We finally finished painting the green screen wall… as well as rearranging everything in that area to make room for me to walk around and record semi-decent video. It took a lot of paint and roughly two weeks of off-and-on working, but it’s done. Well, the painting is anyway. We still want to buy a set of track lights for more even lighting (does anyone know where we can pick up a cheap – decent – set of track lights?). The way it’s set up now (relying on the fluorescent lights in the ceiling), there are obvious shadows being cast in less-than-ideal locations. However, once we get our hands on a set of track lights, we’re going to be one step closer to making cheesy, Godzilla-esque horror films.

I’ve posted the demo video of me walking around, talking and dangling things in front of the green screen. I brought it into After Effects CS4 and then converted the video to FLV for streaming it via Adobe Flash. I didn’t, however, write a streaming component or a playback controller, so the movie is approximately 9MB.

Click here to watch the demo reel. No fancy preloader, I apologize.

So you might have noticed that I haven’t been updating my blog as often as I used to. You might also be asking something like, “Why, Jimmy? Why haven’t you been updating it as often? Have you been busy?” And I would reply with something like, “Yep!”. I’ve actually been devoting a lot of time to our online suite of eMarketing Tools called BHI Marketing Tools. The system is starting to increase in popularity and with that comes a lot of troubleshooting, technical support, new services, yada yada… We’ve decided that we should create a demo account for this beast so potential clients and customers can log in, fiddle with the system, send some test emails to themselves and see if they like it… Maybe give us some money (we have bills too, you know!).

The login information for the demo account is ridiculously easy to remember. You just go to BHI Marketing Tools in your browser, click “Client Login” and use the username demo / password demo and you’re in like Flynn.

So, check it out, give it a whirl, see if you like it. If you do, tell your friends people with gobs of money.

Recently, spammers have been taking complete advantage of my unmonitored, open comment-posting system with posts to inappropriate websites and medications. There was even one for Miley Cyrus. Seriously? Come on, I can’t have this crap on my site. I developed a small Captcha-like system called Pseudo-Captcha (very clever, yes?). It basically reads two files: background.jpg, which contains a fancy graphic – I used clouds – and chars.png, which contains a strip of characters in the alphabet.

When called, the script selects a pre-defined number of random, squiggly letters, assigns those values to the $_SESSION['Captcha']['Values'] variable and pastes them over a background image. The composite is then output as a jpeg at run-time. Validation can be done by comparing any values entered by the user to the $_SESSION['Captcha']['Values'] variable using PHP’s built-in implode() function.

The script can be uploaded to any web server right out of the box as long as it supports PHP and sessions. Using it is quite simple, just peruse the example.php file to find anything you need. If you would like more information on it’s use, please leave a comment on this article.

The contents of captcha.php:

<?php

session_start();
header("content-type: image/jpeg");
require("./backend/captcha.php");

if (isset($_SESSION['Captcha']['Values'])) {
$aValues = $_SESSION['Captcha']['Values'];
} else {
// Generate some random values because we're noob..
$aValues = jGenerateCaptchaValues(5);
}

// Open the background/character images..
$oBackground = imagecreatefromjpeg("./images/background.jpg");
$oCharacters = imagecreatefrompng("./images/chars.png");

for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($aValues); $i++) {
// Copy the calculated portion of the character image to the background..
imagecopyresampled($oBackground, $oCharacters, ($i * 92), 0, (array_search($aValues[$i], $GLOBALS['Captcha']['Values']) * 90), 0, 90, 90, 90, 90);
}

// Output the composite background..
imagejpeg($oBackground);

// Destroy the original images..
imagedestroy($oBackground);
imagedestroy($oCharacters);

?>

The contents of backend/captcha.php:

<?php

// Create an array to hold the available characters..
$GLOBALS['Captcha']['Values'] = preg_split("//", "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

