My Daily Lesson

Feb

0 How to choose the right demographic for your site

By admin | Filed in Computer Science

This is part 3 of a series of posts describing the steps in developing a web site based on Web 2.0 technologies.

Having made it through our previous post, you hopefully have a solid idea of what your site will be about. Now, the question is:

“Who is your target audience and why does it matter?”

This may seem like a pretty straight-forward question. However, it is essential that it be answered early on in the design process and with extreme precision. Even if your end goal is for everyone in the world to use your site, you still need to focus your energy and site toward a specific demographic in the beginning. If you don’t believe me, just look at the most successful internet companies in today’s market – Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and Google. All four began by targeting a very specific user group and have allowed those initial users to spread the word and ignite a passion for their services:

Twitter - Began with the technical elite from the San Francisco/Silicon Valley tech community and SWSX attendees.
Facebook - Began with the students at Harvard
Apple - Has always focused on it’s core user base of students, artists, and more recently young professionals.
Google - Begins the deployment of every new product with a Beta release specifically so that they can focus on impressing the technical elite first and foremost.

So, who will your site focus on? You should make sure that the answer to this question results in a total user base of somewhere between 100 and 10,000 users. Staying above 100 will ensure that you are not completely vulnerable to a single user have a bad first impression of your site. In contrast, by setting your sights within a maximum user base, you can avoid a number of issues including scalability and can help foster a sense of community around your site. In particular, if your site will include the generation of material by the users, you should ensure that your initial user base is small enough that 1) you can monitor all of the incoming material and 2) that the users will get to know one another and feel comfortable enough to share their information.

Hopefully by now you are convinced that selected a specific demographic for your initial user base will be key to the success of your site. Now, the question becomes which demographic should you target. Here are a couple of guidelines to follow:

They should have enough knowledge coming in that you don’t need to convince them of the benefit of your site.
They should be able to provide a benefit to the site. In otherwords, they should either be able to give you feedback that will help you fix initial problems or provide content that will increase the attractiveness of the site to a greater number of users.
The more they understand technology the easy it will be… Your initial design will undoubtedly be too complex and confusing for most people. Therefore, the more adept they are technically, the less likely they will immediately walk away frustrated without providing any feedback for you to use to improve your site.

By narrowing down your initial user base this early on, the decisions to be made over the remainder of the design process will be easier and more likely to be correct. These decision will likely include:

Should I provide a method for users to directly upload their own content, a mechanism for them to create the content directly on the site, or require them to pass the content through yourself?
How many options/features should I give the users? The more technically savvy – the more options/features you can provide (You can then add/remove/modify these features based on the initial user comments before the community size grows outside of your initial demographic).
How much will these users care about the artistic look of the site? The answer to this question will let you know how much of your time and money needs to be focused on aesthetics.
Is the “Free” model the right approach?

These are just a few of the questions that you will now be able to answer. Coming up next, we will look at the Development Frameworks currently available and try to help you understand why you might choose one of another for your specific project.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Computer Science, Web development, Web Technologies

Feb

2 What should be the focus of my website?

By admin | Filed in Computer Science

The lesson of the day is again on the topic of how to develop a website from scratch using currently available technologies. In particular, we will cover answering the following question:

“What should be the focus of my website?”

This isn’t exactly a technical question but since you will need to know the answer before proceding I figured at least one post should be focused on this topic. There are an infinite number of possible answers to this question as is already shown by the diversity of the web. So, in my opinion, the best way to approach this question is to brainstorm through answering the following questions. Feel free to skip any questions you don’t find useful or adding questions based on your own experiences (If you do add questions and feel like contributing to this work, post a comment with your question and I’ll add it to the list.). So read through the questions and write down the first things that come to your mind as you are reading them. Then, go through them again taking a little more time with each one and again writing down your answers. Finally, go over your answers and hopefully it will become obvious what your site will be.

There are typically two types of sites – Those that provide information about a topic and Those that provide a service. To help focus your brainstorming, I’ve broken done the questions into three groupings 1) General Questions, 2) Questions for Informational Sites and 3) Questions for Service Oriented Sites.

General Questions:

Are you developing this site based on your ideas or someone else’s? (If it is someone else’s ideas make sure to keep that in mind when answering the rest of the questions and you may want to go through this process with them adding input as well)
How much time do you have to work on your site?
Do you want to do something associate with work or completely different?
Who else might want to help out?
What was your favorite subject in school? Why?
What is your favorite television show, book, game, sport, activity… Why?

Informational Sites:

What would you do if you never had to work again?
What are your favorite things to do?
What could you talk about for days?
What are you better at than anyone else?
What do you love more than anything else?
What topics are your friends and/or coworkers always asking you for advice on?
Name the first 10 things that come to your mind?
What are 10 things that you could write a page about right now?

