Instructor Blogs

Hey Gang,

We’ve kind of slowed down on the blog posts because we weren’t sure that anyone was reading it. Take the poll below and let us know if we should continue?

What to see mistakes others make? This blog shows really bizarre “Photoshopping” mistakes. Take a look, some are quite amusing.

Photoshop Disasters

Adobe launched Photoshop Express this week. Another Flex application, it allows users to upload images and offer 2GB of storage - all free with some basic but helpful editing features. If you have friends or family who are a bit more computer challenged and are not looking to spend money on photo editing software - definitely worth mentioning to them.

It’s also interesting to see Adobe forging ahead with web based apps. I must admit - I’m very pleased with Share and have been using it weekly to share large files.

Adobe has launched the latest version of Kuler, their online color harmony app and for the first time, you can upload a photo and use that as a basis for the color theme you create.

Pretty slick - click below to check it out.

I was not too thrilled with NBC when they pulled their content from iTunes and I’m pretty good at holding grudges. Still, I though it was worth mentioning that after a long beta - Hulu is open for business.

A joint venture between NBC and News Corp., it’s loaded with free online Flash Video - TV shows and movies from more than 50 content providers like Fox, NBC, MGM, Sony, Warner Bros., and Lionsgate. The size of the library is pretty good right out of the gate. I’m finding it entertaining to go back and watch the old Irwin Allen shows like the Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants that I watched when I was a kid.

Not the greatest quality, the content is still quite a few steps above youTube and it’s free so of course that helps deal with some artifacts. Be warned that the advertising is blatant and will only serve to turn away many viewers.

For those of you who have not discovered this site on your own, I thought I’d mention this very cool movie titles site.

I’ve always been a fan of good title sequences for films and I was pleased to see a database slowly forming at the link below. I wish their collection had greater depth or that a single alphabetical list appear somewhere but perhaps in time.

As far as the collection being small - I think they’re trying to do this legally and with no copyright issues so that’s going to take a bit of time…

A student in last week’s Flash Level 1 class was asking about how to load external variables into a flash movie and it’s changed a bit in ActionScript 3. It’s times like these that I get frustrated with Adobe. I’ve finally got it figured out and it’s working - woo hoo. The bummer is that it took me about an hour and a half!

Now maybe I’m just slow or stubborn or both but the documentation stinks! Somehow, the help files are essentially only referencing the ActionScript 2 approach, even to the point of using _level0 in their example. Hey Adobe, you threw away that keyword with ActionScript 3! I had better luck at liveDocs but as per usual, 5 people comment with 5 different solutions. Once I gleaned snip from here and another snip from there, I have the solution and a new project for occasional use in my ActionScript class. Here’s the lowdown:

• To access the loaded variables on the main timeline, use: root.loaderInfo.parameters.variableName
• Add the FlashVars parameter to Three places. Object Tag, embed Tag, and the AC_FL_RunContent function section
• This cannot be tested in the Flash Authoring / Test Movie.
• If the HTML is created by Flash, be careful to not republish the project as the publish command will overwrite the HTML as well as the SWF file and your additional parameters will be erased.

Hope this proves helpful for those interested in such a procedure.

For you Flex types out there, it appears that there is a new Flex User Group in Dallas. I have not been to any of their meetings yet - In fact, I’ve got no idea who’s running it or how many meeting they’ve had so far. My impression is that it’s new enough that they do not have a permanent location yet but looks like 60 folks have signed up as members so it will be interesting to see how this grows…

Looks like the next meeting is March 27th. Click the pic below for more info.

If you’re a Flash developer/designer, I think you’d need to have some awareness of precisely which version of the Flash Player 9 you have and what authoring tool you’re using.

Player 9 continues to expand it’s capabilities and now the Authoring tool has had 2 updates. It gets a bit confusing as to what does what, not only on your development computer but what your clients can expect.

• Flash Player 9.0.24.0 + supports Fullscreen Flash Video - Flash 9 player below this revision does not.
• Flash Player 9.0.115.0 + supports H264 non-FLV video. Again, this revision or higher will play mpg, while below it will not.
• The Flash authoring update 9.0.2 installs a new FLVPlayback component that supports h264 video.
• The Flash authoring update 9.0.3 installs Adobe AIR support inside Flash authoring. Templates and new commands to access and configure your AIR installer are added.

I have no idea or what they were thinking but neither the splash page or about Flash function show anything other than Flash 9.0 - even after installing these two updates. Perhaps Adobe considers these patches and optional for most users? All I know is that it’s problematic to keep track which systems have been updated and which ones have not when you’re maintaining 60 - 70 systems.

Click the pic below to goto the official player test page at Adobe. Rollover “about” to have it return your exact player version. Unfortunately, there’s not an easy way to determine your authoring version. Email me if you need help on that one.

This past week Big Spaceship showed up on the Apple Pro website. It’s an interesting profile of the all-Mac agency who has consistently pushed the boundaries with Flash entertainment websites, picking up quite a few awards along the way. Follow the links to check them out.

Now that it’s been discontinued, If you’re like me, you’ll want to remove all traces of Adobe Stock Photos - here’s the links to uninstallers. Auto updates does not remove it.

Adobe Stock Photo Uninstaller - MAC

Adobe Stock Photo Uninstaller - WIN

Adobe announced today that it was ending the Stock Photography service effective April 1st. I’m not sure if any of you have purchased images through the service but thought it was worth mentioning. Click the pic below for the FAQ at Adobe.

If you have not been by the Communication Arts website recently, they have done a complete redesign and I am impressed. Not only is it much cleaner but they have merged with their sister site - Design Interact. The best of both is now a single site, presented in a format more reflective of the magazine itself.

Um, the content isn’t bad either…

Happy New Year !

… and apologies for letting the blog sit dormant as we started 2008.

Last Thursday, Flash Media Server 3 was officially released. Remember from my previous post that if all you wish to do is stream video - that is “real” streaming, non-cached video, then you can now get en edition called Flash Media Streaming Server for only $995 with unlimited connections.

You can also download a developer edition that has no time expiration and 10 connections. This is great to put onto your office system to set up and test streaming locally - works on a Windows XP box. The purchased FMSS will require Linux or Windows Server 2003

Times they are a changin’

OK, so I’m starting to dig into the new Flash player update and now I’m starting to notice the ripple effects. For our Flashers out there, I thought this might be some helpful info:

• The current / latest Flash player is 9.0.115.0 (supports H.264 – “non-flv” video)
• Flash CS3 (Authoring) has had it’s first update – 9.0.2
• The Flash authoring update installs a new FLVPlayback component – overwriting the previous one.
• The new FLVPlayback component has some new props and methods to manage fullscreen video – with or without hardware acceleration.
• When using the component inspector to point to source property to your video file, - it only allows for FLV assets. If you want non-FLV video, you must manually type in the URL – Yikes!
• If using the Comp inspector - when you point source to your non-FLV video, make sure Match source FLV dimensions and Download FLV for cue points and dimensions are not checked. Remember it’s not an FLV anymore…
• The FLVPlayback cannot determine the size of the video - be careful to make sure you manually enter the correct size and aspect ratio.

That’s it for now - I’m sure that there’s more to come…