/* Generates an array of random values. */
function jGenerateCaptchaValues($iNumValues) {
$aRandomValues = array();

for ($i = 0; $i < $iNumValues; $i++) {
array_push($aRandomValues, $GLOBALS['Captcha']['Values'][rand(0, sizeof($GLOBALS['Captcha']['Values']) - 1)]);
}

return $aRandomValues;
}

?>

And finally, the contents of example.php:

<?php

session_start();

?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head><title>Pseudo-Captcha by END[SEVEN] Web Development</title>

<style type="text/css" media="all">

body { background-color: #FFFFFF; margin: 20px; }
img { border: 0px; }

</style>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
</head><body>

<?php

require("./backend/captcha.php");
$_SESSION['Captcha']['Values'] = jGenerateCaptchaValues(5);
$_SESSION['Captcha']['Values'] = array("T", "E", "S", "T", "O"); // Comment out this line..

?>

<img src="./captcha.php" alt="Authentication Image" />

</body></html>

Like I said, it’s very easy to use. I haven’t tested it with any of the spammers on this site yet, so I’m not sure if it will stop automated attacks or not, but it’s one more preventive step in the right direction (I think, anyway).

I’ve never attempted to download/install Captcha before, nor do I want to try. I just wanted a sweet background with a custom font so I could make it look like the rest of my site (it doesn’t right now, but maybe one day it will).

Click here to download the source files.

Update: I’ve tested it with spammers and it does work. We were getting rammed pretty hard by that Cialis bot. It was posting vulgar, inappropriate things in the comments section of each article and has since been blocked. There is a 2.5MB file if anyone wants to read it. :)

Update: I’ve recently converted my blog to use WordPress and there are plenty of plugins available for free online so this tutorial is pretty much useless now.

For the purpose of being awesome, I set out to educate myself in the process of streaming (downstream) and publishing (upstream) live, uninterrupted audio/video using RTMP (Real Time Messaging Protocol). Click here if you would like to learn a more about RTMP.

Are you interested in writing your own webcam delivery, surveillance or online audio/video chat application? Good news! RTMP may be just the protocol that you need! I’ve created two small Adobe Flash (.fla) files that should get you started.

The first, upstream.swf, is the file you would use to upload your webcam’s video feed to an RTMP server. (Usually a hosting company or in-house terminal running Flash Media Server or Wowza Media Server.. I believe that both applications are free for up to 10 simultaneous streams).

The contents of upstream.fla:

var sMediaServerURL:String = "rtmp://[YOUR_RTMP_SERVER]";
var sStreamName:String = "[YOUR_RTMP_STREAM]";

var oCamera:Camera;
var oConnection:NetConnection;
var oMetaData:Object = new Object();
var oMicrophone:Microphone;
var oNetStream:NetStream;
var oVideo:Video = new Video(640, 480);

NetConnection.prototype.onBWDone = function(oObject1:Object) {
// Some media servers are dumb, so we have to catch a strange event.
// Just go ahead and trust me on this one.
trace("onBWDone: " + oObject1.toString());
}

this.oConnection = new NetConnection();
this.oConnection.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, eNetStatus, false, 0, true);
this.oConnection.connect(this.sMediaServerURL);

function eNetStatus(oEvent1:NetStatusEvent) {
trace("NetStatusEvent: " + oEvent1.info.code);

if (oEvent1.info.code == "NetConnection.Connect.Success") {
trace("Connected to the RTMP server.");

this.oCamera = Camera.getCamera();
this.oMicrophone = Microphone.getMicrophone();

// These settings worked fairly well for my purposes.
this.oCamera.setMode(640, 480, 30, true);

// Some servers limit your bandwidth so you
// may have to adjust these numbers to suit your needs.
this.oCamera.setQuality(0, 80);

// Attach the camera to the video.
this.oVideo.attachCamera(this.oCamera);
this.addChild(oVideo);

// Create a stream for the connection..
this.oNetStream = new NetStream(oConnection);

// Attach the camera and microphone to the stream..
this.oNetStream.attachCamera(this.oCamera);
this.oNetStream.attachAudio(this.oMicrophone);