Service Oriented Sites:

What is the most annoying thing about the internet?

What is the most annoying thing you need to do every day?

Do you have a solution to a common problem?

Do you have a client in mind? If so, what are their needs?

What type of service do you want to provide?

Are their any shortcuts you have found for tideous tasks?

What is your favorite thing to do with your friends? Why? Can you create a site that would allow you to do any of these on-line?

What is your least favorite thing to do? Can you create a site that provides users with a way of getting this done for them?

Now that you have gone through a little brainstorming, here is a final thought -

If you don’t love your idea, find a different one. Ideas are great (and easy to come by…) but the hard part is sticking with it through the difficult times all the way through to completion. But, if you are truly passionate about your idea, no distractions or sticking points will be able to keep you from taking your idea all the way from conception to inception.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Brainstorming, Computer Science, Web development

Feb

11 “How can I build a website?”

By admin | Filed in Computer Science

I attended a very interesting and informative conference today #BIBA (Big Ideas, Big Action) in Washington, D.C. It was an interesting mix of artists, government agency workers, technical consultants, and entrepreneurs. Although there were a number of great conversations to be had, the most interesting one wasn’t about the newest technologies or the hardest problem to solve but was instead based on a simple question that no one really had an answer for: “Where can I go on the web to get the bare essential information for understanding how to develop a website and how to understand the underlying technologies?” The only answers anyone could come up with were 1) Visit wikipedia… and 2) a list of outdated websites. So my goal over the next few weeks will be to walk you through the very basics of creating a website that utilize Web 2.0 technologies. Hopefully, some of my fellow tech geeks will help fill in holes that I miss or correct any mistakes that I make.

So, the lesson for today is “What steps are necessary to build a simple, interactive website based on current Web 2.0 technologies?”

The answer to today’s question is going to be a very simple checklist for each step in the process. In each subsequent post, I will break these broad steps into small pieces that can be accomplished in no more than a single 8 hour day.

Decide upon a Topic or Idea that you care enough about to make a site
Select a Target Audience
Pick a Development Framework
Create your Layout/Look-and-Feel
Design your Flow Path (How do you allow users to find exactly what they are looking for as fast as possible)
Develop the Backbone
Add Content
Add User Management (if necessary…)
Pick a Name
Find a Host
Upload your site
Maintain your site
Monetize your site (if you so choose…)

So that sounds easy enough! Now on to how to accomplish each of these steps and the basics for each of the technologies required for each step. Coming tomorrow: “How to choose the right topic for your site?” and “Why does it matter who my target audience is when choosing a development technology?”

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: #GOBIBA, Computer Science, Web Technologies, Website Development

Dec

0 How do you perform a Simplified Scissor, Double Scissors, and Swerve-and-Go?

By admin | Filed in Soccer

The question of the day is:

“How do you perform a Simplified Scissor, Double Scissors, and Swerve-and-Go?”

This is the seventh in a series of questions regarding the best solo practice for improving your footskills for soccer. Today, I will be discussing the third set of 1v1 moves from the “Seven minute drill”. Unfortunately, I still have not yet been able to gather the videos for this posting. However, I will be updating this post in a couple of weeks with the videos once they are available.

For the Seven minute drill you are supposed to select between 1 and 4 of the available 1v1 moves and do a total of 20 moves per foot.

Simplified Scissors:

In the last post, there were two ways of practicing a regular scissors move. In this post, I will be describing an even simpler version of the scissors move.

Start dribbling forward with the laces of one foot making sure to use good body position (low to the ground with knees bent).

After a few touches, take the foot you are dribbling with and bring it across your body and behind the ball (move it towards your other foot).

When you get close to your other foot, move the foot back to the other side of the ball but keeping it behind the ball.
Plant your foot and push off toward the other foot
Play the ball with the outside of the other foot diagonally away from the way you are facing.
Repeat.

Keys:

Focus on keeping your foot close to the ground, keeping your toes down, and selling the fake by dipping your shoulders.
The initial movement of your foot behind the ball should be at regular speed. However, when moving it back to the outside you should move it as fast as possible.
Make sure to keep good body position throughout – Bent knees, Low to the ground, Leaning slightly forward on the balls of your feet.

This move is a simplified version of the scissors but can still be used successfully. If you are having trouble learning the normal version of the scissors move, you should definitely focus on this move for a while. Then, after you feel comfortable using this simplified version in a game, you can move on to the regular version.

