Third Party Flash creation software Toon Boom released an update for Mac users earlier this month. The software is not official Universal or Intel and PowerPC Mac compatible. We talked about Toon Boom back when they won and Emmy last year and this just shows the software moving forward with its user base. As animators upgrade to the new Mactels they won't need to wait for the next version to run this package outside of Rosetta. I think this developement was achieved with the help of the Universal Flash Player that was released as a beta with Safari on the newer Macs. It will be interesting to see what other third party Flash offerings will beat the Adobe Flash Universal IDE to market in the coming months.

via Macworld

So there was this big press conference at Sony headquarters yesterday to discuss the PS3 (which I will probably avoid, $425 is too much) and the CEO had some announcements about upcoming PSP updates, including a new web browser. The next PSP web browser will include official Flash support! Which means we can stop trying to hack the Flash Player into the PlayStationPortable and just go with the flow. 1UP mentioned the inclusion at 10:42 AM PST yesterday. I only wonder if the player will be a stripped down version or even just a modified version of the Palm OS Flash Player that was included with Sony's CLIE product line. The release of a coming camera and GPS modules leads me to think that Flash developers may be able to build full fledged RIAs that feature location based support and video teleconferencing. Now I just need to save up a couple hundred bucks and grab on of these for 'work.'

JD read a prediction on this back in August and Make found a hack to force Flash Player 7 into the PSP in Febuary

via Richard Leggett

update: our blog sibling Joystiq has the lowdown on all things PS3 and PSP

Time to update your Flash Player. According to Cnet, Adobe has released a new update to Flash Player to bring all you non-beta users up to 8.0.24.0. Adobe recommends all users of Flash player up to version 8.0.22.0 update their player via download. Apparently a vulnerability has been found that allows 'evil' SWF files to take control of a user's system when loaded into current version of the player. So head over to the link below and update your systems. The problem affects Breeze 5, Shockwave 10.1.0.11 and Flash debug player 7.0.14 (and earlier of course).

An answer to the Mac Intel problem has started to emerge. Recently I said I would need to delay a possible MacBookPro purchase due to the non-universal Flash problem. Wel Tinic Uro, Flash Player developer, has written up a reason to lower my worries. Apparently the Intel Macs will: "ship with a native Intel version of the Flash Player 8 plugin."

Yay! I could deal with running Flash 8 in Rosetta till upgrade time if I can still view my Flash in a natively run Safari. Plus this means Flash users (read site visitors) who are early adopters aren't cut out of viewership.

On a side note, one of the comments on Uro's article states this is a preview release player which may have been pushed in an effort to ease the Mac Intel transition from Adobe.

via What Do I Know

Since the release of the new Mac Book Pro and iMac with Intel I have been considering when to make the upgrade and move on to a new laptop. A few things are keeping me in check though. First off, this is a first gen or Alpha product that is going to have bugs (this is jus the nature of technology). Second off there are no 'Universal' binaries for Studio or any other Adobe products for that matter. But what about Rosetta? Well It doesn't look like Rosetta is very nice to Flash's new step brother. Photoshop CS2 runs much slower on the new Intel iMacs in speed tests, according to Ars Technica. Plus, according to the latest Photoshop TV video podcast, Adobe has a previous history of not release incremental updates, hence they think Photoshop will not be 'Universal' til CS3 (grab the vodcast yourself and watch between 16:40 and 18:10 for more info). But Photoshop isn't Studio. Actually, now that Flash and Macromedia are tied to Adobe, I think Flash and therefore Studio will be tied (at least loosely) to Photoshop. So if you feel the need for speed, it is probably a good idea to hold off on purchasing the new Mac Intels. At least wait till someone jumps on the bandwagon with official speed tests for Flash and FLV encoding.

Currently I'm going to consider a semi-update to a 'new' PowerBook instead and pray Flash Player 8.5 includes the first Universal Binary from Adobe, because as of right now Flash Player 8 does npt appeast to work in Safari on Intel without forcing Safari to run under Rosetta.

JD is worrying about this too, but what to do you think?

via The Unofficial Photoshop Weblog

Looks like the merger completion brings with it another big (and not unexpected) merge:

What are Adobe's plans for Flash Player and Adobe Reader?
Our long-term plan is to develop a "universal client" by combining PDF, Flash and HTML in a single, integrated runtime. Of course, we will continue delivering the Flash Player as a small, efficient runtime for content and applications on the web, and Adobe Reader for viewing and interacting with PDF documents and forms. The integration of these technologies into a unified framework creates a ubiquitous platform that runs on virtually every device, and dramatically expands the opportunities to create compelling solutions.

I guess Flash Paper is just a vectorized Adobe Reader now. Plus SVG will soon be fully consumed by Flash. The only question I might have is... where is my PDF manipulation ActionScript?

thanks What do i know

Flash Player 8.5 adds industrial-strength programming power on top of the expressiveness introduced in Flash Player 8, creating a state-of-the-art, cross-platform runtime. It includes a new virtual machine that offers faster runtime performance, full runtime error reporting, improved debugging, and ActionScript 3. ActionScript 3 complies with the latest ECMAScript specifications, and increases developer productivity by making it easier to find and fix errors earlier.

