Robert Hall tipped me off to this. Badgr is a very cool Flash-based badge that allows you to display your Flickr photo stream. Unfortunately I’ve switched to storing my photos at Phanfare and they don’t appear to have a similar RSS feed. I’ll have to make a few calls…

A few weeks ago I had the chance to talk with Kevin Schmitt from Digital Producer Magazine about post-merger Flash and the future of the product. The article just went live.

From the article:

As my regular readers (who most assuredly now number in at least the high single digits) know, I’m a big Flash guy, at least from a designer’s point of view (those programmer folks are nuts with their Eclipses and Flexes and what have you). I’m also a somewhat big After Effects guy, so naturally I’m curious about how the two products will influence each other now that they’re both living under the Adobe roof. I’m also curious about where Flash is going in general, so I was quite pleased to be able to pose a few questions recently to Mike Downey, Adobe’s Senior Product manager for Flash. And while the responses are about as tight-lipped as one might expect considering that we’re discussing a product in the middle of its development cycle, there are nonetheless some tantalizing nuggets about where things may be heading over there in Flash-land.

Read the full interview here.

Don’t miss out! Discover how Macromedia Flash Professional 8 from Adobe is used to create engaging interactive communications.

At this seminar, Adobe experts will demonstrate how to use exciting, new must-have features in Flash Professional 8 to create rich, interactive websites, applications, and other digital communications that can help you connect with customers.

The seminar is from 9:00a.m. to Noon local time (Registration begins at 8:00a.m.).

Dates, cities and venues:

July 18: Atlanta (Fox Theatre)

July 20: Dallas (Lakewood Theatre)

July 25: Boston (Boston Marriott Copley Place)

July 27: San Diego (San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina)

You will learn how to:

- Use filters, blend modes, custom easing, bitmap caching, improved text and stroke tools, and other expressive features.

- Incorporate video into Flash with higher quality video codec, alpha channel support, and embedded cue points.

- Create an improved user experience with Script Assist, advanced library options, and an enhanced object drawing model.

- Integrate with other Adobe products such as Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe After Effects®.

- Use an interactive mobile device emulator to test Flash content on a variety of Flash Lite compatible devices.

Who should attend:

- Web designers

- Interactive developers

- Creative directors

- Art directors

- Training instructors

- Design and film school faculty

- Animators

- Broadcasters

- Online advertisers

- Post-production staff

“We’ve been doing things with Flash for years that were pushing the edge of how Flash would perform. Now, with the new features in Flash Professional 8, this stuff is a piece of cake, so now we’re going to come up with new things to get to that edge and push the limits of Flash.”

— Joshua Hirsch,Minister of Technology,Big Spaceship

Register here.

While at this year’s FiTC conference I had the chance to sit down with world-renowned Flash developer and prolific author, Colin Moock, and chat about Flash. In our conversation, Colin and I discuss post-merger Adobe and how it has affected the Flash team, the Flash platform, Adobe Labs, and our plans around components in the Flash authoring tool and how we expect to integrate with Flex and other Adobe tools in the future.

Check out the four part interview on the Adobe Developer Center here.

The Adobe Platform Documentation team is in need of an ActionScript 3.0 developer who can build sample content. The position requires prior experience developing object-oriented samples and building Flash applications. This is currently a contract position.

Read more

If you haven’t already heard, for the first time in the history of Flash, we have released an alpha build of the next release of Flash on Adobe Labs. Our goal with this labs release called, “Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0 Preview” (AS3 Preview for short) is to provide Flash developers with very early access to ActionScript 3.0, released recently with the new Flash Player 9. This preview of the next release includes only planned new features that are related to ActionScript 3.0. Other features planned for our next release are not included.

Adobe Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0 Preview provides registered users of Flash Professional 8 with early access to the new ActionScript 3.0 language and the ability to publish to the newly-released Flash Player 9. ActionScript 3.0 and the new ActionScript Virtual Machine introduced with Flash Player 9 are among the most signficant advances in the history of Flash. These new advancements, made in Flash Player 9, provide a more robust programming model, achieve standards compliance, and deliver ground-breaking performance improvements…

Be sure to read the FAQ and the RELEASE NOTES. Also check out the Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0 Preview Discussion Forums.

Download Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0 Preview

Each year Red Bull (energy drink) sponsors a contest that asks people to create wild sculptures out of empty cans of Red Bull. It’s a fascinating contest that results in some really nice artwork. They are still taking submissions for the Oct 6, 2006 event in Atlanta.

The Red Bull Art of the Can is a nationwide hunt for creativity and is open to everyone, from fultime artists to simply those with a creative flare. Build, sculpt, weld, glue, hammer, bend, fold, print, tape, and paint. Whatever!

(note - I had to type out that quote by hand because the page author disabled selecting of text in the SWF. Don’t do that!!!)

Check out their (Flash) site:

http://redbullartofthecan.com