Double Scissors:

Start dribbling forward with the laces of one foot making sure to use good body position (low to the ground with knees bent).
After a few touches, take the foot you are dribbling with and bring it across your body and behind the ball (move it towards your other foot).
When your foot gets past the inside of the ball, quickly and smoothly circle the ball with your foot ensuring to follow these rules:
1. Some part of your foot should always be in contact with the grass (almost always your toes)
2. Your toes should be pointed downwards
3. Your foot goes completely around the ball without ever passing over any part of the ball at any time.
When you complete the circle, put the balls of your foot down.
Now take your other foot and bring it across your body and behind the ball (moving it towards your other foot)
When this foot gets past the inside of the ball, quickly and smoothly circle the ball with your foot ensuring to follow the same rules listed above.
When you complete this second circle, plant this foot and push off toward your other foot.
Play the ball with the outside of the foot you were originally dribbling with and take off diagonally from the way you are facing.
Repeat.

Keys:

Focus on following the three rules listed above.
Foot speed is critical as is making sure to keep good body positioning to stay balanced.

This move is pretty straight-forward after you learn the normal scissors move. So, you should focus on making sure you are capable of performing the scissors move first and then move on to this once you are extremely comfortable performing a scissors move in a game situation.

Swerve-and-Go:

Start dribbling forward with the laces of one foot.
Fake a move with the outside of your dribbling foot making sure to dip your shoulder.
Plant the dribbling foot and push off in the opposite direction.
Play the ball with the outside of your other foot.
Dribble away with the laces of one foot.
Repeat

Keys:

Make sure you really sell the fake with your entire body.
The first move should be at normal speed but once you plant your foot you must make the final cut extremely quickly.
As the name suggests, your body should make a swerving motion.

This move is a great, simple move for getting past a defender with minimal effort. If you have any question as to which move to work on first, this is it.

This was the third set of 1v1 moves in the “Seven Minute Drill”. As I said above, I will hopefully be getting videos to go with each of these posts shortly which should make it much easier to understand exactly how each move should be performed.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Coaching, drills, Footskills, Soccer

Dec

0 How do you perform a Scissors, Vee, Cruyff, and Inside Cut Through

By admin | Filed in Soccer

The question of the day is:

“How do you perform a Scissors, Vee, Cruyff, and Inside Cut Through?”

This is the sixth in a series of questions regarding the best solo practice for improving your footskills for soccer. Today, I will be discussing the second set of 1v1 moves from the “Seven minute drill”. Unfortunately, I still have not yet been able to gather the videos for this posting. However, I will be updating this post in a couple of weeks with the videos once they are available.

For the Seven minute drill you are supposed to select between 1 and 4 of the available 1v1 moves and do a total of 20 moves per foot.

Scissors:

There are two ways to practice Scissors depending upon your skill level. The first is a stationary approach while the second method is more realistic (and therefore much better) but more difficult. i recommend starting with the stationary approach until you are very comfortable and then progressing on to the more difficult method of performing the scissors while in motion.

Stationary Approach:

Start with the ball about a foot in front of you and lined up with the middle of your body.
Gently bend your knees and get as low to the ground as possible while leaning slightly toward the ball.
Begin running in place.
Now, Move one foot toward your other foot and behind the ball.
Continue in the same direction but before you hit your other foot start to circle the ball with your foot.
Make sure at this point that the following are all true:
1. Your foot is still in contact with the grass
2. Your toes are pointing downwards
3. You go completely around the ball without going over the ball at any time.
When you complete the circle, put that foot down.
Now move your other foot towards the first foot and circle the ball with that foot making sure to follow the same rules as before.
Complete a circle around the ball with this foot and then place it back on the ground
Repeat.

In-motion Approach:

Start dribbling forward with the laces of one foot making sure to use good body position (low to the ground with knees bent).
After a few touches, take the foot you are dribbling with and bring it across your body and behind the ball (move it towards your other foot).
When your foot gets past the inside of the ball, quickly and smoothly circle the ball with your foot ensuring to follow these rules:
1. Some part of your foot should always be in contact with the grass (almost always your toes)
2. Your toes should be pointed downwards
3. Your foot goes completely around the ball without ever passing over any part of the ball at any time.
When you complete the circle, plant and push off with the original (“circling”) foot
Play the ball with the outside of the other foot diagonally away from your current direction
Continue to dribble with the laces of one foot
Repeat.

Keys:

Focus on following the three rules mentioned above (keep your foot close to the ground, keep your toes down, do not cut corners with your foot going over the ball).
The biggest key to the success of this move (after making sure to follow those three rules…) is how fast you can complete the entire move from starting the circle to playing it with your other foot.
Make sure to keep good body position throughout – Bent knees, Low to the ground, Leaning slightly forward on the balls of your feet.