So I downloaded the Flash 8 trial yesterday, just like all of the rest of you. Before double-clicking to open the fresh disk image (on Mac) I notice something strange. The last modified date and create date are old. Both are September 1. Plus opening the image reveals the compressed installer file that has an even older create date, August 31. On the right you can see a double screenshot of what I saw.

I'm wondering if Katrina may have delayed our Flash 8 fun. If so, I wonder what was the original release date. Will we ever know? Though, if Macromedia did delay this major release for over a week due to this storm and its horrible impact, I commend them. I can only wonder what the marketing department meeting was like on the night of August 30th. OK, we are going to have to delay, because FlashInsider is going to be all out of sorts for at least a week maybe more. We need to pick a new release date, hey September 13th is open. Let's allow those early downloaders to go crazy and give them just enough time before MAX to get used to the product. Then we'll really show them.

Also, why is the version on the installer 1.5? Did they need to edit the installer a whole bunch before release or just change the release date info?

Latest Katrina update: The Society of Environmental Journalists is reporting on the government withholding information.

Yes that's right, yet another reason for Mac users (that's me too) to celebrate. Macromedia has added tabbed open files to Flash 8 and Dreamweaver 8. Finally Apple users can get the same experience in these great design tools that PC users have had since MX. Sure we lose a little screen real estate, but we gain quick file flipping. Thank goodness, I've been tired of Apple + ` (thats apple and accent not apple and apostrophe) for quite a while.

via Scott Fegette

John Dowdell apparently owns a Play Station Portable (PSP) (so jealous, I am) and he just read that the PSP web browser may gain Flash Player in its next upgrade. Does this mean Flash 8 Player? Or FlashLite 1.1? Or maybe a Sony homebrew? Who knows, but still extremely cool. Does this mean those awesome modders out there could add Flash Player on their own? To bad I don't own one...

I've been having computer problems. Internet Explorer kept taking forever to load sites and Firefox wasn't really being friendly on my Windows box. So what do I do? Uninstall Flash player 8 first. It's a beta and sometimes they cause problems. Then I install Flash Player 7 and test out my browsers again. Everything back to normal, whoo-hoo! But now I don't have 8 anymore, and I want it, heck I need it. What do I do? Go back to the Flash Player 8 page and re-install. Test again and voila, all works perfect. It seems I having been keeping up to date. Now I have Flash Player version 8,0,15,0 installed, the latest and greatest player. Now it's your turn to make sure you're up to date. Open a website with a Flash movie or game or application and right-click or control click (Mac). Select About Flash Player 8... from the drop down menu. This will open a page on Macromedia's site with more information on Flash player. On the right your version number will be displayed. If you don't have 8,0,15,0 as of today, you don't have the latest version of the beta. Upgrade for the best experience. Remember it's beta so it's not really done yet. If you want this to be more automatic you can change your automatic global notifications to check for Flash player updates as often as every 7 days via the Macromedia Flash Player Settings Manager's Global Notification Settings Panel.

Community MX has a great new tutorial up showing how to use ActionScript to adjust those new Flash 8 filters. You can easily add of change filters for movieclips and textareas using the code they give you. Now take that code make that new site for Flash 8 before Flash 8. The best thing about this demo is now I can get started on some Flash 8 development before I can afford Studio 8. It should be interesting to see how far the Maelstrom/Flash 8 demos go for those of us stuck with mx2004 due to empty wallets. Do you think you can create an almost full featured Flash 8 site with nothing more than Flash 8 player, like the developer hackers have been doing since the beta came out?

The Library is one of Mike Downey's lesser known new features in Flash 8, but for me it is my favorite new feature (not including bitmap caching, video improvements, and mobile testing). The Library finally stays in one place. You open Flash, you hit control+L immediately after starting a new project or even opening a old one. But then we had to have multiple Libraries open taking much needed screen space each time an FLA was opened. Now that's now necessary either. There is a drop down on top of the Library panel that allows Library switching inside the panel much like site switching in Dreamweaver. And it seems the thumbtack has infected this panel much like it does the Actions pane. Pressing the tack (they call it the clone button) will keep your current Library open and allow you to open other Libraries at the same time to copy Library assets from FLA to FLA. All of this is great, but one change please. Why not take the new tabbed panel concept further and place tabs for the Libraries on the right or left side of the panel instead of the drop down. This way I could quickly switch between libraries and see them all at the same time. Of course it could clutter the screen too and once you open a whole bunch of libraries it would be have to be setup like document tabs with the scrolling arrow. Maybe even have the panel collapse on the side of the other development panels and clicking each tab opens the respective library. Or... move the properties panel to the side and the Library to the bottom with items thumb nailed instead of listed down. Maybe I should settle down though and just wait to enjoy this coming release.