Brief Summary
I often try to leave MAJOR news out of this blog ’cause who REALLY wants to write the same thing for the 1001th time?? So I’m guessing that by now everyone knows about Flash Player 10, Pixel Bender (formerly known as ‘Hydra’) and the Fireworks, Dreamweaver and Soundbooth CS4 beta versions, all of which are available for download on the Adobe Labs website. To get started with the new Flash Player beta, Lee Brimelow has published some new tutorials on his popular gotoandLearn site.
A couple of other things of interest I’ve stumbled across recently:
AIR 1.1 now released
The latest version of the Adobe Integrated Runtime is now available for download from the Adobe website.
Firefox Download Day!
Hopefully by now, you’ve helped to make history with Firefox by downloading FF3. They’re hoping to break the world record for the largest number of downloads in 24 hours. I hope their attempt hasn’t been scuppered by the ‘HTTP 1.1 service unavailable’ message displayed when I first tried to download it. Worked a treat after a quick refresh.
Update: Despite initial server downtime, Mozilla appear to have broken the record. They are however awaiting confirmation from Guinness officials, which could take up to a week.
Google Maps AS 3 API released
The Google Maps API, which allows Flex users to embed maps in Flash applications is available here. You will need to register for an API developer key.
Adobe made noise!
It seems that people can make a difference and Andre Michelle’s Adobe Make some Noise campaign has done just that. In Flash Player 10, Adobe Flash player engineer Tinic Uro et al have gone some way to remedying the onSoundComplete issues. For a more technical insight, see Tinic’s three-part blog article detailing the nature of the issue and the actions they have taken to address it:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Nothing quite like community pressure. I wonder how much I’d get if I flogged my ‘Adobe Make Some Noise’ T-shirt on EBay?? 
Alternativa3D 1.0 now available
Straight out of Russia comes a new Flash 3D engine, Alternativa3D. The demos that have been circulating over the past few months are indeed impressive and it’ll be interesting to see how it compares to some of the other engines on the block (PV3D, Sandy, Away3D etc etc etc). Register on the Alternativa3D homepage and download it.
Saffr-on, Saffr-off
It’s still a mystery, at least to some of us, what happened to the Samuel Agesilas’ Saffron project. Saffron was/is a UML editor built in AIR, that was supposed to launch at FitC Amsterdam back in February. His site (and mailbox I’m sure!) have been inundated with a mixture of curious and frustrated Flashers awaiting a heads-up. His site is currently under construction so hopefully it’ll be relaunched soon with a full update. The resurfacing of a nonsensical rumour, which stated that Saffron was acquired by Microsoft, is still as unbelievable now as it was then!
Asus EEPC 701
Yes indeed, good things do come in small packages and Asus have proved this with the all singing, all dancing eeepc 701 (and more recently with the eeepc 900/901). There are loads of reviews and YouTube clips of what this fabulous little machine can do so I won’t bother going into detail. I’ve installed Flash Player 9, Kate AS3 syntax highlighting and the Flex SDK on a 4GB laptop you could fit in a woman’s handbag. What more could a man want???
I’m still trying to get my head around using the Synaptic package manager, as I’m a Linux noob. I’m used to just downloading a setup and running the setup exe. I’ve had a couple of teething probs but the revert to Factory settings option isn’t as painful as it might seem. The eeepc forum and wiki are invaluable resources for learning how to do stuff. Oh yeah, I installed Arduino and a Japanese IME on it too. Speaking of Japan..
New site from Roxik (rocks and sick!)
Following the release of the breathtaking ecodazoo website in the past few weeks, it is possible that Sharikura, the 3D engine behind the super smooth animation, and brain child of Masayuki Kido, may be realeased sometime in the near future. In the meantime, take a look and drool at some of the demos on his lab site if you’ve not seen ‘em before.
Nintendo DS
I bought a Japanese learning program called ‘Nazotte obotte otona kanji renshuu’ (’Tracing and memorising Kanji Practice for Adults’). I’ve never been excited at the idea of rote learning kanji and filling up mountains of notebooks with writing drills. NO fun at all. But on a DS, it really comes alive. The only feature I would’ve liked to see is a built-in dictionary. It’s not quite as portable when you come across a new word/character and have to pull out an electronic dictionary to look it up. I never leave home without it. It has found a permanent home in my jacket.
Arduinooooo!
I just bought an Arduino Diecimila board from tinker.it. After the first tutorial, I was able to get an LED to blink at regular intervals. A few tutorials later, I was able to control the blinking first using a light sensor then a thermistor! Eat yer heart out, MacGyver! The next step for me will be to start playing with the AS3Glue library.
