Oscar Trelles

Central is out in a beta release, and has seen very mixed reactions. In an effort to make Central a people2people environment, Mike Chambers has made available a developer chat application he created with Greg Burch. If you have any questions or feedback regarding Central, install it and join the joyride!

Although the sample applications featured in the current Central installation don’t have too much ‘real’ use outside the US, given their localized nature, they pretty much show what can be done, and will eventually serve as inspiration for developers around the world. And with the public SDK so close, I’m sure we will be seeing interesting applications for Central very soon.

I’m working on one, but I haven’t had too much time to spend on it

I can’t remember the last time I used Normal Mode to write ActionScript. As a matter of fact, I didn’t notice normal mode was gone in Flash MX 2004 until last thursday, while we were having a session with James Talbot at the monthly NYMMUG meeting.

A nice lady that was seated by my side was shocked: being an instructional designer for a high-school, she couldn’t believe it was for real, and made it clear to James…. several times. I tried to explain to her that even though Flash MX 2004 comes with AS 2.0, she could still use AS 1.0 for her projects; but it seemed to me that her teaching methods are very tied to coding in “normal mode”. She is not upgrading.

Granted, I’m sure most people reading don’t use normal mode in Flash. I myself, not being a seasoned programmer, needed only a few weeks to give up normal mode and start coding by hand. For me, like most of the people I know that started using Flash by the same time, normal mode wasn’t helpful with long and complex scripts. However, I HAD to use it to really understand ActionScript. Today, people new to Flash won’t have the same opportunity, and I think it’s a mistake. Although Macromedia is trying to appeal more to developers, forgetting about designers is not the way to go.

I just made it official by sending a feature request at Macromedia’s web site, but I would like to know what do you think about this. As always, your comments are most welcome.

Today is your last chance to get tickets for Macromedia MAX at a discounted price. So, if you were planning to attend bu haven’t got your tickets yet, think quick. Tomorrow those same tickets will be $200 more. Sessions look very promising, and you will find some well-known names among the presenters. Topics cover everything you need to start taking advantage of the new MX 2004 line-up, and more. So, why I’m not going?

Well, I’ve been making some numbers, and right now it was between the conference and my update to DevNet Pro (I use Studio MX at work, but personally I only own Flash MX). It was kind of a tough decision. In fact that’s the reason I’ve been waiting until the last minute on this matter, but yesterday I paid for my subscription. So, no MAX for me this year.

I was actually asking around if there was a way into MAX (for free), other than winning an award, since there’s not enough time for that either. It turns out that the only other chance would be speaking at the conference. I thought about it for a minute. I even went to see the sessions listing again… and the only subject that I thought that would fit into the current … was “what’s in Flash MX 2004 for designers”, everything else is already covered. Well, I thought about it for another minute, but I figured it is already too late for a proposal. I just hope nobody else does it, because the only honorable thing to do would be killing myself

Just to add to the tide, Macromedia Central public beta has been released earlier this morning. The current version of Central is not final, and is targeted to end users. Download it from here and give it a try. What is in it? Well, the Movie Finder application shown in the screenshot the other day comes bundled in Central. I’m sure there will be more applications available shortly, I am working on a little one myself.

This not a public developers beta. I understand that it will happen in a few weeks, and only then developer documentation will be publicly available. By now, this links could helpful.

Central Public Beta Page, Central Product Page, Central Public Beta FAQ, Central Feedback Form, Central Support Center.

If you are interested in start developing for Central right away this article can shed some lights. And this one has the latest on Macromedia Central.

This one has to be the one for me…

MODDER: Nick Pelis
Student, University of Colorado
Colorado Springs, Colorado

SPECS: Dual 1-GHz Intel Pentium III, 1 Gbyte RAM, 160-Gbyte RAID 1 hard disk, ATI All-In-Wonder videocard

TIME: 150 hours over three months

INSPIRATION: “I drink an obscene amount of coffee and spend way too much time on a computer. After breaking my third coffeemaker in one year, I decided to combine the two.”

CHALLENGE: “Engineering, engineering, engineering! I spent about a month brainstorming on napkins before I bought a single part.”

See more extreme makeovers on Wired.

BD4D (By Designers for Designers) will be on New York City on October 4th, featuring work from Joshua Davis and Brendan Dawes. For more information on the venue and registration, click here.

I already did, so, see you there! Party starts at 8 pm.

I really don’t know if this has been around for awhile, but it was new for me (Courtesy of Webassist).

Easter Egg #1 – Mastermind in Dreamweaver
Within Dreamweaver, perform the following:
1. Select Commands -> Create Web Photo Album
2. Type “play a game” in the Photo album title: field
3. Click OK – opens the game Mastermind

Easter Egg #2 – Dreamweaver Engineering Credits
Within Dreamweaver, perform the following:
1. Select an Image on any web page
2. In the Property Inspector – control-double-click on the Image icon
3. The icon will change to Mike Sundermeyer – head of Dreamweaver Engineering
4. Continue to control-double-click to scroll through each Engineer

Three days after the infamous joke of the ‘crack’ for Flash, this is what I’ve found out and put together as a balance:

- The file has been downloaded more than 3 thousand times.
- Three sites have been leeching out the file.
- I have been insulted in at least 5 different languages.
- “flash mx 2004 crack” is at the top of keyphrases used in search engines mto access this site.
- A total of 5 hacking attempts have been registered in my server.

On last week’s issue of eWeek, Jim Rapoza writes about “abandonware”, and indirectly invites Macromedia to give away old versions of its software.

From a marketing stand-point, would it be a good idea for a software company to distribute old versions of their software for free? I would think so. Such a move could create awareness-of and potential demand for current releases, not to mention a closer relation with prospective consumers.

This equally applicable for other industries, or at least is what the MIT believes. OpenCourseWare is an MIT’s initiative to freely share course materials with any Internet user. Although it is still a pilot, the list of courses is certainly impressive, not only for the number, but the quality of materials and expositors.

I’m still looking for examples of software companies showing that sharing their outdated applications can pay off. In the meantime, what do you think?

Click here to see an updated screenshot of Central. The screenshot features the Movie Finder application, which is currently in the works.

Also, a new article has been published in DevNet, providing some insights on the current status of Macromedia Central.