// Start publishing the stream..
this.oNetStream.publish(this.sStreamName);

// Listen for meta data..
this.oMetaData.onMetaData = eMetaDataReceived;
this.oNetStream.client = this.oMetaData;
} else if (oEvent1.info.code == "NetConnection.Connect.Closed") {
trace("Disconnected from the RTMP server.");
}
}

function eMetaDataReceived(oObject1:Object) {
trace("MetaData: " + oObject1.toString());
}

The second file, downstream.swf is the file you would use to view your webcam’s live video feed from the RTMP server. This file could also be exported to a SWF and embedded on your website to allow other people to view your stream.

The contents of downstream.fla:

var sMediaServerURL:String = "rtmp://[YOUR_RTMP_SERVER]";
var sStreamName:String = "[YOUR_RTMP_STREAM]";

var oConnection:NetConnection;
var oMetaData:Object = new Object();
var oNetStream:NetStream;
var oVideo:Video = new Video(640, 480);

this.oConnection = new NetConnection();
this.oConnection.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, eNetStatus, false, 0, true);
this.oConnection.connect(this.sMediaServerURL);

function eNetStatus(oEvent1:NetStatusEvent) {
// Trace the event code for debugging..
trace("NetStatusEvent: " + oEvent1.info.code);

switch (oEvent1.info.code) {
case "NetConnection.Connect.Success":
trace("Connected to the stream!");

// Create a stream for the connection..
this.oNetStream = new NetStream(oConnection);
this.oNetStream.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, eNetStatus, false, 0, true);
this.oNetStream.bufferTime = 5; // Set this to whatever is comfortable..

// Listen for meta data..
this.oMetaData.onMetaData = eMetaDataReceived;
this.oNetStream.client = this.oMetaData;

// Attach the stream to the stage..
this.oVideo.attachNetStream(oNetStream);
this.oNetStream.play(sStreamName);
this.addChildAt(this.oVideo, 0);

break;
case "NetStream.Play.StreamNotFound":
trace("This stream is currently unavialable.");
break;
}
}

function eMetaDataReceived(oObject1:Object) {
trace("MetaData: " + oObject1.toString());
}

The code for each file is fairly straight-forward: Create a NetConnection object to connect to the server, create a NetStream object to handle the stream, do something with the content of the stream (publish it if we’re broadcasting, download it if we’re viewing) and VIOLA!

Remember to replace [YOUR_RTMP_SERVER] with the URL that is provided to you by your RTMP hosting company (or localhost if you’re testing locally) and [YOUR_RTMP_STREAM] with the name of your stream (for multiple streams on the same server, this is the only part that will change).

Click here to download the source files.

I’ve decided to share a previously-unreleased movie poster from the 48-Hour Film Project with the members of this site. This poster, titled The Moneyshot, didn’t make the final cut for release on this site because of it’s.. um.. slightly provocative nature. Click here to download the The Moneyshot movie poster.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been running an online marketing website called BHI Marketing Tools, an online application for managing marketing campaigns, eNewsletters, landing pages and event registrations. This service relies heavily on the ability to deliver email messages to our clients’ potential customers in a responsible and efficient way.

I’ve written a set of functions that use PHP’s built-in fsockopen(), fputs() and fread() functions to send an email message properly using an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server. I use the word “properly” because the built-in mail() function is very unreliable and it doesn’t include many appropriate email headers by default.

This tutorial is composed of two files: functions.php, which houses the three main functions and index.php which serves as a test page.

