Humor4u

Hello and welcome to my blog! As some of you may know, I've been doing an end-of-year news round-up for quite a few years now. However this year it has got an upgrade. I am releasing it into the blogosphere, hoping to reach many more EFL teachers. This activity, suitable for adult or secondary school learners, is a quiz based on the hottest news stories of 2010. Click on the links below for worksheets, teachers tips on how to use the quiz and additional resources. Don't be put off by the fact that some questions may seem difficult. The idea is not to test your students' general knowledge. Therefore it should be done as a collaborative task or as a webquest (see T notes) Please let me know if you have used it with your students and how it went. I look forward to hearing your comments. Happy New Year 2011! LEO NEWS QUIZ (UPPER INTERMEDIATE) ANSWERS & TEACHERS NOTES (UPPER INT) POST VOCAB (UPPER INT)  - this can be used for review the following week NEWS QUIZ (PRE INTERMED

How many encounters with a lexical item are necessary before it is committed to memory? 6? 9? 12? 15? This article discusses how much heed language teachers should pay to vocabulary acquisition research, particularly with regard to repeated encounters with lexical items. Follow the  link  to read the article on the Teaching English website

In this activity students first listen to a conversation in the film (the technique known as Vision Off) and then check their understanding while watching with the Vision On. The activity is suitable for ages 14 and up. Procedure Preparation You will need a DVD of the film Bend It Like Beckham . The scene starts at 20:18 (Mother shouting "Chi, chi, chi!") and ends at 22:06 (after father says "You must start behaving like a proper woman"). Or, if you have a computer in the room, use this clip No More Football Bend It Like Beckham — MOVIECLIPS.com Click here to download WORKSHEET Pre-watching Students to brainstrom in pairs what boys and girls like doing in their free time (Before you watch). Make sure they don't look at Page 2 of the handout. What are they talking about? Tell your students they are going to listen to the scene from a film but they are not going to see it. They do not have to catch every single word. The idea is to understand the main idea. Play

In this activity students watch a short clip from the movie “Red Eye” and then discuss problems people may encounter when staying in hotels. The activity is suitable for both adult and young learners at pre-intermediate level and up. Procedure Preparation You will need a DVD of the film or, alternatively, you can show the clip on Youtube (click here ).  If you're using the DVD, the scene starts at 2.12 and ends with the receptionist saying on the phone “they were such a**holes”. If you find it inappropriate, stop the playback right after the customers say “We won’t!” Before you watch Freeze-frame: a view of the hotel from outside. Discuss with students if they have ever stayed / often stay in hotels. Brainstorm what kind of problems hotel guests may encounter while staying in a hotel (e.g. rude staff, room not being cleaned etc) While you watch 1. Show the clip. Was the problem the guests experience in the film mentioned in the pre-watching discussion? 2. Give out the handout (2 ve

An activity for adult learners based on the song by Timbaland featuring Katy Perry focusing on chat-up lines, the future conditional and adjectives ending with -ed . Follow the links below to access: TEACHERS NOTES IF WE EVER MEET AGAIN WORKSHEET

Here are slides for two of the approximately 871 talks that Romain Guy and I gave at Devoxx last month (and again at the SF Android User Group meeting a couple of days ago). Videos of all of the Devoxx sessions are already posted on the excellent Parleys site for a small subscription fee, and should be made freely available sometime in the next few months. You probably want to check out those videos for the complete details. But in case you were at the talks, are sick of listening to us speak, or simply want to peruse the slideware, here you go... Android Graphics and Animation Android UI Development: Tips, Tricks and Techniques

By popular demand, Flex 4 Fun is now available for the Kindle! If you order the eBook on the Artima site, you can download the Mobi as well as the PDF version. In fact, if you already bought the eBook, you can log into your Artima account and download the new Mobi version. Once you have the .mobi file, you can copy/email it to your Kindle device and start reading.