This move is, when performed properly, one of the top 3 moves you can use to beat any defender. The problem is that correct execution requires perfect form and extremely quick feet. Fortunately, with enough practice almost all players can achieve both of these. It is also very important that you try this out as often as possible under game conditions while you are improving your technique and speed.

Vee:

Start dribbling forward with the laces of one foot..
Fake a pass with the inside of your dribble foot by passing your foot over the top of the ball and using your entire body to sell the fake.
When your foot is directly over the ball, pull it back with the sole of your foot.
Turn 1/4 of the way around
Play the ball forward with the inside of the same foot.
Repeat.

Keys:

Focus on the use of your body to sell the fake. You should be moving pretty quickly and then stop your entire body when you make the fake.
You must make the pullback and go as quickly as possible.
Start your turn as soon as your foot touches the top of the ball.

This is a pretty simple move in practice but is very hard to pull off in a game. The best use of this move is to give yourself time to make a pass in a different direction than you are moving. So, your final touch would be a pass or cross instead of a dribble into space.

Cruyff:

Start dribbling forward with the laces of one foot.
Fake a shot or pass with the laces of your dribbling foot (as always use your whole body to sell the fake)
Let your foot pass by the ball
Chop down on the front of the ball with the inside of the same foot and play it directly behind yourself.
Turn 1/2 way around in the direction of you plant foot
Dribble away with the laces of one foot.
Repeat

Keys:

Make sure you really sell the fake with your entire body.
On the chop, make sure the ball only goes about a foot or two away from your body (you should be able to play it as soon as you turn around without taking any steps.)
Make sure that you have space behind you to turn into when using this move.

This move is a great way to set yourself up for a cross or shot. Once you become an expert, you should be able to set up your shot or cross with the cut back avoiding taking any unnecessary touches/time between the fake and the shot/cross.

Inside Cut Through:

This move is almost identical to the Cruyff except instead of turning all the way around you will only turn 1/4 of the way around.

Start dribbling forward with the laces of one foot.
Fake a shot or pass with the laces of your dribbling foot (as always use your whole body to sell the fake)
Let your foot pass by the ball
Chop down on the outside of the ball with the inside of the same foot and play it behind your plant foot.
Turn 1/4 of the way around towards your plant foot.
Dribble away with the laces of one foot.
Repeat

Keys:

Make sure you really sell the fake with your entire body.
On the chop, make sure the ball clears your other foot but doesn’t go more than about a foot from your body (you should be able to play it as soon as you turn around without taking any steps.)
You must know what you will be doing with your next touch before making this move as it won’t take much time for a decent defender to recover.

This move is a great way to set yourself up for a cross or shot with the opposite foot than you are currently using. Therefore, you should focus on making sure you can perform this move perfectly with your weaker foot to allow you to use it to set up shots/crosses with your stronger (dominant) foot.

This was the second set of 1v1 moves in the “Seven Minute Drill”. As I said above, I will hopefully be getting videos to go with each of these posts shortly which should make it much easier to understand exactly how each move should be performed.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Coaching, drills, Footskills, Soccer

Dec

0 A very simple draggable and iconable (minimizable) panel in Flex

By admin | Filed in Computer Science, Flex

Lesson of the Day:

“How to make a simple draggable and iconable (minimizable) toolbar panel in Flex.”

I needed to make a toolbar panel that could be moved around the screen and minimized as necessary to free up screen real estate. My first stop was the ever present Google search which presented several impressive options that not only provided the features I needed but also where resizable and closable. Unfortunately, it appeared that many of these options had slight issues with them usually associated with these additional features. So, I decided to make my own version with only the features I needed. Here is my solution along with the source code. To minimize the toolbar, you double click on the Title of the panel.

package containers {
    import flash.events.MouseEvent;

    import mx.containers.Panel;
    import mx.controls.Alert;
    import mx.effects.Resize;
    import flash.events.MouseEvent;

    public class IconablePanel extends Panel {

        private var oH:Number;

        private var upMotion:Resize = new Resize();
        private var downMotion:Resize = new Resize();
        private var iconed:Boolean = false;

        public function IconablePanel() {

        }

		protected override function childrenCreated():void {
			oH = height;
			titleBar.addEventListener(MouseEvent.DOUBLE_CLICK, upDownEventHandler);
		} 

        public function upDownEventHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
            if (!iconed) {
            	upMotion.target = this;
           	 	upMotion.duration = 300;
            	upMotion.heightFrom = height;
            	upMotion.heightTo = 28;
            	upMotion.end();
                oH = height;
                upMotion.play();

