Web site flags

This is cute.

Colin Moock on Flash Player 9, Flex 2, ActionScript 3.0

Guru, Colin Moock just published this great blog entry and although much may be review, I thought it was a great condensation of Adobe's latest releases and what they mean to we, the mere Flash mortals. :)

Democracy Player

"Democracy Player is a new kind of browser for watching videos-- grab webpages with video and video RSS feeds (including podcasts, video blogs, and BitTorrent feeds), and watch them full screen, one after the other. It's free and open source."

Speaking of Active Content

This blogger has it all summarized pretty well!

Active Content Fix for Quick Time

Not groundbreaking at all, really - it's the same solution for all active content in IE. Still, it might be worth a bookmark: ping!

IE7+

Interesting…I was perusing the IEBlog recently, and there’s going to be IE7 and IE7+!

"With the release of Windows Vista Beta 2, I want to announce that we will be naming the version of IE7 in Windows Vista “Internet Explorer 7+”. While all versions of IE7 are built from the same code base, there are some important differences in IE7+, most significantly the addition of Windows Vista-only features like Protected Mode, Parental Controls, and improved Network Diagnostics. These features take advantage of big changes in Windows Vista and weren’t practical to bring downlevel. The IE7+ naming gives us an easy way to refer to this version. (“The version of IE7 in Vista” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily…)"

ICO (Windows Icon) file format plugin for Photoshop

Sometimes it’s useful to be able to create Windows icon (*.ico) files. With this little file, you can:

Create a “favorites” icon for a Web site
Change the image on a windows shortcut or folder.

To install the plug in, navigate to the folder above and copy the ICOFormat.8bi file to this directory:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Plug-Ins\File Formats

For the original product link and a better description of its capabilities visit the telegraphics.com site.

When you are completed, you should see the *.ICO format added to the list of file formats that can be saved from Photoshop:

Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library

I thought this seemed like a great DHTML resource: the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library.

“The Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library is a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as DOM scripting, DHTML and AJAX. The YUI Library also includes several core CSS resources. All components in the YUI Library have been released as open source under a BSD license and are free for all uses. Download the entire library, its documentation and examples from Sourceforge.”

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There are also great developer resources for Yahoo! Maps! Included are several great code examples that use Flash APIs and/or AJAX.

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And, last but not least S pointed out that Simon (a developer) has a great online presentation about all of this.

Explorer Destroyer

E pointed out this interesting (and funny) development in the Browser Wars:

"Get this tool for switching people from IE to Firefox.For each person you switch, Google gives you $1, Microsoft loses marketshare, and an angel gets its wings."

Time to buy a Mac?

Pretty neat, at least in principle. Of course, Mac will have a nightmare maintaining all the upgrades. Plus one day Vista will come out...but still, I like the concept.

Cheat Sheets

I was just perusing the very useful site (with the name that would never normally suggest a Web guru (or does it?) entitled “ilovejackdaniels.com” ) that AM2 mentioned in his great CSS class last week. It turns out there are several great “cheat sheets” available for download:

CSS
PHP
MySQL
ASP / _VBScript
mod_rewrite
_JavaScript
HTML Character Entities
RGB Hex Colours
Ruby on Rails

Flash Securitah

I'm always trying to remember how to circumvent (with some risk, natch) the Flash security sandbox.

"...for a local SWF file with network-access permissions to script a SWF file on the Internet, the Internet SWF file being accessed must call System.security.allowDomain("*"), reflecting that the origin of a local SWF file is unknown. (If the Internet SWF file being accessed is loaded from an HTTPS URL, the Internet SWF file must instead call System.security.allowInsecureDomain("*").)

The full technical note is available here.

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Also, for even more securitah:

Security Changes in Flash Player 8
and
Flash 8 Security White Paper (PDF)

Extend-o-matic

An extension is a piece of software that can be added to a Macromedia application to enhance the application’s capabilities. Adobe offers several types of extensions for its various products such as Dreamweaver and Flash. Quoth Adobe: “…Flash extensions include components that you can use to build projects, templates for designing Flash content, reusable ActionScript code snippets, additional symbol libraries, and more.”

Creating an MXP file is essentially a two-step process.

1. Create an MXI file, which will be the source file you will work with. This is essentially an XML document that explains which files will be included in your extension and where they should be placed when the extension is installed. Adobe includes a few examples, as well as a blank template:

C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Extension Manager\Samples

2. The second step is to properly package the MXI file into an MXP file. Save the MXI file into the same folder with the any other files you want to package. Then open the Extension Manager and use the following steps to package the extension into an MXP file.

Select Files > Package Extensions

I gleaned much of the above from this article on Fireworks. Also, Adobe has a rather large (but good – and amusing in places!) manual, entitled The Extension Installation File Format.

*Snap* *Crackle* *Pop*

It's the fourth of July! Whee! And I just read about Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0. Seems like an exciting release. I think I may have to "beta me up a copy." :)

Albino Blacksheep

A cute site - and good for a glimpse into what the Flash and Multimedia communities do in their spare time.

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/