Merry Christmas.. yes Christmas

I've been busy working on the companies new all Flash website so sorry for the absence. I may or may not be posting within the next week depends on how busy I get over the holiday.
I'm also working on my own portfolio site that I've been working on and off again.

On another topic, I recently saw on the news, malls not allowing children on the laps of Santa's because they fear liability suits. All I have to say it this is getting crazy. We can't wish anyone 'Merry Christmas' in case they're a different religion. We can't have Christmas trees in court rooms, or in Airports.
Well you know what? I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Noel

Photoshop CS3 beta

If you haven't heard yet a public beta has been (or will be shortly) released for Photoshop CS3. I was hoping to do a quick review of it here since Photoshop and Flash go hand in hand, but I'm still waiting to download it.

If you're like me and love to play with new stuff you can get it here:
http://labs.adobe.com/
When it's been released.

Stay tuned for a review.

WOW! On a Mac?!

Not a very descriptive title I know. But when I saw this, it blew me away.

My number one excuse for not switching to Mac was because of all the apps I could download on trial and (I hate to say this) from torrents on my PC. But now that I can run all my apps on a Mac, my excuse is gone.
It looks like I'm switching before I have to invest in Vista. Hooray!!

The new YouTube

I just got wind of this new service Viddler.com. What makes this site a little more interesting than all the other internet video services is it uses Flash's cue-points to tag certain areas of the video, so you can send someone a link to just the area of the video you're talking about or think they may be interested in.

This is a great idea. I've watched video before where the only good part was half way through and I had to sit and watch almost all of it. I also like the fact that you can upload up to 500 mb.

I haven't signed up for this service yet, but I think I'm trading in my YouTube account.

The BUZZ

Upon my daily reviews of blogs that regularly read, I came across something that seems to be popping up regularly, flashpanoramas.
This is a new program that creates fullscreen panoramas using Flash new Fullscreen mode for the player (not the projector fullscreen mode).
I must say if you look at the demos, it is very impressive. The hi-res photos are beautiful and the way the application works is very fluid. But I have to wonder where the panoramas will be used. They are very cool yes, but the practical applications are limited.
I used to work for a company that created software for the Real Estate industry where this would be a value added feature.. but what other industries are their? If anyone comes across this being used on a website (other than demos) drop me an email, I'd love to see it.

The NEW Flash revolution

I've read about it on Keith Peters blog (he works there) and rumbles around the net, but it didn't really sink in until now.
Imagine being able to create your own tv show about anything you want.. uncensored. This is the power of the internet. Leading the way is Brightcove. You can start your own tv station without know Flash, protocols and the net in general (not just a show).
I imaging the Adult Entertainment industry is all over this but haven't heard much.

I'd love to be a able to start a show but with so much on my plate already, the best I could do is be in someone else's show ;)

See you in the movies (or tv show).

Wii wants to play

A little off the Actionscript topic...
Picked up my Wii last week but didn't end up playing it until Friday night. It ended up to be more addictive than I thought. My wife is even more addicted to it then I am.
The Wii sports are great fun. My arm and back are stiff from playing bowling. I had to take part of the day off of playing yesterday because I was just too stiff.
All I have to say is I think Nintendo is onto something with new type of game play. It gets people off the couch and doing something semi-active. The only downfall is I've heard people are suing Nintendo due to the activity involved.
People will sue over anything..

Onward...

Well I've just finished another book on Actionscript, Essential Actionscript 2.0 by Colin Moock. I found it well written, but I did glaze over in a couple of areas. I'm also a little more hands-on than theory.. but I know I will be re-reading this in the future. I will say it did give a great foundation on OOP actionscripting and I'm going to putting theory into practice very soon on my new website.
So now I'm moving on to a book that was reviewed over at Actionscript.com, Object Oriented Actionscript for Flash 8. According to Santori Canton, this book is a little more hands on. So I can't wait to get my hands on it Monday. I'll keep you posted on what I think of it, but I haven't read an Actionscript book I didn't like yet ;)

Colin Moock ripped off?

From reading one of my other favorite bloggers Keith Peters new review sites, I discovered an interesting piece of software, Xpanel. What it does is trace out messages of a swf when the swf is running outside of flash.
But when I read about the class, the class name it seemed awfully familiar.. it was the Logger Class Colin talks about in his Essential Actionscript 2 book! Even the way it behaves with levels of trace statements, Debug, Info, Warning, Error and Fatal.
I guess this the price you pay when you're an ace actionscripter and write lots of books.

FITC

Just got news that the next FITC is coming and it's in Toronto. I've never been to one of these festivals but I'm planning on going next year.
There is not a lot of info on the website, but I'm sure it will be available as the event comes up in April '07.

For more info: http://www.fitc.ca/event_detail.cfm?festival_id=12

Cool stuff!

I was doing some research for my new portfolio and came across some cool Flash sites. They're mostly from thefwa.com (the coolest place for new websites).

An older but cool place (the future of TV? you decide): http://www.neave.tv
A simple but very nice portfolio site: http://www.jonathanyuen.com/
Something that's just cool: http://www.thestuntman.la/

Later.

BTW, Still working on the new layout. I will hopefully have something by next week.

To 3, or not to 3

I've always thought I knew a fair bit about Actionscript. That was until I really started reading up on it and try to learn as much as possible to become certified. Boy, was I wayyyy off. I knew very little. After reading several books, doing some projects, and some experiments I think I'm making some headways into Actionscript. Now I've come to a crossroad. After reading some preliminary information, and learning some new tricks I'm really tempted to start learning AS3.
The problem I have with switching is my job doesn't really require it. Most projects I work with don't need it and now that I feel I'm starting to get a grip on AS2 jumping to AS3 may be a mistake. But I really, really want to learn!
I guess logic dictates that I wait until industry demands it. I'll keep reading up on it to stay on track, but for formally diving into it I'll just wait.
Hey, blogging does help. I found a solution and I wasn't even looking ;)

"Hello World"

Well I've finally done it! I've gone and started my first blogger.
I'm planning on putting up what I learn in Actionscript and the Flash community here to share with whoever stumbles by, and I hopefully will meet new and interesting people along the way.

Over the next few weeks I plan on completely customizing this template to my own needs and design. Only time will tell if this is one of my web obsessions or a passing fad.

Talk to you later.