Congratulations, guys! 
Archive for June, 2006
FC64, the open source Flash Commodore 64 emulator project by Darron Schall and Claus Wahlers won a well-earned first prize in the "Just Freakin' Cool" category of the Flex Developer Derby! Play with a live demo of FC64 online and relive the glory days of the Commodore 64 through the magic of ActionScript 3 and Flex 2.
Alongside the Flex 2 release, Adobe just released a preview version of Flash Professional 9 on Adobe Labs. This is an early look at the next version of the Flash IDE with ActionScript 3 support. Download it on Adobe Labs.
What are you waiting for? Go download version 1.0 now from Adobe.com!
Congratulations to the amazing folks on the Flex team on their astounding effort. They completely rewrote (and vastly expanded) the Flex framework in ActionScript 3 while also creating a completely new (and rockin') visual IDE based on Eclipse. If my own experiences in the last year or so are any indication, you are going to love working with the Flex 2 Framework and Flex Builder 2!
On a personal note, check out the Flex Quick Starts (you can also access them from the Flex Builder start page.) I was lucky enough to be asked to author those (thanks, Sho!), working with a wonderful little team that includes my two editors, Stephen Gilson and Linda Adler, Amy Wong, Randy Nielsen and Sho Kuwomoto. There are a dozen Quick Starts ready at the moment and we'll be adding more of them on a regular basis following the release.
In tandem with Flex 2, Adobe has also released the Flash Player 9. This revolutionary new version of the Flash Player contains two virtual machines, a legacy one supporting ActionScript 1 and ActionScript 2 and a brand-spankin'-new, lean-and-mean virtual machine for ActionScript 3.
I'll Flash anywhere dammit! I don't discriminate.
Have you heard of Flash on the Beach? No, it's not a new cocktail. Although if it was, I'd expect it to have Kahlua in it. Lots!
Flash on the Beach is a new Flash conference being held in my home town of Brighton, UK. I've been in close contact with John Davey, who is organizing the event (OK, wipe that smirk off your face, it wasn't that close and we were both fully clothed -- in pink tutus to be exact!) But I digress: Pete-Barr Watson is also involved (married, actually, but that's another matter altogether.)
It's great that we're having a Flash conference on my home turf. Wrote "turd" the first time. It was funny for about a second. Then I thought about Wii. Oh I crack me up (and me alone, I'm sure.) Wii jokes will never get old, I tell you. And neither will you if you attend Flash on the Beach. OK, you will. But you'll have stories to tell matey. Stories, I tell you. Yes, italics and all. Them kind'a stories. And pebbles.
Speakers? Have we got speakers? No, really, have we? 'Cors we do. Spanning the spectrum from artsy-fartsy to thinks-in-binary. We've got 'em by the dozen. OK, so right now we have a little over a dozen. But they include Erik Natzke. And Branden Hall. Need I say more? OK, so how about Hoss Gifford and Phillip Kerman. And this lovely pair of kitchen scrubbers*. And ME, ME, ME! And Pete Barr-Watson, Mike Downey, Joey Lott, Brendan Dawes, Craig Swann, Jobe Makar, Chris Orwig, Rich Shupe, Seb Lee-Delisle and Robert Reinhardt.
Man what a line up and it's not even half complete yet!
(And I have some insider info -- this just in -- that Mike Chambers is going to be speaking at the event too! And on Apollo!)
Early bird pricing for the event, until the end of July, is £199 (inc. VAT).
For more information, and to sign up, see the Flash on the Beach web site.
* kitchen scrubbers not included.
I'm off to Belgium tomorrow morning for Multi-Mania '06 (at some freakishly early hour apparently... with my current deadlines, I might as well not sleep tonight!) I blogged about it earlier so won't go into the details again here. Needless to say, if you're going to the event, feel free to come up and say hello. I do bite but I've been told it's quite an enjoyable experience. Oh yes, deadlines...
Paul Boag recently interviewed me for his Boagworld podcast. In the podcast, Paul says that the interview made him "realize that Flash has grown up a lot and it's been tarred with a brush which is somewhat out of date these days."
From the podcast description on the site:
In our previous podcasts on flash we focused very much on the dangers associated with adding flash to your site. Although this was a necessary discussion it gave a somewhat one sided view of what is a very exciting technology. Therefore we thought it would be a good idea to redress the balance by looking at just how much flash has matured over the last couple of years.
