Flash Insider http://www.flashinsider.com Flash Insider http://www.flashinsider.com/media/feedlogo.gif Flash Insider http://www.flashinsider.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/<![CDATA[Flash Insider retiring]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/10/flash-insider-retiring/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/10/flash-insider-retiring/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/10/flash-insider-retiring/#comments
And, naturally, we're grateful to our readers! Thank you for your loyalty.
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]]>2006-08-10T17:49:00+00:00<![CDATA[Happy Birthday Flash!]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/09/happy-birthday-flash/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/09/happy-birthday-flash/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/09/happy-birthday-flash/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Ten Years of FlashToday is Flash's 10th birthday! From 1996's FutureSplash Animator to today's Flash 8...we've come a long way baby! It's been a great ride and there's no end in sight!

While you're downloading Flash Professional 9 AS3 Preview from Labs or the trial version of Flex 2 to get on with the future of Flash, take a trip through memory lane at these sites:

The history of Flash splash pages
The history of Flash from the Flash Team
The history of Flash from the horse's mouth...AKA John Gay founder of FutureSplash

So sit down and make a simple timeline animation, make a button that starts and stops your movie, make a shape tween, add a sound effect, get in touch with your inner Flasher and remember the first time you started Flash up. And if you want to celebrate Flash with some other folks, then check out an Adobe User Group in your area for the August meeting. Many groups are having a Flash-themed meeting this month. Get out and join the community!

On a separate note: Weblogsinc, the owner of FlashInsider, has decided to discontinue publishing FlashInsider (there will be an official note tomorrow sometime). The site will remain here as an archive, but no new content will be added. So this will be my final post here, and I just wanted to personally say thank you to all of you for reading. I appreciate your support over the last year or so. Hope to see you all at MAX!
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]]>Adobefuture splashFutureSplashjohn gayJohnGay2006-08-09T08:00:00+00:00<![CDATA[Review: Flash 8 Essentials]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/03/review-flash-8-essentials/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/03/review-flash-8-essentials/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/03/review-flash-8-essentials/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

Friends of ED has been releasing competently compiled web design books made with collaboration from some of the best for quite a few years now and when they offered a few books to the Flash Insider team to read I jumped at the chance. The first book I cracked open was the latest in their Essentials series, Flash 8 Essentials. The Essentials books are meant to grab current and future web designers and give them a quick dip into the latest web design software. This book was written a quick guide to Flash 8 and includes enough tutorial and code to get most designers and developers up to speed. The writing style of this book is similar to a motivational seminar on Flash. This helps the reader become extremely excited about the new version and can make you feel like you can do everything in the book.

Flash 8 Essentials has six authors, but the reader will not notice a definite change from one chapter to the next. Each author has already made a name for himself in the Flash design and development world. Two of the authors have already written a few books on this subject and one helped to create the current Developer Certification Exam.

read the rest of the review after the jump

Though the book doesn't come with a CDROM, all the referenced FLAs and samples can be found quite easily on the Friends of ED website. The screenshots within the book help to bring the content to the reader on an OS independent platform. This is good for designer like me who work with Mac for personal projects but on PC at work. If I have to reference back to the book at anytime in the future, I know it won't matter where I am or what OS I am in.

Flash 8 Essentials is divided into 10 chapters plus an appendix. The chapters take you down the road or all the new and improved features and leave you with the impress that coding will be very important for this version of Flash. The first chapter gives a quick overview of everything in the book. Each chapter after the first gives at least one concise example of a major feature and includes well-explained code and easily understood figures. Then the appendix gets into a few advanced tutorials that touch on dynamic bitmap manipulation, file uploads and more.

At the end of the book I felt ready to tackle a bunch of new projects and pondered ways to improve some old ones (I've been wanting to retackle an old Camera() based project for a while. I think most will find this a good addition to their technical bookshelf, but new Flashers will need to invest in a few other books in addition to this one as they come up to speed, including at least one Flash bible or over reaching glossary type book that explains it all. Experienced Flashers will find this to be an essential part of their library in order to transition easily to Flash 8, if they haven't already.

