Er, um... While flipping through my Flash search feeds today I came across a post by  Jean-Francois Arseneault at ArseNealt.ca blurting out how he didn't realize how complex Flash is. He downloaded the 30 day trial of Flash 8 recently, installed the app and opened the IDE to its shinny new GUI in OSX. He was quickly over powered by the shock of panels and all sorts of options to be found once inside and almost immediately had to close down the program. He says he will grab a beginner's guide soon in order to get into Flash for real in the future.

Reading this reminded me of the first time I jumped into Flash with Flash 4 on a Mac G3 workstation with OS9. My hardship involved jumping from Windows to Mac and jumping from limited Director 7 and Photoshop 5 experience into the new Flash world. Though my jump from Director to Flash was probably easier than my original jump from straight web design (only Frontpage and Corel, please forgive me, it was 1998) to Director. I lucked into jumping into the IDE via an art class on Digital media and immediately jumped into scripting (using my background in Java and other object oriented programming languages really helped here) and animation(Director and experience with art in general helped here). And now I'm here... What about you? How was your first time? Did you get thrown off track till finding that perfect starter guide? Did you dive right in and push out that first site or game or what ever? Let me know in the comments below.

Back in August we discussed the possiblity of moving Flash Player to the PlayStationPortable. Apparently someone has finally done it. Make has a post up about the release of a brand new hack created by PSPHacks.net that has gotten Flash Player 7 to work on an older firmware of the PSP (1.5). They is currently working on getting this to work on the 2.0 firmware for PSP, but in the meantime, crack open that PSP and add a little Flash goodness.

What does this mean to you? Well Flashers should be able to easily modify they Flash 7 (MX2004) goodness to look great in widescreen mode. Plus someone may want to create some old style FLVs (pre-On2 codec) and play them widescreen style on the go.

Check out sample pics at Make and download the hack yourself from PSPHacks.net

Update: FlashAnt has really good rant up that talks about this in detail from a Flasher's POV.

On Monday Adobe grabbed a DRM company that creates lock downs for PDF files via a client-server method and document encryption. This seems old hat in the textbook and business documentation world, but I wonder if Adobe will use this method to create a new SWF based DRM. For more clues I sat at work listening to the Gillmor Gang discuss DRM and video. They brought up the new Google Video store and how Google is using Flash (7 if you must know) to display its videos. One member of the gang (I forget his name) said (aroung the 18 minute mark) that Adobe and Macromedia's merger should bring DRM to Flash in the future so Flash can become a more viable content distribution model. I'm all for it... er let me clarify, I'd prefer DRM free content for ease of use etc, but if it must be there I want cross platform content, like Flash. In order words, that new VH1 video site and the new Comedy Central video service are closed to my iBook due to lack of vision on the part of their developers (and the music industry, but that's another story), but if the content was Flash based (like CNN's free in page video) then the content would be semi cross platform (sorry Linux, wait for 8.5). The only question is: Is SWF (and On2 by association) better than WMV and M4V?

image from video for Flash

So I'm sitting online reading a little Wikipedia (yes I am that nerdy) and I think to myself, I wonder what the wiki world thinks about Flash. One quick 'Macromedia Flash' search later and I see an unbelievably long page describing almost everything about Flash. But, what's missing? Should the Wiki include a direct link to FlashInsider.com? Should it have a link to the LiveDocs? Or maybe, just maybe, we need a link straight to MXNA. What do you think is missing from the Wiki? Check out the link below and register to change it yourself, but make sure you let us know in the comments below.

Yes, I went all old-school SAT on you with the analogy. Shutterbook is a full Flash photosharing service that allows you upload your own pics via pc or picture phone. The service is similar to Flickr before Yahoo and while it is in an open beta at the moment, there will be a cost for the premium version of the service when the site goes live in the future. Beta-testers will recieve a free Premium level account though. It will be interesting to see if a future version of Shutterbook will take full advantage of the new Flash 8 file upload feature and possibly use the bitmap features to capture live photos for albums. The site also includes quick moblogging direct from you album. There is a free desktop uploader available for download directly from the site. Unlike some other services, this site actually provides a PC and Mac version of this photo upload tool. Now is the time to sign up for your free beta tester account, so hop over to their site via the link below and let me know what you think in the comments below.

via Adesblog

Latest Katrina update: Gulfsails blog is a good source for photos and tours of flooded areas

This really would have helped when I made my full Flash wedding site, but at least now I can start promoting full Flash to synagogues all over. FlashRTL adds right to left language support to all text areas (dynamic or not) in a Flash project and makes it possible to build Flash-based sites for all right to left languages like Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and more. The developer is offering the package of ActionScript classes for free to the public. Because the package was originally developed to display Persian, the classes may require some editing to incorporate into your latest project.

via John Dowdell

Latest Katrina update: Local paper Gambit Weekly has shut down indefinitely.

As strangely satisfying as Del.icio.us may be to some of you, I find the third party tag organizers much more fun than just tagging and bagging. Revealicious allows a user to browse tag based bookmarks via our favorite social bookmark site in color coded style mixed with visual organization and search. The project seems to be designed for those of us so right brained, we need everything to float around our heads in style. This app is also another great sample of the various ways you can grab another site's API and remix it for your own purposes.

via The Social Software Weblog

Latest Katrina update: Universities offer assistance to displaced students

The AP is currently using Zoomify to allow users to view Katrina's damage upclose via large satelite photos. We have discussed Zoomify here before, but this is the first time I've seen it used for a higher purpose. The software allows the AP to give a small overall view of the destruction that can be zoomed into the high quality satelite image. Now I just need someone to do this with the collection of satelite photos on the National Geodetic Society Katrina page.