Paul and Aral discuss:
- How Aral got into flash development
- Flashes capabilities beyond the basic animation for which it has become known
- Flash video
- The accessibility problems surrounding flash
- Printing with flash
- Flash applications and how they interact with the humble web browser
- Adobe's new flash development platform
- The flash open source community
- The open source flash media server
- Some general principles of good flash design
- The future of flash
Also in this episode of boagworld Paul and Marcus discuss whether accessibility is holding back the world of web design and how to write a good CV as a freelance web designer.
Andrew Eatherington recently shared his Arp success story with the OSFlash mailing list. Andrew used Arp in his project to build the Nutrition Counter RIA for the McDonald's UK web site. I may not eat at McDonald's or support their business model but the application itself is a very good example of a clean, good-looking and useful RIA.
The application was built using Arp and the WebServiceConnector. It is published for the Flash 6 player.
To quote Andrew, "Its a first for me and I have enjoyed trying out ARP in the 'real world'. Look forward to many more."
You can view the Nutrition Counter in the "Eat Smart" Section of McDonald's UK.
You can learn more about Arp and other open source Flash projects on OSFlash.
I'm off to Bristol tomorrow morning to teach a two-day Flash Masterclass sponsored by Bristol Media.
The class is a combination of my Hot Shots: Foundations of Object-Oriented ActionScript 2 and Hot Shots: Best Practices Flash & Flex courses and will take place at the South West Screen offices in Bristol on Thursday, 22nd and Friday, 23rd June.
I was recently interviewed for a podcast by Ronald and Koen, the personable duo behind next week's Multi-Mania conference in Belgium that I'm going to speaking at. The said interview is now up on the Multi-Mania web site (and here's a direct link to the MP3). In it I share my thoughts on various things, including, of course, OSFlash, Flex 2 and my experiences in licking melted chocolate from the nipples of famous Hollywood midgets. OK, so two out of three -- I didn't really talk about Flex!
Multi-Mania will feature a panel discussion on OSFlash that I'll be chairing. Those of you who attended Spark Europe may remember a similar panel discussion there that ended up becoming a lively episode of "Is Red 5 Legal?" with FUD thrown about like chairs in Steve Ballmer's office. This time around, I hope we can use the panel to demonstrate the amazing open source work that the Flash community has been producing on OSFlash and to create a platform to connect with and address the needs, questions and ideas of the local community in Belgium. I am very lucky to have five great panelists on board: Christophe Herreman (AS2Lib, Arp), Edwin Van Rijkom (Screenweaver), Waldo Smeets (Adobe Benelux), Serge Jespers and Peter Elst.
Ronald and Koen suggested that we could use my blog to brainstorm ideas for the panel beforehand so if you have any, feel free to leave a comment.
Finally, I'm also going to be giving a talk at Multi-Mania on Arp and building Rich Internet Applications on the Flash Platform. There might be an interesting announcement and demonstration at that talk -- even a first-look at something new maybe, who knows!
Calling all filmmakers: Current TV just launched a contest seeking a short form piece (pod) about tolerance. Winning filmmaker will receive $100,000 with an additional $15k to the nonprofit, tolerant organization of their choice. Also, the 2 runners up will receive cash prizes. Celebrity judges: Paul Haggis, Margaret Cho, Edward Norton and Melissa Etheridge.
Laina, a very good friend of mine who works at Current TV, asked if I'd help her get the word out on the contest. Actually, after getting her email, I read up a bit more on Current TV and I love what they're doing. In fact, you can see a sampling of their latest stuff on their Video Preview page. I enjoyed the viewer-created piece on "The Dubizzle in Dubai".
So what is Current TV and how does it work? From their website:
Anyone who wants to contribute can upload a video. Then, everyone in the Current online community votes for what should be on TV. You can join in at either stage -- watch & vote or create & upload. (We've also got online training to help you get the skills you need to make TV!)
This is definitely not a traditional TV network. Watching Current, you'll see more, on more topics, from more points of view.
But if we're going to succeed, we need you to do more than watch; we need you to jump in and participate.
Which brings us to this contest. Here's what Laina says about it in her email:
If you know any filmmakers, actors or writers, can you let them know about this cool opportunity? Any pieces that the audience likes will still make it to air and be paid - just like how we air other viewer created content. Current has about 30% of our content from viewers and are looking to up that number to 65%.
The piece need not be heavy and depressing, it can be delivered in any manner that carries the point of tolerance.
So, what are you waiting for? Fire up those camcorders and boot up your shiny new MacBook -- you've got a film to make!
Recent Comments