Son of a… I hear the classic creaky door opening sound. I toggle to AIM to see who logged in, and suddenly, the window refreshes probably because it was inactive for a few hours, and then a red square appears over top of it. The window was about 120 x 480 in size, and the red square managed to be about 400×300, just big enough to cover all my buddy’s, plus some of the buttons below it. A rocket then flies over top the whole thing… I panic, and start clicking madly mouthing “wtf…”. Then, the rocket and square disappear as I toggle away and then back again, and it turns it out was the Thunderbirds movie ad in the ad square at the top of AIM.
Son of a b(*&$#! Suddenly I actually give a hoot about Trillian… another AIM client in Central sounds neat as well.
Thats pretty funny (your description of it and all) but also pretty sad for the state of Flash. It works against us trying to push Flash as a tool to create RIAs. If I had a dollar for every meeting where I brought up a Flash solution and heard “you mean that cartoon thing?” or “You mean that thing that brings up the annoying ads?”. I just usually slump back in my chair.
Hang in there, bro, don’t slump. There are 2 very important people who will listen to you and not think your crazy:
– those in charge who have done their research
– marketing
The first are usually the projects more likely to succeed and pay well anyway because they know Rich can only truly applied to Flash, not XUL or anything attempting to look as cool as well as keep said coolness across platforms.
The second may seem like the enemy, but they are not. They have mad dough usually, and are looking for more sophisticated advertising which Flash floating ads are just a tincy part of the grand scheme, so you can still include RIA’s within it.
Keep the faith, hang in there, and don’t let it get you down!
arghhhh! b(*&$#!