Contents of the functions.php file:

<?php

/* Pushes the specified value to an smtp connection. */
function jPushSMTP($oConnection, $sValue) {
fputs($oConnection, $sValue . "\r\n");
$sResponse = fread($oConnection, 1024);
return $sResponse;
}

/* Sends a message via the smtp service. */
function jSendMessageViaSMTP($a) {
// The boundary used for message headers..
$sBoundary = "Boundary-" . date("U");

// The headers for this message..
$sHeaders = "Date: " . date("r") . "\n";
$sHeaders .= "To: " . $a['ToAddress'] . "\n";
$sHeaders .= "From: " . $a['FromName'] . " <" . $a['FromAddress'] . ">\n";
$sHeaders .= "Reply-To: " . $a['ReplyAddress'] . "\n";
$sHeaders .= "Return-Path: " . $a['FromName'] . "\n"; // This may not be required..
$sHeaders .= "Subject: " . $a['Subject'] . "\n";
$sHeaders .= "X-Mailer: END[SEVEN] Mail Delivery Service\n";
$sHeaders .= "X-Priority: 3\n";
$sHeaders .= "X-Unsubscribe: <http://www.yourdomain.com/unsubscribe>\n";
$sHeaders .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n";
$sHeaders .= "Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=\"" . $sBoundary . "\"\n\n";

// The text-only version of the message..
$sHeaders .= "--" . $sBoundary . "\n";
$sHeaders .= "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\n";
$sHeaders .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n\n";
$sHeaders .= $a['MessageTextOnly'] . "\n\n";

// The html version of the message..
$sHeaders .= "--" . $sBoundary . "\n";
$sHeaders .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\n";
$sHeaders .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n\n";
$sHeaders .= $a['MessageHTML'] . "\n\n";

// Close the boundary..
$sHeaders .= "--" . $sBoundary . "--\n";

// Connect to the server..
$oConnection = fsockopen($a['Server'], $a['Port'], $iErrorNum, $sErrorDescription, $a['Timeout']);
$sResponse = fread($oConnection, 1024);
$aLog[] = $sResponse;

if (!empty($oConnection)) {
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "EHLO " . $a['EHLO']);
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "AUTH LOGIN");
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, base64_encode($a['Username']));
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, base64_encode($a['Password']));
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "MAIL FROM: <" . $a['FromAddress'] . ">");
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "RCPT TO: " . $a['ToName'] . " <" . $a['ToAddress'] . ">");
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "DATA");
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, $sHeaders);
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, ".\n");
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "NOOP");
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "NOOP");
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "NOOP");
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "NOOP");
$aLog[] = jPushSMTP($oConnection, "NOOP");

return $aLog;
} else {
return false;
}
}

/* Returns the default smtp values. */
function jDefaultValues() {
$a = array();
$a['FromAddress'] = "";
$a['FromName'] = "";
$a['EHLO'] = "localhost";
$a['MessageHTML'] = "No message has been specified.";
$a['MessageTextOnly'] = "No message has been specified.";
$a['Password'] = "";
$a['Port'] = "25";
$a['ReplyAddress'] = "";
$a['Server'] = "localhost";
$a['Subject'] = "No Subject";
$a['Timeout'] = 120;
$a['ToAddress'] = "";
$a['ToName'] = "";
$a['Username'] = "";
return $a;
}

?>

There are three functions in this file. They are:

• jDefaultValues() – Returns an array with the required values.
• jSendMessageViaSMTP() – Puts it all together.
• jPushSMTP() – Pushes each line of SMTP communication.

And the contents of the index.php file:

<?php

require_once("./functions.php");

$a = jDefaultValues();
$a['FromAddress'] = "sample@sample.com";
$a['FromName'] = "Sample McSample";
$a['EHLO'] = "localhost";
$a['MessageHTML'] = "This is an <b>html</b> message.";
$a['MessageTextOnly'] = "This is a text-only version of the message.";
$a['Password'] = "[YOUR_SMTP_PASSWORD]";
$a['Port'] = "25";
$a['ReplyAddress'] = "sample@sample.com";
$a['Server'] = "localhost";
$a['Subject'] = "I can send messages using SMTP!";
$a['Timeout'] = 120;
$a['ToAddress'] = "sample@sample.com";
$a['ToName'] = "Sample McSample";
$a['Username'] = "[YOUR_SMTP_USERNAME]";

if (!jSendMessageViaSMTP($a)) {
print('Your message could not be sent at this time. :(');
} else {
print('Your message has been sent!');
}

?>

This code has been slightly modified from the version that we use at our office, but it serves nearly the same purpose. (Our code allows attachments, which is a little more tricky). This script is very easy to implement and begin using right out of the box.