            } else {
            	downMotion.target = this;
            	downMotion.duration = 300;
            	downMotion.heightFrom = 28;
            	downMotion.heightTo = oH;
            	downMotion.end();
                downMotion.play();
            }
            iconed = !iconed;
        }
    }
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" xmlns:jd="containers.*"
	layout="absolute" backgroundColor="#FFFFFF" backgroundGradientColors="[#FFFFFF, #FFFFFF]">
	<mx:Script>
		<![CDATA[
			import mx.controls.Alert;

			public function dropIt(event:MouseEvent):void {
	        		var obj:IconablePanel = IconablePanel(event.currentTarget);
	            	obj.setStyle("headerColors", null);
	            	obj.stopDrag();
        	}
        	public function dragIt(event:MouseEvent):void {
	            	Application.application.parent.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, dropIt);
	            	var obj:IconablePanel = IconablePanel(event.currentTarget);
	            	obj.parent.setChildIndex(obj, obj.parent.numChildren - 1);
	            	obj.setStyle("headerColors", [0xFDF6D1,0xFDF9E3]);
	            	obj.startDrag(false, new Rectangle(0, 0, screen.width - obj.width, screen.height - obj.height));
        	} 

		]]>
	</mx:Script>
	<mx:Canvas clipContent="false">
		<mx:HBox id="view" clipContent="false" x="0" y="0" width="{this.width}" height="{this.height}"/> 

		<jd:IconablePanel id="panel" title="Controls" textAlign="center" layout="absolute" x="20" y="20"
			mouseDown="{dragIt(event);}" mouseUp="{dropIt(event);}" doubleClickEnabled="true"
			borderColor="#6666FF">
			<mx:Label id="sliderLabel1" x="14" y="0" text="Hello" fontWeight="bold" textAlign="center"/>
			<mx:Label id="sliderLabel2" x="8" y ="15" text="World!" fontWeight="bold" textAlign="center"/>
			<mx:Button id="alertMe" click="{Alert.show('Alert Button');}" x="3" y="50" label="Alert"/>
			<mx:Button id="reset" x="0" y="100" label="Reset"/>
		</jd:IconablePanel>
	</mx:Canvas>
</mx:Application>

Share and Enjoy:

Dec

0 How do you perform a Hip Swivel, Ronaldinho, Cap, and Stepover/Rivelino?

By admin | Filed in Soccer

The question of the day is:

“How do you perform a Hip Swivel, Ronaldinho, Cap, and Stepover/Rivelino?”

This is the fifth in a series of questions regarding the best solo practice for improving your footskills for soccer. Today, I will be discussing the first set of 1v1 moves from the “Seven minute drill”. Unfortunately, I still have not yet been able to gather the videos for this posting. However, I will be updating this post in a couple of weeks with the videos once they are available.

For the Seven minute drill you are supposed to select between 1 and 4 of these moves and do a total of 20 moves per foot.

Hip Swivel:

Start dribbling forward with the laces of one foot.
Fake a move across your body with the inside of one foot while dipping the opposite shoulder.
Plant that foot and push off in the opposite direction (your body will make a 1/4 turn from the way you were facing).
Play the ball with the inside of the other foot.
Accelerate off in the new direction and begin dribbling with the laces of one foot.
Repeat.

Keys:

Focus on selling the initial move across your body.
Play the ball about 1-2 steps away from your body to give you room to turn and accelerate to catch the ball.
As the name of the move suggests, you will need to have flexible hips to perform this move at game speed. This is one of those moves that makes excellent players look like they are dancing with the ball.

Since few players are natural dancers, this move will feel very awkward at first. However, the more you practice it – the more natural it will feel and the better it will work in a game. So, don’t dismiss this move just because it feels weird at first, if you spend some time practicing it, you will be rewarded by knowing a great way to provide yourself space and time in cramped positions (normally near the penalty box) to get off shots or crosses.

Ronaldinho:

Start with the ball in front of one foot, with your knees bent, and feet moving.
Perform 3-4 Foundations as described in a previous post.
Lean your shoulder into the ball.
Tap the ball across your body with the inside of the same foot as the shoulder you leaned in with.
Quickly move your foot to the opposite side of the ball.
Play the ball back to the outside of your body with the outside of the same foot.
Repeat

Keys:

The number one focus is the speed with which you can move your foot from one side of the ball to the other.
Make sure to sell the fake with a hard/quick motion of your shoulder instead of the power of the tap. If you tap the ball to hard, it will be impossible to get your foot around the ball to bring it back the other way.
Most players will require the ball to stay on the ground for this move, however, if you want to play like Ronaldinho, try to tap the ball into the air with the first touch and play it back before it touches the ground.

This move can be performed very easily at a slow speed. However, to make it work against a good opponent, you will need to spend a lot of time working on this skill to speed up the time between touches and make sure that your second touch puts the ball in a good position to escape past the defender.