I'm back from the annual Devoxx conference, a fun and thoroughly exhausting week in Antwerp spent presenting, attending, and generally hanging out. It's always a great time, despite the weather and the overall grayscale cityscape. This picture from the show was taken during one of my sessions when I was either talking about a GUI frame or saying hello to my Hawaiian friends. I presented in several sessions, including 4 sessions with Romain Guy about Android and UI programming and one on topics from my book, Flex 4 Fun . I spent most of the week either on stage or writing slides and demos to present on stage. There's nothing like procrastination to keep you busy at the last minute. For anyone that missed the presentations, see below about their availability on parleys.com . We may also post the slides someday, although it's always better to get the full deal (slides+audio+video). Also, I intend to post a couple of the demos I showed in the Android talks (the Flex demos

Flex 4 Fun is finally, once again, in stock at Amazon.com . It's been "Temporarily out of stock" for the past coupjle of weeks for reasons that escape me, but which are probably one of these two possibilities: Amazon is really new at this business of selling books and is still learning how to keep appropriate amounts of inventory on-hand. They lost all the copies they had and had to rewrite the book from scratch, based purely on the cover picture on their website. I hope their version is as gripping as the original. In any case, you can now order it in peace. At the same time, they bumped the price a bit, to $26.60. This is fantastic news, of course, for two reasons: The book now costs just about a cup of coffee more than it used to on Amazon. This means that you may have to forego that cup when you read it, thus preventing unfortunate spills and mess. Even better, the new price means that the book is just over Amazon's Free Shipping limit here in the U.S. That'

I'll be joining Jacob Surber from Adobe this week to speak to the local Flex user group, SilvaFUG (which I think stands for "Silicon Valley Flex User Group." Or maybe it's "Silver and Fugly"). We'll be in San Francisco on Tuesday evening (the 12th) and San Jose on Thursday evening (the 14th). The topic is "Fun with Flex Skinning." I'll start off with an overview of the visual aspects of Flex 4 (which, by bizarre coincidence, are exactly the topics covered by Flex 4 Fun . Funny how that worked out). Then I'll walk through an extended example of skinning a simple component to show how these visual elements are used to enable easy development of very custom-looking components. I promise there will be much more code than bullet-points. Jacob will then go into more detail about skinning, including possible workflows and tools for design and development of custom components. More information about the events can be found on the SilvaFUG si

Flex 4 Fun is finally available for purchase at Amazon . First, it went from looking like this on their site (with the depressing "Temporarily out of stock" message): to looking like this, after they were finally ready to ship it out (I figure they probably wanted to dust off the copies first, then put them on the shelves to see how nice they looked ): Then for the past few days, the amount of stock appears to continuously change. In fact, they seem to have a hard time figuring out how much stock to keep on hand. Here are some screenshots from the Amazon page over the past few days. (Not that I've visited the site that many times or anything. After all, I already have a copy, so why would I need to? That would be silly.) Get yours soon. Who knows when they're going to run out completely? Oh, and don't forget about that free shipping for orders over $25 thing. Amazon toyed briefly with a price just over $26. And I mean briefly. I saw it at that price just once o

I ran across Flex 4 Fun in the wild this weekend and managed to get some photographs. I thought that it might help you to understand how you might benefit from the book. Here are some ways that others have found it useful. First of all, the book makes a lovely objet d'art , and was being displayed alongside other great works of art when I encountered it here: It also makes a nice decoration for some household areas, such as this aquarium: This person apparently found the code recipes useful in the kitchen: At 280+ pages, the book is a perfect size for some household tasks, such as leveling this piece of furniture: A good graphics algorithm is always music to the ears: This family apparently found the book more interesting to watch on a Friday night than television or a movie: And of course the book looks great on a bookshelf, where it fits naturally with both the great works of literature: and the less great works of children's literature: But the book won't stay on that

For anyone that doubted the outcome (including me), I offer the following physical proof that Flex 4 Fun exists. I received a few of the early copies today, and I took a picture of one in its natural habitat. I wanted to capture how nice the book would look on a random bookshelf. Here, you can see it surrounded by a few of my other favorite books: This is probably as good a time as any to call out to some of the many people that supported me in this huge and questionable effort: Romain Guy: Thanks for the ideas, the help, the beautiful pictures (including the lovely and bizarre sea dragon on the cover), the foreword, and the encouragement. I only regret that you didn't actually write the book with me instead of just making me get started on it to begin with. But I'm learning that there's not a lot of time outside of Android development to take on that kind of project... Daniel Steinberg: Thanks for helping me get the project rolling at first and giving me some great advic

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun . Check out Effect Choreography in Flex 4 for an introduction to using composite effects in Flex 4 to create more complex animations. For anyone that's tired of seeing Flex content on my blog, you're in luck: this is probably the last bit of such material for the foreseeable future. This article is the eighth and last in a series of articles that were, er, borrowed from the book. (Then again, if you're tired of my Flex content, I have no idea what you're doing reading this blog to begin with). If, instead, you're pining for more content, might I suggest picking up Flex for Fun ? The online version is done and the printed version is so close I can almost taste it (although I hope it reads better than it tastes). If you're hoping to see some Android content, be patient. I'll get there eventually. I'm a tad swamped in actually writing SDK code and learning the platform first. I'll eventu

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun . Check out Skinning Components in Flex 4 for an overview of the awesome new component/skinning architecture in Flex 4. Flex 4: Get some skin in the game...