So you want to give your design that clean and modern look with smooth rounded edges that constrain the use in a smooth and inviting way, but you hate having to click the round corner button for each box and each size. Alan Musselman says holding the mouse button while creating a rectangle on the stage and tapping the up or down arrows on the keyboard will round your corners as you drawn. This will be a great help to designers looking to quickly whip up sites while the client looks on. On a side note, this does not seem to work within Fireworks.

Latest Katrina update: HDBeat finds Circuit City and Best Buy trying to get people to help

Rickdog found and easy way to test out the Wimpy MP3 player. Wimpy makes and sells Flash-based MP3 players for your website and I'm pretty sure the Rickdog concept will break their EULA, but if you are looking to test drive the product you can follow his example by embedding someone else's SWF in you page and add a link within the embed to the MP3 file you want to play. Careful though, this is for testing purposes only and not for perminent show, because you are using a pay-for product and I'm sure one day Wimpy will get wind of you use and send you either the infamous cease and desist order or possibly a subpoena! In the mean time enjoy your site testing!

Latest Katrina update: New sites spring up to help locate loved ones

So you made a really cool animation in Flash, but your boss wants it as an avi or other movie format. Now you can easily convert that SWF to a format for a new animated DVD. You could create your own HomeStarRunner.com! The best part about this kind of software is it frees Flash designers from having to learn other programs. Why start learning Adobe Premiere if you can create Full featured video in Flash, using the new On2 codec and then export that new video to DVD formatted MPEG?

Latest Katrina update: I'm posting personal updates for friends and family at my personal site, Schleifstein.net

We're all about the hurricanes here at FlashInsider, so just to get you a little hurricane in Flash history here's a couple of our older posts:

Flash hurricane tracker re-visited and a storm rant

Hurricane tracker in Flash using RSS

Dennis the menace warning

Thanks to Trey for the image, click for larger version

Latest Katrina update: Live news feed at WWL TV New Orleans

If you're using the Listbox component in Flash MX 2004, you may have noticed an impossible to remove border around the outside. Well Daryl Hawkins found a quick and dirty fix to get rid of this for a friend's site and has been nice enough to pass it along. Basically you need to dig into the component on your stage and edit the Bounding Box layer. Check out is site for full details.

Latest Katrina update: CATASTROPHIC

SWF2Saver was just released by Vertical Moon software on August 23rd. The program allows you to create custom screen savers and their installers from SWF files for OSX 10.2 and higher. It will convert all versions of Flash up to 7 and allows the creator to even set an end date for the screen saver. They are offering a free trial version for download, so feel free to try it out.

If you are looking for other options, our blog sibling Download Squad recently covered other Flash to screen saver programs as well.

via ActionScript.org

My network guy says firewalls are good. I don't know about that. Lock them down enough and say goodbye to some very cool Flash features. Ok so maybe network security should be more important that building a desktop Flash-based XML reader (ie: RSS, my precious). It seems some Firewalls can prevent your Flash Player on your desktop from having access to the outside world and could put a crimp in my plans for Google Sidebar. Of course this issue may only be for extremely secure networks. Maybe I should just stick with non-loading development... Options exist though these may ruin my movie. According to the Flash-XML FAQ, you could switch what port Flash reads external data from, but this may cause more problems than not getting any data at all. Plus, once the project is deployed to the web the issues disappear, since most web servers seems to be a little more open than most networks. What do you think? For more information on XML in Flash check out the Flash-XML FAQ at the link below.

thanks Microsoft for the image

Google has been releasing new stuff left and right. Sure Google Talk is cool, but what about that new Google Sidebar. Though Sidebar (and Google Desktop) is currently Windows only that will not stop development. Sidebar features user customizable panels and a full API for creating your own plug-ins. Unfortunately that API is based on the Microsoft Windows Component Object (COM) and may be something Flash developers don't want to deal with. Then how do we get into plug-in development? Via Flash and the ActiveX plug-in display. Sidebar's settings include a Panels and Alerts box. You can view the ActiveX plug-ins installed on your machine (including Flash) by:

1. Click the menu arrow button at the top of Sidebar
2. Select "Add/Remove Panels..."
3. Check the "Show ActiveX plug-ins..." box
4. Check the box next to "Shockwave Flash Object" (and other plug-ins if you want)
5. Click OK.

Now to add your Flash file to the Sidebar. Click the down arrow on the new panel and select Options to view the Flash panel's properties. If you're using an online Flash file type its URL into the Movie URL box (the file path should also work here). Select Quality and other properties to change the display. Click OK and see your Flash in the sidebar. Now you can use a Flash-based RSS reader or a Flash mp3 player or a Flash anything inside your sidebar. Plus Flash developers now have and easy in for all Sidebar users, all we need is someone to make a panel creation plug-in that asks for a URL and automatically inserts our Flash.

Click through for Disclaimer and screen shots via the Wireless Weblog.

Disclaimer: I found out all my Sidebar and Google Desktop information via the Google Desktop page, the Unofficial Google Weblog, Mike Outmesguine of the Wireless Weblog and the Google Group devoted to Google Desktop Plug-ins. I do not have Google Desktop installed personally. Screen shots below:

Add new Panel to sidebar

Flash panel properties

FlashInsider logo in Sidebar

Something new in the Flash Platform and definitely not something you hear very often. The ultimate freelance site, RentACoder, has an odd Bid request up. User Meltec Mickie is looking for someone to code in Flash for a him. His project is a "Macromedia Flash-Based Gasoline Pump." The Flash project will display on a LCD on the pump and directly interact with the gas pump's software to display gallons pumped and price, etc. I guess Meltec must own a gas station with extremely high prices and he is hoping to distract the customer from their soon to be empty wallets.

Strange, but for $25 why not? Due September 6!