Cap:

Start with the ball in front of one foot, with your knees bent, and feet moving.
Perform 3-4 Foundations as described in a previous post.
Chop down on the ball with the inside of one foot.
Play the ball back in the opposite direction with the inside of the other foot.
Dribble away at speed.
Repeat

Keys:

Make sure your first touch is a chop and not just a tap, you need to forcefully come down on the ball without making the ball move a significant distance.
Your second touch should move the ball outside of your feet. This will provide you the space you need to get past the defender.

This move is a simpler move than the Ronaldinho to do at game speed and will provide the same benefit. However, it will not be as effective against a highly skilled defender with great recovery speed as it takes a little longer to perform and is not quite as believable but how many players actually end up playing against that level of an opponent…

Stepover/Rivelino:

Start dribbling forward with the laces of one foot.
Fake with the inside of one foot moving your foot in front of the ball (the ball should now be outside of your foot).
Either take the ball with the inside of the other foot (Stepover) or take the ball with the outside of the same foot (Rivelino).
Cut the ball back diagonally forward as if you have just beat an opponent.
Dribble away at full speed with the laces of one foot.
Repeat

Keys:

Focus on really selling the fake by using your entire body. Swing your arms, bend your knees, and swing your leg at full speed.
Make the cut at an angle to push the ball to the outside of the defender.
While making the fake, keep your faking foot as close to the ground as possible and move it around the ball. If you go over the ball with your foot, no one will believe you are going to play it.

This is a great move to get past an opponent. As with all move to get past an opponent, you will need to make sure to cut the ball back behind the defender as soon as you get past them. This will make their job of catching back up to you and getting in front of you to defend significantly harder than if you just run straight forward after making this cut.

This was the first set of 1v1 moves in the “Seven Minute Drill”. As I said above, I will hopefully be getting videos to go with each of these posts shortly which should make it much easier to understand exactly how each move should be performed.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Coach, drills, Soccer

Dec

0 How to perform Inside, Outside, and Stepover Turns

By admin | Filed in Soccer

The question of the day is:

“How do you perform Inside, Outside, and Stepover Turns?”

This is the fourth in a series of questions regarding the best solo practice for improving your footskills for soccer. Today, I will be discussing the third set of moves within the “Seven minute drill”. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to gather the videos for this posting. However, I will be updating this post in a couple of weeks with the videos once they are available.

Inside Turn (5 per Foot):

Start with the ball in front of one foot, with your knees bent, and feet moving.
Start dribbling the ball forward with the laces of one foot.
Place your foot past the ball with the inside of your foot chopping down on the far side of the ball.
Step past the ball and turn 1/2 way around.
As you turn around, play the ball in the direction you are now facing with the laces of your foot.
Continue dribbling the way you are facing with the laces of one foot.
Repeat

Keys:

Make sure to keep focus on making good, short touches with your laces as you dribble.
Try to make the turn as quickly as possible.
Make a quick, hard chop down on the ball. The ball should move very slightly in the opposite direction that it was previously moving.
After making the turn, burst away with a quick move in the new direction.

This drill focuses on the easiest of the full turns. This is a great time to focus on the number one rule of all moves — Always accelerate (speed up) after the move!

Outside Turn (10):

Start with the ball in front of one foot, with your knees bent, and feet moving.
Start dribbling the ball forward with the laces of one foot.
Place your foot past the ball with the outside of your foot chopping down on the far side of the ball.
Step past the ball and turn 1/2 way around.
As you turn around, play the ball in the direction you are now facing with the laces of your foot.
Continue dribbling the way you are facing with the laces of one foot.
Repeat

Keys:

Make sure to keep focus on making good, short touches with your laces as you dribble.
Try to make the turn as quickly as possible.
Make sure to get your foot all the way past the ball before chopping down to make sure that the ball changes directions.
After making the turn, burst away with a quick move in the new direction.

This drill provides a good alternative to the Inside Turn. Focus on making solid contact on the ball with the outside of your foot during the cut so that the ball moves enough to give you space to make the turn and begin sprinting in the opposite direction.

Stepover Turns (10 per Foot):

Start with the ball in front of one foot, with your knees bent, and feet moving.
Start dribbling the ball forward with the laces of one foot.
Feint like you are going to strike the ball with the laces of one foot by dipping your lead shoulder down and kicking in front of and across the ball without making contact.
Put the balls of your feinting foot down and pivot on the balls of the foot.
Turn 1/2 way around and play the ball with the outside of the same foot.
Dribble at full speed away with the laces of one foot and repeat.

Keys:

Focus on really selling the fake by using your entire body. Swing your arms, bend your knees, and swing your leg at full speed.
Make the cut as quickly and smoothly as possible once you put your faking foot down.
Be light on your feet and never put the heel of the faking foot down during the move.

