4/27/2008
This will be my last entry in my journal because our finished site is due tomorrow. I have been
an eventful semester... I do have to say that I am happy with the outcome of this class and my
project. There were many struggles and a lot of reading/researching involved but I feel like I
really learned a lot about Flash and ActionScript. It feels good to know that when I started this
semester I didn't know anything about Flash and now, after learning on my own, I have what I
feel is a pretty good understanding of the environment. Not only did I learn a new language and
a new program, but I really had to concentrate on writing down my goals and managing my time
for this project. I think this class and this project was a very good way to end my computer
science career at St. Norbert College.

4/21/2008
Tomorrow is my presentation which seems a bit crazy... I'm not sure where the semester went!
My program is finished and everything seems to be working well! I have just finished my
powerpoint presentation and I have (and will be all night) been practicing. I usually don't get
nervous speaking in front of people, but this is pretty much the biggest type of presentation
I have given. I hope everything goes well!

4/18/2008
I realized what I was doing wrong with Shared Object and the saving feature of my program.
That is all working properly now, data is being entered and stats are being displayed, and
I have the re-drawing of the line working as well. I have used two different arrays to store
coordinates for the "zoomed in" look of the map and the "zoomed out" look of the map.
These arrays store different coordinates along the route which draw lines based on how
many miles the user has traveled. I am trying to keep this as realistic as possible just
like the miles conversion I am using. My whole program is basically finished now... I am
just doing a lot of testing and doing some finishing touches like a key, some instructions, ect.

4/15/2008
The project has been coming along quite nicely over the past few weeks or so. My presentation
date is next Tuesday at 1:40 so the end is really coming up fast. I made a to-do list with all
the final touches I want to make on the project. I have the entering of data working well and
I HAD the saving of data working just fine, but for whatever reason, it just stopped working a
few minutes ago so I have to see what's up with that. I just have to finish the "re-draw"
function which draws a deeper red line over the old one which shows the current position of
the user on the map. Other than that, I just have to add some more pop-up boxes and add
a few things that will make it more user-friendly.

4/8/2008
With the end of the semester coming up fast, I have been working hard on my project over the
past few weeks. I apologize for the lack of updates on my actual Trip Tracker but I have been
going through different versions and trying to get certain things to work. With all of this, I kind
of forgot to update the online version... sorry! I have finally gotten a more updated version
uploaded. It isn't the most recent version that I'm working on now, but it shows a little more of
what I have accomplished lately. I finally figured out how to get the Yahoo! libraries to link and
work thanks to some help from a former SNC student! I know have search results being
displayed that show the top results for hotels in a certain area. Also, the current weather is
now displayed in an info box for a given tourist destination. Lately, I have been working on the
input of user data and computing different calculations. The version online shows that you can
enter a user's name, it is stored, and then displayed on the screen. I am still working on storing
the user steps and displaying calculations based on that.

3/30/2008
This past week I met with another one of my CS professors and she gave me an email address
of a past SNC grad who is currently working as a Flash developer. I emailed her about possibly
helping me figure out the problem I am having with linking the Yahoo! libraries so hopefully I
will get some information on that soon. Also, with some research and help from fellow
classmates I found out the only way to save information with Flash without sending info to and
from a server is to use cookies. I have started working on making some of the calculations
when a user enters how many steps they have taken. I hope to have a new version of my
program uploaded by the end of this week.

3/24/2008
So this past week was spring break so I haven't made much progress since our walkthroughs.
However, I have been playing around with getting the Yahoo! library imported dealing with the
weather functions I want to use. I have figured out a way for the import line of code to work which
apparently imports the library. However, when I go to use the function, I still get the error of "an
undefined method" so I'm not sure what's going on with that yet. I have created a login and
password textbox for the user to login. Also, I have changed the design of my program from
multiple scenes to 1 scene. This way, I could create the login in and user textboxes
programmatically and they would show up over all the frames. I think I will be using an XML file
for saving information and then bringing it back in to the flash program. The only things I need to
save is a login ID, a password, and the amount of steps previously taken on a user's trip. I will
be working on the saving and retrieving part this week as well as still trying to get those libraries
working. I have another big program due this week for a different class so hopefully I can find a
little time to work on this. I just looked at our syllabus and I realize that after this week, I only
have 3 weeks left to finish this project. Lets hope for the best!

3/10/2008
This week is our walkthroughs of our projects and I will be doing mine tomorrow. I have been
preparing for that this weekend. I have been trying to make some more progress on my project
however I am kind of stuck at one point. I found a library of .as files from Yahoo! which would
allow me to call functions that would retrieve search results and get current weather information.
However, I haven't been able to get these files to link to my program. I have tried a few different
methods and I can't seem to figure it out. I think, if worse comes to worse, I can copy the
functions I need into the actual program, however, I don't want to do this because then I will
have a lot of unnecessary code in a lot of different places. With spring break coming next week,
some of my project will be put on hold. As soon as I get back, I hope to get this dynamic info
working right away so I can move onto working on drawing the current position of a user based
on inputted steps.

