Macromedia has announced Studio 8. Although the US site has not yet been updated with the full Studio 8 fanfare, you can get an early glimpse of all the content on the UK site: http://www.macromedia.co.uk.

Also check out the Flash Pro 8 page for the latest Flash features (Caveat: I was *really* sleepless when they shot that video and the sunburn didn't help things at all!) :)

Guo Haifeng has created a Chinese version of my FlashForward 2005 New York presentation on ActionScript 2 For Right Brainers. Guo was kind enough to email me and ask permission to post the translated version (thanks, man!) but he didn't even have to because I had released it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales license.

For more information on Creative Commons, see their web site.

The OSFlash site was down for a few hours today as we upgraded the server and fixed a resource problem that had resulted in new registrations not working properly. This issue has now been fixed and the site is back up and functioning correctly.

If you had tried, unsuccessfully, to register on the site in the last two days, please try again now and it should work without a problem.

Emilie and I got back to the UK from our trip to the Far East yesterday, after a grueling 16-hour trip back on Emirates and, after some much needed rest, I'm about to embark on the frightening task of catching up on two weeks worth of email, work and OSFlash requests :) But, before I do, a quick run-down of our trip:

First stop: Kuala Lumpur. My goodness, how it has changed in the last 15-odd years and, unfortunately, not all for the better. The city I remember as being a faultless collage of nature and high-tech has almost eradicated the former in favour of the latter. Apparently, KL went through a period of rapid "modernization" at some point in the 90s, resulting in a sprawling concrete jungle replacing the remnants of countless tropical ones. Pollution is a problem on a scale that was unheard of when I was last there.. There are, of course, positive developments too, like an underground and monorail system which we made judicious use of during our stay. The Shangri-La hotel had changed little and our stay was comfortable, but nothing compared to our stay in Singapore. Touring my old schools, meeting Amelia (the little girl next door with whom we terrorized the neighbourhood as kids) and seeing the sights, hearing the sounds and breathing in the smells of my childhood was an amazing experience. It also made me realize concretely what I had suspected all along: that the magical kingdom I left as a child will only live on in my memories. The realities of the land are today (and perhaps have always been) far different from my limited experience of them as a child.

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