This is the first advanced move but is also one of the most effective moves available. Remember that you need to have space behind you to move into after accomplishing this move.

This was the fourth set of moves in the “Seven Minute Drill”. As I said above, I will hopefully be getting videos to go with each of these posts shortly which should make it much easier to understand exactly how each move should be performed.

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Tags: Coaching, drills, Soccer

Dec

0 How to perform Push-Pulls, V-Pulls, and Pull Turns

By admin | Filed in Soccer

The question of the day is:

“How do you perform One and Two-footed Push-Pulls, V-Pulls, and Pull Turns?”

This is the third in a series of questions regarding the best solo practice for improving your footskills for soccer. Today, I will be discussing the second four moves within the “Seven minute drill”. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to gather the videos for this posting. However, I will be updating this post in a couple of weeks with the videos once they are available.

One-Footed Push-Pulls (5 per Foot):

Start with the ball in front of your foot, with your knees bent, and feet moving.
Push the ball straight forward with the laces of that foot making sure to point your toe down and lock you ankle.
Place the sole of your foot on the top of the moving ball and pull the ball back towards yourself.
Repeat by pushing the ball forward with your laces and pulling back with the sole of the same foot.

Keys:

Make sure to keep your feet moving and your knees bent
Try to stay in one place
Make small touches but make sure the ball moves with each touch
Try to keep your head up and only occasionally look down

This drill focuses on playing the ball with two of the most important surfaces of your foot (laces and sole) and improving your technique and control. In addition, it will significantly improve your foot speed and provide a solid basis for more advanced footskills.

Two-Footed Push-Pulls (10):

Start with the ball in front of one foot, with your knees bent, and feet moving.
Using the inside of your foot, Push the ball diagonally across your body and in front of your other foot.
Place the sole of your opposite foot on the top of the moving ball and pull the ball back towards yourself.
Using the inside of the same foot you just pulled the ball back with, push the ball diagonally in front of your other foot.
Repeat.

Keys:

Make sure to keep your feet moving and your knees bent
Try to stay in one place
Make small touches but make sure the ball moves with each touch
Try to keep your head up and only occasionally look down

This drill focuses on playing the ball with two of the most important surfaces of your foot (inside and sole) and improving your technique and control. In addition, it will significantly improve your foot speed and provide a solid basis for more advanced footskills.

V Pulls (10 per Foot):

Start with the ball in front of one foot, with your knees bent, and feet moving.
Push the ball forward with the inside of your foot.
Pull the ball back with the sole of the same foot.
As the ball comes back towards you, turn 1/4 of the way around.
Push the ball out again with the inside of the same foot and repeat.

Keys:

Each touch should be short and quick
Try to keep your head and eyes up and forward as much as possible.
Focus on making a quick sharp turn as the ball travels back towards you.

This move provides a simple and efficient way to change your point of attack (the direction you can play the ball).

Pull Turns (5 per Foot):

Start with the ball in front of one foot, with your knees bent, and feet moving.
Push the ball forward with the laces of your foot.
Pull the ball back with the sole of the same foot.
As the ball comes back towards you, turn 1/2 way around while keeping your eyes on the ball. If you can’t keep your eyes on the ball, you are turning the wrong way.
Push the ball out again with the laces of the same foot and repeat.

Keys:

Keep your feet moving
Make sure you turn in the direction that allows you to keep your eyes on the ball.
Focus on the speed of the turn. The faster the better.
Keep the ball within reach by controling how hard you pull the ball back.

This move is very similar to the V-Pull except you use your laces to push the ball and turn half way around instead of only 1/4 of the way around. Again, speed and control are the keys to success.

These were the second four moves in the “Seven Minute Drill”. As I said above, I will hopefully be getting videos to go with each of these posts shortly which should make it much easier to understand exactly how each move should be performed.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Coaching, drills, Soccer

Dec

1 Issues with displays of Lists of Buttons in Adobe Flex

By admin | Filed in Computer Science, Flex

My lesson of the day:

“How to avoid display issues with lists of buttons in Adobe Flex when scrolling”

I was working today on a web application based in Adobe Flex, a Rich Internet Application (RIA) language and was having issues with the scrolling of a list of buttons causing mistakes in the rendering of the buttons. So, my lesson for the day was how to fix/avoid these issues.