Now, what am I going to do with this book? If you are in the New Orleans area and come out the NOMMUG Tenth Anniversary of Flash party on Tulane's campus on August 14th, you will have a chance to win the now well-read copy I used for this review. See you there!

About this book:
Flash 8 Essentials
by Paul Barnes-Hoggett, Stephen Downs, Glen Rhodes, Craig Swann, Matt Vierman, and Todd Yard.
ISBN: 1590595327
publisher: friends of ED

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]]>bookessentialsflashflash-8-essentialsfriends-of-EDreview2006-08-03T15:00:00+00:00<![CDATA[Programming is Hard...]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/02/programming-is-hard/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/02/programming-is-hard/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/02/programming-is-hard/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Programming is Hard: Coad Actionscript Faster...so get some help! And help others while you're there too!

Programming is Hard is a code snippet repository that covers a number of useful languages, including Actionscript. FriedGeek's post with AS shortcuts is a great tip to know and there's plenty of other good info here. Grab what you need and leave a snippet or two of your own!

[via Daily DIY]
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]]>2006-08-02T11:39:00+00:00<![CDATA[Free Flash and Flex Training]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/01/free-flash-and-flex-training/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/01/free-flash-and-flex-training/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/01/free-flash-and-flex-training/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , ,

IFBIN.com LogoOne of the most common post topics on the Adobe Flash User Forums is a request for tutorial recommendations. Well, here ya go! Great tutorials and it FREE!

IFBIN.com just opened their service to the public for free. It is a client that you need to download and install that allows you to browse and download the Flash By Example and Flex By Example code/tutorial libraries. Great stuff!

The current IFBIN.com site is a little sketchy on the details, but the FREE message is loud and clear. You can read Darron Schall's (one of the contributors) description of the service here.

IFBIN is the brainchild of Adobe Flex Evangelist Ted Patrick. Originally, a subscription service, the move to a FREE model is a little confusing, but it's certainly not time to look a gift horse in the mouth!

Geek Cocktail Party Bonus: What's better than throwing around alphabet-soup acronyms? Knowing what the mean. Check here to lean what IFBIN really stands for!
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]]>ifbinted patrickTedPatrick2006-08-01T14:20:00+00:00<![CDATA[Halo 2 Eat Your Heart Out]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/01/halo-2-eat-your-heart-out/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/01/halo-2-eat-your-heart-out/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/08/01/halo-2-eat-your-heart-out/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

Stickman MadnessWho needs all those high-end sounds and graphics on proprietary gaming boxes?! Dragon Gamez hosts the Flash game "Stickman Madness" which proves you don't need hi-res to have a lot of fun.

Stickman Madness is as violent as any other first-person shooter in the vein of Doom, all done in minimal yet ravishing red, black and white. Somehow reminiscent of joys found in the early Frog in a Blender Flash animation...but interactive!

Don't blame me if you spend a while playing...
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]]>dragon gamezDragonGamezstickman madnessStickmanMadness2006-08-01T08:04:00+00:00<![CDATA[Odd Job Jack files open to the public]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/27/odd-job-jack-files-open-to-the-public/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/27/odd-job-jack-files-open-to-the-public/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/27/odd-job-jack-files-open-to-the-public/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Odd Job JackThe creators of the Canadian show Odd Job Jack will release all master flash files, bitmaps, art, props etc. of each episode every week. Also included will be tutorials and documentation so you can hack or remix to your hearts content via a Creative Commons license. Check for a new set every Monday via bittorrent. If you do anything with these files, post it in our comment section. Happy animating!
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]]>animationartfilesodd job blackOddJobBlackopen sourceOpenSourcesamplessource filesSourceFiles2006-07-27T07:45:00+00:00<![CDATA[How to create your own YouTube site]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/26/how-to-create-your-own-youtube-site/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/26/how-to-create-your-own-youtube-site/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/26/how-to-create-your-own-youtube-site/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