Click here to download the source files.

Have you ever seen an AddThis™ button? Apparently, it is the “#1 bookmarking and sharing service” and I’m not going to lie. I see them everywhere. It’s actually a very good idea. But what if you don’t want 50+ icons on your site? Or what if JavaScript is disabled on your visitors computer? Or you don’t want to affiliate with some of those services? You can just do it yourself!

Basically, each online service such as Technorati, Digg and del.icio.us (these are just a few examples) allow users to share content passed through a simple URL. I’m going to share just the ones that I use on this blog:

<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=[URL]" title="Technorati" target="_blank"><img src="./icons/technorati.png" alt="Technorati" class="shareIcon" /></a>
<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=[TITLE]%20%2D%20[URL]" title="Twitter" target="_blank"><img src="./icons/twitter.png" alt="Twitter" class="shareIcon" /></a>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=[URL]&t=[TITLE]" title="Facebook" target="_blank"><img src="./icons/facebook.png" alt="Facebook" class="shareIcon" /></a>
<a href="http://www.myspace.com/Modules/PostTo/Pages/?u=[URL]&t=[TITLE]" title="MySpace" target="_blank"><img src="./icons/myspace.png" alt="MySpace" class="shareIcon" /></a>
<a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=[URL]&title=[TITLE]" title="Del.icio.us" target="_blank"><img src="./icons/delicious.png" alt="Del.icio.us" class="shareIcon" /></a>
<a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit/?url=[URL]" title="StumbleUpon" target="_blank"><img src="./icons/stumbleupon.png" alt="StumbleUpon" class="shareIcon" /></a>
<a href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=[URL]" title="Digg" target="_blank"><img src="./icons/digg.png" alt="Digg" class="shareIcon" /></a>
<a href="http://www.diigo.com/post?url=[URL]&title=[TITLE]" title="diigo" target="_blank"><img src="./icons/diigo.png" alt="diigo" class="shareIcon" /></a>
<a href="https://favorites.live.com/quickadd.aspx?marklet=1&mkt=en-us&url=[URL]&title=[TITLE]&top=1" title="Windows Live" target="_blank"><img src="./icons/windows.png" alt="Windows Live" class="shareIcon" /></a>

Just paste this code into your website, upload the icons supplied with this tutorial, swap the [URL] and [TITLE] tags with your own values and you’re done! Just remember that the [URL] and [TITLE] tags must be replaced with URL-encoded values. This can be achieved easily using PHP’s built-in urlencode() function.

A full list of services, icons and URLs can be found at Xillent Studios (which I modeled this tutorial after). Click here to download the source files.

Okay, so the 48 Hour Film Project was a bust, but that doesn’t mean you can’t watch the film online for view count sake. Here is a quick recap of events from the 48HFP:

The team shows up at Orbit Media Studios on Friday night. Joe and I track down Ed and the rest of the team at a bar that is (and I quote) 4 blocks South, 1 block East from the parking lot. Joe and I start to get hunger pengs, so we walk across the street to Papa Romeo’s Pizza where our needs are catered to by six Asian men (?) working the counter. We get back to Orbit to start pounding out ideas for this year’s film submission. A good idea is formed and we begin brainstorming possible shooting locations, filming styles, wardrobe options, etc. I watch The Hangover. Hilarity ensues. We all get tired and leave for a few hours to hunt flying sheep. The remaining members of the team reconvene at Orbit only to learn that the entire script has been thrown out the window, with the lead writer stomping off the set. Ed and Kiya go rogue filmmaker and submit their (properly titled) movie, “Last Resort”.

Click here to view their submission.