The application I was developing required the display of a list of buttons that when pressed would open the selected text document in another panel. The number of buttons being displayed required that the list include a vertical scroll bar to scroll through the various available documents. On initial load, everything looked perfect. However, when the user scrolls down and then back up, the buttons start to be repainted on top of each other causing a hideous looking display in which you had no idea where the buttons were actually located. The code behind the initial attempt is listed below. See if you can find the problem before heading down to my lesson learned below.

			var popupCanvas:Canvas = new Canvas();
			var panel:Panel = new Panel();
    		panel.layout = "absolute";
    		panel.width = 525;
    		panel.height = 250;
    		panel.x = 0;
    		panel.y = 0;
    		panel.setStyle("fontSize", 16);
    		panel.setStyle("headerColors", ["#0000FF", "#CCCCFF"]);
			panel.setStyle("borderColor", "#6666FF");
    		panel.title = "My Panel";

    		var closeButton:Button = new Button();
    		closeButton.label = "x";
    		closeButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, closePopup);
    		closeButton.x = panel.width - 80;
    		closeButton.y = 10;
    		closeButton.setStyle("paddingTop", 1);
			closeButton.setStyle("paddingBottom", 1);
			closeButton.setStyle("paddingRight", 1);
			closeButton.setStyle("paddingLeft", 1);

    		panel.addChild(closeButton);

    		var nameLabel:Label = new Label();
    		nameLabel.setStyle("fontSize", 14);
    		var date:Date = new Date(itemDate);
    		nameLabel.text = date.month + "/" + date.date + "/" + date.fullYear;
    		nameLabel.x = 0;
    		nameLabel.y = 10;
    		panel.addChild(nameLabel);
    		var hRule:HRule = new HRule();
    		hRule.width = 250;
    		hRule.x = 12;
    		hRule.y = 40;
			panel.addChild(hRule);

    		var yVal:Number = 50;
    		var docTitle:String = "";
    		while (docs.indexOf(";") >= 0) {
                var button:Button = new Button();
                button.label = docTitle;
                button.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, openDoc);
                button.x = 12;
	    		button.y = yVal;
	    		button.width = buttonPanel.width - 20;
	    		button.setStyle("fontSize", 12);
	    		yVal = yVal + 30;
                panel.addChild(button);
        	}

            popupCanvas.addChild(panel);
    		addChild(popupCanvas);
            invalidateDisplayList();

So, the above code causes the problem with improperly displayed buttons upon scrolling. The following code fixes that problem.


			var popupCanvas:Canvas = new Canvas();
			var panel:Panel = new Panel();
    		panel.layout = "absolute";
    		panel.width = 525;
    		panel.height = 250;
    		panel.x = 0;
    		panel.y = 0;
    		panel.setStyle("fontSize", 16);
    		panel.setStyle("headerColors", ["#0000FF", "#CCCCFF"]);
			panel.setStyle("borderColor", "#6666FF");
    		panel.title = "My Panel";

    		var buttonPanel:VBox = new VBox();
    		buttonPanel.x = 12;
    		buttonPanel.y = 50;
    		buttonPanel.height = panel.height - 100;
    		buttonPanel.width = panel.width - 70;

    		var closeButton:Button = new Button();
    		closeButton.label = "x";
    		closeButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, closePopup);
    		closeButton.x = panel.width - 80;
    		closeButton.y = 10;
    		closeButton.setStyle("paddingTop", 1);
			closeButton.setStyle("paddingBottom", 1);
			closeButton.setStyle("paddingRight", 1);
			closeButton.setStyle("paddingLeft", 1);

    		panel.addChild(closeButton);

    		var nameLabel:Label = new Label();
    		nameLabel.setStyle("fontSize", 14);
    		var date:Date = new Date(itemDate);
    		nameLabel.text = date.month + "/" + date.date + "/" + date.fullYear;
    		nameLabel.x = 0;
    		nameLabel.y = 10;
    		panel.addChild(nameLabel);
    		var hRule:HRule = new HRule();
    		hRule.width = 250;
    		hRule.x = 12;
    		hRule.y = 40;
			panel.addChild(hRule);

    		var docTitle:String = "";
    		while (docs.indexOf(";") >= 0) {
                var button:Button = new Button();
                button.label = docTitle;
                button.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, openDoc);
	    		button.width = buttonPanel.width - 20;
	    		button.setStyle("fontSize", 12);

                buttonPanel.addChild(button);
        	}

    panel.addChild(buttonPanel);

            popupCanvas.addChild(panel);
    addChild(popupCanvas);
            invalidateDisplayList();

Here are the big changes between these two sets of code:

The second set of code wraps all of the buttons within a VBox.
The first set of code uses absolute positioning for the buttons within the panel while the second set uses the automated positioning of the buttons within the VBox.

Apparently, through the wrapping of the buttons within the VBox, the validation step for the location of the buttons can keep up with the required speed of the redrawing due to scrolling while the first attempt does not.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Computer Science, Flex, RIA

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