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun . Check out Linear Gradients in Flex 4 for an overview of using linear gradients in the new graphic primitives in Flex 4.

There's a basic philosophical question that is fundamental to so many situations in life: If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If you tell a joke and nobody hears it, is it funny? If your children respect you, are they really teenagers? The equivalent in the book world is: If your book isn't sold on Amazon.com, has it really been published? I'm happy to say that Flex 4 Fun now passes this last existence proof; the book is available for pre-order on Amazon.com . The book is at the printers now, supposedly available in hard-copy in mid-September. At Amazon's discount of 34% off the list price of $36, it seems like a pretty good deal to me. Notice that the Amazon price of $24.39 is just shy of the $25 you'll need to reach for free shipping. Which is probably just the excuse you were looking for to finally pick up When I Am King... . By the way, if any reader is so inspired, it would be great if you posted a review on Amaz

As promised, the eBook of Flex 4 Fun has been updated to the final version of the text, which was uploaded for printing last week. So if you bought the eBook already, a fresh download will give you the final bits. If you didn't buy the eBook version already, what are you waiting for? Oh, you want the hardcopy version so that you can enjoy its graphical goodness in the way that Gutenberg intended? Well, you'll still have to wait a bit for that. Even now, armies of typesetters are setting up printing presses to make a run at printing the tome. Look for the book in bookstores and online in mid-September.

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun . Check out Fills in Flex 4 for an overview of fills for the new graphic primitives in Flex 4.

If you listen closely, you can probably hear it; the slight rustling of hundreds of pages, the chuckles of the shop foreman as he reads the section headings and subtle footnote humor, the collective sigh of the machinery as it mass-produces page after page of graphics programming wisdom. After months of writing, followed by many more months of editing and revising (it's still unbelievable to me, and more than a little depressing, to know how much you can continue working on your own text and still find things to improve), Flex 4 Fun has gone to print. It's a bit like being put out to stud, except that books are self-reproducing and there's little chance that one of the offspring would win the Triple Crown. If all goes well at the printer, there should be hardcopy available in mid-September, right before the JavaOne conference, and in plenty of time for your holiday programming-book-giving needs. Just imagine what your mother will say when she opens that completely unexpec

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun . Check out Stroke of Genius: Drawing Lines in Flex 4 for an overview of the stroke object, used for defining the properties of lines and outlines for the new graphic primitives in Flex 4.

Varargs, a feature of the C language since roughly the late Victorian era, was introduced into the Java language in JDK1.5. I love varargs. They allow me to declare a function flexibly with the ability to take zero, one, or several parameters. This ability is useful when the user may have an unpredictable number of things to add to some data structure, eliminating the need for them to create some collection to pass the parameters into your function. It makes for a nice API. And I'm all about nice API. (And donuts). But sometimes varargs don’t work so well. I suppose it’s because I expect too much of them. Like when you meet someone that you really like, so you call them every few minutes or so, then hang around outside their apartment and workplace and friends' houses until they get a restraining order on you. It’s not that they weren’t really cool and worth getting to know, but that your needs weren't necessarily compatible. I was working recently on some API improvements

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun . Check out State Transitions in Flex 4 for Intuitive UIs for an overview of using transitions to animate changes between states in Flex 4.

In case anyone's wondering when the next Flex CodeDependent video/demo is coming, the answer is... probably not anytime soon. After a fun and productive Flex 4 release, I decided to get small ; the time had come for me to do some mobile development. In particular, I wanted to work on Android. So a few weeks ago, I joined Google to work on the Android SDK . For starters, I'm working on animation support (surprise, surprise), but I'm sure I'll end up tinkering throughout the UI toolkit and graphics layers. You know, the fun stuff. By the way, if you want to know more about this personal career decision, I'll try to answer all of your possible questions here, in no particular order: Flex is awesome, Flex 4 is even better. Honestly, I wouldn't have wasted the last year's worth of weekends and evenings writing Flex 4 Fun if I wasn't totally jazzed about Flex 4 as a great client platform. Yes, but only on Tuesdays. The coffee is better. Of course the comed