create your own YouTubeHave you ever wanted to know how you can create your own video hosting site allowing users to upload video, automatically convert it to FLV, and display it for the world to see? A recent post at Daniel's Random Mutterings (DRM - how clever) explains exactly how to do this with open source tools. Using a Djano CMS system, FFMpeg for the FLV encoding, FLVtools2 for writing meta information, and FlowPlayer for embedding the SWF file you'll have everything you need to get started. The code is pretty straight forward and a great starting point. Now go forth and create your new video distribution empire.
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]]>automationdistributionflvhow toHowToonlinetutorialvideoyoutube2006-07-26T20:52:00+00:00<![CDATA[MDM Contest(s) for Flashers]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/24/mdm-contest-s-for-flashers/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/24/mdm-contest-s-for-flashers/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/24/mdm-contest-s-for-flashers/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , ,

MDM Multimedia Flash ContestMDM Multimedia is celebrating its fourth birthday by hosting a Flash contest...actually TWO contests. They've set it up as a Designer Vs. Developer contest, but that's really not the case. It's really two different contests: one for designers and one for developers (a distinction that I've never really liked...I know that there has to be some division of duties in a business workflow, but the implication that a designer is the "creative" person and the developer is the "technical" person just doesn't sit right with me, nor has it ever been that clean-cut in my experience...end rant...).

The designer contest is for a marketing campaign and the developer contest is more application oriented. The new version of MDM's Zinc supports Flash Player 9, AS3 and Flex 2, so the idea that you didn't use for the Flex Derby would be a great fit here.

The prize packages top out around $1,000 worth of goodies, so take a look-see and show 'em your stuff!
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]]>actionscript 3Actionscript3as3contestflash player 9FlashPlayer9mdm multimediaMdmMultimedia2006-07-24T10:50:00+00:00<![CDATA[Cromm Cruac: A dark and twisted flash layout]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/24/cromm-cruac-a-dark-and-twisted-flash-layout/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/24/cromm-cruac-a-dark-and-twisted-flash-layout/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/24/cromm-cruac-a-dark-and-twisted-flash-layout/#commentsFiled under: ,

Cromm CruacThis wickely-twisted Flash design will leave your skin tingling. The navigation can be a bit confusing but it is still fun to explore the site. I'm not quite sure what the site is about, but it is very imaginative, to say the least. My favorite part is the twisty music position bar at the lower right. What do you think? Post a comment in the section below.

P.S. What is up with this creepy girl?
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]]>darkdesignevilexamplegrimlayoutnoirsamplesite2006-07-24T07:00:00+00:00<![CDATA[OSX based Flash layout]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/16/osx-based-flash-layout/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/16/osx-based-flash-layout/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/16/osx-based-flash-layout/#commentsFiled under: ,

