using the SharedObject from the oflaDemo (which you can find in the src directory of your red5 install). There is a bit of a learning curve, red5 consist of more than just AS, as I have just recently discovered. I have started upgrading my java skills in order to start customizing and developing more powerful red5 apps. To all Flash developers out there, “don’t be afraid, it’s a lot easier than you think!”.

Ok, enough rambling, let’s get to the code…

[ JUST ADDED AN UPDATED VERSION WITH NEW FEATURES. VIEW HERE. ]

You can view the demo here.

We will start by importing some basic flash utils and setting the initial variables to make a netConnection to our SharedObject and connect to our red5 server. We will the create a ShareObject to connect to. Then we will setup our onSync events to handle the messages we will be sending. Finally we will setup 2 basic EventListerners for click and key events.

import mx.utils.Delegate;// create basic netConnection object

var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();

// connect to the local Red5 server

nc.connect("rtmp://localhost");

// create StoredObject

var so:SharedObject = SharedObject.getRemote("chat", nc.uri, false);

// setup the onSync events.  We need to know when someone has added something to the chat

so.onSync = Delegate.create(this, newMessageHandler);

// connect to the SO using the netConnection reference

so.connect(nc);

// listen for the send button clicks

send.addEventListener("click", Delegate.create(this, sendMessage));

// add a listener for key events

Key.addListener(this);

Next we will set up our sendMessage function which will pass both the user name and message to the chat output display. We will also setup the key event as well so the user can press enter or click on the mouse.

function sendMessage():Void

{

 remote_so.data.chatMessage =  + userName.text +  - message.text;	message.text = "";

}

function onKeyUp():Void

{

 if(Key.getCode() == 13 && message.length > 0)

 {

 	sendMessage();

 }

}

The last function we will build is our newMessageHandler which essentially display all user output in a text area.

function newMessageHandler(evtObj:Object):Void

{	var newChat:String = remote_so.data.chatMessage;

if(newChat == null) return;

chatOutput.text += newChat + "\n";

chatOutput.vPosition = chatOutput.maxVPosition;

}

It’s that easy! Playing around with the code and some fun….please feel free to reply to this post with examples and variations on this project.

Trevor Burton’s paperworld3d

Chris Allen walked us through the basic setup and installation of red5. The overall presentation was a basic intro to the red5 environment…I felt he did a really good job of explaining how what red5 is and how it works…especially considering majority of the attendees had never touch red5 before.

The examples included the demo files that are bundled in the current distribution of red5. If you have not yet had a chance to check these out I highly recommend you do http://www.digs.jp:5080/demos/ !

The highlight of the presentation was Trevor Burton’s demo of his new project paperworld3D, which is built on red5 and papervision3d…very cool stuff…paperworld3D is only a month old and is already dropping mouths in the pv3 and red5 communities….essentially paperword3D is a 3D multi-user environment.

Check out the online demo at http://www.paperworld3d.com and if you like what you see make sure you help contribute any way you can to this project because it !@#$% ROCKS!!!

- Brendan