Blog

Had some interesting discussions and observations over the past few weeks. This culminated yesterday into a conversation about games, etc. It just was luck that I garnered an understanding of both of the above comparisons.

First off, I can see why a lot of applications are going web vs. fat client/win32 etc. I like to think of myself as an applications developer vs. a web developer, as most of my Flash stuff for companies (not contract) tends to run on the client machine via some form of client. All of my contract work is for a website in some form or another, with the exclusion of some rare “niche” fat client projects.
(more…)

Via Moock.

Mirroring the videos of the demonstration Kevin Lynch, Macromedia’s chief software architect, gave of the next generation version of the Flash Player 8 at the Macromedia Flash conference in Tokyo, Japan.

low bw (5mb 320×240, 15fps)

med bw (14.5mb 320×240, 30fps)

high bw (42mb, 640×480, 30fps)

Flash Studio Pro v2

Managed to make it to the meat of the Flash Studio Pro v2 presentation last night at the AtlMMUG. A nice turnout made it out, so it was somewhat unfortunate I couldn’t stick around and shoot da breeze with all the faces I hadn’t seen/hadn’t seen in awhile.

Without looking at the website, here are my comparisons of what Flash Studio Pro has that the competition doesn’t (3rd party Flash wrappers):
– has an IDE. Screenweaver & mProjector do not have an IDE for actually creating applications. While Screenweaver does have an extensive customization setup, as well as id’able windows, the forms creation appeared pretty hot. Only saw it for 5 seconds, though, so could be full of it.
– supports what appears to be a form of ActiveX controls. Basically, you could put the IE ActiveX control and make a Flash web browser. It works in OSX, though, and they don’t natively support the Gecko engine, so it must be a custom dealio.
– following the above, same goes for embedding windows media. That’s a nice touch considering most peeps gotta use Director or VB for that. So, you could have a Flash video controller that works for things other than FLV’s, like WMV’s, MPG’s, etc.

To me, those were the things that stood out. However, most importantly, after seeing one of the developers actually talk about their product, they seem to have a bright future. They articulated they are at version 2, and have a lot of growth potential, and are very interested in hearing from developers about what they want/need.

I’m sure if I met mProjector dude, or SWFStudio dude(s), I’d maybe have similiar opinions. But I haven’t, and currently I don’t. They have another product, called FlashCandy for full Flash integration via Active Desktop on PC.

Learn More.

Fear Factory

After the meeting, I headed to the Masquerade to catch some bands, mainly Fear Factory. Niiiice change of pace from electronic beats. Besides, nobody listens to techno. FF was pretty cool; the crowd seemed pretty into it, and even leaked some mosh pit violence my way; I only slightly spilled my beer, so overall it was a pretty cool concert. The venue is not gigantor, and since the Chamber shutdown, it’s hard to gather than many all black wearing, death metal loving crowd consisting with a few goths & skinheads thrown in for good measure. You can’t go to a dance club and get guys looking tough, angry, and on-purpose-unkempt whilst the girls having eyeshadow that implies their desired mood coupled with skin grafted leather. …did I mention it was a great change of pace? Even cooler was I didn’t get my beize Express(formerly Structure) wearing arse pounded for breaking the unspoken 0x000000 dress code. I hope they come back to Atlanta soon, that was fun.

I have some pictures of it on my phone, but not sure how to get them off. Tried email, but it keeps failing (Nokia something; has cutomizable covers via inserting under the case printed cutouts). Hopefully her majesty can tell me; I’ve emailed them, but they never make it off my phone.