iFizzle.com
Is this my latest piece of Apple hardware? Nope, it's iFizzle.com which has done an impressive job re-creating the OS X interface in Flash. His site features the standard dock, a working iPhoto app for his pictures, text edit for his blog, and even iTunes playing music where you can change the song. To top it off, you can change the frame from a Mac Book Pro, cinema display, Mac Book (black or white), and an iMac. Really creative use for Flash. Go check it out.
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]]>appleexampleeye candyEyeCandyinterfacemacosx2006-07-16T21:32:00+00:00<![CDATA[Create your own magic eye using Flash]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/14/create-your-own-magic-eye-using-flash/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/14/create-your-own-magic-eye-using-flash/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/14/create-your-own-magic-eye-using-flash/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Magic Eye3D Stereogram is a neat little app that lets you make your own magic eye pictures. You start off at a blank canvas with various different pen tools. I don't know if there are any tricks to creating a good one so I just scribbled around. Next hit done and it will generate your magic eye with the necessary code to embed it elsewhere on the web. Not knowing how to exactly see the magic, I can't tell you if it works or not. Have a look at what I did and give it a try yourself.
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]]>artgenerationillusionimagemagic eyeMagicEyemakeyour ownYourOwn2006-07-14T14:00:00+00:00<![CDATA[Stop making Flash scrollbars]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/14/stop-making-flash-scrollbars/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/14/stop-making-flash-scrollbars/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/14/stop-making-flash-scrollbars/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Stop making flash scrollbarsHoss Gifford has figured out a way to dynamically resize a Flash movie embedded in an HTML page. The practical application of this is now you can have your movie resize based on how much content there is to display. Being able to scroll with the browsers scroll bar instead of creating a separate flash scrollbar is the chief benefit to this technique. To accomplish this Gifford uses the swfObject by Geoff Stearns. Hoss has kindly made available the source code for this project under a creative commons license in hopes that someone can improve it. Check out the demo to see the resizer in action and download all the necessary files in one convenient zip.
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]]>demodyamicexampleresizescrollusability2006-07-14T08:00:00+00:00<![CDATA[The Copyright Issue]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/10/the-copyright-issue/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/10/the-copyright-issue/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/10/the-copyright-issue/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Copyright or Creative Commons?After my post last week on the Pollack piece, I was thinking about the whole copyright issue again. As a budding web designer, I learned a lot from viewing the source code on sites that I liked, and I hope that others have viewed my code and learned from things I've done. Once I got into ColdFusion, the learning curve followed a slightly more esoteric bent. You can't view the compiled HTML source of a ColdFusion page and see the code under the hood. so you have to seek out tutorials, books, or kind developers who are willing to share their secrets. Flash is even more of a black box as far as the browser is concerned. All you get when viewing HTML source is the name of the movie. We all know there are decompilers out there, but you're never going to get the experience of seeing the original code even with those.

Coming from a background in education, I have a lot of unresolved issues here. For me, knowledge is a precious thing and it should be shared. This is the basis of the education itself. As a designer and developer though, I need to earn a living from my work. A delicate balancing act to say the least. I've always tried to follow a principle which in college I dubbed "beer karma." You let your friends drink your beer now because it will always come back to you later when you don't have any.

Recently, Microsoft released an Add-in for Office that allows you to embed Creative Commons licenses into your Office documents. Adobe supports Creative Commons through the XMP standard. Last summer, Mike Chambers posted a View Source for Flash Resources extension. These may not be the answers, but they at least start to address some of the questions we face when dealing with these issues.

Even if you aren't quite ready to share your source code with anyone who looks at your movies, share your knowledge and experience. Join one of the many Flash bulletin boards (the Adobe Flash Forums or FlashKit for example) and give to the community. You might be surprised at what you get back in return.

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]]>communitycopyrightcreative commonsCreativeCommons2006-07-10T11:37:00+00:00<![CDATA[Adobe MAX 2006 Register Today!]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/10/adobe-max-2006-register-today/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/10/adobe-max-2006-register-today/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/10/adobe-max-2006-register-today/#commentsFiled under: ,

Adobe MAX 2006Registration for Adobe MAX 2006 opens today. This is the first post-merger MAX, so it should be a doozy!

They've also posted an agenda for the conference. Register today! and I'll see you all in Vegas!

Registration Info (including pricing)
Direct link to the Registration Form
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]]>adobeadobemax06las vegasLasVegas2006-07-10T10:37:00+00:00<![CDATA[Flash Your Own Pollock]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/03/flash-your-own-pollock/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/03/flash-your-own-pollock/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/07/03/flash-your-own-pollock/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,

My Jackson PollockMiltos Manetas has put together a nice time waster for your Monday afternoon. Create your own Jackson Pollock drip painting without all the mess at JacksonPollack.org. Great use of the Drawing API! I can't wait to show this to my 7-year-old...but I get to play with it for a while first...