3/4/2008
This past week I have been working on adding features to the infobox that I created for the
specific tourist destinations along my route. I have focused first on the Green Bay infobox.
I have finished the description tab and I moved along to the images tab. This caused a lot more
problems than I anticipated. All I have been trying to do is when a thumbnail image is clicked,
a full-sized image opens in a new window. However, as I have consistently encountered, I had
problems finding code for actionscript 3.0. The Flash CS3 bible that I picked up last week has
some code on doing this, however, I noticed that all the information on actionscript in this book
still concentrate on actionscript 2.0. So I had to look at the Essential Actionscript 3.0 book I
have and I finally found some information on how to get this to work. You have to use something
called a URL Request and then a few other functions in order to call this request. Even though
the image is local to the folder, you still have to use this in order to open a new window and
display the image. I finally finished the images page this weekend and I have started researching
how to get dynamic information such as weather and hotel information to show up. I have found
a few libraries based on Yahoo! search and Yahoo! weather that I think will help me to display
this information. I hope to have some of this working yet this week. However, until then, I do
have a newer version of my Trip Tracker uploaded on the "Downloads" page.

2/26/2008
I have picked up the new Flash CS3 bible from Prof. Pankratz this week and it has already
proven useful. Since last week, I have been working on making a pop-up box with different
tabs. This box will pop-up when certain cities are clicked on and it will provide useful information
about the city. I thought this would be a relatively simple task, however, it was not smart of me
to assume this. It took me quite a while just to figure out the best way to create this info box.
Once I decided the best route to take, it took quite a while just to design and code the box.
I finally have one working and a new version of my Trip Tracker is uploaded to show it. I have
also posted some websites on my "Downloads" page of different kinds of route makers I
have been looking at. Also, I have posted the books I have been using to learn and understand
Flash.

2/24/2008
After my meeting with Professor Pankratz this past week, we ordered a few books for me to use
that are specific to actionscript 3.0. I learned that there is actually a lot of small differences
between the older versions of actionscript and the newest version. I will be picking up these
books tomorrow so I can have a better resource on 3.0. I also tried loading two past senior
projects that were done in flash on my computer using Flash CS3 to see if they would compile.
They do, however, flash automatically changes the actionscript version to 1.0/2.0. When changed
to 3.0, some parts of it didn't compile which I figured. I have been working on making a pop-up
box open when clicking on certain specified stops on the trip. I'm hoping these new books will
help on getting the correct syntax. Last week I found a video on youtube that helped me figure
out how the buttons worked and I tried looking at some other videos by that author. I haven't
found anything that has really helped yet but I think these books should do the trick. On
my "Downloads" page I listed the video I used in case anyone out there is interested. I will
continue to post links on that page to any online resource I use on this project.

2/17/2008
So I have been having a lot of trouble this past week getting certain things to work in actionscript
3.0. I checked out two books last week on using flash and actionscript but they are both on
version 8 (I am using CS3 or version 9). There is also hardly any built-in help on 3.0
and barely any information online. I have been trying to get my project to jump to different
scenes using a button I created, however I only have books on 2.0 and I assumed that the
functions for a button would be the same. I found out today, after doing hours of online
searching, that in fact getting buttons to do things in 3.0 is completely different. You have
to write listeners and functions in order to get a button to do any simple action. This is not
even close to the same as actionscript 2.0. Fortunately, I have finally gotten my button to do
what I want it to however I spent all weekend reading and researching in order to get this to
work. I have not made the progress I would have liked this past week but I am happy that I
finally have a better understanding of actionscript. By Tuesday, I will have a more updated
Trip Tracker posted!

2/11/2008
Last week I came down with the flu, so unfortunately I wasn't able to make any progress on my
project. However, today I posted the timeline of my project under the "Definition" page. I started
working on some zooming of my map and I hope to have a new version of my Trip Tracker
uploaded by the middle-end of this week.

2/4/2008
I've made some exciting progress on my project since last week. This weekend I installed Flash
CS3 and I have been playing around with it. I have put together the basic layout of my flash project
and I have posted it. The link to my project is under the "Downloads" page. I will update the flash
file on that page every few weeks as I continue to add to the project. So far, I have the title come in
with some basic animation.

1/31/2008
Tonight I uploaded my Career Path, Computer Science Philosophy, and my Resume to my website.
I also added a plan to my "Definition" page which outlines my design of the project. This weekend
I hope to start playing around with flash and hopefully getting something to work, haha.

1/28/2008
I have just finished the basic layout of my website and I am working on updating all the content
of each page. I have a meeting with Prof. Pankratz tomorrow to discuss the scope and basic design
of my project. By the end of the week, I will have my resume, career path, and computer science
philosophy updated. At the end of week three (next week), I hope to have a start to the Trip Tracker
and possible screenshots of the start of my project.