How credible would a software book be that didn't slip the schedule? That would be like sugarless dessert, or nonfat bacon, or an effective politician; it's just not believable. So in keeping with the tradition of all software since 1954 (the original launch date of Windows Vista), Flex 4 Fun is hereby slipping its schedule. But not by much. The original goal was to have the hardcopy printed and available in early August. Failing the invention of a time machine, that's not going to happen. However, the book is actually done, at least from my perspective. In fact, the content that's been in the PrePrint copy for weeks is nearly final itself. The editing phase found many little things to clean up (it always amazes me how many times I can edit my writing and still find errors. It's as if I'm human) and resulted in some amount of reorganization. But most of the recent changes have just been about finalizing the layout in order to get it to the printer. I don't

Artima.com has posted another article from my book Flex 4 Fun . Check out Graphics in Flex 3 and Flex 4 for a comparison of drawing shapes in Flex 3 code versus using the new graphics classes and tags in Flex 4.

Image Zoom Effect in Flex 4 , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . This episode shows a technique for zooming in on a particular area of a thumbnail image, transitioning to a higher-resolution image along the way. A friend had asked about ideas for doing this, and I thought the result might be generally useful or interesting, so here it is. I particularly like how you can zoom in on her enigmatic smile. Here's the video: Here is the demo application: And here is the source code . Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes . And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube . Enjoy.

Artima.com has posted another article/demo from my book Flex 4 Fun . Check out State-Specific Property Values in Flex 4 to see an example and explanation of the simple new syntax in Flex 4 for declaratively setting per-state property values on objects to automate changes in the UI between states.

Animating Filters in Flex 4, Part II , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . This episode is the sequel and stunning conclusion to the previous one, Part I , in which we saw how to use, and not use, the AnimateFilter effect for animating filter properties in Flex 4. This time we see how to properly animate properties of filters which persist on objects when the animation ends. Here's the video: Here is the demo application: And here is the source code . Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes . And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube . Enjoy.

Animating Filters in Flex 4, Part 1 , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . This episode shows how to use the AnimateFilter effect in Flex 4 to achieve certain effects like animating a blur. It also shows how the effect is completely inappropriate for some situations, which is a teaser for the next episode. Here's the video: Here is the demo application: And here is the source code . Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes . And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube . Enjoy.

3D Distortion in Flex and Flash , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . This episode shows how and why you might see some distortion with 3D objects in Flash and Flex (hint: it's about bitmap scaling). Here's the video: Here is the demo application: And here is the source code . Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes . And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube . Enjoy.

Easier, Better Transitions in Flex 4 , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . This episode shows how to use transitions more effectively by avoiding hard-coding the animation values in the effects, and letting the effects pick up the values from the states automatically, instead.. Here's the video: Here is the demo application (in its final form): And here is the source code . Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes . And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube . Enjoy.

Flex 4 States and Transitions , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . This episode shows how to use the new states syntax and transitions in Flex 4. This show is based on one of the 65+ demo applications that I wrote for Flex 4 Fun , a book about the graphics and animation side of Flex 4. If you want to see more about the book, check out the book site , the page where you can purchase the PrePrint version , or the apps site where all of the demos are hosted. Here's the video: Here is the first demo application: And here is the second demo: And here is the source code . Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes . And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube . Enjoy.

The Path Object in Flex 4 , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . This episode shows how to create a simple drawing application using the new Path object in Flex 4. This show is based on one of the 65+ demo applications that I wrote for Flex 4 Fun , a book about the graphics and animation side of Flex 4. If you want to see more about the book, check out the book site , the page where you can purchase the PrePrint version , or the apps site where all of the demos are hosted. Here's the video: Here is the demo application: And here is the source code . Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes . And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube . Enjoy.

Creating a Reflection Container in Flex 4, Part II , the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent , is now available from Adobe TV . This show is the sequel to the previous one , in which I showed how to create a simple container for an image and it's reflection ... that didn't look that great. The sequel shows how to get a better, more realistic reflection effect by using blur, masking, and alpha gradients. My favorite part of the technique is something that I completely forgot to mention in the show: the code is soooo much simpler than code I used to write to get this effect prior to Flex 4. Check out this earlier show on a reflection effect using ActionScript and Flex 3 components. Now look at the few lines of code in the Reflexion container to get the same result. Nice, eh? This show is based on one of the 65+ demo applications that I wrote for Flex 4 Fun , a book about the graphics and animation side of Flex 4. If you want to see more about the