Note: Click to change paint colors.

[via Jack Nack]

Added Note (7.6.06): Seems the authorship of JacksonPollock.org is questionable. See the comment below for some background and Stamen's site for the original.
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]]>drawing apiDrawingApiJackson PollockJacksonPollockMiltos ManetasMiltosManetas2006-07-03T16:07:00+00:00<![CDATA[Stephen Elop Resigns]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/16/stephen-elop-resigns/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/16/stephen-elop-resigns/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/16/stephen-elop-resigns/#commentsFiled under: ,

Stepehn ElopYikes! Don't know what to make of this so soon after the merger but...

According to an Adobe press release dated yesterday, 15 June, Stephen Elop, former CEO of Macromedia and current President of Worldwide Field Operations, has resigned. There isn't really any more information than that except that Elop will remain on till 5 December....wonder if he'll make MAX?

What's the consensus on this? Adobe cleaning house? or does Elop have something else up his sleeve? Maybe he's going to join Jeremy Allaire at Brightcove?
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]]>adobestephen elopStephenElop2006-06-16T17:07:00+00:00<![CDATA[Flash from the Brawney Man]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/16/flash-from-the-brawney-man/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/16/flash-from-the-brawney-man/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/16/flash-from-the-brawney-man/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Brwney AcademyOur sister site, Ad-Jab, blogged about this site yesterday. Brawney Academy is an advertising site for Georgia Pacific's Brawney Paper Towels. Under the auspices of a reality show, our host, "Brawney Man," leads eight manly men through some sort of outdoor sensitivity training. Only the first of what looks to be eight video episodes has been posted so far, but lots of other stuff to do on the site including your own training in manly sensitivity. If you work at it, you too could attain the Brawney Academy goal by becoming  "[d]ependable and strong, but caring"...and thus, like the Brawney Man himself, "a literal human representation of the paper towel's qualities."

Not too sure about the whole reality series concept, but I like the site design. The combination of photo-realistic elements and retro graphics is worthy of a Disney Imagineer.

[via Ad-Jab]
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]]>advertising2006-06-16T10:56:00+00:00<![CDATA[MAX 2006!]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/08/max-2006/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/08/max-2006/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/08/max-2006/#commentsFiled under: , ,

MAX 2006Save the date! October 23-26, 2006! Las Vegas, Nevada! MAX 2006!

This will be the first MAX since the merger. Adobe folks were present last year (remember the guys in the suits?) but couldn't really say too much since the merger had yet to close. This year, we'll get the full treatment: Adobe goodness on top of all that Macromedia richness. Sometimes MAX is a bit of a cheer-fest, preaching to the choir, but just having all those designers and developers in one place is always inspirational. So mark the date, keep checking the site, or sign up for the emails. More info will surely be coming soon!

See ya in Vegas!
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]]>2006adobeconferencelas vegasLasVegas2006-06-08T12:15:00+00:00<![CDATA[Harold & the Purple Crayon for the Flash Set]]>http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/06/harold-and-the-purple-crayon-for-the-flash-set/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/06/harold-and-the-purple-crayon-for-the-flash-set/http://www.flashinsider.com/2006/06/06/harold-and-the-purple-crayon-for-the-flash-set/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Animator vs. AnimationHere's something to add a little laughter to your day...or a lot of laughter, depending on how you react to such things. So, just to play it safe, don't look at this in the middle of a meeting like John Dowdell did yesterday! Wait till you have a few minutes alone (or invite your closest cube-mates) and let it roll.

Alan Becker did a great job updating the Harold and the Purple Crayon concept, infusing it with the frustration and angst that every Flash animator has experienced at one time or another. There's something really satisfying about seeing the Flash IDE under attack.

Enjoy!

[via JD]
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]]>animationcartoon2006-06-06T09:54:00+00:00